How To Use a Wild Return Air System - Do I Need Return Air Ductwork? - Understanding Return Air

[@sharky0]

Warm air out of ceiling … return air at ceiling… hmm.. Doesn’t warm air rise, and cool air fall.. how is that balanced ?

[@TheGonso35]

All you need is a 1.5 gap on the bottom of your doors so even when shut air can return to the furnace. Nice video.

[@BenjaminSahlstrom]

Yes that works too. Just not as good for sound transfer. Thanks for your comment!

[@tedallen9078]

regarding return in a bathroom, would you want to spread the odor throughout the system. regarding bathroom supply, can you show me canadian code specifying suppy in a bathroom to be located on the floor. maybe not found in the mechanical code, perhaps in the health code. it only takes moments on the rough to locate a bathroom supply in the wall. i regret common sense died a tragic death. best of luck. i wouldn't sell this design.

[@joephillips6634]

Do I need return air if I'm using electric baseboard heating?

[@joerostkowski7313]

You always need air circulation, otherwise you get stale air.

[@danielpoel9484]

Great video! Is this allowable by most local building codes? I want to remove a non-load bearing wall from my house but it has a return air grill/duct. I was assuming I need to move it but this leads me to believe otherwise. The room is large and has 2-3 smaller vents throughout. I guess to answer my own question, I should find out what my local building code is.

[@rickywolf]

Thank you for this video. The only return duct in my home is in the ceiling in the hallway. I was wondering if I added return vents from the bedrooms to the hallway if the system had enough pull to equalize the air pressure in the bedrooms when they are closed off. Now I know.

[@ed6837]

I understand the ductwork situation . But, in some cases you have to consider combustion air for the furnace. In you case wide open probably ok. But in some areas with the furnace in a smaller space and you have the furnace pulling a negative on its own space by taking RA out of the furnace room which could starve the furnace of combustion air.Sealed combustion furnace would be ok. In a lot of basements that are damp or smelly this could also cause a problem

[@BenjaminSahlstrom]

Excellent thoughts. My furnace is sealed combustion plus it being very open as you mentioned. Thanks for your comment!

[@metatechnologist]

Furnace installation manuals have specific instructions concerning this. If there is not complete combustion i.e. the furnace needs adequate air supply for combustion or there is a danger of CO

[@abdorakeebnaji1527]

What you think .some of these Inspectors they told me that I have to open both side of the furnace for return when I put 110000 btu furnace even I put a return for every room in the house. One of these houses I put 10 return cuz it's big house and he told me still not enough return for 110000 btu furnace and I have to open the other side and put a filter cabinet!!!! What you think??

[@Balticblue93]

I definitely agree with opening up the other side of the duct, but how much free space and air do you have in the area and do you have a natural gas water heater or anything with a gas flue near by? If you do, you could pull too much air and actually pull flue gases from a other areas and spread it through the house. Same with being close to a garage or anything that isn't fresh air. 110k is a big dog for sure. You really can never have too much return air as long as it is done correctly. You can duct it to another room or stud space pulling from another floor.

[@abdorakeebnaji1527]

@@Balticblue93 thank you for your response. The problem was the space in that basement was narrow and not high enough. And there is a natural gas hot water tank 8 feet a way from the furnace location..I put a 25×16×12 return boot then 20×10 run trunk for the return and there was 9 total 6×10 return grill in that house but the inspector didn't approve it just because there is no 2 return opening for the return!!!

[@arctictimberwolf]

Finally somebody with some common sense^!!^ Keep up the good work Bud.

[@sandmandave2008]

I just may have to cut in a jumper duct in one of me spare bedrooms. The original installation (20 years ago) must have been done by a uneducated duct installer/designer. They put the AC / heat duct in the ceiling and just 2 feet away on the ceiling is the return duct. The room is hot in the summer and very cool in the winter. The solution would be a jumper duct in the bedroom which shares a wall with the living room. I would think I should go low with the opening in the bedroom and high with the opening in the living room to make the bedroom air circulate better. Now if I could only find a solution to my noisy furnace. It is in a closet in the garage. The main return for the master bedroom and the living room just outside the master bedroom is large grates in a box that the furnace sits on. It's just like having the furnace in the room with you.

[@iliyasmohammedadam6857]

hi I have 2 levle house heating air pushes to ground floor and return is on upper level celling its not heating fast enough do I have to take return from ground level to circulate air its heatpump

[@mrbubble185]

This is like the system I have. The cool thing (no pun intended) IMHO is that because of thermal stratification the coldest air in the house gets fed into the furnace for heating. This should allow the heat exchanger to operate at a lower temperature.

[@helenachase78]

Hi, I bought an old farmhouse and found a cold air return in the wall I want to remove between the kitchen and dining room. I don't have an open furnace like yours or any skilled help but I think I will try eliminating the cold air returns because each bedroom has a transome window above the doors.

[@101perspective]

Thanks for the video. My main return upstairs doesn't have any metal work. It is just one big 2'x1.5' hole in the drywall leading down... with a metal vent cover of course. You can see the drywall and support studs and everything. Down below going into the furnace area there is a metal return. So, I'm guessing they just cut a hole in the drywall near the furnace and connected the metal there. There is an additional small return in the ceiling near the bottom of the stairs. It is a finished basement so there is no door or anything stopping the air going down from upstairs. From watching your video it sounds like all of this should be fine. I have a York furnace which is pretty expensive, so I doubt they would have installed that if there wasn't enough return air. I will ask the next time I have the furnace inspected... which I do every year.

