Covering Cold Air Return Ducts

How to modify cold air return ducts for efficient heating and cooling find and measure all openings.

Covering cold air return ducts.

Modify cold air duct sizes. Return ducts are located inside your. It draws cool air from all the rooms in your house that have a return vent and pumps hot air into these rooms through the heating vents. An air return vent is part of the hvac system.

If you cover the return vent in a particular room that room won t get as warm as the others. Unbalanced air flow can increase air leakage from outdoors as well as force. First building codes in many areas require that the cold air return line gets external insulation and therefore you will need to leave a gap for the insulation around the duct return line. You will not feel air being blown out of these vents as they are used to force out the cool air in the room to be reheated by the furnace.

A furnace is basically a recirculating air pump. Return vents are usually larger than heat registers and can generally be found close to the ground or in the floor in older homes or on a wall close to a ceiling in newer homes. Running a metal cold air return duct between studs requires knowledge of both hvac systems and the components involved in framing. First locate your system s return and supply ducts.