dbliss3593
03-31-2012, 01:48 PM
Ok Experts, here's a really tough situation:
I need to "waterproof" my basement AHU/ductwork as best I can. Any suggestions? Here are the details: I own an old stone farmhouse situated about 100 feet of a large creek that regularly floods into my basement. My HVAC guys installed a spacepak system for the 2nd & 3rd floors that runs very nicely; 1st floor is supplied by a separate low velocity system, ducts in the basement. Problem is the basement floods periodically, sometimes high enough to get into the HVAC systems. The air exchange unit in the basement was replaced in July 2011 from a flood the year before, and within a month Hurricane Irene damaged the new Trane 4TEC3F30B unit, as well as depositing a fine layer of dirt in all the plenums and steel ducts. The AHU sits on a pier about 5ft above the basement floor. Yup the creek water rose into the basement above even that point. Because we knew Irene was a-coming, we pulled the motor and circuit board, but the insulation around the interior of the unit was soaked. We've thought about removing the systems out of the basement altogether, but no alternative is as unnoticeable as the current setup. For example we considered a mini split system, but the inside unit mounted above a window that would be much more obvious than the current setup: 7 supply registers and 2 returns in the floor. We also considered extending the 2nd/3rd floor spacepak system to the 1st floor. As our old closets were tiny, new chases would need to be added, a more intrusive option. So at this point we've decided to just "harden" the basement systems as much as possible. So any suggestions for making the AHU and duct work easy to remove & clean would be a help.
I need to "waterproof" my basement AHU/ductwork as best I can. Any suggestions? Here are the details: I own an old stone farmhouse situated about 100 feet of a large creek that regularly floods into my basement. My HVAC guys installed a spacepak system for the 2nd & 3rd floors that runs very nicely; 1st floor is supplied by a separate low velocity system, ducts in the basement. Problem is the basement floods periodically, sometimes high enough to get into the HVAC systems. The air exchange unit in the basement was replaced in July 2011 from a flood the year before, and within a month Hurricane Irene damaged the new Trane 4TEC3F30B unit, as well as depositing a fine layer of dirt in all the plenums and steel ducts. The AHU sits on a pier about 5ft above the basement floor. Yup the creek water rose into the basement above even that point. Because we knew Irene was a-coming, we pulled the motor and circuit board, but the insulation around the interior of the unit was soaked. We've thought about removing the systems out of the basement altogether, but no alternative is as unnoticeable as the current setup. For example we considered a mini split system, but the inside unit mounted above a window that would be much more obvious than the current setup: 7 supply registers and 2 returns in the floor. We also considered extending the 2nd/3rd floor spacepak system to the 1st floor. As our old closets were tiny, new chases would need to be added, a more intrusive option. So at this point we've decided to just "harden" the basement systems as much as possible. So any suggestions for making the AHU and duct work easy to remove & clean would be a help.