so can I build a box front for my furnace? it's so bloody noisy

[NMDemDist2]

especially to guests when I have them. I know we'll need to add some air flow but how much do ya think?

we're thinking of building a frame with some mesh sections to cover it up and deaden the sound

it's gas fired (but we don't usually have the pilot on and hope this winter not to run it hardly at all with the new econoheaters we're adding to each room) but it is the fan system for the A/C also and the A/C runs often during the day

here's a pic, whadda ya think?

[Warpy]

1. You might try had a hollow core door

with a mesh screen in the bottom. It will still be pretty noisy (fan noise), but it should be tolerable. It's important to keep that mesh in the door because the air intake is those bottom vents. The whole botton half of the door should be bascially open. A louver door might be another option to baffle some of the noise. Check fire laws to make sure you can do it.

I slept in one of those back bedrooms when I had company, gave them my much nicer room while I took a single futon next to a drafting table, and didn't find the furnace disturbing my sleep when I had the door closed.

[NMDemDist2]

2. don't think I can frame in a door there. I'd have to build a box i think

that will stand a couple inches out from the wall there :shrug:

[Warpy]

3. Check out the fire laws

I vaguely remember that mine had the hollow core door with the mesh screen on the bottom. In the meantime, take the grills off and change the filter and oil the motor while you've got it apart. That might help.

I'd go for the louver door, though. It will look spiffy and allow the most air circulation.

[NMDemDist2]

4. click-- the louver door thing just clicked

I have had the front off already and cleaned the filters but they prolly need it again after all this construction dust

if it stops raining long enough to get them dry that is.....

[Stinky The Clown]

5. I'd be REEEEEEELY careful about that ........

It isn't nice to fool Mother Gas Furnace. No air, she kill you. No air, she burn up, mebbee. No air she no work right.

That louver is also you AC return. Muck up the air flow and you'll cut the AC efficiency significantly.

Given that its for a mobile and not a stick built house, I'd also have to think it is specifically engineered for that purpose and location.

Check with an expert on this one.

[NMDemDist2]

6. yeah, Mr K says we need to go talk to the mobil home dealer

a bi fold louver door would sure be nice down there though......

[TygrBright]

8. Ohyeh.... and if it's noisy...

...there might be something wrong with it, OR, it might be so old it is costing you money you do not need to spend.

I agree with H2S, do NOT block or impede airflow in any way on a gas furnace!

That said, if it's noisy it will pay you to have it seriously evaluated by an HVAC pro who knows MH technology. There have been many advances in HVAC technology for "manufactured homes" in the last 10 years and it's possible that an investment in a newer system could pay for itself in a couple of years with lowered bills. Not to mention quieter operations.

If it's an efficient system that just happens to operate noisily, ask the pro about the following:

1. Raising it off the floor with hard rubber mounts, and moving it sufficiently out from walls/cabinetry to minimize vibration-- often a noise source.

2. "Wrapping" the non-louvered bits in a good insulation wrap to (again) minimize vibration and to absorb fan motor noise.

3. Replacing the louvered bits with "quiet" grid, which might reduce any noise produced by the air circulation across the louver vanes.

It will really help if you can figure out whether the noise is primarily due to a noisy fan motor, (can be replaced with a quieter one?) vibration (can be reduced?) or airflow across the vanes (not much you can do unless you can replace the vanes with grid.

But do have a pro check it out, this is one area where the risk/benefit analysis is all on the "pro" side.

concernedly,
Bright

[NMDemDist2]

9. GMTA (Great Minds Think Alike)

I have a HVAC guy coming today to look at it

they added an outside A/C unit last year and I don't like that there are exposed wires hanging out of the wall :(

I did find the original paper work and they can have a louvered door in front if mounted correctly. I'll get the guy to tell me about it when he's checking everything out

[Grateful for Hope]

11. Let us know what he says! n/t

[NMDemDist2]

12. he says it's fine as long as it's a louver door

and we found the furnance paperwork and it says we can too

[Grateful for Hope]

13. Good news! n/t

[politicat]

7. No. Get it checked out.

Noise usually means that something is wrong. I seem to recall that it's not very old, and if it's noisy, then there's likely something not running right - a fan out of alignment, a worn belt, something.

But blocking the airflow is a really, really, really good way to a) raise your energy bills (the machine will require more energy to pull the air through the system) b) start a fire (dust WILL collect in the frame) and c) get yourselves turfed out if you ever do need an inspector to come (for things like a gas leak). So I would not recommend it at all.

Our furnace had a hollow core door with louvered plates over big holes cut in the door, but I remember the twice-annual march of the dustbunnies quite well. That frazzle-snazzle-ratsmacking door had to be taken apart twice a year, taken outside and hosed off because weekly dustings did not keep it clean enough.

[NMDemDist2]

10. i've got a guy coming today. n/t

[NMDemDist2]

14. We hung a door with a 20x20 vent in it

the manf. called for 235 square inches of air flow in a door 6" from the front of the furnance. we had a little more wiggle room because the area above the unit was all open too

so we got a 24" prehung door and used the frame as the 6" area. DH put 1x2" boards on the back of the frame to attach to the studs and we used left over floor planks to finish it off

we painted it white today and it works great! It's quieter and instead of having to pull off the whole front of the furnance every month, we can just change the filter unit in the vent with out opening the door. We'll still need to clean the furnance every 90-120 days but the monthly maintenence is a lot easier with this.

we had mismatched door handles on the french doors into the master bath and found some nice handle style on sale at Home Depot last week, so I had a nice door handle left over and that completed the door with nice hardware too

total cost of job less than $90

[Longhorn]

15. It looks great!

Does it look like it will work in cutting down the noise?

