full image - Repost: Air flow problems & advice from HVAC servicer (from Reddit.com, Air flow problems & advice from HVAC servicer)
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Our century home has a combined heating and cooling unit. It’s kinda a monster unit located in the first floor of the house, back corner. The AC fan is on the back of the house. The furnace is under the house in the crawl space. A wild network of ductwork extends out through the crawl space and behind the walls to the upstairs. Furnace heats the house fine, but the unit that previous owners chose + location of the unit (in a small room) has led to the unit overheating if we close the door to that room. It’s at least 15 degrees warmer in that room. Can deal with keeping the door open to the room nbd. But in the summer we have serious air flow problems. The ductwork was poorly done initially. The unit is large but cannot push air all the way to the top floor/opposite corner of the house. The upstairs of the house is effectively without AC in the summer. It runs 15-20 degrees warmer upstairs. Whatever we can deal with that- installed individual window AC into a couple rooms. But the air flow problem is now overworking the unit in cooling the first floor. We’ve had a frozen coolant line at least 3x already and it isn’t even July. I thought maybe the front panel of the inside unit wasn’t taped on well enough - it kept popping off and air was whistling around the edges. Figured this led to even more air flow problems and the AC unit outside just couldn’t keep up. But now it’s taped on well, and the line is still freezing. To my question: advice from a reliable HVAC servicer who I trust/has been ethical has been to replace the unit with a smaller one. The idea being the air flow issues can’t really be fixed without a major overhaul. And with a smaller unit at least it would match the amount of air return coming to it? And be able to keep up with our current setup? Idk it makes sense when they explain it to me. But a family member says it doesn’t make sense that we’d get a smaller unit… that you only ever go bigger? Does any of this make sense to to you all? TIA
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