One viewer needs an extra heat grill in the kitchen, which is right above the furnace room, so running ducts is not a problem. The question is, how do you attach to the existing ductwork?You do it with what we call a "boot".You will have to cut a square hole into the large heating duct and the f...
Gerry has a bathroom exhaust fan damper that keeps him awake at night.Well, Gerry, we can't always stop it, but we certainly can tone it down.The first and cheapest step is to get some of that soft foam self adhesive weather-stripping tape. Tape it to the exhaust hood where the flapper hits. Th...
Air conditioning is often difficult to install into an existing house that uses radiant heating simply because it requires a lot of large air ducting.Space Pak from Mestek Canada in Toronto is a system that uses ducts small enough to slide into existing 2x4 hollow walls. There is a basic air con...
Alan in Ottawa, Ontario is complaining about the air conditioning going all the time because the thermostat seems to be reacting to the kitchen heat, and the upper and lower floors of his house do not have an even temperature at all.Two problems here. First the thermostat should not be near any ...
Pham from Hamilton asked why he sees air returns on the ceiling sometimes and on the floor in other houses, and what effect this placement has on air quality in the house.If you are in the far north, or in the Southern US, the answer is simple. In an air conditioning climate the return duct goes...
Have you ever wondered how much air actually comes out of your hot air floor registers, or how many cubic feet per minute your bathroom fan actually exhausts? Well the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has developed a simple tool that will give you a good approximation.They call it the Gar...
Many years ago there were some heating systems, particularly in the Prairies, that had the heating ducts on the ceiling in the centre of the house and the cold air returns under the windows. When we blew a lot of hot air into our houses, this worked fairly well, on the premise of pulling the col...
Mike writes: "I'm renovating my bathroom and plan to install a fan. The shower is on one side of the room and the bath is on the opposite wall so I plan to put the fan in the middle of the room. What is the maximum amount of hose I can use to vent outside?"You shouldn't have any problem going ...
Cory from Regina, Saskatchewan is finishing their basement and wants to know if they should have cold air returns in the basement.Hot air heating systems function best if there is at least one cold air return on each floor of the house. Essentially, that allows the warm air to circulate better. ...
Vern has a range hood on an inside wall and is wondering if he could just use the hollow wall cavity or should he line it, and could he just vent into the attic because the attic itself is vented. There are actually a lot of interesting questions there Vern. First remember that there is a lot of...
