O.K. heres the question:

In my house all of the vent louvres point toward an outside wall (and they are all near a wall) as a result, it usually feels real warm by the wall and real not warm in the room.

Is there a proper way to determine which way a vent points, and what is it.

(I'm talking about the downstairs, and the vents are in the roof, I don't ever go upstairs and there isn't any bitching from up there, so it must not need fidling with)

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment. [wheres the blanket smilie?]

if I understand you correctly, you have hvac ducts in the ceiling of the first floor.

The idea is to wash the wall with warm air because the exterior wall is the coldest part of the interior space.

Up here in the northeast we have vents under most windows coming from the floor, air will pass in front of the window to warm the cold air that is coming from the window...i hope that makes sense.

Ok, now the real problem.

Do you have two zones??One upstairs and one down(two thermonstats)

if not you need them...if so, you should have some diffusers inside the duct work that regulates where the air goes...if not you should look into that. How you system is designed sounds different to me...

Usually the first floor is fed from the floor registers, then you send up trunk lines (big ducts) to the second floor and branch out from there.

If you have both the first floor and second floor feeding from the same trunk line that may be in your ceiling, you will need to put some diverters in the duct work...

Air will take the easiest route out of the duct.
Up is easier than down, and heat rises, so if all the ducts for both floors are being fed from the first floor ceiling, the majority of the air will travel up unless you force it to travel down...

I would recomend that you have an HVAC designer come out and take a look.

Rich

Most houses I've seen run what is called "perimeter heating", where the supply vents are located along exterior walls (and usually under the windows). The return grilles are located centrally, usually in the hallway. The object of this system is to lessen the propagation of cold (in the winter), and heat (summer) through the walls and windows. As for which way the louvers are pointed, it doesn't matter as much as the location of the supply vent in the room. If the rooms seem cold with the doors shut you probably don't have a big enough gap at the bottom of the door to allow proper circulation (air going out helps air to get in...1" is usually sufficient). Also, depending on how many return grilles you have, and if they're located on the wall (high, low, or both), partially blocking off the grill (upper one in winter, lower one in summer), will lessen the temperature stratification in the house (too warm at the ceiling, too cold down by the floor).

Got any pics of what you're talking about? Might help to see it.

THANKS!

See I knew there was someone here that would know about it.

To answer a few questions.

It has two units, each with its own thermostat. The downstairs unit for sure is a heat pump, the exterior units look identical except that one says "10 seer" in the middle of the fan guard.

The heat exchanger for the downstairs unit sits in the upstairs closet, it draws its air from a vent in the kitchen ceiling. The roof is a high slope and the ducting runs in the eves created by the upstairs rooms (does that make sense) the vents are in the ceiling along the two long walls.

The heat exchanger for the upstairs sits above the upstairs bedroom in the attic, and draws its air from a vent in the stairwell/upstairs landing. I will go look tomorrow at where the vents are.

It is a very open floor plan and the living room/kitchen/hallway/stairwell is all shared space. The master bed room and bath take up the other half of the downstairs.

The stairwell runs up the middle of the house to an open hallway with a bathroom in the middle and a bedroom on each end.

Probably hard to picture, but I always thought having the air return in the stair well was somewhat stupid, but I thought it was wrong to have the vents pointing at the wall too.

Any tips gladly accepted, and I will try to get someone out here to look at it (I would just like to have at least a rudimentary understanding, so I could at least converse like I got some sense...)

EDIT, maybe I can get some pictures tomorrow if you won't make fun of the mess.

QUOTE (DuckRyder @ Feb 1 2005, 06:47 PM)

The heat exchanger for the downstairs unit sits in the upstairs closet, it draws its air from a vent in the kitchen ceiling. The roof is a high slope and the ducting runs in the eves created by the upstairs rooms (does that make sense) the vents are in the ceiling along the two long walls.

Great set up for cooling (drawing the hot air off of the ceiling), not so good for heating (same reason it's good for cooling).

Sounds like you need to figure out some way to get a return air duct down low to suck up some of that cooler air at floor level.

Pics....yes, pics..

In fla we dont cool off our windows to cool our house. I know your talking heat but same princibal in reverse huh?

For heating you heat the coldest thing in the room usually a window since they are the biggest heat loss vs a wall. The idea is also to take advantage of convection to help circulate the air so you don't have a thermocline situation. (layers of cold to warm air)
Sizing of the cold air returns and location are important as this helps with the flow of air.
Could be just a balancing situation also that a heating tech could resolve.

Geoff

In the notheast we tend to favor the heating load for designing the system, I am not to familiar with design principles in Georgia but would think you favor A/C. You have one thing going for you in that you have two systems, however we normally install a return air duct in any room that has a door [or can be closed off] this helps keep equal pressurization thru the system. You didn't mention the shape of the outlets or design. Ceiling diffusers are generally a pattern style which means they can direct air in 4 directions, 3 ways, corner, 2 way, or one way. It sounds like you have either a one way or three way. If you want to try an experiment just turn it in the other direction. This is generally easily accomplished with removal of a couple screws. Or you can head to the local home store to find a different deflection. Our rule of thumb is anything closer than 2 ft. to the wall should be directed to the room while anything out further can be directed in a multiple pattern, this applies only to ceiling grilles.sorry I got long winded, good luck

Ho, I forgot about this, it is warmer now

I need some better pictures but see if I can paint a picture with these two.





The area behind the Jetta is the garage; it is not heated or cooled, at least not on purpose from the house.

There is a vent in the ceiling centered in each of the 4 windows in the front. Those vents have non-adjustable vent grills (registers?) that point predominately toward the window. Each grille has a small (inch and a half maybe) area on each end that directs air out to the sides (3 ways). No air is directed toward the center of the room. There are corresponding vents in the ceiling toward the rear wall. One of them points at a door, one at a smaller kitchen window and two just at a wall. (Over a tub and shower.)

If you go in the front door the banister for the upstairs splits the doorway, stairwell is offset toward the garage side. Hallway to kitchen is on the other side. The crown in the front is open over the stairwell/entry way. Upstairs there is bedroom on each end and a bathroom in the area corresponding to the open entryway on the rear of the house.

That make any sense?