On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 04:03:04 +0000 (UTC), DerbyDad03
wrote:


Is there a cold air return in those rooms? I closed the vents to an unused

No. The first two houses I lived in were built right and had that, but
I only have two air returns, one close to the celing of the second floor
in the stairwell, and one close to the floor of the basement in the same
stairwell. The second is only about an 18 inche duct ride to the
furnace input.

No doors to close off the stairs, or separate the living room from the
dining "area" or the hall from the kitchen. But it makes a small house
look and feel bigger when heat and AC are not a consideration.


bedroom then realized I was sucking 60° air back down to the furnace
through the cold air return. That's not very efficient.

Not good, for sure, but not so much the part where you reheat 60* air.
That just makes it easier to heat. I think the problem that was bad, or
worse, was heating the room you intended to be cool

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. In reverse order, why do you
think something was heating the room I was intending to be cool?

Because you were sucking heated air through the room on its way to the
retrun duct. It says 60° , which I presume is my computers version
of 60 degree. I dind't pay attention to that, but how could it be that
cold if it came from the heated part of your house. I get it. The
room was 60, but when you sucked out the 60 degree air it was replaced
with 67 degree air from the rest of the house, so that's warming the
room, and cooling part of the return air. .

The heat
ducts were closed at the furnace. No heat was blowing into the room. It was
definitely cool in that room, sometimes into the mid-50s during the
coldest days.

As far as the return air, why would I want to mix 55° - 60° air in with the
68° degree from the rest of the house

I don't know if you want to but isn't that what happens when the cold
air duct was sucking air out of the room. That air was replaced with
air from the rest of the house, right?

Or from leaks around the windows I guess. if that was most of it, then
I'm mostly wrong.

So from which entryway, both of which were intended to be close, is
leaking air into the room more.

and then reheat it? Why isn't that a
bad thing?

When I posted, I thought -- and it still may be the case afaik -- that
the air was 60 because it cooled off in the unheated room (while heating
the room) and it had been 67 say, because it came from the heated
rooms. I figure you have to reheat the air no matter where it came from,
but the problem was that it was 60, and that happened in the unheated
room.

So now I don't know where the return air from that room comes from, the
rest of hte house or the outside.

Sorry for the confusion.