Home heating

[juwantme]

We are currently building a house and we are receiving 2 zones and I may look into getting a third zone so each floor has a thermostat. Having said that, the HVAC guy said we can place the thermostats where ever we wish and we can also select where we would like some of the vents to be and add any additional ones to a certain point. We are getting our basement developed and they are running the vents down to the floor

My questions are for you experienced beyond members:

1) What is the best location to put each thermostat?
2) Should we add additional vents and if so where are some ideal locations that get overlooked?
3) As far as I am aware for our build most vents are located by the windows and doors any others that you have seen during the build process and were like that’s not a good place or we should consider moving a vent to this place.

Thanks!


:thumbsup:

[Tik-Tok]

Up until we did our reno, we had a vent in the wall that blow down into a shoe cubby hole. Was so nice to put on nice warm shoes in the morning (and also dried them out quickly if they got soaked).

I miss it :(

[G]

Originally posted by juwantme
We are currently building a house and we are receiving 2 zones and I may look into getting a third zone so each floor has a thermostat. Having said that, the HVAC guy said we can place the thermostats where ever we wish and we can also select where we would like some of the vents to be and add any additional ones to a certain point. We are getting our basement developed and they are running the vents down to the floor

My questions are for you experienced beyond members:

1) What is the best location to put each thermostat?
2) Should we add additional vents and if so where are some ideal locations that get overlooked?
3) As far as I am aware for our build most vents are located by the windows and doors any others that you have seen during the build process and were like that’s not a good place or we should consider moving a vent to this place.

Thanks!


:thumbsup:

Hot air does not like going down hill. Add to that the fact that you need to add two elbows to get it down to the floor, and except when you are near the furnace, not much hot air even comes out the duct that has been extended to the floor. And when it does come out, it immediately rises and does not warm the floor up. So, although in theory it is a good idea to extend the hot air duct to the floor, in practice, it doesn't do much good and is a lot of work. So I just leave them on the ceiling. However, extending the cold air return to the floor does a lot of good as it will vacuum up the cold air off of the floor and send it back to the furnace. That in fact will draw the warm air down, and warm up the floor.

http://joneakes.com/jons-fixit-database/1670-Where-should-basement-hot-air-vents-be-placed

[benyl]

Originally posted by Tik-Tok
Up until we did our reno, we had a vent in the wall that blow down into a shoe cubby hole. Was so nice to put on nice warm shoes in the morning (and also dried them out quickly if they got soaked).

I miss it :(

I built this into the bench it our mud room. Awesome. everything is dry by morning.




We have a pretty complex system.

We heat our floors in the basement with in-floor heating and have multiple zones with 3 thermostats.

We have a thermostat on the main floor that controls one furnace for the basement and main floor. All the ducts for the basement are in the ceiling (more on that later) and are at each window / door on the main floor.

The second furnace heats only the top floor with the thermostat in the master bedroom. I want to be comfortable. Don't care about the kids. lol. The top floor furnace also has extra vents that point down into the main floor ceiling. The second furnace is over-sized to handle the extra venting.

The reason we have ceiling vents if for the summer. The floor heat gets turned off and the ceiling vents get opened. AC then blows out those vents. As G said, hot air rises. Cold air drops.

All of our HRV intake vents are at ceiling height to suck hot air out.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[turbotrip]

I always regret not putting the basement on its own furnace, and the mainfloor/2nd floor on the other furnace. don't know why this isn't done more often for developed walkouts

[jwslam]

Originally posted by Tik-Tok
Up until we did our reno, we had a vent in the wall that blow down into a shoe cubby hole. Was so nice to put on nice warm shoes in the morning (and also dried them out quickly if they got soaked).

I miss it :(
That sounds like a disaster to have the wet shoe smell pushed around the house... especially with stinky feet.

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by jwslam

That sounds like a disaster to have the wet shoe smell pushed around the house... especially with stinky feet.

I guess if you're a stinky foot kind of person. Neither of us are, so it worked well.

[mr2mike]

+1 on whomever said the cold air returns are more important. You can pump more hot air in there but it's the cold air returns that do more for heating.

hot air ducts to the floor level won't do any good and not worth the added work.

Thermostat, place closest to the bed rooms. Keep it away from the front door as it will cut the furnace on everytime the door opens in the winter. Just added start up/shut down wear.

Rooms directly above the main bulk head or furnace, I would have a baffle to reduce the flow to that one duct. Got a bathroom above the furnace room and I swear it melts the ceiling paint when the furnace is on. Ghetto baffled it and it's fine now.

Seperate furnace for downstairs is great. But then you're running 4 bulkheads. Is there room for that? Consider ceiling height.

[jeffh]

I support not running your supplyruns down exterior walls, as this would be a great spot to develop condensation moisture problems. If you can run some down the interior walls in some places is ok. Also eliminate standard rectangle grill boots in the ceilings, and swap the for the round plastic diffusers. They look way better, and match potlights, round ceiling speakers, and smoke detectors.