Great Information on How to Solve Air Flow Problems in Your Home

Solving air flow problems in your home

Basic things that the homeowner can check to help air flow:

First and foremost, check your furnace filter to see if it is dirty and if so, remove the dirty filter and install a new furnace filter. Plugged furnace filters restrict air flow by creating a pressure drop. Next, walk around your house to see if any cold air returns have anything such as couches, rugs or cabinets obstructing the vent. If anything is obstructing the vent, then remove these obstructions so that the cold air return, which is an air intake, can draw in enough air. Last, but not least, walk around your home to check to see if all supply registers (heat vents that blows out air) are open. All supply registers should be open. A popular homeowner misnomar, is that by shutting off certain vents throughout the house will cause other vents to blow harder. This simply is not true, because CFM (a measurement of air flow, cubic feet per minute) is determined by the pipes diameter and only so much CFM can ever blow out due to the size of the round, regardless if other registers are shut off or not. Shutting down too many supply registers usually causes more harm than good by creating pressurization problems with the overall duct system, that in an extreme case can actually cause your furnace to short cycle on a high limit and hence increases the cost on your utility bill while working key HVAC components and parts to reduce their life expectancy. Never buy and install heat vent filters either, because these filters really cause pressurization problems too. If there is too much dust blowing out of the vents, then the best thing that you may consider is to have the HVAC system cleaned out thoroughly with the power vacuum/air sweep method in air duct cleaning by an ACCA (Air Conditioning Contractors of America) member company. An average price for a 1 furnace home would cost between $400. 00-$700. 00 to do the job correctly, depending on where you live in the country and depending on the service providers cost to operate.

Some solutions that an HVAC company or contractor may suggest:

Very often in older homes, air ducts are sized incorrectly due to building departments in the past not emphasizing the importance of properly sized air duct construction and the by the fact that the builder wanted to save a buck to construct his own ductwork rather than paying a heating and cooling professional to install the ductwork properly. In recent years, many building departments throughout the United States really have zeroed in on enforcing proper duct design, so in most newer homes indoor thermal comfort has improved drastically. Some of the things that your licensed HVAC company or contractor may suggest to you to drastically help your older homes air flow is as follows:

You see some of these bandaide jobs will cost just a few hundred dollars, while some solutions may cost a few thousand dollars, but in the end after the corrections are made, your utility bill will probably reduce a bunch and you’ll finally have true indoor comfort that you didn’t have before. Many HVAC companies and or contractors will give you more than one option to consider as well so that no matter what you decide on some sort of indoor air comfort solution will be achieved to atleast improve the comfort situation. The best thing that you can do as a homeowner is to select an ACCA member heating and air conditioning company or contractor to ensure that your comfort specialist has all of the latest and greatest training, tools and professional assistance to best serve you as a customer. In the long term you won’t regret it because you will save some money on the utility bill and you will be much more comfortable in your home as a result.

Article By: Mike Meincke

Managing Member

Lucky Duct, LLC

www. luckyduct. net