Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - too many circulation vents?
Doityourself.com community forum was created to provide answers to all questions related to home improvement and home repair. Doityourself community can help you find information about how-to topics on small fixes to large remodeling projects. With comprehensive how-to content and expertly moderated community forums DoItYourself.com makes it easy to tackle even the most complex home improvement projects.View Full Version : too many circulation vents?
06-10-01, 12:03 AM
Growing up, our house didnt (and still doesnt)have central air or heat--fans in the summer, wood-burning stove in the winter. So, of course, i have no clue as to how those units actually work. Sure, I've lived in apartments and dorm rooms that have had central heating and cooling, but all i had to do then was flick a switch. But now, i'm a homeowner for the first time. Yay for me! :-) The house I bought last year has a circulation vent(my friends in the 'know' told me that's what they are) in every room, not to mention a huge one in the living room and the hallway. Why so many? And, are they all needed? Seems to me that i'm losing lots of heating and cooling...? Any wisdom to share?
MrRonFL
06-10-01, 12:50 AM
That depends on what your mean by "circulation vent".
If these are penetrations that interconnect the living spaces, they are so that the air can get out of rooms with closed doors so that the climate control gear can do it's thing.
It these are air registers, then that's the design. It's your heat/cool distribution system. At least one of them is the air return.
It it's something like penetrations into the attic, the house may have an attic fan system of some type (whether functional or not)
If these are penetrations that interconnect the living spaces, they are so that the air can get out of rooms with closed doors so that the climate control gear can do it's thing.
It these are air registers, then that's the design. It's your heat/cool distribution system. At least one of them is the air return.
It it's something like penetrations into the attic, the house may have an attic fan system of some type (whether functional or not)
06-10-01, 12:25 PM
Thanks Ron. I guitily admit i have no clue which type these are. But, i assume, what you are saying is: leave them alone; they do serve a purpose. Right? :-)
MrRonFL
06-10-01, 05:15 PM
It's easy enough to tell. If the system is running, or you put the fan switch on the thermostat to ON instead of AUTO, and air comes out of the vents, then they are the registers for your ductwork. The one that air goes into is the return, and you don't want to block it off or put a big piece of funiture in the way without leaving a good sized gap for air flow.
Do yourself a favor: Find out where the filter goes in your system, buy plenty of the proper size, and change them regularly (at least every 4-8 weeks; your usage patterns will determine the frequency).
Read some of the posts in this area. Learning about your system is invaluable to a homeowner. The service costs can get up there if you neglect the simple and cheap maintainance and understanding of how it basically works.
Do yourself a favor: Find out where the filter goes in your system, buy plenty of the proper size, and change them regularly (at least every 4-8 weeks; your usage patterns will determine the frequency).
Read some of the posts in this area. Learning about your system is invaluable to a homeowner. The service costs can get up there if you neglect the simple and cheap maintainance and understanding of how it basically works.
06-10-01, 10:23 PM
Hahahaha...okay, Ron. Sorry... I didnt mean to make myself sound THAT stupid. I do know the difference between the vent the air comes out of and the one the air goes into. I just wondered if there really did have to be so many of the circulation vents. There are two registers in each room and then the circulation vent. It just seems to me that the air which comes in hot/cold would simply flow right back out the circulation vents. Thanks for the advice about the changing of the filters. :-)
MrRonFL
06-11-01, 05:15 PM
It sounds like the previous owner may have habitually kept the interior doors closed, and the only way for the proper circulation to work was to have pass through vents in every room. The multiple register thing is something that I've seen in older houses where they had to use smaller ductwork to get the system retrofitted in without too much major reconstruction.
As counterintuitive as it seems, you actually want the air to exit the room back to the air handler as quickly as it comes in from the vents. Without the circulation, the system has to run longer to cool a given volume of air if it only had the 1/2 inch gap under every door to pass through. The pass through vents should be fairly high up so that the air leaving the room most readily is the hot air near the ceiling.
I hope I didn't sound like I thought you were a dunce. There are actually valid and not uncommon systems with both a supply and a return register in every room. It's more common in commercial set ups, but I've seen houses built by fanatics like me that actually go to the effort.
As counterintuitive as it seems, you actually want the air to exit the room back to the air handler as quickly as it comes in from the vents. Without the circulation, the system has to run longer to cool a given volume of air if it only had the 1/2 inch gap under every door to pass through. The pass through vents should be fairly high up so that the air leaving the room most readily is the hot air near the ceiling.
I hope I didn't sound like I thought you were a dunce. There are actually valid and not uncommon systems with both a supply and a return register in every room. It's more common in commercial set ups, but I've seen houses built by fanatics like me that actually go to the effort.
06-11-01, 09:29 PM
Well, Ron, the contractor who built my house must have, indeed, been a fanatic about air circulation....haha.. Thank you so much for responding to my question, and i will admit my eyes DID bug out when i read your definition of 'register' and 'circulation vent'...hahahaa...but i wasnt TOO offended. I did say that i didnt know much about heating and cooling units, and you didnt know if i were drooling or not when i typed that question..hahaha ;-) Thanks again! :-)