“We have one room in our house that is always cold with the heat on and hot with the air on. Is it possible that we have a duct issue?”

If you ever go into a Zaxbys or a Red Robin and you look up at the duct work at the ceiling, you will see a big piece of duct work reduced to a smaller piece and then reduced to a smaller piece again. A lot of homes that we go to do not have that going on. What you are doing by having that is making sure you are keeping the pressure up as you go along. So the room at the end of the house with the end of the duct system is getting very little air compared to the one at the beginning of the duct run. So what is happening is that it is not reducing.

When we install a new duct system, we are reducing to keep pressure up. It’s kind of the same principal with a garden hose, you turn the water on all the way, hold the hose up and you see the water pouring out of the hose. However, if you put your finger over the opening of the hose, what happens now? The water sprays further out. Same principal with the air. You want to make sure you keep that pressure up so that the air gets to all the areas of the house equally and is balanced out.

I cannot think of a home that I have been under that has properly had that reducing going on with the duct system. Because of this, people have the same complaint. That it is hotter at one end of the house than the other or colder at one end of the house than the other. You can seal your duct system to help a little bit but really it is a reducing issue and because of that, the pressure for the air is not getting to those far locations.

Your friend in comfort and energy savings,

Derek Cole

Derek Cole is the General Manager of One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning®, an independently owned and operated franchise based in Laurinburg, North Carolina since 1953. He‘s had experience in the HVAC industry since 2001 and was named the Top 40 under 40 in the HVAC industry by the News magazine and featured in Entrepreneur Magazine Franchise Player Spotlight. Derek has also been seen on CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, and Bloomberg Business sharing about One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning®.