Return Air Nightmare! Photo submitted by: Tom Turner from Austin Energy

This month’s photo of the month winner is Andrew John of John’s Refrigeration in Arizona. Notice this 10” return duct is pulling air directly from an attic. Also understand that attic temperatures in Arizona regularly exceed 160F. That’s 300 CFM x 80 degree Delta T x 1.08 = 29,000 BTUs of return duct loss!

Well, at least the filters will be clean… Photo submitted by: Mike Charles

View this new sensation in retrofit HVAC duct renovation, brought to us courtesy of Joe Gorman, President of JP Gorman in Rocklin, California. Two 2×4’s are skillfully screwed together with top quality brass zip screws to exert the exact amount of pressure on this flex duct run to enable it to deliver exactly zero air …
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Alan Fisher’s Magic Flue If this flue worked, it would be a miracle! This classic picture makes anyone that sees it wonder how the occupants of this California home survived. A flexible flue was crimped and shoved into an existing flue in a manner appearing to be the work of an evil technician hired to …
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Fan Opening – Alan Fischer This is the best photo we’ve ever received revealing the carpenter’s engineering capabilities when it comes to sizing the opening in the plywood below an upflow furnace. Basically the carpenter has no idea of the needed opening when he built the floor of this furnace closet, so he simply whacked …
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NCI Member Kathy Townsend of Newington, VA submitted this photo snapped by an on-the-ball service technician. The homeowner had added a room over the summer and for some reason was having a problem keeping the furnace going on the first cold day. When the tech inquired what had happened to the flue, the homeowner flung …
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Kevin Heikkila found this ten gallon duct in a five gallon bucket on a Michigan commercial job. Kevin specializes in hospitals and institutional type buildings. You would imagine this level of work wouldn’t have new construction residential defect like this, but Kevin assures us he finds low quality work on high end jobs nearly every …
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Dale Gibson of Gibson Air Systems in Jamaica, Virginia offers his new invention, a black spotted filtration system that slips directly onto a cooling or heating coil!… Just kidding folks, this cooling coil with a ¾” blanket of yuck. This cruddy coil was pulled from a system two weeks after the building owner paid $250.00 …
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This fine example of advanced sheet metal craftsmanship was found on a rooftop on Las Vegas, Nevada. This is an example of how not to use eight sheet metal elbows to transition from a packaged unit to an existing duct system where the supply and return connections to the equipment were swapped. Additionally this “quality …
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