Unbelievable - finally figured out what the problem was with the furnace not circulating enough air, and it was pretty funny/silly. I've been running thoughts past my coworker about ways to check things & one of his suggestions was to pull the furnace filter out & see if that helped, so when I got home last night, I did. (I thought it was odd that it was so difficult to remove the filter - it was sucked in place as if by a vacuum! The damn filter door actually whistled around the seams when I removed it, and went to put it back! I'll explain why in a bit...) The output increased dramatically, but was still a bit lower than it likely should have been. I put the filter back in, then started checking the cold air returns in the system. I was confused, because there seemed to be no suction in any of them!? Went into the basement & doublecheck the installation on that side of the system. After checking everything I could think to, it all appeared to be fine. My thought was, as I've previously mentioned, that maybe the squared-off joints on thecold air return at the filter were too restrictive - "coworker" suggested I just remove the smallest piece of duct work attached to the filter & see how that went. Surprisingly, it really seemed to help! I decided to just disassemble that section, and called the furnace guy to talk to him about it - he said he was out already so he would stop by. By this time, "coworker" showed up (he offered to stop by & look at the system). I showed him the piece I'd removed, and he said, "that piece can't be installed!" When I asked him why, he pointed at it & said "there's no opening in it!".
Remember I said that the furnace guy's kid was going to be working with him? Well, the kid is the one who installed that section, and he *forgot to cut an opening in the duct*...
The reason I wasn't gtetting any heat upstairs is because he basically sealed the filter completely off with a piece of sheet metal, so that the only air it could take in was what it could suck in around the joints of the filter housing. Furnace guy just shook his head when he showed up & I showed him. He cut the opening & reinstalled it, and we went to check the return vents again - and what do you know? They had suction! Unbelievable! I could open all of the registers fully and they all had plenty of velocity, too. Was a big relief to have things finally right on it! The only thing I have to do now is call him in the spring (or if we get a few days of 65� weather, because he set the a/c system pressure based on a complete lack of air flow in the unit. He said that likely it will need to be corrected, but that in our current cold weather, he couldn't run the compressor or it would be damaged. Next few steps? Shrink wrap on the windows to stop the drafts, then buying rolls of encapsulated fiberglass to add to the attic space, as it's woefully under-insulated.
As an aside, I've been working out semi-consistently recently, and it's feeling pretty good (squats & shoulders last night)! I'm not tracking anything, just going to the basement & doing whatever I feel like. It's nice, because I don't feel pressure to do an exercise I don't want/like, so I'm more apt to keep at it. Really wish I had a kitchen though - I'm tired of eating take-out all the time!
10:39 a.m. - 2011-10-20
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