Cold Air Return Vents Up Or Down

Adjust return registers for summer.

Cold air return vents up or down.

Unlike supply vents return vents do not need to be cased in metal. I ll be sure to pick out a grate that has lots of open area. It is not the air vents that blow out the air. They can be placed into staircase cavities stacked closets that run one on top of the other or in stud cavities in the wall.

If you have an air return is on the upper wall i like to slant the louvers upwards so that floor traffic does not view into the duct opening. Some homes may not come with these kinds of vents so home owners may need to place a magnetic cover over the vent to prevent air from entering. The low vents stay closed in the summer and the high vents stay closed in the winter. So they meet up at the main line of the return duct in the crawlspace.

A popular misconception about vents is that by shutting some you can improve the efficiency of others. As cold air wants to go down it s heavier than warm air pointing it up will throw it further thus getting more cold work done. Because your body is in this path way you get the benefit of either hot air or cold air being drawn across your skin providing you comfort. Some systems have two sets of return vents one up high for warm air and one low to the floor for cool air.

The return air flow is one location in the house. There are several factors to consider. I hope all these people who say they don t know what that is have been opening that up and replacing the air filter in it around once a month or so. The supply vents should be in the floor and the cold air return grilles are high on wall.

If you could see the air come out of the floor registers you d see it be pulled across and up through the room. Since cold air is heavy it will automatically flow down to the lower register. You don t want fast you want efficient. That is the same with supply vents as well if you have adequate air flow and few cold or hot spots in the room from inadequate air flow or distribution.

In the summer you want the cold air to remain and the hot air to be drawn out through the return registers. Instead it sucks up the air and returns it down the ducts to the air vents to be blown out again. Our cold air return vents actually have a lever that allows us to open or close the vent depending on the time of the year. The return vent pulls cold air from the bottom of the room and returns it to the furnace to be reheated and returned as warm air.

It is a small lever that you can push up or down depending on what you want to do. The question was more directed at the fact that the return is returning warm air instead of cold air that it would suck up from closer to the floor.