Ultimately you’re heating and air conditioning systems are meant to give each room in your house the amount of heat or air conditioning comfort that you wish. This does not mean keeping every room at exactly the same temperature or temperatures.

For example you may want some rooms – washrooms or a nursery for example warmers than the others. You may wish that a bedroom or bedrooms remain on the cooler – or even toastier side. Alternatively you may wish to balance out heat to a kitchen in the winter season as it already has heat input from waste heat emanating from the oven and other appliances.

Adjusting heat distribution from less common water or steam systems is a lot more difficult whereas with many electric systems the beauty is that each room has individual setups and controls. It is basically automatic as each circuit is set up with its own individual thermostat whereas forced air systems fit somewhere in between.

With forced air setups – the most routine setups in most Canadian and Americans homes and condos are for the most part fairly simple and routine – that is if there are “dampers”.

“Dampers” are essentially movable metal plates in the ducts that lead from the furnace ventilation system to the outlets called “registers”. Many inexperienced home owners refer to these registers in wrong terms as “vents” just to set things clear. The important concept here is that dampers control air flow through your ventilation system. The same ventilation systems, whose air flow is controlled by these damper controls feeds and forces both cool air for the air conditioning cooling systems and hot or warm air for the furnace heating system,. So adjusting flow via damper controls for one also works for the other.

Dampers and registers have something in common – that is a damper regulates the flow of air through a duct, a register can regulate its flow into a room. Yet all in all registers are relatively inefficient balancing tools. Their movable vanes are useful primarily to direct or diffuse the currents of moving air in a room or to shut off the air current supply temporarily in a room or rooms that will be empty or virtually unused for an extended period or periods.

To work with dampers you must first identify the duct that serves each room your house that is depending on the ducts pattern itself. These control units – the dampers themselves may be alternatively scattered your ventilation systems or clustered close to your furnace unit or units themselves.

Simply and basically put , an individual duct is “wide open” when the damper handle on it side parallels the duct path, it is closed when the handle is perpendicular to the duct path, or partially closed or dampened , when the handle is in between these extremes. On some dampers, a locking nut will hold the damper tight in its set position.

So how will you work to balance the load? Balancing is a simple process and set of steps overall. Yet it can be tedious – in that it is simply a matter of trial and error spread over several days, weeks or sometimes even longer time periods of trial.

The recommendations – at least for winter heating is to balance the ducts on cold days, when the heating system is in full operation. Start by damping the duct to a hot that seems to hot – preferably one that is at the end of a relatively short duct run. Yet by closing one duct system you will boost flow to other areas further down the line. Then wait a good time period 7 to 8 hours. Then check again. Once these areas are set to your comfort preferences – then move down the line to the next. Keep in mind that with additional changes elsewhere in the property those areas that before were fine or adequate may well have to be readjusted or reset again.

Balancing the ventilation load in a forced air heating or air conditioned system is not hard. It’s accomplished via these low tech control units of dampers. Yet no doubt it requires a longer term trial and error wait and sees approach. Its not one quick fix. Yet the beauty is with a bit of time and patience most home owners can finish this task – and to their personal comfort preferences.

Author Bio: Ted I Boatman
Furnasmans One Hour Heating Air
Conditioning
Winnipeg Air Conditioning Problems Solvers
Furnasman 1 Hours Linden Woods St Vital
Transcona – On time Heating and Cooling Service
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Duct Cleaning
 

Category: Home Management
Keywords: Heating Air Conditioning,Air Conditioning Repair,Summer heat,keeping cool summer heat