Forced Air Heat diagnosis / tuneup / repair?
We have a new tenant, and they are complaining that their apartment is cold (top floor). We have forced air heating, and our two floors are toasty. It’s true that their apartment is definitely not as warm as ours. Can anyone recommend an outfit that can come and look to see if the ducts are…
We have a new tenant, and they are complaining that their apartment is cold (top floor). We have forced air heating, and our two floors are toasty. It’s true that their apartment is definitely not as warm as ours.
Can anyone recommend an outfit that can come and look to see if the ducts are blocked. need cleaning, or any other adjustments that might be in order?
We live in Bed-Stuy.
Thanks!
They are the furthest away from the furnace. If you ask most HVAC contractors, a 3 story building should ideally have a third floor separate system or, at least, another air handler which are really just designed for hot water systems. Other than a bigger furnace (more BTUs) and a more powerful fan unit there’s not much you can do.
However, if your two lower floors are warm enough, maybe even too warm as you crank up the thermostat to accomodate the third floor problem, maybe you can close off one of the registers in your second floor so that the bulk of the hot air continues on up to the third floor unit. If your registers don’t have a mechanism to close (which are not that efficient anyway) you can buy a magnetized piece of rubber that will stick to it and form a nice clean cover for the register. You have to clean off most of the layers of old paint for them to stick well.
Otherwise get an HVAC guy in and he will tell you to upgrade the furnace depending upon its BTU rating. If they are good, they will offer the option of duct thermostats which will shut off and open individual ducts because with a newer system, your first two floors will be too warm without them. The duct thermostats work pretty well to close off individual ducts for rooms that aren’t used that often. Its a more advanced version of the rubber cover.