Temperature Control
 

In my house we have vaulted ceiling in the living room and can't keep the heat from going all the way up without turning the ceiling fan on, and when you turn it on it pushes the heat down but then it immediately gets cold because of the moving air even on low. What can I do about this? My second question will be about the garage. We had half of it converted to a bedroom, the wall is insulated the attic was insulated directly above the room, and the floor has padding insulation and carpet. Yet despite all our efforts it still gets hot/cold as hell depend upon season. We installed one vent to the room splitting off another to push heat/ac into the room, but it barely pushes any air. What should be done???

The biggest reasons that airflow is low through ducts are:

1. a duct has come loose and the air is blowing in the crawlspace or into the attic

2. the duct is undersized

3. there is a bend in the ductwork that causes the air to change direction 180 degrees and slows way down taking the path of least resistance to another room.

4. There is no return duct so that room gets pressurized when the door is closed and then no more air can enter.

In cases 2 and 3 you can try to close down the registers in other rooms to try to create more back pressure and improve flow to that room.

Case #4- leave the door open and see it that helps

Living room- reverse the fan motor (there is a switch on it) so it blows the heat upwards, the warmer air will then be pushed down the walls and it won't seem as breezy and chilly.

We had a similar situation in our master bedroom where there were a total of three vents serving the room, but with the carpet under the door, there was less than an inch of return underneath the door. I alleviated the problem by installing an additional vertical offset air return through the wall.

If return venting is what you need, there are essentially 4 different methods that I know of to do it, but I'm not an HVAC tech and your mileage may vary:

1) Ceiling return in this case, providing a vent in the ceiling ducted back into the main airspace or directly into the HVAC return ducting.

2) Vertical offset wall return. This involves using the wall cavity as a duct, placing one vent high on one side, and low on the other. This provides an extra sound and light barrier between rooms.

3) Straight thru wall or door return. No ducting, just vents on opposite sides of the wall. And probably the most half-assed way you can do it.

4) Under the door venting. An air gap of just an inch or so is adequate for most smaller rooms and would probably be enough for a single vent fed room.

It's sad, but I tried asking about this stuff on a professional HVAC tech forum, and they took the smug attitude of not helping at all and suggesting that only a professional could possibly fix my problem. Apparently they are afraid people will figure out how air flows or something. Anyway, that's my little ***** about that. :P