Ryan Brucks
06-13-2012, 12:00 PM
I've been upgrading my shop DC capabilities, and now my shop air is more often cleaner than my house air. Wife and daughter have random respiritory issues so I have been thinking of what I can do to improve the indoor air quality.
Had a HVAC guy over this morning for a quote on installing some sort of whole house air cleaner. I honestly don't know much about the options here, so just wanted to talk to someone to get the ball rolling. Wanted to bounce what he said off here, since the guy seemed pretty.... shall we say "derp"?
First thing he says, is my floor vents are sucking up crawlspace dust via venturi effect, and I should get all my ducts sealed... $800. OK... crawlspace is pretty dusty I know (I have to change water filter down there)... thinking maybe at this point...
Then we stalked about whole house filtration. I was curious about the kind where you modify the house's ducting to adding an Active intake that puts the house under constant positive pressure with all intake going through HEPA filter. He said this option would be north of $5k.
Then he said he usually installs Honeywell inline HEPAs. I have two HVAC systems, he quoted me ~1800 for one installed, 3k for both systems.
Now here's the "derp" part.
I started asking specifics about what level of filtration was required here, and he said:
"Air molecules are around 3 microns so if you go any finer than that you get no airflow"
OK, obviously this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. The honeywell units he is describing are indeed HEPA so I'm not worried about that... but I am a bit worried about getting anything installed by someone with such a basic lack of understanding of the mechanical sizes involved..
Am I being over critical, or would this be a non-starter for you?
And what do you guys think on those prices? He made sure to remind me how much work sealing all the ducts would be... never care for the hard sell myself.
Had a HVAC guy over this morning for a quote on installing some sort of whole house air cleaner. I honestly don't know much about the options here, so just wanted to talk to someone to get the ball rolling. Wanted to bounce what he said off here, since the guy seemed pretty.... shall we say "derp"?
First thing he says, is my floor vents are sucking up crawlspace dust via venturi effect, and I should get all my ducts sealed... $800. OK... crawlspace is pretty dusty I know (I have to change water filter down there)... thinking maybe at this point...
Then we stalked about whole house filtration. I was curious about the kind where you modify the house's ducting to adding an Active intake that puts the house under constant positive pressure with all intake going through HEPA filter. He said this option would be north of $5k.
Then he said he usually installs Honeywell inline HEPAs. I have two HVAC systems, he quoted me ~1800 for one installed, 3k for both systems.
Now here's the "derp" part.
I started asking specifics about what level of filtration was required here, and he said:
"Air molecules are around 3 microns so if you go any finer than that you get no airflow"
OK, obviously this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. The honeywell units he is describing are indeed HEPA so I'm not worried about that... but I am a bit worried about getting anything installed by someone with such a basic lack of understanding of the mechanical sizes involved..
Am I being over critical, or would this be a non-starter for you?
And what do you guys think on those prices? He made sure to remind me how much work sealing all the ducts would be... never care for the hard sell myself.