While not nearly as bad as your situation, my house is the same way. We have to keep the first floor at like 67F to keep it 76F up stairs. When we built the house, adding a second unit/zone was something akin to an extra $15K, and being first time homeowners after years of apartment living, we were like 'WHAT? $15K? Who needs that?!' Big mistake. What we're going to get done in the spring, though, is a 5 unit ceiling cartridge mini split so each of the 3 bedrooms + my office + my wife's office have their own dedicated heating and cooling. They quoted us $15K, but it's 12 years later, so taking inflation into account, plus the extra customizability, it's actually cheaper! Take that, homebuilder!
Take it from a sweaty and swampy floridian, get a dual hose portable AC when you are looking. The dual hose is SO MUCH MORE EFFICIENT. I really enjoyed this one sir, great story telling, camera angles, and presentation. Nice work! Stay frosty (lol)
Side item for you to check is the insulation in the attic. Those houses never have enough up there and if you can also help keep the summer heat from getting there… it will help.
you could add a rubber washer also between the screw and the metal of the fan because also the screws are transmitting vibrations to the wall... i usually put 2 for every screw with a metal washer in the middle in every AC unit i install
I was looking for this comment. Why print a washer in 40D TPU if you then clamp things solid with those screws. That adds zero dampening. Better would be to make a bigger part out of stiffer TPU, attach that to the wall and then drive some bolts holding the fan solely into that TPU (possibly using some heat inserts). That would decouple the rigid fan from the rigid wall via the vibration absorbing TPU.
During summer months I set FAN to RUN and not to Auto, it helps alot on my second floor in Washington, does cost me a bit more During the summer months but worth it, I'm may get this fan to have running instead of having the system run. Thanks for the information
It looked like you have two panel slider windows in your office, so idk if this would work for you but if you do end up getting an AC specifically for that room, I'd suggest looking at the brand "Midea". I have 3 of their U-shaped heat pump window units, and I leave them in all year. They are absolutely fantastic and dropped my energy bill significantly. I keep my AC at 70, AC the two units I have installed on the main floor of the house (we have no central AC, house was built in the 40s) keep it comfortable all summer long. You're going to need to spec out how many BTUs you'll need to keep the room at the temp you want, but they have been a fantastic investment IMO.
If you are feeling really good about it you could tap the power lead to the HVAC fan and have that actuate a relay to turn the duct booster off and on.
one thing we did was in the top level plenum we have a divider that favors the room im in , so less flow to the other rooms that don't need it but my print room im working in get about 15% more air flow than the others so it ends up cooler , we did the same with the downstairs as well favoring our bedroom , basically its just a metal X that's off center a bit , i would assume you could 3d print a large insert to your top plenum to do this function though it may not be good for your case given your bedroom and partners office is there as well.
You can retrofit a system to allow multi zone that uses expanding and shrinking blockers in the circular ducts as they branch off. They are pretty cheap (compared to a proper full cut and replace baffle system for multi zone) but you have to be careful with airflow. Your furnace and A/C coils have a minimum airflow you must always maintain or else you end up with major HVAC issues. That being said you can add as many zones and thermostat sensors as you want and integrate the whole thing with home assistant since you have that set up already. Its best to use your major equipment vs adding supplementary systems since it increases costs by quite a bit and puts you into oversize risk. Generally speaking: on the hottest day you should be using 80% of your cooling capacity. On your coldest day you should be using 80% of your heating capacity. You can consult an almanac and look up the 10 year highs and lows for your area. I have found people can often save a significant ammount of money on their capacity and instead dump that money into proper air handling and filtration. You will be a lot more comfortable and have a lot fewer alergy issues vs the brute force method most HVAC setups have where you only use at most 50% of your capacity. Your system shouldn't run in tiny cycle times so that air never gets moved around. This is just as much an issue in American Homes as you found in your McMansion. Likely your equipment is over-sized AND your air handling is having issues.
Possible partial solution: At least you have multiple returns. We have a '64 2.5 story townhouse with single zone, one return downstairs. Our upgraded HVAC system features a circulation mode that turns the air handler fan only on at adjustable speed and percentage of time. We run it at minimum time and power to equalize upstairs and downstairs temperature by circulation at a minimal power cost. The heater or AC runs at the same time but only as needed. If you can make your air handler do the same thing, it will help a lot. 10:05 There is actual Duct Tape made for the purpose on the air handler itself. Note its more reflective than duck tape.
Watched you on TikTok and enjoyed the TH-cam Video. These weird little issues is something I've always enjoyed solving. Something that can help keep temps more even would be too run the furnace fan all the time. It helps my place get much more even temps. I also duct my PC exhaust straight outside with and AC Infinity t6 running at speed 2-3 and my 3D printer enclosure is exhausted outside with an AC Infinity t4 using the thermostat to maintain enclosure temps where I want them. So for an example My office is on the second floor in a non central air conditioned house. I have a 14,000btu portable A/C unit and on a hot summer day with my computer running the A/C would run steady 24/7 and the room wouldn't get below 30c (86f) and not that my PC case is ducted straight outside the A/C unit runs for about 15-20min of an hour and I can keep the room at 21c (70f). Probably saved me $50-$100/month on power running my Air Conditioner.
Great video. Perhaps try zone dampers with HA controllable relays like Kincony, thermostats like ecobee running locally through HA using Homekit. Then automations. Problem is you need one thermostat per area. However, you may be able to use automations and the remote sensors but haven't tested that. Just some ideas. You can run multiple zones with one furnace.
As for getting a portable AC unit, If you can afford it/find one, get a dual-hose AC unit bare minimum, and you can also find some that are inverter-driven, they can be remarkably quiet and energy efficient if you don't need to cool a huge place down a lot.
Yea I’m definitely looking at dual hose models. Unfortunately I can’t spend a lot on it so hoping one of the Amazon special ones isn’t too loud. We shall see. 👍🏻
Great work! I use a small ~$100ish 6" AC Infinity fan to help my Glowforge laser cutter exhaust fumes up and out of an unused chimney. It's been a solid unit - it's quieter than the Glowforge itself.
I intend to use an 8” one in the studio for my Laser and some other fume extraction. I’m sure I’ll do a video on that at some point. Glad to hear you like yours.
Have you considered something like a mini split? My understanding is they don’t add a lot of noise pollution. We are considering one for our garage and one for our shed.
I'm just across the river in Vancouver, and I'm also an east-coast transplant. So, I'm equally baffled by the AC situation here. I have 3 portable heat pumps keeping the house cool (Black and Decker 12,000 BTU AC units, which can be used for heat as well). They work really well, but are LOUD. I usually have the unit in my office set to 61F, so that I can turn it off in the morning to work. If it's not a heat wave, I can work all day with the AC off and temps in the office won't top 75F. I've also got an X-max 3 and a frankenstein Replicator Dual in the office with me. With all three going at once, there are no noise-reduction headphones which make that any better. And, the giant heated bed on the Xmax-3 definitely fights the AC. On the flip side of things, the workstation in my office has a really efficient water cooling setup. So, in the winter, I can basically heat my office with that computer alone. I didn't realize when I moved here that I would become a human thermostat, but it is what it is :)
If the air handler plugs into a standard AC plug you can get a smart plug with energy monitoring and just watch the charts to figure out what the output is when fan is on/off and just have it trigger the other fan
I use flair to help with this issue. You can close some vents that have the rooms that aren’t occupied so that the ones that are can be cooled off faster and at a temp you want. Also if you need to add an AC to your office, get a window mounted, they sell ones that are 80% more efficient then those floor mounted ones AND the air will be nice and cold.
