Moving Attic Ac Duct

So why put an hvac system up in the attic at all.

Moving attic ac duct.

Seal all the joints with aluminum duct tape or duct sealing caulk. Hvac industry insiders follow the protocol of placing air handlers and ductwork whenever possible in cooler locations because this lets the air handler actually cool itself down which lowers its operating costs. However unless you have new construction is highly doubtful that you can find an alternative. Map out the current a c ductwork by going up into the attic or crawl space.

An outdoor unit which houses the fan condenser and compressor and an indoor unit which holds the evaporator and fan. Keeping your air handler in a hot florida attic is like throwing money out the window. Locate the screw sticking up through the ceiling and mark this with tape for reference. Connect the end of the flex duct onto the circular end of the rigid duct with self tapping duct screws.

Instead i covered my attic ducts with insulation. Then install the new duct photo 2. Find the ductwork that leads to the a c vent that you wish to move and mark it with colored tape. If the new ducts provide enough headroom just deliver the old ducts to the contractor to use as a template for the new ones.

Required tools for this project. Well mainly it s a way to save space. According to nrel researchers david roberts and jon winkler moving the ducts from a vented attic to a new location inside the conditioned space will reduce electricity used for cooling by 15 to 20 and will reduce the size of the needed air conditioning equipment by 0 5 to 1 ton. Attic hvac systems save space.

I believe that moving ducts out of the hostile temperature environment of the attic is obvious. When you put the ducts in an unconditioned attic and have the minimum insulation allowed you want to move the air at a higher velocity pushing it up near the maximum recommended by acca manual d 900 feet per minute fpm for supply ducts and 700 fpm for return ducts. To disassemble a duct joint remove the drive couplers photo 1. Seal the connection with duct tape.

Most updated central air conditioned homes have a new air conditioner split system meaning the ac is broken up into parts. Sometimes the best route for a flexible duct run is up and over an obstruction. Also attic ducts often leak. I chose unfaced batt type so that it would stay in place.

The remaining 2 tons of capacity is at least 1 5x oversized for the actual 1 load. Mike macfarland s duct sizing tool. In more cases than not a 3 ton ac with the ducts in the attic has a ton or so of load that s just from the location of the ducts in the attic and the associated duct gains leakage etc.