It's an electric heater unit. We were over there a while ago and mention this and they said they are aware of the situation. There is actually a return vent in the ceiling of the closet where this unit is located. He said removing the vent would help but he has an A/C guy coming to check it out since he agrees the unit is working way too hard right now. At least there is an acknowledgment of the issue - and hope for something to happen.

Poor home design. If this is the only HVAC system this house has the architect should be taken out to the back of the shed. Look at the floor plan where the master suite sets in comparison to where the HVAC system is at.

If the system is having trouble with getting the air it needs this spells disaster for that master suite.

House Location? How many thermostats and where are they located?

The only way to truly fix this is a complete redesign of the HVAC system.

They call it 'Central Heating and Air Conditioning' for very important reasons.

Modern forced air systems should have one large air return on each floor in a central location, and additional returns for each bedroom or other room where doors may be shut for privacy (separate office, etc.). This ensures good circulation of air throughout the entire house.

Bruce

Thanks - we've moved in now so I've had longer to evaluate.

FWIW the "one large air return" is in the same air-tight closet as the unit itself - so It seems like it's trying to suck air in, from itself only. The builder sealed the closet better so it doesn't whistle - however when it's running the door is being pulled closed hard with suction - meaning it takes a lot of effort to open it when the thing is running. On a fundamental level this just seems wrong, but I don't know - I'm no expert. When it shuts off it now makes pressure relief noises.... door resettling/relaxing.

It is wrong. The complete design of this home is pure crap. I wish you a lot of luck but I bet you start planning your sale of this home to some one else before it's all over with.

The air return should not be in the closet. It should be in the ceiling of the hallway between the bedrooms or in the ceiling/wall of the 'great room'. If it isn't there, the installation is incorrect. You will 'burn up' your HVAC system if you don't have it and you leave the doors closed.

So here's an update. They were finally just here to look at it (the original installation company) - they said it's designed to do this. The entire closet is a plenum according to them. He showed (using a piece of paper being sucked up on the grille) it pulls air from a return in the hallway ceiling when the HVAC door is closed, but when it's open, it stops pulling and the paper drops off. I couldn't argue with them - even though I told them every other house with the same floorplan around here doesn't do this. Maybe they are right, but it sure seems wrong.

I should add the filter is under the unit - which sits on an open metal frame stand.

There needs to be a filter on the unit.

"There needs to be a filter on the unit."

That's what this said - " the filter is under the unit" :-)

Placement of the unit can have a great influence on how well it will work. Back in the day when they introduced air conditioning into homes you know what they called it?

Central Heating and Air Conditioning.

Magic 8 ball: They didn't call it 'cram it into a closet heating and cooling'.

I'm having a hard time understanding/picturing your setup, Karyn. Can you post some pictures? Well, I mean, I guess I understand it, but it seems to be an unusual/old way of doing things.

1. HVAC unit in air tight closet in laundry room (door sucks closed HARD)

2. Return in same closet (I don't understand WHY it's in there when it gets no new air?)

3. Return in adjacent hall which pulls in when the closet door is closed - but loses draw when closet door is opened.

If you bent down and looked up under the air handler in the closet can you see the evaporator coil or is there sheet metal covering it?

Post some pictures that show the left hand side of the air handler if you can.

Also if you can --the back side of the air handler or back wall what does it look like? In other words if you go to the other side of the wall (in back) of where the Air Handler sits is there any duct work there?

How about replacing the airtight door with a louvered door?

Wow, that's a pretty lame setup.

What you said earlier is shown in the pictures. The two grilles share a floor joist space and they are using that and the furnace closet as the return plenum. So there is a huge pressure draw on the entire room and that is why you get noise at the door.

Completely wrong on all levels. If this was a gas appliance it would be a serious risk, luckily its electric. That is pretty much the only positive here. IMO there isnt anything ultimately wrong with using joist space for return, but trying to use the entire room as the return is not normal.

The only way you can get rid of the whistling noise is a proper return plenum installed directly to the unit (which would take the negative pressure off of the furnace room), OR install louvered doors for both the laundry room and the furnace room door. Second option doesnt make it "right" but it alleviates the symptoms (noise). First option might just move the noise to wherever they run the plenum to if they do not size it correctly.

