my dining room cold-air return vent connects to nothing! (floor, furnace, grille)
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Hi, all! As some of you know I have been planning a kitchen remodel for YEARS. Well, tomorrow the workers will be here to take down part of the wall between the kitchen and dining room (YAY!!!!!! ) so of course I have been moving everything out of the way. There's currently a cold-air return vent in the wall -- or at least I THOUGHT there was. In reality, as I just found out, there's a cold-air-return GRILLE but there's nothing behind it!
Some details: the current wall that's going to be modified is 4", then a 29" opening, then a 116" wall (149" total / 12'5"). It will become a 22" wall, then a 105" opening, then a 22" wall. The 22" walls will be framed with 2x6s since I will be installing between-stud shelves for spices etc. (then getting a door built from my cabinet manufacturer).
OK, so I was planning to have a sheet-metal person come in after the new 22" walls are built but not drywalled and connect a new 12x12 cold-air return to the (existing, I thought) ductwork. But there's no ductwork there.
So I guess my options are:
(1) Forget the cold-air return that I thought I had (incidentally, there's another larger one about 6-7 feet away in the first-floor front hall). Just drywall the short wall that the new return was going to go in.
(2) Leave room for a new 12x12 return at the bottom of the new 22" wall and, if heating appears problematic in this room this winter, have a sheet-metal person come in and install a new cold-air return.
(3) Copy what was done before: make an opening at the bottom of the new 22" wall and install a 12x12 grille there (this will be about 3 feet from where the former grille was), but don't attach it to anything. This seems crazy to me (a vent to nowhere!), BUT from my reading online (various sources), it looks like many older houses have return vents that aren't actually connected to anything in the basement below (my situation -- my house was built in 1960). They supposedly work because the cold air DOES return to the basement -- but to the furnace???
Thoughts? Advice? (Oh, I'll be updating my kitchen remodeling threads as the work progresses -- I can't even order my cabinets until the wall is out, which is why I am SOOOOOOOO excited about the work starting tomorrow!!)
Last edited by karen_in_nh_2012; 07-31-2018 at 04:47 PM..
Reason: correct grille to 12x12
Sometimes the wall cavity itself acts as the return, no "duct" required....but it would need to be continuous all the way back to the air handler....could this be the case ?
Sometimes the wall cavity itself acts as the return, no "duct" required....but it would need to be continuous all the way back to the air handler....could this be the case ?
That's what I THOUGHT I was reading online about older houses. Honestly, I don't see how it's open all the way to the furnace, partly because the previous owners added lovely ceiling tiles so they could call part of the basement "finished." So it's not even very open to the basement area right below it. The furnace is probably 25' away diagonally.
Note, there are a LOT of ducts up there so maybe there WAS a "real" cold-air return in the wall at some point? Hard to tell. Clearly it hasn't really been "functioning" as a cold-air return in the 6 years I've lived in the house, but I've never noticed a problem with heat in the dining room -- which is why I'm tempted to just leave space for a possible cold-air return in one of the new 22"-wide walls, but then just see how it goes this winter. Hmmm ...
You might want to consult with a HVAC professional. From what I've heard the whole house system needs to be "balanced", not correct wording. But vents and return air needs to be figured out correctly. Maybe the mystery vent is not needed after all.
Sometimes the wall cavity itself acts as the return, no "duct" required....but it would need to be continuous all the way back to the air handler....could this be the case ?
Ideally but it doesn't have to be. Doing something like this is more common on gravity systems or ones with distribution fan that do not have air intake designed for ducts, hot air flows up on one side of the building and the cold air flows down on the other side. It worked 100 years ago and still works today.
Running a duct to the vicinity of such system would be the next step, even powering it with fan inside the duct.
Of course if you have air intake that a duct can be connected to that's ideal.
OK, so I was planning to have a sheet-metal person come in after the new 22" walls are built but not drywalled and connect a new 12x12 cold-air return to the (existing, I thought) ductwork. But there's no ductwork there.
