Hi Dale, Thanks for the explanation and useful suggestions. A friend of mine once suggested taking off the metal panel covering the blower compartment of my furnace and letting it suck cooler air from the basement and circulate it throughout the house. The idea was to tape down the safety switch and tape a furnace filter over the compartment opening. Sounds like a primative implementation of one of your ideas. It might be worth a try if only to see how well it works. If it does, it would be worth the trouble of installing a basement return with a damper. I'll have to give it some thought. Take care, Ed
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dale Leavens Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 5:55 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Heating and Air Conditioning Question There are probably several ways to do it but probably the easiest would be to open the cold air return duct at some point near where it enters the furnace and instal a damper which can close off the duct and opens a large vent in the duct closer to the furnace. This will stop air from being drawn off of the rooms above and make it up with air from the basement. You could mix it as you want. You could close off the return vents in each room and create a large one in the basement just before the filter with a damper on it so it can be closed off during heating season. In the long run this might be less convenient because you will be running around from room to room opening and closing those returns and you will probably want them open when your air conditioning is running. Hope this gives you some ideas. Be sure to keep the air filter in the circuit though. Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:DLeavens%40puc.net> net Skype DaleLeavens Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bear habitat. ----- Original Message ----- From: Edward Przybylek To: blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 1:28 PM Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Heating and Air Conditioning Question Hi, Could you please explain a little more about returns. In my home each room has it's own heat vent and return vent. Some of the larger rooms have two of each. How would I get my heating/cooling system to draw air from the basement to help cool the first and second floors? Thanks. Take care, Ed _____ From: blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com [mailto:blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Tom Fowle Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 11:21 AM To: blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com Cc: victor.gouveia@ <mailto:victor.gouveia%40rogers.com> rogers.com Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Heating and Air Conditioning Question victor, You're right, a motor whether A.C. or D.C. takes just so much power to operate it, about 750 watts per horse power or so. doesn't matter a dime whether it's A.C. or D.C. Except that the power feeding your furnace is A.C. and has to be rectified to make it D.C. some efficiency lost there I suppose. it can be said that the power consumed by the fan is a very small portion of that consumed by the entire furnace, but it still costs power to run the motor. What you'd accomplish with running the fan all the time depends on where the return intake is. If, for example, the return intake is in a part of the house that tends to remain cooler, then perhaps you'd move cooler air around better. I had a friend who had a "summer' return intake put into his basement. He didn't have air conditioning, but when it was summer and he switched the intake to the basement port and just ran the fan as needed, the house was much cooler than one would expect. However, i always wonder about advice from guys in government sponsored programs. They're usually just contractors who have low bid on the city job, and are probably looking for more work. I wouldn't do it without another opinion. tom Net-Tamer V 1.13 Beta - Registered [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio.org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ Visit the archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindhandyman/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindhandyman/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
