Not enough air to the air handler

4 years ago

My heat pump was installed by the previous home owners, and I've learned that 90% of what they did was DIYed and done wrong. NOW I can see that they bought the house cheap, did as many cheap improvements as they could, and flipped it for a tidy profit, which has left me redoing pretty much everything they touched :-/

So here's the air handler:

You can see that they built a type of closet around it in the basement. On the left you can see a return that leads to the middle floor of the split level house (which has a 20x20 opening). Here's a closer pic of that:

On the right is just an opening that is sort of aimed at a hole in the wall. That hole has about a 2' opening before it reaches drywall; I'm guessing that they built a second wall for cosmetic reasons, but I'm not sure:

There are also returns in the upstairs that somehow track back to here, but I'm not sure how. The previous owners converted a large master bedroom to two smaller bedrooms, but ended up with one room having nothing but returns and the other has all the vents! So it's all wrong, but I don't have the expertise to redo it myself; nor do I have the money to have a pro redo it.

You can see in that first pic that there's a makeshift door in front of the air handler; it's really just a 4x8 sheet of plywood that's been painted to match the wall.

The problem I'm having is that if I close the door during the summer then the air handler freezes up!

Any suggestions on fixing that? I don't know if it's a simple matter of running a duct from that right opening to the grill instead of open-air, or if that's still not enough air and I need to do something else.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (4)

sktn77a
4 years ago
Well, if the unit freezes up with the door closed but doesn't with the door open then you've pretty much diagnosed the problem as too low an airflow (presumably from insufficient return).

Have you tried to remove the grill and close the door?
Jason, zone 7A, near Greensboro NC
Original Author
4 years ago
I have not, but I can.

This is one of those issues that I HATE to replicate, because once it freezes up I spend the next several hours being hot and uncomfortable while waiting for it to straighten out! LOL So I was hoping that there was some magic formula to determine the minimum air flow or something.
Related Professionals
Pensacola General Contractors · Baltimore General Contractors · Knoxville General Contractors · Clarksburg General Contractors · Muskegon General Contractors · Queens General Contractors · Dothan Home Remodeling · Knoxville Home Remodeling · Newport News Home Remodeling · Houma Bathroom Remodelers · Winston-Salem Bathroom Remodelers · McAllen Bathroom Remodelers · Danville Bathroom Remodelers · Lynchburg Bathroom Remodelers · Yakima Bathroom Remodelers
Elmer J Fudd
4 years ago
You've recognized that either the seller or someone he brought in was clueless and did a hack job that doesn't work right that you need to remedy.

Don't repeat the same mistake. Call in an HVAC pro and get knowledgeable advice on what needs to be done. Maybe bring in a few in case someone mistakenly sees too many dollar signs with what's there.

(As a parenthetical comment, do real estate laws in your state require disclosure of remodeling work done by unlicensed workers or without obtaining proper permits? If so and proper disclosures weren't made, you may have a financial claim against the seller for what it costs to remediate the problems. )

Good luck.
Jason, zone 7A, near Greensboro NC
Original Author
4 years ago
Unfortunately no, in my area the homeowner can do pretty much whatever they want to their own home :-/ Had I known to ask in advance then they couldn't legally lie, but that's all. NC is more or less a "buyer beware" state.

Several years ago I had an HVAC tech here to discuss correcting the ductwork, and the quote was $10k. I couldn't afford it then, and after COVID my income is MUCH less than it was! So there's just no way that I can swing that one.

I really don't think that I'll ever sell the house, so I'm kicking around the idea of replacing the 4x8 plywood door with a hand-crafted built in bookcase that uses a black screen as the back panel. I want to move the condensation pump, anyway (we discussed that on a previous thread), and then I'd have about 8" of clearance for a bookcase. So I guess it'd really be more for knick knacks than books, but still, I could make it work for probably around $50.