I was called out to a house this week to correct some electrical & tubing issues on a new install. The homeowner had purchased a unit online for their home and had a "electrican friend" wire the unit. They also had a "a/c friend" tell them he could install the unit and duct system no problem. At this point i should have turned away, got in my truck and drove off... but like an idiot, i just had to stay and see the whole mess. The guy that installed the system had leak after leak in his soldering and finally gave up on fixing the leaks. When i got there, i noticed the house was pretty small, right at 1000 sq.ft. the customer told me. Very well insulated, double paned windows, 6" spray foam under the house.

I walked over to the outdoor unit to look at the model number and saw that it was a 3.5 ton H.P Goodman unit. I started to get a sick feeling in my stomach, not from the unit... but from the size of it.... about 1 ton -1.5 tons too big for the 1000 sq.ft. home i thought to myself. Anyways, i continued onward, to the indoor unit. I opened the closet door and there was a matching Goodman airhandler w/VS motor. Seemed to be installed correctly, romex connectors @ electrical entrances, sitting level, nice hard pipe copper lines. Thats when i looked up at the plenum and started laughing..... it was made of plywood !!! I KID U NOT!!!

After a few minutes of uncontrollable internal laughter, we dove in. Repaired all the tubing leaks, checked the low voltage wiring (the a/c guy had accidentally flip flopped the t-stat wires from the air handler to the outdoor unit insted sending them to the t-stat and vise versa). We pressure tested the lines, then started a vacuum. While pulling a vacuum, i decided to turn the blower on to hear the inside unit. HOLY COW !!! Sounded like a jet plane taking off! Time to get in the attic.

Now... this is the really funny part (actually really sad). I climbed up my ladder into the attic, facing his plywood plenum only to see 2- 8" flex duct coming off the plenum, one on each side. Thats it. 1400 cfm of air trying to be jammed into 2-8" pathways. As i shined my flashlight around looking at his ductwork, the a/c guy had 8 drops for the house, 4 on each side of the plenum, all 8". The 8" flex off the one side of the plenum connected to all 4 vents. Exactly the same for the other side of the house. It was like a game of connect the dots...in this case connect the vents. 8" from the plenum to a vent, then from that vent to another vent and from that vent to another vent...and so on. Even the 60 sq.ft. bathroom had a 8" vent on it !Craziest thing i have ever seen.

We're going Monday to fix everything so be ready for some pics !!