Air Returns for Your HVAC System

Hey, this is Derrick with Smith's 1 Hour Heating and Air, and I want to talk about something very important for your home, and it goes around air returns. We talk quite a bit on some videos and podcasts about filters and changing your filters and how important that is. Well, having air returns in your home in the right places is also very important. Um, anytime— and this goes back to the conversation, uh, on previous, previous videos and, and things we talked about— anytime you have a system that, you know, produces air, puts air in the house, you have to have it come back to the unit and be returned. So air return is very important to do that. So That's why closing vents and closing doors, uh, not having the right pathways for it to come back to the air return in the home easily could be a problem. Um, many people close doors, rooms they don't use, or even I call them, uh, junk rooms, uh, you know, where you pile your stuff in that room and you don't want anybody to see it. You call those junk rooms. Well, if that air has trouble getting out of that room, um, you're going to have a challenge. And what's the big deal, right? What is the big deal? Because the unit is going to get the air it needs, okay? The unit is going to get the air it needs, but you want to control that air as much as possible. The only way to control that air as much as possible is to have it return back the proper way through your air return, through your filter. Make sure it's clean, crisp air coming back to unit, not dirty under the house, in the attic, uh, air coming back to your system. And it could easily be that. That's why we go to homes that, you know, when you need duct cleaning, duct sealing, most homes need duct sealing, but as well as duct clean because it's going to get the air it needs. So if you make it difficult by closing doors or having furniture over, returns or blocking returns, it just makes it more difficult. If you have a dirty filter, if your filter is, is restricting too much of the air, it's going to have challenges getting the air back to the system, and then it's going to start pulling air from outside, from in the walls and attic, under the house. So again, you want to make it as easy as possible And when you talk about air returns, very rarely have I seen too big of a return, um, because bigger is better. Uh, you do want, you know, dig into the science of it, you do want some, uh, you know, you do, you do want some pull to come through it, but if you get too much, you get a noisy return. We get a whistling noise. And if you have too little, then it's not pulling enough air through it. That's also a problem. So yeah, so you have to size it right. And part of our cover sizing is to make sure you have enough air going back to unit. So I mean, I've been to a lot of homes, uh, very rarely has there been a too big of a return problem. Um, it's always been you— when it has been a problem, it's always been you don't have enough return. Um, you don't have enough returns, uh, in the home, therefore they're struggling to get back in. So in the state of North Carolina— excuse me. In the state of North Carolina, you have to have, um, once you give 1,600 square feet in home, you have to have another return. And the reason is, so if you think about a home, um, usually, usually the return and the thermostat are at the middle of them. Well, if your home is over 1,600 square feet 1,600 square feet. Um, that means on the far end you got to pull all that air to the middle with no restriction, which is a challenge. Um, some folks have— really, the best application is if you're going to close doors and if you're going to even have what we call zoning, which is control zones of your heating and air. Um, and that's a whole nother subject for a whole nother day. But, uh, if you're going to close doors, it's best to have a return in each room. That way you can close the door, the air is coming out, the air is going back, air is coming out, going back. You don't have that challenge of pulling it through that door or through that crack trying to get air back to the system. So, um, bigger is better for the return. Again, I haven't seen too many— actually, I haven't seen any situations in which, uh, the homeowner had too much of a return, uh, the return was too big. Um, all this, all this plays into being energy efficient, having the right size unit Having the right amount of airflow, having the right duct design, having the right return design, having the right filter in that return, and having the air come back in through the filter, uh, and not through any other means. Having to— having a clean duct system, a sealed duct system, all that plays into being energy efficient and plays into protecting your equipment because Dirt is the number one enemy of your equipment. Dirt is the number one enemy of your equipment. Um, a lot of our club members, you know, you get to a, you get to, to a unit, it needs to be cleaned, restored, and maintained because 1/20th of an inch of dirt can cause up to a 21% energy loss. Think of— think 1/20 of an inch. That's very, very microscopic, very small. So you want to clean that coil because dirt, when it gets on there, acts like an insulator. And going back to returns and filters, um, as the filter starts loading with dirt and dust and hair and everything else that's in the home. As it starts loading, it actually gets more efficient because it's difficult for those bigger particles to get through because it's loading up a third. Now there's a fine line between it's too dirty and stopping airflow— what, all the airflow— and then you have a freezing core or blowing motor problem. There's a thin line between too much dirt, uh, and then stopping airflow. So, um, it's very important to, to keep it clean, to keep your system clean, keep it running at peak efficiency. Um, it is a machine. It is a machine. It is going to— you're going to have unexpected breakdowns, but there are quite a few things you can do to help prevent that from happening. Uh, and regular maintenance is one of them. Having the right size unit, duct system, return grill— all these things help the unit run more efficiently. And when it runs more efficiently, of course you save money every single month on your utility bill because it's not struggling and pulling more amps. And having to use more energy to get the same amount of work in your home, whether it's heating or air conditioning. So again, size does matter with return grills. Um, the bigger the better. Um, you know, some folks worry about how it looks having all those returns. Look, I mean, outside of myself and people in the industry of HVAC. Um, very rarely is somebody walking into a home saying, I can't believe you have so many returns, I can't believe you have so many grills, I can't believe, you know, you put it up in the attic, you can have them on the ceiling, you know, like, I can't believe you have so many. No, people don't do that. People don't do that. So don't worry about the aesthetics, worry about the functionality, and in getting the system to work the best way possible. Sometimes in certain homes, we've had to actually stack returns because the home wouldn't let us do what we need to do. So we had to— maybe it needs two 20x20s on top of each other. You need that cap because of the way the home was constructed. I mean, there's so many different ways, to attack the situation, to make it better, and to get the air back to the system it needs. Um, so again, air returns, very important. Air filters, very important. Everything plays into being energy efficient, and the best way to be energy efficient is to make things as easy as possible to travel, go through the system, it's going to produce air. The air is coming out, it's got to get back. So you want to make it as easy as possible to get back. And some folks have made comments before, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter, give or take 20%. I don't, I don't know where these numbers come from, but you're not using a rule of thumb. Uh, you're doing precise calculations. Uh, you're conversizing the system for their needs, their wants, their habits. And the best way to do that is to, is to make it as easy as possible for air to come out of the grill. Don't block the grills and don't block the returns. Make it easy to come out. Make it easy to go back. Make it easy to come out, make it easy to go back. Um, it's really, it's really that basic.