Hot air heat question

[Junkman]

I will be having hardwood floors installed in a couple of months, and I started counting the number of 4" x 10" registers that are installed in the floor. I counted a total of 10 heating registers on the first floor, and there are two 10" x 10" cold air returns on the first floor. There is a glass wall that is warmed by 5 registers, and there is a sixth at the back door of that room. The two cold air returns are located in that room (28'x 17') also. There is a single register in both the laundry and the kitchen, and 2 in the dining room. The floor plan is all rooms are open to each other, and have large openings between the rooms. The living room which has the most registers has a cathedral ceiling, and the kitchen and dining room (4 registers total) have 8' ceilings, and are always warm rooms. The living room tends to be cold in the winter, and that is why they installed so many registers in that room. I was wondering if there are enough cold air returns for the number of registers, and if not, where would you put additional cold air returns?

 

[Milton Shaw]

The hot air is at the ceiling in the living room. You need some slow fans to bring the heat down to the space you occupy in the room. Some deflectors over the registers to keep the heat down would help also. (blowing into the room not up.) Ceiling fans will bring the heat down at even the lowest speed.

 

[buddyboy]

where is your thermostat located?

if it's in one of the rooms with low ceilings and it's aways warm in those rooms, what is happening is the furnace is shutting off before your high ceiling room comes up to temp.

try throttling down the registers in the warm rooms to force more air into the colder living room

ceiling fans are a good idea

as well has leaving your furnace fan on low all the time to circulate air even when furnace is not heating

i would not use deflectors on the supply registers, you want that warm air to blow across your 'wall of glass'

in my house i have 'high' and 'low' returns, they are in the same stud cavity in the wall, in the summer i close off the low one and open the high to **** hot air from up high and in the winter vice versa to **** cold near the floor, not sure if your returns are in the walls or the floor. if they are in the walls you should be able to add 'high' ones or even add another low one on the other side of the wall in the adjoining room

 

[csp]

Number of returns and registers is only part of the equation. The sizes of the ductwork also play a part.

Returns in only one of the rooms isn't helping.

 

[Junkman]

There are fans in the living room, and on the balcony above the living room. The thermostat is located in the living room, and there is another on the second floor bedroom. The furnace will not shut off unless both thermostats are satisfied. It was some type of Honeywell Thermostat system that was installed. If the winter, the fan runs continuously on a slow speed, and never shuts off. There are 2 10" square cold air returns on the inside wall. The ductwork was properly sized, and a second air conditioning company was called in, and they verified that the ductwork was more than adequate, when we had a cooling problem. That turned out to be that the contractor that installed the air conditioning had undersized the unit. They removed the unit, and installed a larger unit, and it cools the house properly. It is just the heat that is not working as well as we would like.

 

[Cantikmanis]

Hot air heat question
I agree so much....with this..Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.
Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level, then beat you with experience.

 

[Fixin'Stuff]

There is a glass wall that is warmed by 5 registers, and there is a sixth at the back door of that room. The two cold air returns are located in that room (28'x 17') also.

That glass wall is going to make the room feel colder. Glass is a poor insulator, even when double or triple pane. Is that wall in the living room that is cold? Pushing more heat to that room should help, as it has a much higher BTU loss than rooms with insulated walls.