adding a basement return should help yes. it should be greater than or equal to the basement supply registers. if you don't have basement supply registers and your goal is to have it fully conditioned, add those also
once you have the basement return then you can set your thermostat to run in fan only mode on some schedule to get air mixing and average out the house. if you're lucky enough to have a multi speed air handler (didn't check your part #) some people will even run at the lowest speed 24/7 . 4 tons is a lot, yeah you had a manual j, but it's still a lot for just AC. is it a heat pump - maybe it was sized for heating? in the northeast a heat pump would normally be sized for heating and could be 2x bigger than it needs to be for cooling so you won't get much air mixing in the summer without a way to run fan only
a more extreme measure is to install a dedicated "anti stack" duct to take air from the highest practical point in the house and blow it to the lowest point (separate from your regular ductwork), plus some kind of return transfer grille. you can run this with an efficient fan 24/7 so it could only take a few tens of watts. it would be like a supercharged version of running the overall system as fan only, it can counteract your stratification directly
once you have the basement return then you can set your thermostat to run in fan only mode on some schedule to get air mixing and average out the house. if you're lucky enough to have a multi speed air handler (didn't check your part #) some people will even run at the lowest speed 24/7 . 4 tons is a lot, yeah you had a manual j, but it's still a lot for just AC. is it a heat pump - maybe it was sized for heating? in the northeast a heat pump would normally be sized for heating and could be 2x bigger than it needs to be for cooling so you won't get much air mixing in the summer without a way to run fan only
a more extreme measure is to install a dedicated "anti stack" duct to take air from the highest practical point in the house and blow it to the lowest point (separate from your regular ductwork), plus some kind of return transfer grille. you can run this with an efficient fan 24/7 so it could only take a few tens of watts. it would be like a supercharged version of running the overall system as fan only, it can counteract your stratification directly
Statistics: Posted by z0r — Mon Jun 03, 2024 1:43 am — Replies 11 — Views 594