In their home these poor people have a single return box that has a filter on one side to the front hall and on the other side to the master bedroom. So basically if the filters are clean you can almost see through to the bedroom and certainly can hear. Not a lot of privacy when you consider the other side is the front hall and living room area!
The installer probably thought that their children must learn something about adult life in the comfort of their own home and save on the books and porno!

The installer in this case was using nails for hangers and as a result this duct dropped down without warning! I also used nails before, but from now on switched to the 1” – ¾” zip screws.

In the other two pics you can see how the same installer prepared a cold air duct for installation, this method is wrong. The sides that he folded up must be folded down, only then it would provide a full contact to the joists.

God forbid me to say that all electricians are idiots... But some of them are. Some of them run the wires right above the place where the ductwork should be suspended, the others run them right below the openings in the floor where register boots should be installed!

However this electrician beat them all! It just wasn't enough for him to run the wire through the PVC pipe intended for the furnace exhaust, he even pull it trough and coil it up. Who knows what this idiot was smoking...

Amana Distinction maybe a good furnace, but look at its bottom panel. They perforated it in order it would be easier to remove part of it. However this kind of innovation completely defeated use of filters because the dust is infiltrating through the gaps anyway.

Also, on the same furnace you can see very shameful venting pipes installation!
The installer should be installing this furnace temporarily, but he ran both pipes - exhaust and intake, glue them all, glue the exhaust pipe to the furnace, made 2" PVC pipes too long and these 3" elbows on the intake wouldn't allow a cold air duct installation.

Unfortunately, my company has to keep these kinds of idiots on the payroll because nobody want to work as an HVAC installer anymore...

I believe it was 2012 or beginning of 2013 when this HVAC Company - Quality Heating & Cooling Inc. was looking for help. So I applied, passed the interview and they never call me back! Why? Well, probably because I haven't meet their extremely high quality standards! Now, few years later, let's take a look on how this "quality" oriented company doing the simplest basement and rough-in installations:

In the pictures above you can see the combustion air intake. With insulation exposed and pipe unprotected doesn't it looks like shit?

For the house larger than 2000 square feet they installed the smallest furnace and A/C possible! Of course this way they are saving some high quality US dollars, but in the very cold/hot weather this kind of equipment will never stop...

I don't know maybe it's a plumber made this huge hole in the thermo-pan, but I doubt it. Usually when you are doing basement part of installation pluming rough-in is already done...

With all of my 32+ years of experience I even don't know how this cold air boot was connected to the filter casing and why it was made this shape??? So, if you are the owner of this house never let your children play in this basement without steel toes boots. Just look at this cold air boot corner it seems pretty dangerous to me...

I don't know why this installer run these PVC pipes below the duct, maybe he just broke his stepladder and couldn't reach any higher. But what I know for sure that in this competition for the worse installer he earned only second place.  

The first place prize definitely belongs to the installation above!

My god. The airflow must suck in that house not to mention it's crooked on what looks like cinder blocks. The return looks like it's half way up the furnace and the filter is just hilarious. ....professionalism at its best.

So they got done with the job and stood back and looked at that pile and said to themselves that's a good job. Is there no shame.

This job has "replaced by home warranty" written all over it! They've got so much extra steel on the existing ductwork they could've fabricated a transition right there. I can only hope the homeowner lets someone put a nice cased coil on top with transition and new return. From the looks of it, the old ductwork should probably be redone. That's something I've rarely ever seen included in a quote up north... New ductwork for properly layout airflow distribution. Everyone always just puts a transition up to the existing stuff. I'm sure it'd be a night and day difference in that house with new ductwork.

The best comments:

The flextopus has procreated and it's offspring are growing nicely. This one is approaching adolescents as you can tell by the molting of unnecessary supply runs. Once adulthood is reached the return will reach its full size of 10" flex which can handle up to 4 ton of air at roughly 2.5" w.c.

Truly fascinating the life cycle and span of these creatures are.

He probably just didn't know that you could cut the flex.

You all so negative that pink glowey tree is awesome as is vent in return!!! Where the hell do you even find flex duct like that? Don't touch the awesomeness, it will fall apart at your unworthy touch!

Those poor remaining lines look like they're hanging on for dear life...

If you would like to learn how this kind of installation should be done the right way purchase the chapter from my Ductwork Installation Guide e-book below.

43. Installation of Heat Runs – the chapter covers the heat runs installation in the basement and deals only with all possible cases of the “straight shot”.
The chapter has 126 picture; 70 pages*. $3.41 (Instant Access).

If you would go to Hart & Cooley website you can find these funny words:

"About Us

For over a century, Hart & Cooley has been a leader in the HVAC industry ("Leader" - this is an interesting observation, maybe they are thinking that the others even worse!), offering an extensive product portfolio of grilles, registers and diffusers, flexible air duct, type-b gas vent, all-fuel chimney and chimney liners.

This is one end of the flex, so you can't just install it without cutting insulation and/or inner sleeve out.

Every product is precision engineered (just look at the pictures and you'll understand what in their interpretation a precision engineering is!) and tested to the most rigorous standards to ensure we provide you with only the best (If this is "the best" then what is the worst?).

Our strong reputation for performance-focused product solutions and passion for excellence makes our products the contractors’ preferred choice for every job (Well, the preferred choice probably is low prices, but other than that not much "passion for  excellence" here).

Polyethylene Jacket Air Ducts

These feature a durable (it doesn't durable at all: any smallest nail, staple or even a wood splinter would make huge holes in it), scuff-resistant black polyethylene vapor barrier that provides improved protection against damaging ultra-violet light ( Just curious: how much ultra-violet you can find in the basements, crawl spaces or attics?). Installation is made easy with the reinforcing fiberglass yarn scrim which acts as a rip-stop and helps prevent tearing (Quite the opposite: if you need to cut a piece of flex it makes much more difficult to do, the threads always sticking out or falling out, once you make a hole those threads become loose!) 

If you think that the other end is much better - think again!

Follow-up:

On 05/03/2016 four men visited my job-site!

One is working for my company and the other three are manufacturing and distributing this crap around the state and beyond. They asked me a lot of questions and promised to improve quality of this product in the near future. Once they do I’ll post images of it here on this page below.   

Guess what, this furnace was installed temporarily!

The problem with installation – the PVC pipe intended for an exhaust is connected to the intake!??

But nothing happened! The furnace was running nonstop for several days and drywallers survived. Someone would expect carbon monoxide poisoning, but allegedly this new furnace didn’t produce enough to kill.  

Flue piping at its finest!

Friend of mine local here in the industry texted me this picture from a home he just visited. Homeowners brought in someone to finish there basement and apparently he needed to move the main flue stack. My buddy is assuming that 5ft sticks of main vent pipe is all this contractor must have believed existed, so the main stack drops much lower than the equipment, and he made up the rest from there. Classic case of you gets what you pay for. Homeowner was assured that it may look ugly now BUT once enclosed in the finished closet it will all be out of sight and out of mind! Luckily homeowner went with Jiminy Cricket yelling in their ears and called an HVAC tech for a second opinion! And here is that photo.

From the picture, it looks as though the B-vent piping off of the furnace is decreasing in size but it is all the same, just an illusion.