We moved from NC to Ohio and bought a house out in the sticks 2 years ago now. It is a open plan house with the exception of the master bedroom. Its off of the living room and has a 10 foot hallway with a walk in closet and bathroom, then the bedroom. They each have 1 hvac register in them. The bedroom has a dummy register in the floor that goes down into the basement Im guessing a return vent. Its in a closet in the basement that has all of our electrical panels ect, And the walls are bare exterior poured concrete no insulation. The bedroom also has a bay window, and an exterior door going to the back deck. So now that you guys know the layout here is my issue. The bedroom stays Ice cold in the winter. It will warm up with the door left open kinda. And that was with our new outdoor wood boiler running ( we installed it sept 2017). We had a newborn baby and kept the house around 72*. So I put plastic over the exterior door, and the bay windows. No change. At some point I felt air coming from under the exterior door sill. I sprayed great stuff foam under it through a hole and it helped a little. But the air was still coming in. I felt around the baseboard from the exterior door , along the wall with the bay window and you can feel air coming in along the entire baseboard And through the wall outlets. But just on the bay window side. I checked out the exterior wall and don't see any holes in the foundation that should let air in. Under the bay window I noticed that it overhangs the poured foundation about 2 feet. It has plywood underneath. Before it gets too much cooler should I pull that off and make sure that it has insulation? With it being floor joists ect Do you have any good ideas on how I could seal it up? The 2nd issue is my sons room upstairs. The room stays fairly warm, but I keep a small space heater in there when the wood boiler isn't running ( I haven't lit it yet for the season) There is no air, A/C or Heat coming from the register in his bedroom. I found that 3 pipes coming off of the furnace in the basement have flaps of dampers or something in them. Do you think that one of them is closed? I cant see in to see if they are open or closed. And only his room doesn't have air coming out of the register. Again any ideas would be great. I stuck a mirror and flashlight into the ductwork from the register hole in his room and could see about 8 feet and it was open and clear. The 1st winter I didn't really sleep in there. When I did we used a space heater. My wife works nights and I have a small wood stove in the living room that would heat all of the main part of the house fine with the exception of the basement and master bedroom. I would just set the electric furnace down to 65* then burn wood in the stove using the electric heat as a backup. Thank you all for your time.... and sorry for the book I just wrote haha. I can take photos ect if it will help. And probably will when I get the plywood off just in case it could help someone else.
The vent into the basement is a code violation and not helping anything, seal it up. Sounds like some shortcuts were taken or lack of knowledge by the "builder". The drafts are the bigger problem need to figure out where and how to seal them. is the basement conditioned ?? if not you can add insulation to the floor joist cavities creating an envelope for the bedroom, which should warm the floor. Pics of the ducts will help, they could be sized wrong. On the dampers generally the way the lever is is the way the flap is. Lever perpendicular to pipe closed lever parallel pipe is closed.
How big is the bedroom square footage? What is the dimension of the heater vent going to it? The bow window sounds like a great place to install spray foam. A poured concrete wall without insulation has an R value of like one. What year was the house built? Welcome to the FHC overactor
From what I've always heard those bow window installs are notorious for "inefficiency"...makes sense I guess, with that overhang exposed to the elements and all...
Open. Typo? I'd agree on the window not being well insulated, if at all. I still see "builders" use FG insulation stuffed around doors and window frames, and not done well either.
Have 2 of those bay window disasters- I can't even begin to figure out how to access the bottom from outside as I can't see any way to take it apart under there. A discussion just a couple days ago with a contractor friend , suggested that they are installed as a factory assembly and as such don't like to come apart. His suggestion - from inside pull the trim molding all around unit and seal it as best you can with low expansion foam. For under the seat /shelf area you will likely have to drill access holes and again pump the low expansion foam in there. You might have to do any wall cavities under the window assembly as well. will likely need a bulk buy on the spray foam.
If the bay window that cantilevers off the foundation is supported by shared joists you should be able to see in there from the basement. That plywood covering the overhang is notorious with raised ranches that overhang the foundation for leaking wind through all the plywood edges in the Winter. In the Summer it looks tight, but in the Winter the dry air causes the wood to lose moisture content and shrink, exposing all the cracks and opening them up allowing wind to enter the space. Being low it feeds all and any leaks in your ceiling(s) creating a wonderful chimney effect sucking all your heat out of the house. If there really is nothing in there I would stuff it with solid foam, foamed in place for a good wind-seal. Then you don't have to caulk the plywood edges to try to keep the wind out. It likely has a subfloor and you can't see up into the space betwen the floor and the window bottom. It is probably depending on when it was built, insulated with fiberglass batt that does nothing for wind penetration. If you have fold down stairs for the attic they can leak like sieve. A foam box in the attic is usually a good way to stop your nice warm air from whistling thru. Again, thru all the cracks that become larger in the Winter when the dryer air shrinks all the wood from loss of moisture content. Dunno if you have square or round ducts but this is what a manual damper generally looks like. Otherwise there is a little motor with a wire going back to a control board on the furnace and a transformer, in lieu of the hand lever. Could you be looking at backdraft dampers ?
I took a handful of photos, Its a finished basement, but that one closet has bare walls, and one on the other side that has the water tank for the well also has bare walls. The ducts seem to have 4 " for the narrow registers and 6" for the large registers. I have very strong air from all of the vents. Except his. And I just noticed that his register on the floor is actually sucking air in. I found 3 with levers by the furnace, but I also found that each on has a shutoff valve where the pipe meets the rectangle ductwork.
I'd open all the supply line dampers and see how it performs. They're there to allow you to balance the hvac system to your own needs. The previous owner possibly had the heat to 1 bedroom turned off if it was unoccupied
Yep I just went out and took a few photos, I popped a few panel of the drop ceiling in the basement up and couldn't see all the way out due to having built ins on that wall, but the foundation is flat and the bay window area sticks out about 2.5 feet. There doesn't appear to be anything between the siding and the plywood on the wall. I expected that I should see some foam insulation there. I did however see plenty of nice gaps on the edges, and the plywood is nailed on not screwed on. I'll be out of town this weekend to visit my daughter in PA, But Ill tear it down and see whats up there as soon as I get back. The main ductwork is rectangle and all of the branch pipes are round 4" or 6" pipe. I took several drop ceiling panels down in the basement and looked around up there and was able to identify all of the ground level pipe and which vents they went too. So there must be one I cant see that carries all of the air to the 2nd floor. So I went upstairs my daughters room has strong airflow from the vent, they have a jack and jill bathroom with separate sink rooms, both vents are blowing strong, went into my sons room and the air is running, his register is actually sucking air in!
They all seem to be open, I found tonight that his vent is sucking air in. Which would make sense if his damper is closed or nearly all the way closed and air moving past it could cause a vacuum draw on his room venture style I guess.
If it's sucking air, it's possible it's being used as return air. Is there only one register in that room?
All those rooms (except bath) should have supply and return air. Look for another register......maybe under the bed, or a dresser. The one sucking air should be un-dampered in the room. That's the return.
350 square feet, with 1 (4 or 6) heat vent seems undersized in my area. 15 years old, so should have decent insulation value, unless a spot was missed! Which I have seen happen, more than most would like to admit.
