Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - basement heat ducts

My basement is unfinished, however off of the main heating ducts there are two registers almost at ceiling height. There are no cold air returns in the basement. Is this normal? I was thinking of extending one of the ducts out a bit in hopes of distributing the heat in the basement a little better. Its basically a rectangular basement. Does this seem like it might work, or a futile effort?

is sufficient at current location, extending it a few feet will be fine. as for no return, you may not want to pull in damp musky odors from the space, as it will transmit throughout the house.

pw1972:

If your basement is too cold it may not be much help to extend the duct.
If your bsmt is unfinished it would be easy to add a couple of outlets.

If you want to try this yourself we can help.
You would need some basic tools, tin snips and be a little bit handy.

If you didn't want to do this it wouldn't cost too much to have it done.

I would appreciate the help.

I posted a rough layout of my basement and the existing ductwork at the following:

http://www.crewsystems.com/images/bsmnt.jpg

The red circles on the hot air are where the current vents are.

The ducts are about 7 feet off of the floor and there is about 9 feet to the next floor, with about 1 foot of that being the floor joists.

My furnace is a Lennox Merit Series 10ACC Units. Im having trouble locating where it tells me how many BTU's the furnace is. I'll post that once I find it.

Thank you.

Paul

pw1972:

Are your basement walls insulated?
Are the discharge grills right on the bottom of the duct and what size are they?

The grills are about 12"x5" and on the bottom of the ducts facing down to the ground. The walls are not insulated.

Paul

Paul:
The amount of air the basement needs will depend on the heating load.
Off hand I would say that you do not have a high enough volume of air to satisfy the heating requirements.

Looking at your drawing it would appear that two 6" ducts, at each end of the supply line and extending to the middle of the room may do the trick. You should be able to run them in the joist space.
The return could also be an issue. If the basement door were kept open you may have enough return air.
As hvac4u suggested it is not always desireable to have a RA in an undeveloped basement.

Having offered ductwork solutions, insulating your basement would go a long way to improving the climate in your house.

Ive read insulating will actually pay for itself in a couple of years. Thats sounding like a very good option for me at this point.

Thanks for all the help.

Paul