I changed over to using Ecobee thermostats, which work great for Home Assistant. For the colder months I wrote an automation that would turn on the ceiling fan when the HVAC turned on (when heating). That worked great to help the heat circulate better in that part of our house - where the ceilings are 9.5' tall.
when you want to replace your AC thermostat, make sure to look for "local polling" or "local push" thermostat integrations with home assistant, and choose your thermostat from there. I purchased a Z-wave thermostat, but I'm not super happy with the performance of Z-wave.
There are several ways to change the airflow for hvac. One option I would recoment looking into is dropping in an air damper to change the over all air flow of the upstairs rooms.
Those mostly help restrict air to certain areas and need to be adjusted throughout the year. I've had more instances than I like where they've just rusted into position and the lever has snapped off when I tried to adjust it. It's easier in the long run to just install more fans or higher CFM fans along individual ducts.
I'm not sure how the outside temp compares to your upstairs office, but if it's similar (or even warmer inside) then exhausting some amount of air from the office with 3d printers can not only get rid of some of the hottest air (if you pull from closer to the ceiling), but it can also help improve your air quality a bit (since you have 3d printers in there). Good luck getting the temps down "on the cheap". (fyi: I have room-by-room multi-zone ducted air in my house after having a 2 zone system. It's been a huge benefit that I can't recommend enough. Less power draw + more comfort in the rooms that I'm in.).
[an input about the automation] a possible solution with light modification for a temporary system and very responsive: with a simple powermeter connected to HomeAssistant, a script could turn on the auxiliary fan as soon as it detects the load on the big fan. Then use the internal function of the auxillary to turn it off (independently of HA), based on the temperature probe, with the delay that fits you Great video btw
add a attic exhaust fan if you dont have one already it will help get the heat that collects in the attic out will help the second floor cool down better
Have you looked at flair smart vents, this could help direct air where you need, and will measure each room. Its expensive but may be cheaper than a whole new unit in the upstairs.
If you do get a portable unit, get a 2 hose unit that pulls air from outside to cool it. If you get a 1 hose unit, it will pull air in from outside through drafty joints, from your attic through outlet and switch covers, and anywhere it can. It can't pull your house into a vaccum, and the air inside your house that it's throwing outside needs to be replaced from somewhere. I had a portable unit and it made the rest of the house hotter when it was on as the house was older and wasn't well insulated. I got a window unit the following year and ran that until I moved out, and it was leaps and bounds the better option.
The air handler fan automation - put a zigbee CT on the air handler power, the will give you a signal when the fan is consuming power. I have one on my AC.
A decent thermostat that integrates with home assistant should allow me to setup that side of the automation. It is the fan control side I’m not sure about yet. I have to get my home assistant instance running again and play with it.
@@MandicReally Good point. I have an AC Reality vent booster my home office for similar reasons. I have it plugged into a shelly smart plug with an automation that runs any time the temperature in the office changes or the HVAC stat changes and only turns the power to the booster on if the office is above a threshold temp (cooling) or below the threshold temp (heating) and I let the AC/Infinity controller decide when the vent air is hot or cold enough to actually boost.
on the ac unit control board you could connect to the thermostat part of the board so when the thermostat triggers the ac to kick on it just connects the voltage on the board to trigger a relay switch
they make decent retrofit zoning systems that just install in place of your vents. each room will get a wireless stat and work together like home automation systems. they adjust the air flow to each room so the hotter rooms get the most air. but maintains your systems recommended flow rates.
One question, why not put the fan near the junction box in the attic if issues are just upstairs vs downstairs? Doesn't this just force more pressure through the downstairs vents before getting upstairs, more or less the same thing as before just more powerfully? Obviously it worked and helped the bedroom a lot but I feel like the attic location would've also helped with the noise
That branch I installed it in is ONLY the upstairs. The downstairs goes into another 12” duct that’s in the crawl space. It’s under the unit and not visible from the studio. I heavily considered putting the fan in the attic, but it would have required a decent rework of the ducting up there, and installing an outlet just to power it up there. The electrical is run from the bottom up, not much through the attic unfortunately, so not a good place to jump off of up there for an outlet.
@@MandicReally oh ok, gotcha, that makes sense, I thought that duct branched off to both and assumed there was an outlet and/or a light socket up there to use
Needs to be a ceiling fan at the top of the stairs to circulate that hot air down. I have a similar house that's open like that, and the ceiling fan is definitely part of the AC system. BY moving the warmer air down, right to the thermostat, the AC is on longer and the air moves better to keep the whole house cool. no huge inline fans needed in the ducts. That said, it helps that most of my ductwork is in the crawspace, not a hot attic, so I do have that advantage
If you look when I showed the steps there is a fan at the very top of the screen. It runs 24/7 and is blowing the warm air down. Second thing I tried after moving in. Thanks for the input.
@@MandicReally ah. I did go back to that part and check to be sure but couldn't see it. I can detect it now when I focus there while the video is playing. Invisible when paused. :) Damn.
I bet if you were able to set the fan to run constantly at a low speed(perhaps 4) and then speed up to 7 when the AC is running, it will even out the temps better.
I put in an EcoBee premium thermostat with 2nd wireless temperature sensor and it averages between the two (it can also determine occupancy and make the occupied thermostat area be the lead thermostat). That works pretty good. For managing room temperatures, you'll need to start pinching off the vents to direct more flow to to where you need it. I personally feel that you would have been better off putting the booster on your worst performing supply side duct up where it splits off in the attic to get more air going in the desired location and starving a less desirable location. I have one on my house for an underserved room and it works good to redirect air even though it is only 220 CFM. Voxtex Powerfans by Atmosphere.
Yea originally the supply to my office was my thought but there isn’t a great way to get an outlet in the attic for the fan. Most of the electrical runs from the bottom up, not branching down from the attic like I’m used to. Not many places to grab a 110 line. I still may try adding a fan for my office in the duct. This was way easier and the entire second floor WAS suffering, just not as much as my office in particular.
Isn't there a risk of the fan in the duct getting hot? Maybe a dumb question, but I always think about that when I see a motor inside isolation. In this case it would then cool the fan itself instead of performing optimally.
zip tie the temp probe to the return line coming out of the evap, the same company also make fan booster vents it just replaces the vent cover and has a pair of 92mm fan to force more air into the room reduce gaps at the bottom of doors cold air sinks the room is pressurized the cold air will get force out the bottom of the door, in the wall above the door just cut a hole on both sides and put a simple vent cover over it on both sides the higher the better cheap and more effective than jump tubes as the hot air can just move to the hallway. last option is an vent to attic extractor fan i have the 10in from ac in my room i use it to dump out a lot of heat fast also vents the room really really well if i print ABS, ASA, Nylon, etc i find if the A/c has been off all day and it 110+ upstairs i can close the a/c vent in my room open the door and hit that fan and drop the house by 10-20deg in 5-10mins if it's cooled down outside
A few ideas on how to set up the automation to run the fan, fair warning, I have 0 experience doing this myself but I have seen tons of videos and have a rough idea of the technology involved: A smart thermostat might be able to report if it is "running" or not, and you could use that to trigger the fan You could possibly get a current clamp meter on one of the wires for the blower fan and use that to trigger the duct fan to run You could use a differential pressure sensor to measure if the fan is running and have that trigger the duct fan
I know home assistant can integrate with a bunch of smart thermostats and detect states. I had a cheap Honeywell at my last place that integrated well. It’s more the fan side of things I’m not sure about yet.
