Recirculation

One of the biggest complaints I hear from homeowners is regarding the lack of comfort in their homes, specifically with heating and cold drafts. I receive several calls a week regarding these issues. The reason people contact me is not because I'm a Connecticut home inspector, but because I'm a certified energy auditor and infrared thermographer. Often homeowners have been suffering with these problems for years without resolution in spite of having numerous professionals examine the house.

Some of these calls come from owners of newer homes. Now it might be hard to believe that a home only a few years old could have heating and energy related problems or even be drafty. Yet I find these problems to exist quite often when evaluating newer homes.

During a recent evaluation of a large high end home that is less than two years old here in Connecticut, I discovered what I would consider an inexcusable installation.

One of the homeowners complaints was the mud room area was colder than the rest of the house. She had the heating contractor out several times to look at this and some other issues. She was told that basically everything is working fine...and I'm certain that is true to a point.

What he failed to mention, because I don't believe he didn't know, was that the return duct had not been ideally located in the mud room. The room has two entrances, one directly from the exterior and one from the garage. The HVAC installer placed a supply duct near each door, so far so good. He also installed a return duct along the outside wall in between these two supplies. In fact it is barely a foot away from the door to the exterior.

What is happening is some of the warm supply air is being sucked right back down the return duct back to the furnace. When I surveyed the room and the basement below, there were other, more ideal locations that could be used for the return duct.

The heating contractor had gone after the easy fixes failing to acknowledge the mistake with the return duct placement. Moving the duct will involve cutting a new hole in the floor and repairing the old hole besides actually installing the duct. This will in all likelihood involve a flooring contractor as well to fix the floor. This makes this a bit difficult and a somewhat costly fix for the heating contractor.

So you can see why this obvious issue was ignored in the hopes ignorance would solve the problem of recirculation.

James Quarello
Connecticut Home Inspector
2010 - 2011 SNEC-ASHI President
NRSB #8SS0022
JRV Home Inspection Services, LLC

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