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
Like it looked like regular ductwork but then on the rectangular ducts there were various circular sheet metal plates screwed in (with big gaps in the edges). My partner said they're going to ask if they can send the pictures that they took and if they do I'll post them.
We'll keep in mind what you've said about replacing the return duct because if that is the main thing that's causing issues I figure that can be replaced, all the gaps taped over, and then we just play wait and see on if any components on the actual gas pack go bad
So before all this I was trying to figure out why it's so fucking humid in our house even with a dehumidifer running 24/7, and part of it is the humidity rising when the A/C is running. My big fear was the ductwork (lol) but google LLM nonsense also mentioned the p-trap on the condensation line, if it's improperly installed, because the gaspack creates negative pressure inside
So here's the drain line
Here's the installation manual for the goodman gaspack
And, anyway, I've seen it actively drain out of that condensation line, like, drip drip drip drip drip, but the guy said it wasn't draining at all due to the negative pressure inside the cabinet
but like, I've seen it drip, while it was running? the negative pressure is happening though because I can feel it sucking in air
Anyway, that's the only thing he said to me that made no sense, when he said it wasn't draining AT ALL. But idk I didn't look inside the thing when he had it open so idk how much water was backed up into it
Either way, and this is one of the only things making me suspicious of this guy's skill/salesmanning us, is he replaced the p-trap for free... but it still isn't right. It has the right drop but it doesn't have the specified 3" rise on the outlet side
but like, the p-trap sounds like a really minor issue compared to the gaps in the ductwork and whatnot
Ok sounds like a patch job removing a branch line. If those circles aren't sealed well you can get some duct tape and duct sealant and make it air tight. You wana get the tape that has a layer of sealant already applied and you need to peel a layer of paper off of it to reveal the sticky sealant. We called it silver tape when I was installing but the actual name is escaping me.
It looks to me like that metal pipe is your primary drain as it's a bit lower than your pvc drain. If water is coming out of the pvc drain that's because the condensation pan is full of water up to the bottom of the pvc drain. Put your hand on the pvc drain when the ac is running and you should probably feel a slight suction, which would indicate that your AC guy was not wrong about the drain sticking air. The dripping will still happen because the outside air is releasing the pressure differential between the suction chamber and the outside of the unit but water can still make its way out with air rushing in, think of pouring water out of a two liter bottle that still drains while air displaces the empty space.
If you have a metal plenum then expanding your return duct with something bigger will be a little more involved but still doable.
This would probably be a good idea before paying to replace everything. I'm gonna be real though I am not a crawlspace guy. Maybe if it was all clean and encapsulated.... but even though the HVAC guy said it's relatively nice down there i'm still like, no way. Maybe if my partner gets me a hazmat suit and i'm all taped up. I just think I'd get a spider in my clothes and panic and somehow die down there. Very reasonable fear
I think the metal line with the worrying amounts of rust is actually the gas line. It's a packaged gas unit so it has electric A/C and a natural gas furnace in the same unit. The PVC should be the main condensation drain line.
It was definitely sucking air through it. The HVAC guy didn't mention that though, that was from the google LLM telling me hopeful lies that the improper P trap could be causing the humidity increase we see when the A/C runs. I was really hoping it was that and not duct issues.
The P trap is still a source of confusion for me though because the HVAC guy said it wasn't draining AT ALL but I noticed a steady trickle (at about the same rate our 50pt dehumidifier produces) before the guy came out.
Also he replaced the P trap but as far as I can tell it still hasn't right, based on the installation manual. The image I sent you was the OLD drain. He said it actually wasn't a trap at all but something else, I forget what he called it though, a continuous drain or something. It looked like a P trap but with only enough depth for like a 1" water seal. But the manual is really clear it needs a trap with a 5" drop and 3" rise on the outlet side or else it won't have enough water to seal against the negative pressure inside the unit.
He changed it but it's got like a 5" drop and then maybe 1.5-2" rise on the outlet side? it's def not right
It's kind of not enough of a fuckup to make me question the guy's whole deal, but it's still kind of annoying because... it's not right, it ain't what the manual says it needs!
that's easy to fix if i get some more pipe but it just kinda feels like a very small issue r/n compared to the duct work, even if it is sucking back in water. I should probably still fix it though.