Derek ColeGM, Simmons One Hour Heating & Air · AI HVAC Answers

Furniture Covering Air Vents | HVAC Tip

14 Oct 2020 · 1 min

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1:16

In this short HVAC tip, Derek Cole warns homeowners not to place furniture over floor vents or push a couch directly against a return wall. He explains that covering floor grills blocks the airflow that conditions the adjacent wall, causing air to rise, hit the ceiling, and then fall back down, which reduces the room’s heating and cooling efficiency. The obstruction essentially acts like a closed vent, forcing air back toward the vent opening and impairing system performance. Cole references a LinkedIn article and suggests visualizing the issue with a smoke test to see the disrupted airflow.

Chapters

What I have seen and what you need to be careful of is when the vents are in the floor, do not put the furniture over the vents. Do not put a couch smack dab against the wall at the return. That will cause a problem. So back up a little bit, give it a little bit of room, and don't put furniture and things like that over the floor grills because it's trying to If it's on the floor, okay, it's supposed to be on an outside wall. So it's trying to condition that wall. So the air is blowing up. I mean, if you were like doing a smoke test, you can actually see it. The air would be going up, hitting the ceiling, and then falling back down to condition the wall. So if you have furniture or something in the way, obviously that can happen. So it's going to affect that room, that situation. It's also going to affect the heating in there itself because it's now starting to push. It's kind of like closing a vent. I think we talked about that before. I know there's an article on LinkedIn about it. It's kind of like closing the vent. I mean, it's pushing the air right back down to the hole, which cannot be good as well.