Sure a simple relay could be wired into this, but you'd most likely lose all fine motor control in doing so. The fan is too loud at full speed, that is controlled by PWM through their "smart" controller. Maybe a relay could activate something in the smart controller, but that would be a PCB level modification. Why bother when Home Assistant can have a simple automation to tell the Fan to turn on? Relay is "physically simpler" but an Automation is simpler on a level where fine control matters. Like just today I lowered the fan speed control as the upstairs was getting too warm now that we are using the heater instead of the AC. That is control we don't want to lose.
Instead of pushing cold air upstairs try pulling the hot air down back to the HVAC system. That way you can recirculate the air better throughout the house all year long.
Yea I’m debating a system to draw hot air out of the office (fan inline in the attic on the jump duct I mentioned), and running the fan more than just when the air is on. Ideally the HVAC return would be in the ceiling and ducted to individual rooms, but that’s a big project to rework. Someday maybe, but not today.
Also check your attic insulation. I’d bet it’s blown in and has settled a lot. I’m near Seattle and seen this issues while working in HVAC. Feel free to reach out.
It’s loose fiberglass insulation and is relatively thick. If you check my last video I worked in the attic and showed it a bit. Still may have settled and can’t hurt to have more. Thinks he attic could use an active vent too honestly, but that’s a whole nother issue.
Forgot to say, I wanted a longer flex section on both ends of the fan, but found that the duct was NOT well supported at either end. I would have had to make braces to support the bottom and top ducts to remove more solid duct. Couldn’t justify that part of the process.
Yeah, I remembered after. Air sealing the attic would also help. Have you checked the ceiling with a thermal camera? I’m guessing you are aware that winter will have similar issues. Cold downstairs and uncomfortably hot upstairs.
Good point about duct support. I can think of a few ways to over come that using a duct collar. Replacing some of the flex with metal duct can help airflow upstarts too. At end of the day you’re right about mcmansions. HVAC last on everyone’s list but provided so much comfort when done correctly.
Hello sir, im having trouble on my anycubic kobra max. Retraction is terrible, print quality is declining and so is infill. I have dried my filament with the esun filament dryer, i have tuned z offset, leveled the bed, tuned flow rate, temperature, speed, pid, checked the firmware and its up to date, and tuned e steps. All tests and research i have tried to tune retraction does not seem to resolve the issue on my printer. the overall print quality is pretty bad as well. What should i do?
Have you tried changing the nozzle? Worsening print quality so often comes down to that. If you do, I highly recommend genuine E3D Volcano nozzles. They perform better than the cheap Amazon nozzles a lot of folks get. That said, I never got really good retractions on the Kobra Max. It was one of the things that drove me crazy about that machine. It really need Linear Advance and at least when I had one, there wasn’t a good firmware that did. Maybe Anycubic has updated that (I doubt it) or maybe a community firmware is available now. If you can get Linear Advance enabled and tune that in, that would help.
@@MandicReally Okay that sounds like a great suggestion. But would this be worth the effort and would the outcome of the printer actually be good? Anytime i see the kobra max do good is other youtubers who print straight out of the box and well of course it will do good. but what about like 1-2 years later after getting the printer, how will it perform then? Would you suggest any other brand that may be better? Thank you.
That was how I came to know them, but their marketing is ALL grow operations. Honestly makes me have a few concerns about flammable particulates possibly traveling through their fans. I’ll be revisiting them when it comes to my laser setup in the studio for sure.
Instead of a portable unit there are some "U" shaped window units that are better on noise because most of the parts that make noise (compressor and one fan) are outside the house.
Vitalii is good people. I have one of those for blowing hot air from the roof peak of my shop outside so the colder outside air can sneak in. Makes the shop bearable in the summer and the fat shop cat likes it 🐈
Ah McMansions. Fast, good, cheap. Pick 2. I've found setting the furnace fan to On rather than Auto helps a bit, too. At the expense of a higher power bill of course
If you're at the office it means you're not at the studio, so noise levels there shouldn't matter too much. If your partner is not in her room, you can just crank up that fan all the way up and turn it down back to 7 when you need it to be quiet. Also, if you're at the studio, it probably means you don't need to cool the 2nd floor so you could just completely shut down the fan. If you create presets for "filming mode", "home alone", "quiet mode", etc. everything I just said is probably just a tap away on your phone...
cheap and dirty way to turn the fan on with the AC is a smart plug and a wifi temp sensor. As long as the fan comes on at the required speed when powered it should work fine
two story home owner here. get an eco bee and a bunch of wireless sensors. put one in each room. It'll solve the problem of the central thermostat ignoring the hot second floor.
I meant to discuss that but slipped through the cracks. Ruby runs a LOT cooler than me. So she is really temperature sensitive to AC. It’s hard for us to balance. If I used remote sensors the overhaul house temp would be too low for her when trying to compensate for the warmer second floor. This balanced the air without a need for the sensors and will lead to a happier household.
You may or may not already be aware but that inline fan would operate much more efficiently if you attach it at the top of the riser duct rather than at the bottom of it... Best of luck to you.
Would require reworking too much ducting in the attic and adding an outlet in the attic. Just too much involved to go that route when the location I used was so easily accessible. It is working better than I expected honestly, just not for my office in particular.
the fiberlogy.. ahh yes.. i keep calling it fibrology for some reason. am i alone in that? 12:30 im not used to prusaslicer persay as i use a fork of it, but in orca we got a rightclick menu option of "centre" which i use like u show manually :) think its there in ps too
@@MandicReally phu! hehe.. i kinda swallow my tongue every time i say it now ;) Kudos on the move phase being done, the new "pad" look TIGHT imo. good upgrade for you two. regarding cooling of second floor rooms; I found that capturing the heat from each device and channeling this outside with hoses and quiet pc fans in the ducts to move out the hot air effectively. i fitted a one way flap thinger on each of the three outlets i cut. its a little ghetto but its a pennysaver adhoc kludge that actually works. i was supposed to run this only until the summer was over, three years a go :P
Bro. I promise I have a fix for you. I've been crypto mining with dang near 1000 gpus at one point. I started out of my house. All you need is a smaller ac infinity strapped to one of your ducts in that room that's constantly pulling air into the room. Even with the ac off it makes a huge difference. It will also push out the hot air. Even if it's just under the door. This basically gives that room priority. Then you should shut the vents in the rooms that are too cold. Balance out the house. Ac infinity makes smart vents also. You can set temps in each room. It'll close vents or turn on the fans to try and keep it at that temp. I would also ALWAYS leave your new 12" ac infinity running. Always. You need to keep pushing air. I promise that will make a big difference. And balance it out by closing other vents. Report back. I promise you it will work way better. I can make any room in my house the coldest or hottest room in the house with this method. I for example has a 6inch ac infinity under my bed strapped up to a vent. You can put silencers on the ac infinity as well. The silencers make a big difference.
