Most of the large rooms in my house have more than one heating/air vent except for one on the southwest side of the house. This corner room has only one floor vent and the room gets quite warm in the summer and is cold in the winter. Would adding on to the existing ductwork to create a second vent be a viable option for making the room more comfortable?
"The amount of grills in a room and the size of them depends on the amount of CFM (cubic feet per minute) of air that each space needs to condition it," explains Ron Humphrey, residential operations manager with Middleton Heat and Air of Little Rock.
He explains that in order to make that determination, a computer program is run to determine how many Btu (British thermal units) are needed in each space.
Adding another duct is not always the answer, Humphrey says.
"Just because you're not getting air in the room doesn't necessarily mean you need another vent," he says.
Sometimes it could be because it has not been sized correctly but there could be other reasons.
"If there are dampers in there, there could be a problem with the dampers," he says, adding that the homeowner should make sure the vents (including the return vents) and dampers are open.
"It also may be that the air supply hasn't been balanced properly and we need to go back in with an air-flow measuring hood and rebalance the existing duct design," he says. Also, ductwork that has not been properly sized or installed could be the culprit.
Factors such as the room's location, number of windows, and amount of insulation also enter into the equation, Humphrey says.
"There are a lot of variables at play," he says. "Maybe it's a bedroom and it catches a lot of afternoon sun. Or maybe the ductwork is broken; it may have a gash in it or be disconnected or maybe the damper has closed up." Debris or an obstruction inside the system may be to blame.
Humphrey says that when
duct tape is used to hold sections of a system together, it will rot over time and there may be a lot of small leaks; sometimes the elbow of the ductwork will fall out and be lying on the ground with all of the cool air flowing out under instead of inside the house.
Humphrey suggests the first step in solving this problem is to have a professional visit the home and assess the situation.
"The best bet is to have a service technician come out to get an idea of what's going on and diagnose the problem," he says.
-- Linda S. Haymes
Do you have a decorating or remodeling question? We'll get you an answer from an authority. Send your question to Linda S. Haymes, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark. 72203 or email:
lhaymes@arkansasonline.com
HomeStyle on 08/08/2015