Optimise your Air Ducts, here's how

There are chances that what is about to be said would be a shocking revelation for you or you could yourself be among those whose mention is going to be made here: There are homeowners that never explore Air Ducts can be optimised or that they can actually close the dampers partially when less heating/cooling is required, just like some homeowners never know how to optimise the Thermostat settings and continue to use them on a default setting throughout. Air Duct Optimization can help a great deal in creating a comfortable and balanced indoor temperature throughout the house and optimisation doesn't require much of a rocket science.

Here’s what you will need

Here's what you'll need in order to perform the Air Duct Optimization:

1. Tabletop Thermometers (as many as the rooms you need to optimise)

2. Permanent Marker

Here’s how to optimise?

In order to Optimise the Air Ducts in every room, start with one room. Let's say it is Summer and you wish to make the Optimisation for the cool air of the Air Conditioner. Open all the ducts and registers of the in use rooms. Next, turn the Air Conditioner ON and set the Thermostat to somewhere between 74 to 78 Fahrenheit. Let the rooms cool. After half an hour, check the Thermometer's reading, visit every room and partially close the dampers of the rooms that are excessively cold. Proper optimisation will take some time, a few days or maybe a week. Try this Damper tweaking until the desired temperature is achieved throughout the home. And yes, why did we have that permanent marker? Use the marker in order to mark the final handle position that you finalise for each damper.

Summer Tweaking vs Winter Tweaking

There's not much difference between the Summer and Winter Air Duct Optimisation. The only difference is that in Winters, the Furnace needs to be turned on with Thermostat temperature somewhere around 68 degrees Fahrenheit. When marking the handle positions, use 'S' for Summer, and ''W'' for Winters so that you could know which position was for which season since the damper settings would be different for Summers and different for Winters.

Why do Air Duct optimisation?

Alright so here begins the question answer session. Did you ask why is it important to do Air Duct Optimization? Okay, here's the answer:

A ductwork is used in order to circulate Air (cool/hot) throughout the home. Although the Duct network reaches every room, there are times when the conditioned Air that reaches to different parts of the home is not the same. Since a single Thermostat operates the Air Conditioner, one temperature is used for the whole home but as the flow of air is different for different parts, the temperature there is different too. This is the primary reason why many homeowners suffer from temperature difference throughout the home which is sometimes very disturbing. Optimisation of the Air Ducts is a very simple way to beat this problem. Although a careful and a little tough practice is required in the beginning, once the dampers are set, you too are all set to enjoy an even temperature throughout the home no matter what the season is.

Isn't it simple? And cool too? Your turn to try out!