Air returns for a small space?

[mpire]

One of the guys I talk to suggested adding a return to the bedrooms so the hot air could get out of the room in the event that the door was closed.

So I am looking to put a small vent in the bedrooms and hop over the wall and dump it into the common area where the intake grill is for the AC system.

Do they make special grates for this? I know that one house I visited had flaps on the return that you could hear closing when you closed the door too fast and it released the pressure.

The vents are 14x8, but I was only going to stick in some small 6x6 or so grates with some leftover 8" vent hose that I have laying around.

The AC is brand new, the ducting is all new, its got more pressure than before, it cools just fine, but there are no doors yet.

What do you think?

 

[nadogail]

Talk it over with your HVAC Pro.

 

[larry_g]

Your vent hopping over the door into the hallway is exactly what my house has. A couple of the interior doors also have a louvered grate in the bottom half to allow cold air to return to the furnace. I ASSUME that mine are just regular registers connected by ducting.

https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/easy-retrofit-return-air-bedrooms

lg
no neat sig line

 

[larry4406]

In our new construction homes, we used to just rely on having proper undercut (gap) at the bottom of door (typically 1/2-3/4" to the floor). The video that is the link from Post 3 shows the carpet is tight to the door which is the big problem that proper undercut would greatly assist. I would first check your undercut. If the undercut is too small, you can actually feel the pressure trying to close the door when its close to the latch position.

With Code changes and adoption of Energy Star, we now provide transfer grilles at all bedrooms that do not have a return. We also provide them at the laundry room.

The transfer grilles are centered on the wall above the door (L/R and vertically). There are grilles (with fixed louvers) on both sides of the wall and we install them with the louvers pointing upwards to the ceiling to minimize light bleeding thru.

I do not like the idea of having a grille on the ceiling connected to a duct that goes into an unconditioned attic and then down to the ceiling of the adjacent room. Not sure how the OP is planning on "hopping over the wall"

 

[Jackfre]

Tamarack Technology make wall pass throughs that have off-set baffles to minimize sound and light.