Homeowner's Guide to Heat Ducts

Proper ductwork in your home or commercial building is vital to an efficient heating and cooling system. Your heating ducts need to be in the right place, the right size, and properly sealed.

Proper Placement

The decision to place your heating ducts either in your ceiling or on the floor is influenced by several things such as the size of your home, your climate, and the height of your ceiling. This is because selecting the right placement location can significantly lower your heating costs while increasing the lifespan of your ductwork. For example, since Corpus Christy is hot year-round, you are best served with floor heating ducts.

Floor Ducts: Heated air rises because it’s less dense than cold air. Ergo, floor ducts deliver heated air from below, which rises to cover the rest of the room. These vents are normally used in homes and buildings with a basement furnace or whose ductwork travels through an underground crawlspace.

Ceiling Ducts: These are common in homes with no basement and whose furnace is placed in an attic, garage, interior closet, or any other ground-level area. The ductwork typically travels in the walls to the ceilings openings and through floor joists in buildings with upper floors. Since ceiling ducts work in opposition to the conventional physics law of “heat rises,” they are not efficient at heating rooms and you may need to use fans to disperse heat downward.

An Efficient System

Ductwork is used to deliver moving air – either warm or cool. Therefore, areas where cooling needs predominate are better served by ceiling ducts while floor ducts bests serve areas with a predisposition for heating. Also, multiple-story some owners can use a combination of ceiling ducts for cooling and floor ducts for heating.

Sealing and insulating your ductwork can also improve your heating and cooling system’s efficiency by up to 20 percent or more. Focus on sealing ducts that run through your attic, garage, crawlspace, and unheated basement.

For more information about heat ducts contact us at CCAC. We serve the Coastal Bend area and are located in Corpus Christy, TX.