I want to start off saying I am not a HVAC person. But I think your best money spent would be electronic dampers or controllers. They would be placed close to the trunk and control the air flow to each level. You would need to get a thermostat controller and stats to place on each level for temp and damper control.
Best of luck
Nelson

 

Cant afford it right now, Im looking at cheap/free ways to up the effeciency of what i have. In reality the whole thing needs replaced, its a 60's era gas forced air unit. Its not very effecient, Ive done a bit as far as cleaning and adjusting burners etc that helped some- Looking to get the most out of what I have.

 

Try running the furnace fan continuously for a day and see if you get some change. It can make quite a difference in some houses in both balance and air quality. Add 1 return on the middle level.

Get an HVAC firm to do the calcs on the sizes and make sure that there is ample room under doors etc. for air movement from rooms to the return ducts.

 

Try running the furnace fan continuously for a day and see if you get some change. It can make quite a difference in some houses in both balance and air quality. Add 1 return on the middle level.

Get an HVAC firm to do the calcs on the sizes and make sure that there is ample room under doors etc. for air movement from rooms to the return ducts.

There is only 1/2 to 3/4" gap under the doors. tried leaving the fan on in the past, it helped in some rooms not in others

 

It's always dificult to control multiple zones with one unit. Just an opinion here, but have you considered burning the house and collecting the insurance? Kidding of course. Try forcing the air down to the basement and first floor. Heat rises and the second floor will always get heated through the floor, so choking off the majority, if not all the way would be a start. You have two returns. I'm going to guess the upstairs is pulling the vast majortiy of your return air, 85-90%. So you are pulling the air upstairs with your return, when that is the last place you need it. I think adding a return to the basement equal to the one upstairs would help. Do not eliminate the upstairs return though, as you will need it in the summer for the opposite affect. Arrange the duct so you can damper off the return upstairs and use the return downstairs in the winter and vise-versa in the summer. Heat the coolest air in the winter and cool the warmest air in the summer. I am not sure where you are at, but I love burning wood and I would install a wood burner in the remote end of the ground floor to help it. You would need access to fire wood though and I have found that if you can not get the wood free by cutting and splitting it yourself, it is not worth messing with. Hope this helps.

 

Gotta agree with John. I think he summed it up quite well.:thumbsup:

 

I have considered burnig the place down:yes::yes: there are alot of things here that make me think the construction crew was stoned!!!!!!!! While investigating things I found that my upstairs cold air return was only capped on one end, the enitre joist space was open-- all the way to a 2 foot over hang on the front of the house that is vented- it pulls cold air in from outside. I capped of the return, the house is already a little warmer. The second cold air return (middle floor/ground level) is the same way- just have to figure out a way to cap it with out cutting walls. have also found that the ducts to the 3 upstairs bedrooms are much to big, acording to calculations they should be 6", they are 8". not sure how much of difference this will make, it may increase the flow to the other side of the house. I also have 4- 8" ducts attached to the top of the plenum, Ive read that that is a NO-NO. Cant find any where that explains why, just that it should not be done. Can anyone tell me why? all the bedrooms come out the top of the plenum, kitchen/dining room floor come out the side of the plenum. Here is a big one that scares the hell out of me, The cold air return on the second floor occupies the same wall cavity as my flue pipe, if the flue leaks the furnace will suck in and distribute co2 through the whole house!!!!!!! that will be fixed tomorrow with some wood, caulk -- etc..

 

That's CO, not CO2 and yeah that's a bad set up. Sounds like the issues you have equals the previous owner doing it himself and not know what he was doing. As far as the ducts coming off the top of the plenum, heats rises so naturally the heated air will hit the pipes on the top of the plenum first, which happen to go the upstairs. In most cases you do not want the runs coming off the plenum individually because they are harder to control than if you have say two trunk lines coming off of it. I would not totally rearrange your system though. For one you probably don't have the room to. What would probably help is dampering all the upstairs runs down at the plenum. You can buy 8" dampers at most any home improvement store. Put one in each run, like I said, down at the plenum. Choke those down and go from there. By the way, on a duct calculator, an 8" pipe carries 2X the air of a 6" pipe.

 

A properly burning furnace does NOT produce CO, so it would be CO2 but all furnaces should be checked at the beginning of each season by a qualified service tech. to be sure they are OK.

Normally the type B flue pipe up though the wall lasts almost forever IF properly installed so I wouldn't worry too much about that myself.

Balancing a system is a lot of trial and error unless you have zone dampers like was mentioned.
Get it close for heat, then you have to change it all for air-conditioning. Many times it just can't be done because ducts installed by builders to certain areas are inadequate. That's why most newer multi-level homes have more than one system now days.

Really, about all you can do is try plus close off registers in rooms that are getting too much and open up registers in rooms that need more.

Unfortunately, there is no way to stop warmer air from migrating to higher levels with open doors.
Warm air rises and cold air falls.

 

A properly burning furnace does NOT produce CO, so it would be CO2 but all furnaces should be checked at the beginning of each season by a qualified service tech. to be sure they are OK.

The man is rightfully concerned about not waking up in the morning. CO2 does not make you a headline in tomorrows paper, so I think the issue is CO. Also, the man said money was tight, so I'm pretty he is going to be doing the work himself. "Qualified Service Techs." are most likely not an option for the OP, hence the thread.

 

Try the suggestion of running the fan continuous. If it helps look into having HVAC company install a variable speed indoor motor. When you turn them on manually at t-stat they run on low speed (instead of hi) to keep air moving and use alot less electricty than standard direct drive motor. You'll find the lower speed is alot quieter and will help balance out temp differences. Works great in summer too because when a/c kicks on the fan will go up on hi speed then drop back to low when a/c cycles off. Motorized zoning added (if it could) would be a little pricey. I've got 4 stats on my single system.

 

Basically what Dean is saying is that you need to perform what is commonly known in our trade as an "air balance". This is a common issue with forced air systems that do both heating and cooling because the requirements of both may be different based on heat loss or gain for each room. For example, you may have a room that is occupied by lots of people (family room) which also contains computers, t.v.'s and perhaps recessed lighting causing this to be a "hot" room. This room needs lots of A.C. so the dampers at the start of the run-out (at the duct) as well as at the register need to be wide open in summer for A.C. In winter when heat is needed the wide open dampers are dumping too much heat into a space that already has "it's own" source of heat, thus the need to trim down the dampers. Experiment a little with the dampers until you find the sweet spot and mark the position with a Sharpie so that next season the switch over is painless.

 

I plan on picking up dampers this morning, is there an optimum location to place them or anywhere thats easy?

 

The best place is at the duct where the branch to the register begins. The reason is to create less noise or whistling. However, if your duct is not easily accessible you can use the damper in the register or grille, it will just be noisier.