Karen this is an old house? If it doesn't go into the basement and you have second floor above it then it was likely put there as a return from the second floor for a stove that would of been coal or wood. It was all done by gravity years ago before forced air came into existence.
If there is grille in the upstairs room above the kitchen and this is on an inside wall you may want to consider how to utilize as it is. For example you have a pellet stove? If you have a way to get that heat into the upstairs it might be used as return for it.
Last edited by thecoalman; 08-01-2018 at 05:20 AM..
You might want to consult with a HVAC professional. From what I've heard the whole house system needs to be "balanced", not correct wording. But vents and return air needs to be figured out correctly. Maybe the mystery vent is not needed after all.
Given that it hasn't actually BEEN a return-air vent and heating seems to work just fine, it hasn't been needed so far! It's hard to tell because my main heat source for the past several years has been a pellet insert in my living room (across the hall from the dining room where the "vent to nowhere" is). I normally use oil heat (forced-hot-air furnace in the basement) only when the insert needs servicing OR when the temps are insanely low, as in single digits or NEGATIVE single digits for several days in a row, in which case the insert simply couldn't keep up. For reference, my first year in the house when the pellet insert hadn't yet been installed, I used about 800 gallons of oil; last year, I used maybe 250 gallons. The furnace is only a year old and has worked flawlessly so far, when I've needed it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rabrrita
Is there any other opening on the other side of that wall which would make this a pass through ventilation and not an actual cold air return duct?
The other side of the wall is the kitchen -- no venting there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman
... Running a duct to the vicinity of such system would be the next step, even powering it with fan inside the duct.
Of course if you have air intake that a duct can be connected to that's ideal.
When I have an HVAC person come, I will ask them about adding a duct in the left-side new 22" wall; I will leave space for it. (Actually, I'd planned on that from the start -- the new location is only about 3' away from where the old "vent" was!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman
Karen this is an old house? If it doesn't go into the basement and you have second floor above it then it was likely put there as a return from the second floor for a stove that would of been coal or wood. It was all done by gravity years ago before forced air came into existence.
If there is grille in the upstairs room above the kitchen and this is on an inside wall you may want to consider how to utilize as it is. For example you have a pellet stove? If you have a way to get that heat into the upstairs it might be used as return for it.
House built 1960, and there is a second floor. Perhaps oddly, there are NO cold-air return vents on the second floor. I always assumed it was because cold air falls so they weren't needed. Hmmm ...
House built 1960, and there is a second floor. Perhaps oddly, there are NO cold-air return vents on the second floor. I always assumed it was because cold air falls so they weren't needed. Hmmm ...
In any case, thanks for the replies!!
The purpose of the cold air return is to induce this by providing a path for the air. In it's most simplest form you have gravity system where hot air coming off something like hand fed coal stove is captured in a "bell" duct and fed into one side of the house. Exactly what you describe is on the other side of the house but it would have pathway to the basement.
This works because you have both hot air moving upwards and you also have the stove consuming air for combustion, that air needs to be made up from somewhere and if the cold air return provides the least path of resistance that is where it will come from.
To further improve on this as I mentioned above you can run a duct to the vicinity of the heating unit, common practice is to run it near the inlet for the combustion air.
That grille was likey for something, if the upstairs was renovated perhaps they simply removed it.
... That grille was likely for something, if the upstairs was renovated perhaps they simply removed it.
A-ha!! There was a huge addition done in the late 1970s -- downstairs, an extra living room and extra garage bay were added, and upstairs, 2 bedrooms + 1 full bathroom + a huge walk-in closet were added. To make a path to the 2 new bedrooms, the bedroom right above the dining room was modified -- i.e., it lost about 3 feet, which became a hallway to the back rooms/closet.
SO that "vent to nowhere" in the dining room probably was for something upstairs, except now it's a hall instead of a bedroom.
Mystery (probably) solved! Thanks, Coalman!
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