Earlier this year, Celestine started noticing an excessive amount of dust in the house. After dusting, the dust would return almost instantaneously. We paid a company $500 to video tape the insides of the ducts with a small camera. We found the pipes to be rusted out, with dirt filling the ducts. Here are a few shots of the old duct work.
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| Dirt under furnace (after pulling out the furnace first). |
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| Can of coke and layers of corrosion--probably from the construction of the house in 1979. |
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| Sand-like dirt in duct. |
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| Rusty ducts at furnace header. |
We interviewed about 5 companies and chose GNR Heating and Cooling. We think they were the best HVAC company in Albuquerque. George (owner) and Nick (his son) designed a new HVAC system using two upflow furnaces. The original single-HVAC system was undersized for our 2900 ft^2 home. We decided to fix this by installing two HVAC zones--one for all of the bedrooms and one for the rest of the house. We also switched from swamp coolers to high efficiency air conditioners. The furnaces are 95% efficient.
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| Creative duct placement in fireplace chase upstairs in family room. |
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| New ducts in hallway ceiling. These were covered up by lowering the ceiling 10". |
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| New ducts going into master bedroom and bathroom. |
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| Duct from furnace in garage to upstairs fireplace. |
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| Transition duct from downstairs to upstairs. |
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| Transition piece covered by drywall. |
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| Upstairs ducts hidden by fireplace hearth and built-in ledges. |
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| Duct work covered by drywall, plaster, paint, and new tile. |
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| Duct work covered by new fireplace hearth. |
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| New furnace in corner of garage with visible duct work near ceiling. |
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| New lower ceiling hides new air ducts in hallway. |
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| New high efficiency furnace/air conditioner in hall closet. |
