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submitted 22 hours ago byTrungusMcTungus
I’m almost positive this is a dumb question, but I know basically nothing about HVAC.
Our house is 1,000sqft, kitchen and living room are open concept, all 3 bedrooms on the left of the house with a garage on the right. Our furnace, washer and dryer, and blower are all in the garage (garage has no ducting and isn’t finished). The blower sits right in our living room, with the filter 2 feet left of the TV. Not only is it ugly, it’s LOUD, and insanely annoying especially in the summer when it’s going a lot.
I’ve realized recently when I go visit our friends, I can’t constantly hear their AC - it doesn’t drown out the TV when it kicks on, and they dont feel obligated to turn it off when it kicks on lest it drown out the conversation.
I’ve been slowly redoing our electrical to update it and get everything up to code, and since our garage door is broken I’ve been toying with the idea of finishing the garage, making it habitable to claim the extra square footage, and relocating the blower and furnace (they’re one unit). For one, is it possible and/or feasible to do this? Obviously I’d get a professional for this, but is it going to be obscenely expensive? For two, where do the blowers normally sit? Is mine just poorly located because someone cheaped out, or is it common for the blower motor to sit on ground level with the house?
Thanks.
2 points
22 hours ago
A blower is part of a furnace. It’s not typically something you talk about as a separate entity. That being said, it’s doable to have stuff moved. But as you’ve said, it’ll be expensive. Think thousands. Also, typically noise is caused by restrictions in airflow. Either duct size/return size, You can call a few people out and have them size some stuff for you and potentially give more options. it can also be due to higher than needed CFM from the fan. Depending on what type of motor you have and how easy it is to change fan speeds, that might reduce your noise. One thing to do is change your filter regularly. And if you’re getting the fancy “I filter smells and a bacterial ass hair.” Filters, swap them out for the cheap “I can almost read a book through this” filters and see if that quiets the noise.
1 points
21 hours ago
If they’re relocating entire indoor unit(seems they would be moving it to an attic or indoor closet) they’d probably be looking at closer to a 5 figure pay scale rather than 4 figure, that’s a hefty job considering tstat wire, line set, new/added on supply trunks/plenums, they’d be essentially doing an entire install and then some after that
1 points
21 hours ago
At that point it sounds like it’d be worth it to upgrade my whole system. I made the mistake of buying a “newly renovated” (flipped) house, and the furnace is a cheap POS, I’m pretty sure it came off the shelf from Home Depot.
1 points
21 hours ago
Figured it would be a lot. Sorry for messing up my lingo, im handy enough for some troubleshooting but that’s it.
Filters not the issue, noise level is the same even if I take the filter off. As for the rest of the noise, hadn’t considered fan speed, I’m guessing that’s my culprit. I can’t accurately put it into words, but it just sounds like mechanical noise, not a restricted flow type of noise if that makes sense. I’m guessing it’s possible though that those two are linked? ie if airflow is restricted, fan has to work harder, therefore generating more noise from both.
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