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As a Midwesterner, it is absolutely bonkers to me how common it appears to be for HVAC systems to get installed in attics.
Don't do that. Stop doing that! WTF?
That's bad enough, but then you go and run the ducts up there, too?
Y'all.
If you keep the system and the ducts within the space you're trying to heat and cool, you don't have to account for any losses, now, do ya?
Put the air handler in a utility closet. Run ducts /below/ the ceiling. Enclose with soffiting if you must.
The end.
This is a test rant for a future video that may or may not happen.
But seriously, I cannot fathom how HVAC stuff in attics (or crawlspaces!) got normalized. Especially in new construction.
You virtually never see that around here (the most common application is old homes with radiators for heat who want to add central air) and for good reason!
@TechConnectify You’re not wrong, you’re just advocating the wrong solution. Conditioned attic spaces with insulation under the roof deck is the best approach for slab on grade new construction with high solar loads and AC demands.
@transcendentape But that's the thing, isn't it? A conditioned attic space becomes a conditioned space.
If you want to spend the money to turn it into one, I ain't gonna stop you. But most people just leave their attic an attic for one reason or another. And if that's the route they've chosen, ducts and the air handler should go somewhere else.
Plus, in many of the homes I'm talking about, the attic ain't tall enough to turn into a useful space anyway.
@TechConnectify Wouldn't it cost pretty much exactly the same as long as the attic is properly insulated? I mean, if you live in a climate where you pretty much only need cooling, it's going to be a lot more efficient to cool the top parts of the house than the bottom parts because the cold air will just end up sinking down thruout the rest of the house. I guess a bigger surface area on the roof would slightly increase heat transfer into the space, but I'd wager that it's rather insignificant compared to the space savings it can offer.
@diligentcircle I think you may be missing that most attics just... aren't properly insulated. You insulate the rest of the house /from/ the attic with tons of insulation above the top floor ceiling.
That's what I mean by conditioned space. Around here, the attic is hot-as-fuck in the summer and you'll freeze to death in the winter because it's not conditioned. It's dead space meant only for framing the roof and, possibly, low-priority storage.
Putting equipment up there is... insane to me.
@TechConnectify I know that, it's exactly how the house I live in is set up, but we're talking about designing new houses, right? And in the design of a new house, there's no reason you couldn't just skip the insulation between the attic and top floor and instead insulate the attic itself. I don't see how that's a nonsensical design choice in hot climates. (And when you're talking about retrofits, pretty much anything goes because you're stuck with the constraints of the house as it already exists.)
@diligentcircle Only if you designed the attic to be large enough, and that's the thing:
More ceiling height in the attic means higher roof pitch which is more expense, and also requires more insulation, too.
It's a lot more expensive than just a bare-minimum structure to hold up a sufficiently pitched roof.
@TechConnectify Do you have any numbers on the difference in cost (assuming a brand-new construction) between the two methods?
@diligentcircle Not offhand but my parents built the home they live in now and simply adjusting the roof pitch was a considerable expense.
@TechConnectify @diligentcircle it is actually quite interesting to learn about this, because, for example, in Russia you almost never see attics left uninsulated and unused. If not additional living space, they are used as something like a big food cupboard and for hanging mushrooms to dry, etc.