To make this right, rooms require their own return for proper air flow. If you have the door closed to the room and you try to push air in there and there is no return, then you wont get air flow. You dont have a return in each room with this setup. This would have been a huge red flag if I walked through and requires extensive AND expensive ductwork redo. Easily would have asked for at least 20 grand off the house after getting some quotes for the redo.

A separate and probably more realistic option for your current situation, other than a complete redo of the ductwork, is to cut a space below the doors of your rooms to allow air flow.

If you have comfort issues in the house, you can probably attribute that to this installation, pretty sure if they did the return wrong, they did the supply wrong too.

Austin - left of, and behind the unit are flat wall - hallway and garage respectively as seen in the floorplan - no ducts going anywhere. The only duct - a single big duct, goes up. I've attached 2 more pics - view with no filter looking up from below the bottom of the unit - and the other one shows the one big duct going up.

Everyone else - FWIW everything is working just fine. There are returns in every bedroom and the back hall. They draw air when the HVAC closet door is closed. The original noises were fixed long ago by better sealing on the door, making it more air tight. Altering anything would void our builder's warranty. We were just trying to figure out if something was connected incorrectly as it still seems like the unit is working way too hard to draw air. But this seems to be how it's designed - to facilitate pulling air in from all the returns throughout the house as a big vacuum closet. Maybe it's a Florida thing.

If this were my house I would not accept it. I assume by now you have closed on the house. If that is the case then you need to get a code official to look at this. I can't see how this would pass final inspection.

Is this a 5 ton air handler? It is is that is a lot of air to move. Are the grilles connected with a duct? If so what is the size.

What is preventing connecting the air handler with a duct starting from the floor and connecting where the close ceiling grille is located? If that were installed then you would not have air trying to enter through the closet door.

How is the air flow in the master suite? I fear with the high ceiling and the long distance you are going to be uncomfortable on a 90+ degree day.

That little furnace room/return plenum is going to get FILTHY!!

Wow! I never would have guessed this. One can only imagine why the HVAC contractor did it this way. Typically this is how fur down unit would be installed. They install the fur down unit inside the plenum or return if you will. However, this unit is not a fur down unit. It could work, but noise will probably be a factor to some degree because it appears to me the return is not large enough.

So why did they do this? Maybe there were no better options? I noticed from the original post there is an optional tray ceilings. Do you have the tray ceilings?

If you do have the tray ceilings an attic install would be more difficult to put hvac in attic.

The closet where this sits is off to the far side of the home maybe for whatever reason there is not enough room to run a return back up thru the ceiling in this closet due to roof joists. Looking at the picture they put a small return grill in that closet off center. The contractor may have been forced to do it that way... no room equals no room. Architects really mess things up by not thinking.

It can work this way, but it's not ideal... because air is stupid. When that unit kicks on it will draw air from where ever it can. Thru cracks and crevices in that door leading out. It's common knowledge that doors leak.

If you put a louver on that door, then there is no filtered protection to that coil (unless they put a filter at the coil it's a poor way to do it. Plus then you create a wind tunnel, every time the unit kicks on there's this rush of air going to the laundry closet and on into the HVAC closet. What makes it even worse is the garage directly behind the unit. If there are cracks at the base of the wall / thru electrical plugs you have the potential of sucking carbon monoxide into the home if a vehicle is running. It would be prudent to check this.

The filter you show out in the hall is big, the one in the closet is small it is likely these two are connected... that is your return. Problem is the return in the room of the unit is in the shape of a funnel (goose neck) the system will never have enough air because of that. The contractor either messed up or the architect or a combination of the two.

Certainly they will tell you any alterations will void the warranty, because many in this business do not understand simple things let alone the more complex things like the design of your system. A year goes by pretty fast though, if you still have too much noise I would keep complaining. The noise tells you a problem exists, don't let them tell you otherwise.

Are there other homes which are the same model are yours were built in the past year or two? If there are I suggest you talk to the homeowners and ask to look at their HVAC closets. Ask them if their AC has been able to keep their house cool and dry.

Talk to the HVAC contractor and verify what how long is the parts warranty. This installation may cause the blower motor to wear out prematurely so you want to be prepared in case that happens.