Yea that was my first thought for all of this, but there ain’t a good place to get an outlet in the attic to power it. Maybe I’ll give it a good yet. I can pull cable and get power if I have to.
@@ChuckRayNorris ceiling. I considered one of the vent version that AC has, and I may try that. With the big room project I may be able to hide the power to it.
@@MandicReally yeah when they are on the ceiling. It's hard to hide the wire. Or hook anything up to it. Just keep your new ac infinity on like 4-6 at all times. Try that first. And close off some vents. To prove the point. Go close all the vents in the house and watch how fast that room will cool down. Solving problems with science. I bet you can get all the rooms in the house the same exact temp with a balance of the vents.
@@ChuckRayNorrisif you’re looking at the home assistant side, especially for a project video; perhaps mmWave presence sensing + smart vents? The cool air would basically follow you around the house at that point
its too bad you dont have a single/double hung window.. the U-shaped window AC that has the compressor outside to reduce lot of the noise would be much better than a portable AC unit.. you could technically put one in yours, but you would need to build a window block.
I have plans for the room that would impede unfortunately. You aren’t wrong of course, that would be more ideal. The windows are lovely but limit these options.
These videos from the new house remind me too much of the children's book, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. Like all projects in a house, it's always something.
Always always always more to do. There is plenty I’m not including in videos of course. Or at least not TH-cam videos. I’ve shown more little things on TikTok.
@@MandicReallyWhile it’s built cheap and fast, at least it’s not built in 1952 (before building standards) like my house 😂 I still have knob and tube wiring on a couple of outlets I’ll have to Romex soon.
At are actively scrubbed inside of the printers. My machines all have active charcoal filtration. Both ones in my office also have HEPA filters. As for any particulates, the house system has a solid MERV 13 filter.
Seen it, I’m definitely getting a dual hose unit. Hate to use one at all but simply not another option at this time. Another mini split is just too expensive for the budget.
@@MandicReally I am glad you seen it. Hopefully the dual hose works well for you! I've only had a single hose and it works but it sucks. I'm glad the ac infinity fan helped. I like that company!
I found a lot of benefit to my office temps with a similar challenge using an exhausting transom fan - certainly cheaper, less power consuming and less noisy than a window AC unit. BUT the temps on my second floor are generally more comfortable than what you described. However, maybe now you've installed the AC infinity unit a transom in your office would be more effective? Having the fan push air out of the window creates a slight suction from the rest of the house to pull in cooler (and cleaner) air. I did have to model some custom panels to fill the gaps each side because the pieces that came with it sucked.
I have a Patreon for those who wish to support the "Get Alan a MiniSplit for his office" fund. 😅😅 (I did say that is the ideal answer at the 20:58 mark.)
@@MandicReally I did see that but I would of started off with a mini split and left all the ductwork alone or just use the garage one and wait on the garage project for another time
Yes, but then the noise of the house and the room mix. When I'm filming videos that means requiring everyone else to be quiet as a mouse, and deal with my "projecting" my voice around the house. That's a no go unfortunately.
Hey I work for a HVAC Company here in Portland Oregon if you need any help the company is Deluxe Heating and Cooling it’s a small business customer oriented business but we do a lot of mini split system.
ALso every decibel reading should be shown with distance, as you know sound pressure level is logarithmic, so distance massively affects the SPL. just holding up a meter means nothing. Also there are weights both A and C, if you dont understand them, you need to at least say it (what weight you have it on) is based on spikes and such.
I didn’t bother putting the notation after the first couple, all of them were taken at the exact same 36” from the outside of the sound source. I understand that distance matters. This isn’t a scientific peer reviewed study, so I don’t feel a need to do a full methodology breakdown in every video. That bogs them down and is not valuable to the majority of viewers. And I’m fairly sure every dB figure I did put on screen was noted as “dBA”. The information was there.
@MandicReally a lot of engineering goes into the amount of air passing through the coils on all hvac systems, changing that amount of air can significantly change the efficiency and could overall make your power bill worse, and not cool the rest od your house properly
Dude, you’re like trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist by creating more problems and expense. It’s pretty clear all you need to do is use the little flapper on your air vents to your first floor vents a little close your bedroom vent a little and open your office vent up a little more. Everything you’re trying to accomplish simply done with your vents. And if you’re worried about the direction of the flow, then use your engineering skills and build some panels to put inside so you can adjust the airflow and not the directional angle.
The first floor vents have shut offs. I turned off everyone I could (and covered the others) it didn’t do a damn thing. Any little air leak will be the path of least resistance. This project was not step one, it was the culmination of multiple things and input from an HVAC tech who fully agreed with my assessment. The system is just not intended to cool a house of this size on a single zone. Any damper system would have had to be in the basement where it would have cost a lot for an electronic system that can be operated remotely. Or manually actuated which requires climbing into the crawl space to make any adjustments. This is the system that was easiest, most cost effective, AND SOLVED THE PROBLEM, for the majority of the house. It’s only my office, which had hundreds of watts of heat being pumped into it, that is an issue. This house was built in the 90s when multiple zones weren’t as common, especially in the Pacific Northwest where it didn’t used to get as hot for as long.
Hope these house/office/studio vids are doing well because I'm enjoying them. Looking forward to more.
So far not so good, but need to build the space to make videos so they aren’t going to stop anytime soon. Thanks for watching and glad you enjoy them!
While not nearly as bad as your situation, my house is the same way. We have to keep the first floor at like 67F to keep it 76F up stairs. When we built the house, adding a second unit/zone was something akin to an extra $15K, and being first time homeowners after years of apartment living, we were like 'WHAT? $15K? Who needs that?!' Big mistake. What we're going to get done in the spring, though, is a 5 unit ceiling cartridge mini split so each of the 3 bedrooms + my office + my wife's office have their own dedicated heating and cooling. They quoted us $15K, but it's 12 years later, so taking inflation into account, plus the extra customizability, it's actually cheaper! Take that, homebuilder!
That is what I’d really like to install. It would get us the max control for individual tasters and my offices needs. Someday maybe.
Take it from a sweaty and swampy floridian, get a dual hose portable AC when you are looking. The dual hose is SO MUCH MORE EFFICIENT.
I really enjoyed this one sir, great story telling, camera angles, and presentation. Nice work! Stay frosty (lol)
Side item for you to check is the insulation in the attic. Those houses never have enough up there and if you can also help keep the summer heat from getting there… it will help.
you could add a rubber washer also between the screw and the metal of the fan because also the screws are transmitting vibrations to the wall... i usually put 2 for every screw with a metal washer in the middle in every AC unit i install
I was looking for this comment. Why print a washer in 40D TPU if you then clamp things solid with those screws. That adds zero dampening. Better would be to make a bigger part out of stiffer TPU, attach that to the wall and then drive some bolts holding the fan solely into that TPU (possibly using some heat inserts). That would decouple the rigid fan from the rigid wall via the vibration absorbing TPU.
