Surprise inside the ceiling

[Nick Danger]

RANT! The duct looked collapsed when I looked through a grille. It was worse. This is the mess the contractor found when he opened the ceiling. Someone used drywall and painted it silver. The drywall got moist, collapsed over the years, and got moldy.

And you have to love how the installer handled the pre-existing wires. Cut the tin and leave the wires across the duct. A little duct tape will fix you right up.

The plenum is double-use: it is the return for the furnace during the winter, and it distributes cool moist air from the swamp cooler during the summer.

I think that the previous owners of the house added the cooler, and they stuck it into the air return space and stopped. It was the cheapest, sleaziest solution. Why should the cooler installation be any different than their other "improvements"?

 

[Jackfre]

Once the duct work is shot you have to consider a complete re-do on your hvac solutions. When we moved to the current home, the ductwork was beyond help, so we went with mini-splits. Much more efficient, zoned and just better.
Based upon what you have found here you now know that everything they did was done in the same meticulous detail. Ah, the joys of home ownership.

 

[Nick Danger]

The rest of the ductwork is cardboard tubes inside the slab. They're fine. They were original workmanship.

The air return leading to the furnace is pretty goofy. The chimney goes up through the middle of it. But the craftsmanship looks good.

 

[Sevenhills1952]

Outside one of our house doors is a small cinder block garden shed, about 20 feet away. A friend of mine is an HVAC installer and he went to a lady's house similar to mine. He said the previous installer put furnace in the garden shed, made "ductwork" out of cardboard boxes duct taped together under her driveway into house.
She said in winter snow always melted first in that area.[emoji21]

Sent from my SM-S320VL using Tapatalk

 

[TractorJeff]

The rest of the ductwork is cardboard tubes inside the slab. They're fine. They were original workmanship.

The air return leading to the furnace is pretty goofy. The chimney goes up through the middle of it. But the craftsmanship looks good.

A leaky chimney would put poisonous fumes right into the house air?

 

[njride]

Sorry you have to deal with this, but i gotta say the silver spray paint is a nice touch, lol.

 

[bobbyjean]

scary , rip it all out i would say-what a mess-yes the silver paint is a bonus