We called him out here because there's been an intermittent banging sound from the ducts. The lying machine said it might be our Too Thick Filter (seems like it should be illegal for like every hvac filter ever made to be too much for residential hvac despite being marketed for such, but hey) but even with a thin ass "is this even a filter" filter it was still doing it
Well tl;dr our ductwork is a hack job that looks like it was installed by a total amateur. There's all these spots with circular plates screwed into the ducts and they're not even sealed with tape or anything. And i guess the return duct is just too small so it's just constantly building up this huge negative pressure.
So that's why our humidity is fucked, it's just constantly sucking in air from the crawl space
We haven't seen a real quote yet but he's basically like "it'll probably be around 16000 dollars" because the A/C unit is like 10 years old so if we're replacing the ducts we might as well replace everything. That's a lot of money
I guess we don't need to do anything TODAY because it still WORKS but it's basically a ticking time bomb that will totally wipe out all of my partner's savings. It could be worse because we could just not have savings to pay for anything but it still fucking sucks and is very stressful especially when I still need to get a new car at some point (because we have one working vehicle)
It really feels like life is a constant stream of go fuck yourself sometimes
P.s. he replaced the P trap but I'm really confused because he says it's not draining at all and i literally saw it draining before
supposedly an "undersized return" is super common in amateur jobs, but there are sites online where you can get formula estimates of what it is supposed to be based on some calculation for your ducting. HVAC, particularly the A/C side is wild to me as a trade skill. i tried to figure it out once when contemplating having central A/C installed and there's a lot to understand. it sounds like the diagnosis from this guy is that all the expensive parts of it are eff'd. 16k sounds at the high-end to me for all that, but i will say the advancements in heatpump tech and energy efficiency is pretty crazy. probably this administration killed the rebates, but if you have anything done keep your receipts because there were federal tax rebates on upgrade/repairs that improve efficiency for several years.
others have suggested what i've heard referred to as "mini-splits", which are kind of an incredible technology in the cooling world. they are like slimmed down and versatile window units that don't block windows. SOME states will cover the costs of an home energy audit where some guy employed by a community non-profit comes over and talks about your situation without any incentive to sell you shit. that can be illuminating if you feel like the quote you got was sus or to talk through the logic of where to locate minisplits. they can also all be integrated to control from a single location / with a remote.
also, unless your ducting is really jank city, i would raise my eyebrows about them wanting to replace all of it. that seems fucked up to me. like if it's in the wrong place, they could relocate it. if it has holes, they can be patched. but really... toss it all and do new? weird.
the rule of thumb i go by for stuff like this is to get at least 3 quotes. and i would ask everybody at your work who owns their home (or tell them to ask their parents/family or whatever) if they can recommend an HVAC guy. word of mouth is gold imo. also sometimes you get the inverse and someone tells you who to avoid at all costs. super valuable info.
also, i have sat through pitches were some high pressure bozo articulates a quote to my parents/sibling for a significant job and they came back to me wanting $24k for a job ($12k panel upgrade + $28k heating system) that i eventually got handled by two separate companies for $3k panel upgrade + $14k heating system and did a fucking great work, educated me on shit, and found ways to save me money by coordinating and re-using available materials, so they came DOWN on the original quote. the first company (crooks) we found online and it took all my effort not to laugh in their face and tell them to get out before i stop laughing. the two that were awesome i found through colleagues and name dropped them as the referral. there are absolutely contractors out there that are just fleecing everybody who will give them the time of day, even in this economy.
finding contractors that are trustworthy and not trying to rob you is a nightmare. my advice is to build up a list of people who do different shit (plumber, exteriors, roofing, general, HVAC, electric) through anyone you feel comfortable interacting with. i asked everybody whose name i knew at work for recs. chuds, weirdos, anybody who would let me ask. the good people are usually booked out, so its best to be proactive and get those quotes until you find one you can live with from someone you trust, so you can get on their schedule before shit's damaging your quality of life. also, if they do good shit pay 'em fast and (if you can) ask if you can get a discount for paying by check. a lot of them take card but it goes through one of those payment processors that takes like 3% on the top. at those high numbers, that's some real scratch.
my current interpretation is that it's just that the ductwork is all fucked (the gaps in various bits of bolted on sheet metal, plus the return) and that that's just generally not good for the various components of it, so there's just a greatly increased chance of Something Going Wrong because of it
It really does seem really janky. He showed us a bunch of pictures but I don't have access to them at the moment. If we can get them sent to us (or if I can be brave enough to go into the spiderhole known as the crawl space) I'll post them.
But yeah it might be possible to tape over all the gaps and then maybe just pay for a larger return duct. I dunno.
The guy seemed alright but along the lines of what you're saying here, he said the company wouldn't give us anything for the old gaspack unit? Which seems weird, since he also said we "could probably list it on Facebook marketplace for 2-3k and sell it in a day"
I think right now we're just going to collect quotes on how much it would cost to do all this and then uhhh I guess let it ride until there's a more serious issue with the actual gaspack unit, since it's still working, cooling, etc.
Not sure if I’m missing something, but the biggest “going wrong” would be a total loss of the AC unit right? So instead of hedging risk and upgrading it, couldn’t you try a quick fix and see what happens? I bet some contractor could do it for way, way less, like a day of work + supplies and a new return duct. Spend a lot less now and realistically I bet you could get a few more years out of it. I’m not an expert by any means, but this is what I’d do if I didn’t have the cash lying around for a full upgrade. It’s basically a matter of risking ~$2k to maybe need a full replacement anyways, or paying the full cost up front. I’d get a second opinion and push them to say the actual likelihood of a failure with the patch job.