During summer months I set FAN to RUN and not to Auto, it helps alot on my second floor in Washington, does cost me a bit more During the summer months but worth it, I'm may get this fan to have running instead of having the system run. Thanks for the information
It looked like you have two panel slider windows in your office, so idk if this would work for you but if you do end up getting an AC specifically for that room, I'd suggest looking at the brand "Midea". I have 3 of their U-shaped heat pump window units, and I leave them in all year. They are absolutely fantastic and dropped my energy bill significantly. I keep my AC at 70, AC the two units I have installed on the main floor of the house (we have no central AC, house was built in the 40s) keep it comfortable all summer long. You're going to need to spec out how many BTUs you'll need to keep the room at the temp you want, but they have been a fantastic investment IMO.
Yea unfortunately with the side slide windows that’s just not a good option for me. I wish it was, I’d probably go with one of those if I could.
If you are feeling really good about it you could tap the power lead to the HVAC fan and have that actuate a relay to turn the duct booster off and on.
one thing we did was in the top level plenum we have a divider that favors the room im in , so less flow to the other rooms that don't need it but my print room im working in get about 15% more air flow than the others so it ends up cooler , we did the same with the downstairs as well favoring our bedroom ,
basically its just a metal X that's off center a bit , i would assume you could 3d print a large insert to your top plenum to do this function though it may not be good for your case given your bedroom and partners office is there as well.
You can retrofit a system to allow multi zone that uses expanding and shrinking blockers in the circular ducts as they branch off. They are pretty cheap (compared to a proper full cut and replace baffle system for multi zone) but you have to be careful with airflow. Your furnace and A/C coils have a minimum airflow you must always maintain or else you end up with major HVAC issues.
That being said you can add as many zones and thermostat sensors as you want and integrate the whole thing with home assistant since you have that set up already. Its best to use your major equipment vs adding supplementary systems since it increases costs by quite a bit and puts you into oversize risk.
Generally speaking: on the hottest day you should be using 80% of your cooling capacity. On your coldest day you should be using 80% of your heating capacity. You can consult an almanac and look up the 10 year highs and lows for your area. I have found people can often save a significant ammount of money on their capacity and instead dump that money into proper air handling and filtration.
You will be a lot more comfortable and have a lot fewer alergy issues vs the brute force method most HVAC setups have where you only use at most 50% of your capacity. Your system shouldn't run in tiny cycle times so that air never gets moved around. This is just as much an issue in American Homes as you found in your McMansion. Likely your equipment is over-sized AND your air handling is having issues.
Possible partial solution: At least you have multiple returns. We have a '64 2.5 story townhouse with single zone, one return downstairs. Our upgraded HVAC system features a circulation mode that turns the air handler fan only on at adjustable speed and percentage of time. We run it at minimum time and power to equalize upstairs and downstairs temperature by circulation at a minimal power cost. The heater or AC runs at the same time but only as needed. If you can make your air handler do the same thing, it will help a lot.
10:05 There is actual Duct Tape made for the purpose on the air handler itself. Note its more reflective than duck tape.
Watched you on TikTok and enjoyed the TH-cam Video. These weird little issues is something I've always enjoyed solving. Something that can help keep temps more even would be too run the furnace fan all the time. It helps my place get much more even temps. I also duct my PC exhaust straight outside with and AC Infinity t6 running at speed 2-3 and my 3D printer enclosure is exhausted outside with an AC Infinity t4 using the thermostat to maintain enclosure temps where I want them. So for an example My office is on the second floor in a non central air conditioned house. I have a 14,000btu portable A/C unit and on a hot summer day with my computer running the A/C would run steady 24/7 and the room wouldn't get below 30c (86f) and not that my PC case is ducted straight outside the A/C unit runs for about 15-20min of an hour and I can keep the room at 21c (70f). Probably saved me $50-$100/month on power running my Air Conditioner.
Great video. Perhaps try zone dampers with HA controllable relays like Kincony, thermostats like ecobee running locally through HA using Homekit. Then automations. Problem is you need one thermostat per area. However, you may be able to use automations and the remote sensors but haven't tested that. Just some ideas. You can run multiple zones with one furnace.
As for getting a portable AC unit, If you can afford it/find one, get a dual-hose AC unit bare minimum, and you can also find some that are inverter-driven, they can be remarkably quiet and energy efficient if you don't need to cool a huge place down a lot.
Yea I’m definitely looking at dual hose models. Unfortunately I can’t spend a lot on it so hoping one of the Amazon special ones isn’t too loud. We shall see. 👍🏻
Great work! I use a small ~$100ish 6" AC Infinity fan to help my Glowforge laser cutter exhaust fumes up and out of an unused chimney. It's been a solid unit - it's quieter than the Glowforge itself.
I intend to use an 8” one in the studio for my Laser and some other fume extraction. I’m sure I’ll do a video on that at some point. Glad to hear you like yours.
Have you considered something like a mini split? My understanding is they don’t add a lot of noise pollution. We are considering one for our garage and one for our shed.
I'm just across the river in Vancouver, and I'm also an east-coast transplant. So, I'm equally baffled by the AC situation here. I have 3 portable heat pumps keeping the house cool (Black and Decker 12,000 BTU AC units, which can be used for heat as well). They work really well, but are LOUD. I usually have the unit in my office set to 61F, so that I can turn it off in the morning to work. If it's not a heat wave, I can work all day with the AC off and temps in the office won't top 75F. I've also got an X-max 3 and a frankenstein Replicator Dual in the office with me. With all three going at once, there are no noise-reduction headphones which make that any better. And, the giant heated bed on the Xmax-3 definitely fights the AC.
On the flip side of things, the workstation in my office has a really efficient water cooling setup. So, in the winter, I can basically heat my office with that computer alone. I didn't realize when I moved here that I would become a human thermostat, but it is what it is :)
If the air handler plugs into a standard AC plug you can get a smart plug with energy monitoring and just watch the charts to figure out what the output is when fan is on/off and just have it trigger the other fan
I use flair to help with this issue. You can close some vents that have the rooms that aren’t occupied so that the ones that are can be cooled off faster and at a temp you want.
Also if you need to add an AC to your office, get a window mounted, they sell ones that are 80% more efficient then those floor mounted ones AND the air will be nice and cold.
I'm very interested in how you will set this up in Home Assistant
I changed over to using Ecobee thermostats, which work great for Home Assistant. For the colder months I wrote an automation that would turn on the ceiling fan when the HVAC turned on (when heating). That worked great to help the heat circulate better in that part of our house - where the ceilings are 9.5' tall.
when you want to replace your AC thermostat, make sure to look for "local polling" or "local push" thermostat integrations with home assistant, and choose your thermostat from there.
I purchased a Z-wave thermostat, but I'm not super happy with the performance of Z-wave.
Yea I’ve yet to decide on Z-Wave or ZigBee for everything. Still weighing out options before I commit to everything. Thanks
When you first removed a section of the pipe and vacuumed inside, how dirty was it? Was always curious how dirty they get. Great video
There are several ways to change the airflow for hvac. One option I would recoment looking into is dropping in an air damper to change the over all air flow of the upstairs rooms.
Those mostly help restrict air to certain areas and need to be adjusted throughout the year. I've had more instances than I like where they've just rusted into position and the lever has snapped off when I tried to adjust it. It's easier in the long run to just install more fans or higher CFM fans along individual ducts.
