Horizontal Furnace in Attic

Hey Guys/Gals,

Just wanted to get a sense of everyone’s opinion of a Mid-efficiency horizontal furnace installed into the attic space. The registers will be coming from the ceiling with the returns close to the baseboards.

Do you think there will be a lot of vibration from the furnace being installed into the attic, eventually causing some sort of damage? What about noise levels?

The house its being installed into is an 80 year old bungalow home with a crawlspace. The garage was taken down and converted into a master bedroom by previous owner so there isnt a way to get ducts for any registers to the Master unless you go through the attic space. Opinons? Anything I should tell my client to be worried about?

Thanks,

Anthony

Follow my thread it just started up should be some good answers about what you are talking about. We in Okla install in the attic all of the time with no major problems if properly installed.

Sounds like a pretty typical install.

Thanks guys. I’ll look through the thread.

Being in the north country, I would not put the supply in the ceiling. Hot air rises and if your design has too many registers, thus little “throw”, you’ll have cold feet and a hot head in the winter.

You don’t always have the option, but duct designs are for primary heating or cooling design. You can’t do both efficiently with one system design.

I see no major issues with your design though. The return pulls cold air off the floor and supply registers in the ceiling are not blocked by furniture.

All are points to consider.

Retrofitting a building has it’s limitations because your not building around the HVAC system, your building it in. Sometime you just have to do what you can do.

Attic installs of air handlers is pretty typical.

I do look for shock absorbers (usually plasctic/rubber pads under the unit) or I like to see them properly suspended from the rafters.

If neither one is in place, I report that there may be vibration issues.

Don’t forget to check for a secondary pan and water sensors in the secondary pan. If there are no water sensors, make sure the secondary pan is piped out to the soffit area.