Cold room - weak duct/air flow?

[CJH]

Hi all,

Moved into a new house this past summer (new const/never been lived in). Now that its gotten cold out, we have noticed that our small bedroom that is our 19 months olds room, is colder than the rest. Its on the second story with one vent, and it seems like there is only a little warm air coming out of it versus the rest of the house/2nd story. Haven't been able to figure out which vents are on that run (to close and see if that makes a difference). It looks like the run goes horizontally under the floor, but there isn't another obvious vent opposite it or anything.

Any suggestions/help would be appreciated.

[bgmny]

CJH, two-story homes usually have dampers near your furnace that can be opened and closed. They look like a small handle that can be turned parallel to the duct(fully open) or perpendicular(fully closed). There should be a separate duct run to your second story as well as one for your main level. You can adjust these to force more air to certain areas of your home. Take off the register in the cold bedroom and look down there, there should be a round damper that can also be adjusted by hand. Make sure the one in the cold bedroom is fully open. You can adjust the other bedrooms by closing the dampers more, forcing more air into the cold bedroom. You would usually want the damper near the furnace for the upper level more closed in the winter because hot air will rise, but if your bedroom doors are shut you might want to open the damper to the upper level and close the one for the main level to see what works best. You'll have to just try moving the dampers to different positions and see what works for you. Your problem is common and I'm guessing nobody showed you any of this when you bought the house.

[Redlantern]

Probably already thought of it but is your cold air return blocked by furniture?

[MNice]

Sometimes, you are just screwed. bgmny is right, there should be dampers, but since 03-04 when we went to the international codes, the dampers in the register now meet the code requirement of a damper, so make sure that is wide open, there may not be another damper. If the room in question is the farthest from the furnace, you may just be out of luck. You may try to throttle back adjoining rooms to help equalize the temp. Good luck!! Here is the code section.

603.17 Registers, grilles and diffusers. Duct registers, grilles

and diffusers shall be installed in accordance with the manufacturer’s

installation instructions. Volume dampers or other

means of supply air adjustment shall be provided in the branch

ducts or at each individual duct register, grille or diffuser. Each

volume damper or other means of supply air adjustment used in

balancing shall be provided with access.

[furnace man]

Run your furnace fan full time and it might even out the temp. If it is really a problem then a guy could take up the carpet and have another vent installed. Maybe the takeoff is by a transition and it is not getting air we could add another and that would help. You just have to hire a carpet guy to restreach the carpet. Or just by electric oiled filled heater and turn it on when you child is sleeping.

[soldoncass]

cjh,

Tougher to figure out on 2 stories....but,if the basement isn't finished yet, you may be able to track it down. If you take register off/out of the floor, you can tell which way the pipe goes. If it goes horizontally, it may go to a center wall and through the studs down to the basement. There it connects to the main trunk line duct. If you can figure out which one feeds that room, you have a better chance of figuring out what you can do about it. Is calling the furnace installer out of the question? That would be the best, because he could give you clues on how it was done etc. Here are some problems I've seen : the 6" or oval pipe feeding that room was forgotten about and didn't get hooked up to the main trunk line (oops, insulation covered it up). Sometimes that pipe is just "the last one", on the trunk line and there isn't much warm air left when it gets to that one. Could be too many elbows in the line to get a good air flow. Some furnaces have different fan speeds they can be set at. They may be able to bump it up a notch, but if you need to figure it out yourself, try to track down which duct feeds that room, and where it connects to the trunk line. If that seems o.k. (hooked up, not obstructed,etc.), sometimes just closing some other registers some (balancing them), could give you more "flow" into that room. Good luck.

[pikechaser]

Something other things to mention...try not to use a restrictive furnace filter..alot of the pleated one really cut it down, and change it often. Another thing..has the furnace/ductwork ever been cleaned? Even if its a newer home..when the house is built there is so much [PoorWordUsage] that gets shoved down the ductwork....one way or another it gets back to the furnace. A dirty blower wheel & or A-coil will cut your airflow significantly. If all else fails speed up the blower, may need an HVAC guy to do that.

[Boxcar Wllie]

Run your furnace fan full time and it might even out the temp.

Just did this with our house. We run the fan when we are home and shut it off when we leave. It helps heat the house quicker and more evenly.