I'm not sure how the outside temp compares to your upstairs office, but if it's similar (or even warmer inside) then exhausting some amount of air from the office with 3d printers can not only get rid of some of the hottest air (if you pull from closer to the ceiling), but it can also help improve your air quality a bit (since you have 3d printers in there). Good luck getting the temps down "on the cheap". (fyi: I have room-by-room multi-zone ducted air in my house after having a 2 zone system. It's been a huge benefit that I can't recommend enough. Less power draw + more comfort in the rooms that I'm in.).
[an input about the automation]
a possible solution with light modification for a temporary system and very responsive: with a simple powermeter connected to HomeAssistant, a script could turn on the auxiliary fan as soon as it detects the load on the big fan. Then use the internal function of the auxillary to turn it off (independently of HA), based on the temperature probe, with the delay that fits you
Great video btw
add a attic exhaust fan if you dont have one already it will help get the heat that collects in the attic out will help the second floor cool down better
As someone who just paid WAY too much money getting a mini-split installed.... I'm looking forward to your Mr. Cool install experience.
Have you looked at flair smart vents, this could help direct air where you need, and will measure each room. Its expensive but may be cheaper than a whole new unit in the upstairs.
Congrats on the move! I'm actually in the process of moving myself around the same time, coincidentally
Thank you very much. Good luck on your move!
If mainly the upper floor i set that inline fan up where that junction block was and run it up there so it cool the upper rooms more.
Great video. Learned much about HVAC. Mahalo for sharing.
If you do get a portable unit, get a 2 hose unit that pulls air from outside to cool it. If you get a 1 hose unit, it will pull air in from outside through drafty joints, from your attic through outlet and switch covers, and anywhere it can. It can't pull your house into a vaccum, and the air inside your house that it's throwing outside needs to be replaced from somewhere. I had a portable unit and it made the rest of the house hotter when it was on as the house was older and wasn't well insulated. I got a window unit the following year and ran that until I moved out, and it was leaps and bounds the better option.
The air handler fan automation - put a zigbee CT on the air handler power, the will give you a signal when the fan is consuming power. I have one on my AC.
A decent thermostat that integrates with home assistant should allow me to setup that side of the automation. It is the fan control side I’m not sure about yet. I have to get my home assistant instance running again and play with it.
@@MandicReally Good point. I have an AC Reality vent booster my home office for similar reasons. I have it plugged into a shelly smart plug with an automation that runs any time the temperature in the office changes or the HVAC stat changes and only turns the power to the booster on if the office is above a threshold temp (cooling) or below the threshold temp (heating) and I let the AC/Infinity controller decide when the vent air is hot or cold enough to actually boost.
I wonder if you could use a power monitor to trigger the fan when the ac unit is on. Otherwise changing the ac controls makes sense.
on the ac unit control board you could connect to the thermostat part of the board so when the thermostat triggers the ac to kick on it just connects the voltage on the board to trigger a relay switch
they make decent retrofit zoning systems that just install in place of your vents. each room will get a wireless stat and work together like home automation systems. they adjust the air flow to each room so the hotter rooms get the most air. but maintains your systems recommended flow rates.
Any idea who makes that? Haven't come across it in any of my research.
Look at Functional Devices RIB relays. They will have one that triggers on 24 volts from the furnace fan circuit and can close a 120 volt line.
One question, why not put the fan near the junction box in the attic if issues are just upstairs vs downstairs? Doesn't this just force more pressure through the downstairs vents before getting upstairs, more or less the same thing as before just more powerfully? Obviously it worked and helped the bedroom a lot but I feel like the attic location would've also helped with the noise
That branch I installed it in is ONLY the upstairs. The downstairs goes into another 12” duct that’s in the crawl space. It’s under the unit and not visible from the studio. I heavily considered putting the fan in the attic, but it would have required a decent rework of the ducting up there, and installing an outlet just to power it up there. The electrical is run from the bottom up, not much through the attic unfortunately, so not a good place to jump off of up there for an outlet.
@@MandicReally oh ok, gotcha, that makes sense, I thought that duct branched off to both and assumed there was an outlet and/or a light socket up there to use
Needs to be a ceiling fan at the top of the stairs to circulate that hot air down. I have a similar house that's open like that, and the ceiling fan is definitely part of the AC system. BY moving the warmer air down, right to the thermostat, the AC is on longer and the air moves better to keep the whole house cool. no huge inline fans needed in the ducts.
That said, it helps that most of my ductwork is in the crawspace, not a hot attic, so I do have that advantage
If you look when I showed the steps there is a fan at the very top of the screen. It runs 24/7 and is blowing the warm air down. Second thing I tried after moving in. Thanks for the input.
@@MandicReally ah. I did go back to that part and check to be sure but couldn't see it. I can detect it now when I focus there while the video is playing. Invisible when paused. :)
Damn.
I bet if you were able to set the fan to run constantly at a low speed(perhaps 4) and then speed up to 7 when the AC is running, it will even out the temps better.
I put in an EcoBee premium thermostat with 2nd wireless temperature sensor and it averages between the two (it can also determine occupancy and make the occupied thermostat area be the lead thermostat). That works pretty good.
For managing room temperatures, you'll need to start pinching off the vents to direct more flow to to where you need it.
I personally feel that you would have been better off putting the booster on your worst performing supply side duct up where it splits off in the attic to get more air going in the desired location and starving a less desirable location. I have one on my house for an underserved room and it works good to redirect air even though it is only 220 CFM. Voxtex Powerfans by Atmosphere.
Yea originally the supply to my office was my thought but there isn’t a great way to get an outlet in the attic for the fan. Most of the electrical runs from the bottom up, not branching down from the attic like I’m used to. Not many places to grab a 110 line. I still may try adding a fan for my office in the duct.
This was way easier and the entire second floor WAS suffering, just not as much as my office in particular.
OMG you got an XL? I'm X-JELL!
Hi, Use an additional relay to Piggyback the fan relay in the HVAC unit to control your new fan. 73
Isn't there a risk of the fan in the duct getting hot? Maybe a dumb question, but I always think about that when I see a motor inside isolation. In this case it would then cool the fan itself instead of performing optimally.
zip tie the temp probe to the return line coming out of the evap, the same company also make fan booster vents it just replaces the vent cover and has a pair of 92mm fan to force more air into the room reduce gaps at the bottom of doors cold air sinks the room is pressurized the cold air will get force out the bottom of the door, in the wall above the door just cut a hole on both sides and put a simple vent cover over it on both sides the higher the better cheap and more effective than jump tubes as the hot air can just move to the hallway. last option is an vent to attic extractor fan i have the 10in from ac in my room i use it to dump out a lot of heat fast also vents the room really really well if i print ABS, ASA, Nylon, etc i find if the A/c has been off all day and it 110+ upstairs i can close the a/c vent in my room open the door and hit that fan and drop the house by 10-20deg in 5-10mins if it's cooled down outside
A few ideas on how to set up the automation to run the fan, fair warning, I have 0 experience doing this myself but I have seen tons of videos and have a rough idea of the technology involved:
A smart thermostat might be able to report if it is "running" or not, and you could use that to trigger the fan
You could possibly get a current clamp meter on one of the wires for the blower fan and use that to trigger the duct fan to run
You could use a differential pressure sensor to measure if the fan is running and have that trigger the duct fan
I know home assistant can integrate with a bunch of smart thermostats and detect states. I had a cheap Honeywell at my last place that integrated well. It’s more the fan side of things I’m not sure about yet.
