Had an interesting find yesterday I removed the furnace filter from the return air intake in the ceiling and noticed condensation and mold in the return intake. And before anyone criticizes me no I don’t use the four letter word “mold” in my reports. This was a 1000 SQ FT. condo and the furnace had an input rating of 90,000 BTU per hour and an output rating of 71,000 BTU. The cooling capacity according to the data plate is about 4 tons both which in my opinion are grossly oversized. This was a package unit installed on the roof and was manufactured and installed around 2009. I am located in a climate ( East Bay Area CA), that mold does not generally thrive in, although of course I run into mold issues from time to time.
My main question is has anyone ran into this type of thing. I am of course recommending a HVAC inspection as well as a environmental "mold’ specialist.
Heat loss & heat gain is a lot different for a commercial property. Be careful stating that the unit is oversized unless you did load calculations on the space and occupancy.
That’s exactly how I would handle it. Call what I see and recommend corrections.
And although the inspector in us wants to figure out what the problem is cause by, sometimes there may be one or a combination of explanations for the high moisture content such as lot’s of cooking, running indoor humidifiers, taking really long and hot showers, etc., you can drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out.
1 Like
rcloyd
(Russell Cloyd, KY LIC #166164, IN LIC#HI02300068)
8
Yes, I have run into this type of thing before and my recommendations were the same as yours. Good find on your part.
Yes I stopped trying to figure out the “why’s many years ago. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try for my own knowledge and future similar finds, so I can make better and more accurate assessments and recommendations.
