The chucklehead that designed and built my house put the drain (which clogs with dust and water) right under my furnace unit.
The chucklehead that bought the house (me) missed that little transgression when he inspected the place.
I have to run a snake from my sump pump to the furnace about once a year to keep the drain open for my AC condensation.
I’m replacing my furnace and water heater next month and I’m hoping that I can at least create a little bit of elbow room to get at the drain. If nothing else, I’ll be able to give it a good cleaning before the new unit goes in.
Isn’t that drain one of the first things they do when they build a house? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that the HVAC guys put put the furnace right on top of the drain?
The design philosophy of my house seems to be to have an upscale design but use the cheapest possible parts and labor to build it.
With out knowing the dimensions of the furnace room, where to put the A/C unit so the door can open, and the duct can go up through the rafters, and a whole slew of other information; don’t blame the HVAC guys. It would be more accurate to blame the General Contractor for lousy coordination. And if it was put in years after the house was built; decisions like… “Do we move the floor drain to install the HVAC?” are made. Usually with, nope too much $.
The most common cause is the condensate drain in your [excellent] pictures is clogged.
The second most common----believe it or not-----is that your unit is low on freon. (and there are some specific things that happen that causes the water on the floor)
I think Joey P is dead on. Don’t mess with that ductwork.
If you want give us more info we can step you through those two scenarios. (or if you want to PM me I’ll give you my phone number)
FWIW those duct connections are “S and Drive” connections. The tinner bent up a flange on the longer dimension and bent two 1/2" flanges on the shorter dimensions and “locked them” together with a drive cleat. (the “Drive Slip or Cleat (A)” figure in Joey P’s cite)
It would be a pain for someone experienced (and had the right tools) but a real pain for those who aren’t.
For those playing at home, those pictures in** Joey P**'s cite are a little confusing. The “long” dimension in CookingWithGas’s photo is actually the “S lock” and it is represented in the Hemmed “S” Slip (C) drawing.
The “short” dimension is represented in the Drive Slip or Cleat (A) drawing.
So…the ducts are ‘joined’ or ‘fit up’ with the S locks, and locked together with a drive [cleat].
Voila! an “S&D” connection. So…those 2 drawings are always needed for an S/D duct connection.
I’m going to be replacing my furnace tomorrow, and buying a new furnace filter I am thinking about buy a few extra furnace filters cutting them out and making different filters out from them and use them in different places, haven’t tried it before but a lot of people are say it’s a good idea and apparently it works really well.
The location of the furnace is often fixed, and sometimes happens to be right over the floor drain. So you’re stuck. But the best option in such cases is to raise the furnace up 4"-6" above the floor, using cement blocks or similar – you can almost always do that without major changes in the ductwork. That leaves some open space underneath so that you can get at the drain without having to do anything to the furnace or ductwork.
Really? A lot of people are actually using a normal home Furnace Filter to construct cabin filters for their cars, and other types of filters that could be useful. I also though it would be a good idea my self, I didn’t not really expect it to work as well but I thought it would be the job to a certain point.
It depends on what you mean. I first took it to mean you were going to use additional filters in your HVAC setup, which is bad becaue it can cause too much resistance to air flow. The furnace ductwork and fan are sized to take into account a filter, but not two or three in series. I suspect that’s what raindog is thinking as well, but I don’t know.
Rereading, it sounds like you’re talking about using them in other, non-HVAC places. Knock yourself out, I guess.
I haven’t read every post and it looks like the thread was dormant for a couple months. Anyway, I wanted to mention one possibility that I haven’t seen come up. On the left side of the furnace (first photo), it looks like the OP has an AprilAire humidifier. I have what appears to be the same model. When I got the new furnace, we kept the original humidifier and ever since, it has malfunctioned - at least partially. It’s supposed to shut off with the furnace blower. It does, but only if the humidity is over what you have set. So if it’s set to 35% but it’s 30% and the furnace shuts off, the humidifier’s intake valve won’t close. So you have water running through the humidifier continuously until you hit the desired humidity.
I plan on getting that fixed this year (finally) but I didn’t worry about it previously since the a/c coil and humidifier dump into a copper tube that runs to the sump pump. Also I normally keep the humidity low enough that’s it’s only occasionally a problem.
The OP’s setup might be sufficient to dispose of condensate but not capable of handling the larger volume of water you would get with a malfunctioning humidifier.
ZenBeam captured my sentiments. Furnace blowers are engineered to “overcome” certain expected resistances. Your A/C coil, ductork and filter are some of the common resistances.
Fairly commonly HVAC systems have resistances that are greater than design; ductwork that is too small, too many registers closed off, dirty coils, and dirty or too dense filters are common.
If I understood you, (and maybe I didn’t…) you’re thinking of putting several 'local" filter in the ducts/registers.
As a fairly good general rule, you’re adding too much resistance to the system. One good quality filter at the furnace location is all you really need.