The McMan(dic)sion continues to provide some good content. Looking forward to seeing where your creativity takes it!
Why not use it as a puller/lift unit in the attic?
Feels like your automation logic could be replaced with a simple relay?
Sure a simple relay could be wired into this, but you'd most likely lose all fine motor control in doing so. The fan is too loud at full speed, that is controlled by PWM through their "smart" controller. Maybe a relay could activate something in the smart controller, but that would be a PCB level modification. Why bother when Home Assistant can have a simple automation to tell the Fan to turn on?
Relay is "physically simpler" but an Automation is simpler on a level where fine control matters. Like just today I lowered the fan speed control as the upstairs was getting too warm now that we are using the heater instead of the AC. That is control we don't want to lose.
Cold goes down, warm goes up - this is why you set up the AC upstairs.
Instead of pushing cold air upstairs try pulling the hot air down back to the HVAC system. That way you can recirculate the air better throughout the house all year long.
Yea I’m debating a system to draw hot air out of the office (fan inline in the attic on the jump duct I mentioned), and running the fan more than just when the air is on.
Ideally the HVAC return would be in the ceiling and ducted to individual rooms, but that’s a big project to rework. Someday maybe, but not today.
Adding some insulated flex duct (after inline fan) may help you noise level. At least 5 feet. I’ve done in my own home with success.
Also check your attic insulation. I’d bet it’s blown in and has settled a lot. I’m near Seattle and seen this issues while working in HVAC. Feel free to reach out.
It’s loose fiberglass insulation and is relatively thick. If you check my last video I worked in the attic and showed it a bit. Still may have settled and can’t hurt to have more. Thinks he attic could use an active vent too honestly, but that’s a whole nother issue.
Forgot to say, I wanted a longer flex section on both ends of the fan, but found that the duct was NOT well supported at either end. I would have had to make braces to support the bottom and top ducts to remove more solid duct. Couldn’t justify that part of the process.
Yeah, I remembered after. Air sealing the attic would also help. Have you checked the ceiling with a thermal camera? I’m guessing you are aware that winter will have similar issues. Cold downstairs and uncomfortably hot upstairs.
Good point about duct support. I can think of a few ways to over come that using a duct collar. Replacing some of the flex with metal duct can help airflow upstarts too. At end of the day you’re right about mcmansions. HVAC last on everyone’s list but provided so much comfort when done correctly.
I solved this issue with AC Infinity's vent boosters.
Hello sir, im having trouble on my anycubic kobra max. Retraction is terrible, print quality is declining and so is infill. I have dried my filament with the esun filament dryer, i have tuned z offset, leveled the bed, tuned flow rate, temperature, speed, pid, checked the firmware and its up to date, and tuned e steps. All tests and research i have tried to tune retraction does not seem to resolve the issue on my printer. the overall print quality is pretty bad as well. What should i do?
Have you tried changing the nozzle? Worsening print quality so often comes down to that. If you do, I highly recommend genuine E3D Volcano nozzles. They perform better than the cheap Amazon nozzles a lot of folks get.
That said, I never got really good retractions on the Kobra Max. It was one of the things that drove me crazy about that machine. It really need Linear Advance and at least when I had one, there wasn’t a good firmware that did. Maybe Anycubic has updated that (I doubt it) or maybe a community firmware is available now. If you can get Linear Advance enabled and tune that in, that would help.
@@MandicReally Okay that sounds like a great suggestion. But would this be worth the effort and would the outcome of the printer actually be good? Anytime i see the kobra max do good is other youtubers who print straight out of the box and well of course it will do good. but what about like 1-2 years later after getting the printer, how will it perform then? Would you suggest any other brand that may be better? Thank you.
@@MandicReallyGood news the problem was solved for the kobra max. i set the travel speed to 130 mm/s and 5.5 mm distance and 45mm/s speed
AC Infinity is kind of the E3D of the laser world.
That was how I came to know them, but their marketing is ALL grow operations. Honestly makes me have a few concerns about flammable particulates possibly traveling through their fans. I’ll be revisiting them when it comes to my laser setup in the studio for sure.
Instead of a portable unit there are some "U" shaped window units that are better on noise because most of the parts that make noise (compressor and one fan) are outside the house.
Vitalii is good people. I have one of those for blowing hot air from the roof peak of my shop outside so the colder outside air can sneak in. Makes the shop bearable in the summer and the fat shop cat likes it 🐈
Good future 3d print and design project, design a new blade for that thing that massively reduces the noise.
Ah McMansions. Fast, good, cheap. Pick 2. I've found setting the furnace fan to On rather than Auto helps a bit, too. At the expense of a higher power bill of course
If you're at the office it means you're not at the studio, so noise levels there shouldn't matter too much. If your partner is not in her room, you can just crank up that fan all the way up and turn it down back to 7 when you need it to be quiet. Also, if you're at the studio, it probably means you don't need to cool the 2nd floor so you could just completely shut down the fan. If you create presets for "filming mode", "home alone", "quiet mode", etc. everything I just said is probably just a tap away on your phone...
cheap and dirty way to turn the fan on with the AC is a smart plug and a wifi temp sensor. As long as the fan comes on at the required speed when powered it should work fine
@MandicReally get the Honeywell T10 with extra room sensors to activate the ac, that will help out alot.
two story home owner here. get an eco bee and a bunch of wireless sensors. put one in each room. It'll solve the problem of the central thermostat ignoring the hot second floor.
I meant to discuss that but slipped through the cracks. Ruby runs a LOT cooler than me. So she is really temperature sensitive to AC. It’s hard for us to balance. If I used remote sensors the overhaul house temp would be too low for her when trying to compensate for the warmer second floor. This balanced the air without a need for the sensors and will lead to a happier household.
You may or may not already be aware but that inline fan would operate much more efficiently if you attach it at the top of the riser duct rather than at the bottom of it... Best of luck to you.
Would require reworking too much ducting in the attic and adding an outlet in the attic. Just too much involved to go that route when the location I used was so easily accessible. It is working better than I expected honestly, just not for my office in particular.
Look into Aeroseal
the fiberlogy.. ahh yes.. i keep calling it fibrology for some reason. am i alone in that?
12:30 im not used to prusaslicer persay as i use a fork of it, but in orca we got a rightclick menu option of "centre" which i use like u show manually :) think its there in ps too
Nope, I wanted to say "Fibrology" so badly when I mentioned it.
@@MandicReally phu! hehe.. i kinda swallow my tongue every time i say it now ;) Kudos on the move phase being done, the new "pad" look TIGHT imo. good upgrade for you two.
regarding cooling of second floor rooms; I found that capturing the heat from each device and channeling this outside with hoses and quiet pc fans in the ducts to move out the hot air effectively. i fitted a one way flap thinger on each of the three outlets i cut. its a little ghetto but its a pennysaver adhoc kludge that actually works. i was supposed to run this only until the summer was over, three years a go :P
If you can use a window unit, look at the Midea U-Shaped AC's, they really quiet and efficient. Do not use the portable style ones, they are terrible.
Big / side sliding window. Window units are no go in this house.
This looks like a job for a Mr. Cool mini-split sponsorship!