[@nonamegiven6271]

Where is your home? If you are in a northern state, a wild return is probably OK. The summer heat is not as intense northern states. If you are in a southern state, you may seriously suffer without any ducted returns in a two story home with upstairs bedrooms. My home inspector failed to observe that all the return ducts would not hold a dollar bill to the grills. This is because the returns were "wild" behind the walls. Return air flow is VERY WEAK! We have suffered this summer. There is way more information needed about a persons individual home to adequately judge home engineering decisions like this.

[@TeslaBoy123]

I smell u forget install a return in bathroom is well 🤭

[@Vincegould]

My issue is that heat rises and the return is downstairs. If the return was upstairs the heat would move back down to the furnace and be recirculated with added heat or cooled with the ac coils.

[@patrickedwards2188]

it is easier/more efficient for a furnace to heat cold air rather than warm air--the heat/energy transfers faster. and why heat warm air when it is the cold air that needs heated?

[@Vincegould]

@@patrickedwards2188 I want the warm air downstairs. I want the return to pull the warm air from upstairs and move it to the downstairs. I have a 3 zone system. So, the return would pull 73 degree air from upstairs and simply move it to the down stairs creating a circular pattern and saving energy heating the cold air.

[@nebraskaninkansas347]

After watching this I'm considering this. My house is small 24x32 foot house. I'm currently renovating, basically a full gut job. All new electric, replace old fuse box with 4 circuits and old ungrounded romex, all new plumbing. New roof, windows, replace asbestos siding. The HVAC system is also one thing I want to fix. The returns is the biggest. Currently runs returns, no ducts, through wall cavaties from both bedrooms and living roim/dining room, to basement. Floor joists block some parts of the return channels. They had a door to the basement from the kitchen originally. I'm removing that. I also plan on finishing most of the basement, once I feel confident I'll have no water intrusion problems. Just one step at a time.

[@peterkizer6163]

I certainly understand your thinking; but (perhaps being too nerdy) I would have liked numbers.

[@SonicBoomC98]

I'll research this. I've heard many say not to use the jump ducting.

[@metatechnologist]

People need to refer to the installation manual for the furnace. That's the ones who know how it should be!

[@jaywillow9927]

Genius. Let all that moisture flow into them joist spaces and get that nice mold. Yea. There's a reason nobody does this type of shit. There's a reason they quit panning joists.

[@mtnsurff]

That, may depend on where you live. I'm never over 35% humidity inside, Eben in the basement, but perhaps that's rare?

[@isotac7789]

Got some bad news, first if your chimney ever has an issue the flue gases will be pulled into the air stream and distributed to all areas of your home. Second, the return jumper ducts will not work as you have come to believe. There is a perfectly good reason HVAC contractors suggest installing a return air duct system. Because one is needed for proper air movement in a room. The return air pathway must be larger by about 40% than the supply into each room.

[@carolynboddie9181]

Am a little confused, Are you feeding jumper ducts to hallway, and from there to the basement? Or are you simply feeding jumper ducts into hallway?

[@BenjaminSahlstrom]

+Carolyn Boddie Just into the hallway. Then the air flows naturally all the way back to the furnace without needing Ductwork.

[@brudevold62]

Idk the jumper duct accentuates return air so in a sense you do need return air .. maybe it's overkill for every room having an individual return runs, but jumper ducts are still allowing hotter air to be conditioned then supplied throughout the house.

[@tedallen9078]

first problem, the supply in the bath room was on the floor. that's a code violation. i don't want mop water to get into the duct system. second, this is an indirect return system. do you want the hot humid air from your bedroom to have a direct path to be conditioned or to rely on an indirect transfer jumping in multiple directions and hopefully transfer a humid gain to be conditioned at the furnace. i suspect air balancing problems. perhaps temperature stratifications. i'd like to know if he can deliver 1-2 air change per hour. i wouldn't want to warranty ths system to a customer who paid me over ten thousand dollars to install a forced air system. i'd design a ducted return air system and give a customer a 2 year no question asked warranty and know i'd never be back.

[@davel8218]

Actually the bath room supply vent is always on the floor in Canada. I think they have different building code system. I am think if there should be an return in the bathroom so that it will naturally increase the humidity level for the entire house, especially in the winter. I have a room doesn't have return, but there is one in the hallway. I am thinking just add a grill on top of the door facing to the hall, very similar to what the video did. Not sure it will function sufficiently.

[@helenachase78]

Im in Canada heat vent is on the bathroom floor .Never had an issue with water in it and I like dead air in the bathroom because moving air is cold and in the winter would be uncomfortable while bathing

[@tedallen9078]

Why put a floor register in the floor, when a wall box can be installed just as easy? You might try and find a citation in the Canadian code. You won't find it

[@Naatuma]

Adding AC would 100% not work on this system, you can never balance the air temp from upstairs to downstairs without returns. I do like how you used the bays to allow air to flow out of the bedrooms though.

[@BenjaminSahlstrom]

AC 100% works great actually!

[@Vincegould]

This is my issue as well

[@MrBababuwi]

I am lost, what are you selling pal?