Diagnosing Heating and Cooling Return Problems

LESLIE: Alan in Alabama’s up next and you find The Money Pit on WTBC. What can we do for you?

ALAN: I’ve got a new home and we have two rooms in the house that don’t heat or cool as evenly as the rest of the house.

TOM: Well, generally, if you have a balance issue with your heating or cooling system, it has a lot to do with, obviously, the design of the system. You need to make sure that you have good return air flow, is the first thing. Do you have returns that are in the rooms or is the return duct in the hallway somewhere?

ALAN: The return is actually in the great room in the center of the home.

TOM: Hmm.

ALAN: The return … it’s one central return for the entire house.

TOM: Well, clearly, you need somewhat of a redesign of the HVAC system. Generally, putting in additional returns will help boost the efficiency and solve some of those problems. Because, basically, a room does not heat or cool on a single pass of the air. The air has to pass through that room several times to be able to heat or cool efficiently. And if you’re having that kind of imbalance, then something is not right with the design of the system and that’s going to have to be changed. You may have to add a duct; you may to remove a duct; you may have to enlarge a duct to try to get the amount of airflow in. Now, a good HVAC contractor can figure out where this has gone wrong and make the adjustments.