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As the title states, looking for advice or tips on ways to improve the efficiency of my heating and cooling in my home. The home is a 1960's ranch style, roughly 2200 sq ft, exterior walls are Milroy block. Currently the ducting is run through a vented, unconditioned attic. The ducting itself spiders out from the heating/cooling unit to all corners of the house.
I recently replaced a faulty thermostat, which has made a huge difference in how often the system runs. This got me wondering what else I could do to help reduce the amount of energy used to heat and cool the house. Right now I'm looking at cost effective ways of improving losses, so rerouting the ducting through the walls or under the floor are out of the question.
Thinking more on the ideas of putting in a radiant barrier and sealing up the attic more. Also curious if there is a better way to route the ducting from the unit to the vents that would help improve the output.
Make sure the ductwork is well sealed. Add insulation wherever you can. Raise the cooling temp and lower the heating temp. Keep the filters clean. Have the unit serviced. Use setback temps at night and when the house is unoccupied. Check doors and windows for drafts and air leakage.
If there’s room, crawl up into the attic and check the ductwork for leaks, you’ll likely need to do this during the winter. If you find leaks, seal them up with some mastic. Inspect all of the duct insulation, fix any that’s falling off using Nashua foil tape.
IF you have flex duct, and you find any that’s torn, you’ll need to replace that whole run. You can’t really fix flex duct.
I appreciate the responses. I've done all of the aforementioned. Just trying to see if there are any ways to help it all work more efficiently. And by the system, I don't mean the heating/cooling unit itself but the entire setup as a whole.
I've done some looking into the attic ducting. Obviously it's not ideal, but it's what I have to work with. I had come across adding insulation to the inside of the roof to act as a thermal barrier and sealing up the gable vents to keep the attic at a more constant temperature with the inside of the house. I'm curious if anyone has some input on doing these?
And an acquaintance had told me the system would work better if I did away with the ducting fingering out to all the rooms and put in a trunk line and branched off to the rooms from there. Wondering if anyone has any input on this as well?
I live in Indiana, in case that makes any difference on the idea of sealing off the gable vents.
If you've actually done all the aforementioned and it was all done correctly- you've reached the limit.
Leave the gable vents alone, unless you replace them with ridge vent(s). The current system is not capable of handling the attic also (which you would theoretically be doing insulating the roof decking and closing off the vents- it has to be conditioned somehow.
Do not mess with the ductwork- the airhandler and ductwork are "designed" to work together- changing the design could ultimately damage the airhandler.
Make sure you have proper soffit vents. Both gable and ridge vents won’t work properly without soffit vents since they require intake air.
If you live in a hot climate, try to make some afternoon shade for the condenser by planting some small trees around it. The ac works by moving heat from inside to outside, and the hotter the outside unit is the less efficiently it can shed heat.
Make sure no plants are too close to the outside condenser unit. The condenser relies on airflow to cool so you need space around the unit for airflow.A lot of people like to put bushes around. That blocks airflow. Imagine putting a piece of cardboard in front of your cars radiator.
Make sure no leaves or plants are growing in or are stuck in the coils. Look inside the condenser. Sometimes leaves and bugs get past the fan and collect the bottom. If you have trees near the unit the leaves will get in. Clean all that up trim trees back. The leaves and detritus collecting on the bottom holds moisture which corrodes the aluminum coils and cooling fins. There is specific cleaners for the coils on the condenser and evaporator.
I would put a piece of window screen on top to keep a lot of the leaves and stuff out of the inside. Remove the fan grille and zip tie the mesh to the underside. You’ll have to cut to fit to go around the fan motor. Then screw the fan grille back in.
The one thing that we have in the attic is a temperature controlled attic exhaust fan. It keeps the house cooler by exhausting all the hot air in the attic. It really helps to keep the temp lower in the house and the ac doesn’t have to work as hard to cool the house.
The one thing that we have in the attic is a temperature controlled attic exhaust fan. It keeps the house cooler by exhausting all the hot air in the attic. It really helps to keep the temp lower in the house and the ac doesn’t have to work as hard to cool the house.
Advanced building science does not recommend attic fans: if your house has no proper air seals and very few houses do in the US - the exaust air from the attic will pull conditioned( heated in winter or air conditioned in the summer)air from your living space- and outside air to the living space through unsealed nooks and crannies,pipes and wires penetrations , etc
So advanced would be hitting the underside of the roof with spray foam insulation, swapping your roof for a standing seam metal one, and putting new windows and doors in. Spray foam can be really dependent on roof pitch and whether they can get into the nooks and crannies. Doing so will seal your attic from outside air. Standing seam metal will drastically lower the heat load if you currently have dark shingles. New windows will drastically lower air loss through the windows and allow your system to maintain an air envelope with less work. If you get into ductwork look at how well insulated the ductwork itself is. It can make a big difference. For instance if you have flex duct that stuff bleeds heat or cool air a lot, but even metal ducting can have big differences.
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