Ha! Should've watched the whole video first before commenting 😀
Prusa sent the XL?! 👀👀👀
Bro. I promise I have a fix for you. I've been crypto mining with dang near 1000 gpus at one point. I started out of my house. All you need is a smaller ac infinity strapped to one of your ducts in that room that's constantly pulling air into the room. Even with the ac off it makes a huge difference. It will also push out the hot air. Even if it's just under the door. This basically gives that room priority. Then you should shut the vents in the rooms that are too cold. Balance out the house. Ac infinity makes smart vents also. You can set temps in each room. It'll close vents or turn on the fans to try and keep it at that temp. I would also ALWAYS leave your new 12" ac infinity running. Always. You need to keep pushing air. I promise that will make a big difference. And balance it out by closing other vents. Report back. I promise you it will work way better. I can make any room in my house the coldest or hottest room in the house with this method. I for example has a 6inch ac infinity under my bed strapped up to a vent. You can put silencers on the ac infinity as well. The silencers make a big difference.
Yea that was my first thought for all of this, but there ain’t a good place to get an outlet in the attic to power it. Maybe I’ll give it a good yet. I can pull cable and get power if I have to.
@@MandicReally where are your vents in that room. Floor or ceiling?
@@ChuckRayNorris ceiling. I considered one of the vent version that AC has, and I may try that. With the big room project I may be able to hide the power to it.
@@MandicReally yeah when they are on the ceiling. It's hard to hide the wire. Or hook anything up to it. Just keep your new ac infinity on like 4-6 at all times. Try that first. And close off some vents. To prove the point. Go close all the vents in the house and watch how fast that room will cool down. Solving problems with science. I bet you can get all the rooms in the house the same exact temp with a balance of the vents.
@@ChuckRayNorrisif you’re looking at the home assistant side, especially for a project video; perhaps mmWave presence sensing + smart vents? The cool air would basically follow you around the house at that point
20:33 Yeah no kiddin'. How'd they get away with that?
its too bad you dont have a single/double hung window.. the U-shaped window AC that has the compressor outside to reduce lot of the noise would be much better than a portable AC unit.. you could technically put one in yours, but you would need to build a window block.
I have plans for the room that would impede unfortunately. You aren’t wrong of course, that would be more ideal. The windows are lovely but limit these options.
These videos from the new house remind me too much of the children's book, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. Like all projects in a house, it's always something.
Always always always more to do. There is plenty I’m not including in videos of course. Or at least not TH-cam videos. I’ve shown more little things on TikTok.
@@MandicReallyWhile it’s built cheap and fast, at least it’s not built in 1952 (before building standards) like my house 😂 I still have knob and tube wiring on a couple of outlets I’ll have to Romex soon.
You should be filtering that office. And definitely not pumping your exhaust to the main intake to spread throughout the house. Printers have fumes.
At are actively scrubbed inside of the printers. My machines all have active charcoal filtration. Both ones in my office also have HEPA filters. As for any particulates, the house system has a solid MERV 13 filter.
Just install a mini split and be done with it
You paying for it? $400 Fan (that I got for free) vs $4000 multi-zone Mini-Split system. It isn't exactly something I can just do.
Portable ac units litteraly suck check out the technology connections video about it.
Seen it, I’m definitely getting a dual hose unit. Hate to use one at all but simply not another option at this time. Another mini split is just too expensive for the budget.
@@MandicReally I am glad you seen it. Hopefully the dual hose works well for you! I've only had a single hose and it works but it sucks. I'm glad the ac infinity fan helped. I like that company!
I found a lot of benefit to my office temps with a similar challenge using an exhausting transom fan - certainly cheaper, less power consuming and less noisy than a window AC unit. BUT the temps on my second floor are generally more comfortable than what you described. However, maybe now you've installed the AC infinity unit a transom in your office would be more effective?
Having the fan push air out of the window creates a slight suction from the rest of the house to pull in cooler (and cleaner) air. I did have to model some custom panels to fill the gaps each side because the pieces that came with it sucked.
Hmmm. I would say there's a much greater than zero percent chance that Mr cool is going to reach out to sponsor you now if they see this video.
I would just install a mini split
I have a Patreon for those who wish to support the "Get Alan a MiniSplit for his office" fund. 😅😅 (I did say that is the ideal answer at the 20:58 mark.)
@@MandicReally I did see that but I would of started off with a mini split and left all the ductwork alone or just use the garage one and wait on the garage project for another time
You can do better by leaving the door open to the warmer room and dampening down/leveling the air into the rest of the house.
Yes, but then the noise of the house and the room mix. When I'm filming videos that means requiring everyone else to be quiet as a mouse, and deal with my "projecting" my voice around the house. That's a no go unfortunately.
disappointed that there was no hip thrust when saying home assistant. lol
Third comment I guess? Glad to see a video. Been watching your tiktok alot today! Just found it recently
Thanks for watching! Any and all support helps.
Hey I work for a HVAC Company here in Portland Oregon if you need any help the company is Deluxe Heating and Cooling it’s a small business customer oriented business but we do a lot of mini split system.
Great to know. Thanks. If I do end up doing a multi zone system it’ll be a bit much for me to DIY so I’ll keep this in mind.
ALso every decibel reading should be shown with distance, as you know sound pressure level is logarithmic, so distance massively affects the SPL. just holding up a meter means nothing. Also there are weights both A and C, if you dont understand them, you need to at least say it (what weight you have it on) is based on spikes and such.
I didn’t bother putting the notation after the first couple, all of them were taken at the exact same 36” from the outside of the sound source. I understand that distance matters. This isn’t a scientific peer reviewed study, so I don’t feel a need to do a full methodology breakdown in every video. That bogs them down and is not valuable to the majority of viewers. And I’m fairly sure every dB figure I did put on screen was noted as “dBA”. The information was there.
@MandicReally a lot of engineering goes into the amount of air passing through the coils on all hvac systems, changing that amount of air can significantly change the efficiency and could overall make your power bill worse, and not cool the rest od your house properly
First comment again!
So quick on the keyboard! Second...
Somebody didn’t get enough hugs as a child.
@@Eric_In_SF How did you know?
Dude, you’re like trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist by creating more problems and expense.
It’s pretty clear all you need to do is use the little flapper on your air vents to your first floor vents a little close your bedroom vent a little and open your office vent up a little more.
Everything you’re trying to accomplish simply done with your vents. And if you’re worried about the direction of the flow, then use your engineering skills and build some panels to put inside so you can adjust the airflow and not the directional angle.
The first floor vents have shut offs. I turned off everyone I could (and covered the others) it didn’t do a damn thing. Any little air leak will be the path of least resistance.
This project was not step one, it was the culmination of multiple things and input from an HVAC tech who fully agreed with my assessment. The system is just not intended to cool a house of this size on a single zone. Any damper system would have had to be in the basement where it would have cost a lot for an electronic system that can be operated remotely. Or manually actuated which requires climbing into the crawl space to make any adjustments.
This is the system that was easiest, most cost effective, AND SOLVED THE PROBLEM, for the majority of the house. It’s only my office, which had hundreds of watts of heat being pumped into it, that is an issue.
This house was built in the 90s when multiple zones weren’t as common, especially in the Pacific Northwest where it didn’t used to get as hot for as long.