If your Harker Heights, TX, home has a forced-air HVAC system and suffers from persistent hot and cold spots, you’re not alone. It’s a common problem with such systems, mainly due to their design. Central forced-air HVAC systems typically rely on a single centrally-located thermostat and a network of supply and return ducts to carry air around. However, this inevitably means that vents closest to your HVAC tend to get the most air while the furthest vents get less. There are some ways you can balance your HVAC’s airflow a bit better, though. Here are four tips to do precisely that.
1. Check Your Thermostat Location
If your home has HVAC airflow issues, it could result from your system not turning on and off when it should. That can happen if your thermostat isn’t sensing the conditions in your home the way it should. For example, if your thermostat is in a sunny spot, it may think your home is a few degrees warmer than it is. The same thing might happen if it’s too close to your kitchen or one of your HVAC vents.
For best results, your thermostat should be located on an interior wall of your home, as close to its center as possible. It should be mounted at least five feet above the floor, ideally in a room you use frequently. You should also see that it isn’t near any heat sources or too near a supply vent. If your thermostat is in the wrong place, Kane Heating And Air Conditioning can help you move it to improve your home’s comfort and airflow.
2. Open Your Vents and Doors
Although it may seem like closing vents and doors in your home can minimize or control hot and cold spots, the opposite is true. Your HVAC needs unimpeded access to every part of your home to work properly. If you close too many vents, you increase the air pressure in your ducts, which can prevent conditioned air from getting where you intend it to go. When you close doors, you keep your HVAC return duct system from pulling in the air it needs to maintain a balanced temperature in your home. In general, you can partially close a few vents in your home to adjust the airflow in a room or two. But it’s a good idea to leave your interior doors open so your HVAC can draw air from every room.
3. Inspect and Seal Your Ductwork
If you’re having an HVAC airflow problem and you’ve already followed the tips above, there could be a problem with your home’s ductwork. This can happen due to simple wear and tear or misuse, such as keeping too many vents closed for too long. This can cause leaks in your ductwork that allow conditioned air to escape into your walls before it reaches the rooms that need it. You can perform a visual inspection yourself to find and fix these issues on any exposed ductwork. However, it’s best to call in the professionals from Kane Heating And Air Conditioning to locate and resolve problems with the ducts in your home’s walls.
4. Adjust Your Ductwork Dampers
In most cases, the ductwork that supports your HVAC system will have dampers installed in a few places to control airflow throughout your home better. Most of the time, these will be located near the HVAC system at points where the ductwork splits off from the main HVAC outlet. They should look like small handles on the side of each duct. You can use these to adjust a small panel inside the duct to either allow more air through or prevent its passage. Be careful, however. The same rules apply to dampers that apply to your vents. You shouldn’t close any of your dampers too much, or you might over-pressurize other parts of your ductwork.
Better still, you should call Kane Heating And Air Conditioning and schedule a visit so one of our HVAC experts can rebalance your HVAC’s airflow. They’ll have the tools, experience, and skills necessary to tell what adjustments will help and which would be counterproductive. When they’re finished, your home should be as free from hot and cold spots as your HVAC can make it.
Since 1997, Kane Heating And Air Conditioning has offered quality HVAC installation, repair, and maintenance services to the residents of Harker Heights. Plus, we offer indoor air quality services like duct cleaning, indoor air pollution remediation, and airflow rebalancing. If your home suffers from unbalanced HVAC airflow, contact the experts at Kane Heating And Air Conditioning today, and we’ll solve the problem.
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