Air ducts and vents are part of a building’s heating, aeration, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. If your indoor air handler is the heart of the system, the supply channels are the arteries and the return ducts are the veins. Remember, arteries carry blood from the heart to the body while veins carry blood from the body back to the heart.
An appropriately functioning HVAC system is important to a contented home. While many people know how to function their AC system, very few people know how it works. Your AC’s return air vent is a serious constituent of an HVAC system and attends several purposes. Not only do return air vents uphold your home’s air pressure and filter out the wreckage. They can also attend to save you on energy costs and expenses, which is important here in hot and humid Gainesville, Fla.
What is a Return Air Vent?
An air conditioner works by engrossing the warm air and dampness of your home. Once the humidity is separated from the air, your AC unit cools the warm air and sends it back into your home through the return air vents.
Despite their name, it’s also through these openings that the air conditioner takes in air. So, in a nutshell, it reprocesses air from each room in your home. Warm air travels through a detailed set of ducts (called a supply duct), and once cooled down, it travels back to the openings through another set of ducts (called a return duct).
Return air vent installation
A return air expelling system can be installed in one of two ways: either every room with a source register will also have a reappearance air opening, or there can be centrally located return vents on each floor of your home.
For a few dissimilar reasons, it’s better to have a return air outlet in every room than it is to have a centrally situated return vent system. For one, more air apertures make it calmer to realize neutral pressure in your home. You want the air output of your HVAC system (restrained in cubic feet per minute) to be equal to the quantity of air that is sent back through your return vents. This can be much more easily achieved when return air openings are near a room’s supply registers.
Cooling your home is also more effective and operative with air return openings in every room because it permits easy airflow to and from your cooling system.
Return air vent maintenance
There are a couple of things you can do to guarantee that your air return outlets are working correctly. First, you want to clean them occasionally because dirt and wreckage can easily collect on the return grating as it leaves a room. That dirt will shape up on your air filter, which will border your unit’s airflow.
It’s also significant to make sure air can flow spontaneously through your return air vents. Make sure that your return lattices are away from any large furniture or other obstacles that could block airflow.
3 Ways AC Return Air Vents Benefit Your Home
Maintaining Air Pressure
An HVAC system is essentially a recirculating pump that works by heating or cooling air and then impelling it into a home. As conditioned air is pushed in, the air previously in the home needs a place to discharge. Return air outlets attend to this determination by helping to pull in the air and tapping it back into the system. This is what upholds appropriate air pressure in a home.
- Maintain Air Quality Filtering Out Debris
- Saves on Energy Bill
Importance of Proper AC Return Vents
When air return apertures are not working appropriately, the entire HVAC system suffers. Blocked apertures can hinder airflow and cause the system to run incompetently. Also, unsuitably placed openings can affect how a building preserves its temperature.
In the infographic to the right, you can see that leakages in return apertures are a common duct problem. Not only will this matter make your home less contented, but you will likely notice a growth in your monthly energy bill costs.
Can I Block or Cover the Return Air Vent if it makes a Room Too Cold?
Ok. So now that we’ve gone over the fundamentals, let’s discuss a common question concerning apertures: Should you ever close or block these vents?
Whether you’re irritated to cool the rest of the home faster by blocking vents in untenanted rooms, or shutting them simply because you feel like the room is too cold, remember the lesson in pressure stated above. When you close a system’s escapes, you’re changing the air pressure. Your AC doesn’t have an instrument that tells it the exhausts are closed. Therefore, it’ll keep sending the same amount of air that way.
The additional force inside your ducts will probably cause them to spring leaks; which, in turn, will upsurge your energy costs and decrease energy competence. Besides, it’ll abbreviate the lifespan of your AC system. No matter how you look at it, it is a loose situation.
Blocking Air Return Vents With Furniture
You should also keep in mind that you don’t unavoidably have to close the vents to block the airflow. Placing furniture in front of exhausts is also a solicitation for misfortune: Wood furniture will ultimately become scratched and furnished items will substitute the growth of mold and fungus, particularly in humid environments, such as Florida. DO NOT DO THIS!
