HVAC guy recommendations -- sound right?

[branv]

Since we built this house 7 years ago, one room has consistently been way hotter or way colder than the rest of the house. It has good sun exposure, but still cools down much worse than other rooms that have more sun exposure and which are much larger. We know the insulation and windows are good, the HVAC system itself is functioning well, which really leaves the duct work. So we finally got a ductwork guy out to look at things. What he said and showed me makes sense, but since I know practically nothing about this, I was hoping to get some opinion on what others think:

1) He noted that this room and the one next to it are branches off of another larger duct. While the other room doesn't have many problems, it has practically no direct sun exposure, is smaller, and it is much closer to the main duct so has a much shorter run. He recommends giving each of these rooms their own direct duct, as well as increasing the size of the duct and vent to the "hot room". Price $250.

2) Each room in this house is built with a return air vent. After I mentioned how stuffy that room seemed, he started checking out the return vents. He asked me to turn the system on, then took a tissue from our bathroom and put it up to the return vent to see if it was pulling air in...and the tissue just fell back down. He went again into the attic and noted that the return air vents for those two rooms, again, are routed and rerouted into multiple branches so it doesn't really pull much, if any, air. He recommended fixing this...another $250.

With the return air, I'm not entirely sure how important it is. We are a one-story, about 1800 sq. feet with a pretty open floorplan. These doors of the two rooms in question are literally like one and two foot from the large main return air for the house (a square hallway). The doors themselves have about a one inch clearance from the carpet. But holding a tissue below the door while closed definitely shows movement from inside the "hot room" into that hallways, and my hand can feel it's cooled a/c air. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing (i.e. the air is obviously getting circulated, but is that too much?).

Any thoughts...are his recommendations sound, and is the price good?

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

 

[rock_doctor]

The proper way would be to enlarge the run to those rooms and then reballance the dampeners though out the house to push more air down that trunk. The way i would do it is to swing by home depot and get a fan that mounts over the floor register and turn it on. It will pull the air though the duct. Probably will cost you ~$20 and see if it helps. I would not worry about the return ducts. The ones at the end of the run are not really doing anything unless the door is closed. The majority of the air going into the system will come from the closer return ducts. Honestly, i would try the fan first and if that does not work you can have that duct redone next year. I would also hang heavy curtains in the room with white backs. The white will reflect the sun back out the window and the heavy cloth will add some insulation to the window. We save a ton of money keeping the curtains closed when the heat or air is running. You would not think it is important but they really do add a descent amount of insulation to the windows.

 

[branv]

Thanks so much! My instinct said to not worry about the return issue (I think he was also coming from an energy efficiency stand point, but our house is already pretty efficient), so I think we will just bypass that.

Unfortunately the fan wouldn't work for us as the vent is in the ceiling (we're in Texas, on a slab, no basement). But I'm perfectly pleased with spending the $250 if it fixes that issue for once and for all...a ceiling fan hasn't helped at all, and since we're turning it into an office/den and we need that cool-down ASAP for the TV/computer Black-out curtains are definitely next on the list!

Thanks again!

 

[DVCTX]

I strongly recommend replacing your screens with whole window sunscreens. They still allow light in but greatly reduce your heat gain. You also can remove them in the winter to increase the solar warming.