Energy Vanguard Blog

LOL & thanks - now I got the "Real men of Genius" jingle in my head 
 
 
 
May that layout RIP

The problem is not only doing a design, but doing it right. Just because it is done via a software program does not make it right. You should see some of the "designs" that were done that come across our desk...ductopus and two jellyfish mating are alive and well and show up regularly on "designed" system installs.

"Two jellyfish mathing?" Priceless!!!

Well, at least I give him/her credit for sealing it.

At least it wasn't flex duct to make it even more interesting!

In fairness most of the pictures like this one I see are homeowner jobs or moonlighters. I am certain no permit was pulled. As a Home Performance contractor, energy auditor and HVAC company we get called to fix this kind of mess often. Usually the customer says I went with this guy because he was half as much as the other quotes.  
There are a few factors at play here. Homeowners and Builders are focused on getting the lowest bidder then they are surprised when they get a subpar job or worse a ineffective or dangerous one. Homeowners and builders need to be educated to the value of a properly sized, designed and installed HVAC system. I am not sure how the HVAC industry can do this other than in the in home sales process. Any Ideas? 
I have seen pictures like this accompanied by a call for third party HVAC design. I have seen many equally bad instances of framing, plumbing, electrical, insulation.....you get my point. We have also seen plenty of poorly designed buildings and mechanical systems done by third party architects and mechanical engineers. 
Until we can ween homeowners and builders off price shopping and onto quality this kind of job will continue to happen. 

Lance: Absolutely. Design first, then install according to the design with adaptations to the actual house that work, and then follow all that up with proper commissioning. 
 
Brad B.: You wrote, "Homeowners and builders need to be educated to the value of a properly sized, designed and installed HVAC system," and then asked how we accomplish this. That education is part of my mission with the Energy Vanguard Blog. We have a good mix of pros and homeowners among our readers, and I'm always trying to raise the awareness of these issues. I'm hoping that I can educate at least some people to get past the old mentality of hiring the low bidder. As I mentioned in the article, the HVAC industry has been in this race to the bottom for a long time, and it hurts everyone. The truth is that doing things the right way may cost more at first but overall it's the less expensive and more sustainable route.

The mess doesn't make any sense. i guess he had to use up what he had on the truck.

Looking at this picture, reading the article, and reading the post it's nice to see or read that it's not just me that sees the problem. The picture reminded me of a job I looked at with one of our retail salesmen about 2 weeks ago. It's one of those you hate to touch because of the potential unseen problems but at the same time it's one you want to replace to give the homeowner the type of duct system they deserve.  
 
Several people mentioned issue with pricing as far as being "low balled" the fact is that's hard to combat. We face that problem everyday, we have 3 retail salesmen and I am constantly hearing how the homeowners are getting 5-6 quotes or more. This is fine but weeks later we get a call to come by and fix other people's problems or we check permitting and see that no permits were pulled and work has been done.  
 
Same goes for New Construction, it's sad to see that builders are sacrificing quality of work for lower prices but are selling their homes with "We build with the highest quality", well no you don't. Hard to make scraps look good. That is one thing we try to do is sell our quality over our price, it's what is needed in our industry. We educate our customers on the potential problems of a "cheap" duct system and explain why our price is higher than the guy in his pick up truck.  
 
Brad B. hit the nail on the head with "The truth is that doing things the right way may cost more at first but overall it's the less expensive and more sustainable route."

If this house had a fieldstone basement I would be willing to cut some slack. I frequently see this in houses that used to have a gravity frunace, then replaced by several generations newer units. 
 
My own home had this ductwork for many years. When I dropped in the 90+ furnace I made the same exact return side connections. 
 
One thing I knew for certain was that it was not too restrictive on the return side! 
 
The supply side started out a similar mess, but as years and various renovations passed it became a proper looking supply plenum. Though admittedly not very "designed." But then again, that's the beauty of a highly insulated and airtight envelope. 
 
-Rob

It's not only the low-bid guys that do sloppy work; I did an audit for a guy who had just prior to the audit had an attic AC system installed (in a ranch house with a full unfinished basement!). He told me he went with the higest bid, in order to get the best job. After I reviewed the pictures of the mess in his attic with him, and discussed the issues with attic systems, we talked about getting references prior to hiring a contractor.

This mess is not a product of low bid. There is no way that all this material and addition labor to get this in to place was driven by low bid. The only thing that comes to mind is a lack of knowledge and a jack leg mentality.  
 
As a builder, that is something that we run in to when the homeowner and his brother in law figured they could do it with all these bits and pieces chugged together. They were saving on labor cost since they did not pay for there time. But now, this is not done by a trades person. 
 
We can find this sort of thing in all the building trades. Not saying every homeowner does work like this and not saying every trades person does top notch work, but this was not a result of low bid, maybe low IQ is more appropriate.

Unmistakeably this a Deep Thermal Transporter Squid. It takes additional heat produced at the bottom of the water heater and trasnports via covection into the Thermal Transporter Squid. It also picks up heat off the Horizontal Vent Transporter at the top of the water heater and is backed up by additional recycled heat from the uninsulated hot water pipes - genius!