[NMDemDist2]

16. it works great! we hung the door a few days ago. we just painted it

today

[TygrBright]

17. Applause, applause!!

Yer an inspiration to us all... a neat, quick, inexpensive fix to an annoying problem. Would they were all so simple, or I was so capable.

wishfully,
Bright

[NMDemDist2]

18. I tell ya Bright, start watching HGTV and buy a couple tools and

start TRYING! that's how we did it and it's amazing what watching TV and looking stuff up on the internets will teach you.

then after you do a couple things the next one is easier and the next one is easier still

that's not to say there won't be some tough ones or ones that don't come out quite as expected but it's great being able to stand back and "oooh & ahhh" something that you did that day

it's really more a matter of patience and taking your time than anything else I swear!

[TygrBright]

19. Yup. It's that "patience" thing...

...where I hang up. I don't have the patience to learn and practice. I just want it to GET DONE.

regretfully,
Bright

[NMDemDist2]

20. OK then

glad the handyguy is coming then

we figure it always comes down to our time or our $$

and there's been lots of times we had no $$$ so we had that the Mother of Necessity to train us

:hug:

[Longhorn]

21. You have to have patience with the "handyguy", too,

when he happens to also live here! I've been living with patches of ugly green primer paint on my bedroom wall since last November. I've got a sliding glass door on the second floor that goes to nowhere (or one heck of a first step!) since he took down the second-story deck that was falling apart. That was at least five years ago. His shop, that he built three years ago, still doesn't have siding and the tar paper is falling off!

Things do get done and when they do, it's beautiful, but "the plumber definitely has leaky pipes" at my house! :D

[Warpy]

22. That looks very much like the arrangement I had in my old trailer

I always wanted to replace it with a wood louvered door, but it wouldn't have been quite as quiet.

My door was one of those cheesy hollow core doors, ugly but it did the job.

[NMDemDist2]

25. this is a hollow core door too, but cuts the sound well. see my

post to hope for some other benefits

back to finishing up the paint and cleaning in the guest room

pics soon

[Grateful for Hope]

23. It looks wonderful!

Took me a while to understand what you did, but, I finally figured out that the you used the door frame to hang the door the required six inches from the furnace. I assume that the door did not come with the grate in it...that you had to add this?

What a wonderful, aesthetically-pleasing solution to the noise!

[NMDemDist2]

24. right! it was just a hollow core door, i got the grate/vent at the

sheetmetal shop (the Home Improvement store had really cheap 16x8 ones but we'd still have the filter in the furnace and we'd have to put in three of them)

the sheetmetal shop vent was half the cost of the project but will be a lot better and easier to deal with for the long haul. and unlike the non standard mobile home furnace filter, this one uses a standard size filter which will work better and be cheaper to buy in bulk


it's a little awkward the way it sits in the hall but we had the room and it's TONS better than the ugly noisy furnace

[Grateful for Hope]

26. It's only out six inches, and it looks fine from the pics

Plus, I suspect that that end of your home does not get as much traffic as the other end and center.

BTW, am going to NY tomorrow to spend time with my kids and to look at homes. NY is SOOO expensive that I may be looking at a 14x70 or a condo. Do you know anyone who has lived in a 14x70, and what that was like for them?

[NMDemDist2]

27. mine is 18x80 so it's not much bigger

it all depends on how it's laid out

have fun! :hi:

[Grateful for Hope]

28. Thank you, NMDemDist2! n/t

[Grateful for Hope]

29. I wondered if you could take a look at this

The third mh on this page is one I will be looking at. It is in a park (mh's on land are very few and far between). The lot rent is $620, so, I am going to tell the agent that the home is definitely overpriced. However. my daughter went to look at it, and she says that is is just beautiful inside. Also, she said that the land is so private that it backs against woods, and, you can see the Hudson River also. It also nearly walking distance from where she lives.


Anyway, here is the link: http://century21grand.com/homesrch.htm?scope=OFFICE&action=Search&hometypes%5B%5D=10

Thanks!!

[NMDemDist2]

30. that looks nice! with the new windows and the park setting it sounds

like it might be perfect for you

that year of mobile there are two things to check out though, grey pipe plumbing and aluminum wiring (both are possible problems)

it looks like the owners have done most of your upgrades for you though!

the price isn't bad, esp. if it was made for the NE. be sure to check the specs on the home and insure it was made for that area and wasn't moved up from FL or TX. the spec sheet should be inside the kitchen cabinet door or utility room-- somewhere anyway. It should be rated for the weight of snow on the roof and have insulation to hold up to the NY winters.

Good luck!

[Grateful for Hope]

33. Thanks for the pointers!

It's a Polaron...am thinking this might mean it is a northern mh. But, I am not going to take any chances. I will have my sons with me when I look at it (and several others), so, I am going to tell them about the grey pipe plumbing and the aluminum wiring.

Am off to NY now!!

[Longhorn]

31. We lived in a 14x70 mobile home about 27 years ago.

It wasn't finished out as nicely as the one you're looking at but it was plenty big enough. It was a three bedroom but my husband took out the wall between the smaller bedroom and the living room to make the living room bigger. Our oldest daughter was born when we lived there and even though she slept on the other end from us, it still wasn't a problem. Each room ended up being the full width of the bulding with the only hallway adjacent to the utility room between our bedroom and the kitchen. It was a very nice, workable layout.

Good luck! :hi:

[Grateful for Hope]

32. Thank you Longhorn!

I am looking forward to viewing this one and other's on my list. I do know that pics never do rooms justice, so, I am hoping that the space will feel plenty large enough!