All homeowners have a common goal of wanting to keep their homes comfortable and energy-efficient throughout the year. To achieve that, you’ll need to know how to optimize HVAC system operation in both the summer and the winter. Below are some useful tips on seasonal HVAC care.
Open High Returns in the Summer
Hot air rises and cool air sinks. Therefore, opening the right return vents in the summer and winter significantly improves the distribution of air by your forced-air system. You’ll also enjoy more even heating and cooling throughout your home.
In the summer, open your high returns and close the low ones. That will allow the warm air that has risen to be sucked out of your room and taken to the air conditioning coils for cooling. What’s more, the space created will allow the cold air that’s coming into the room to flow up more easily.
So what would happen if you opened the low returns instead? In that case, it’s the cold air that your HVAC system is delivering to the room that would be pulled out again. The hot air that has risen would remain up top.
Open Low Returns in the Winter
In the winter, open your low returns. That allows your HVAC system to pull out the cold air that has collected at your floor.
What About the Supply Vents?
If you live in a two-story house, you’ll want to optimize the supply air as well. Because hot air rises, you won’t have to make many heating adjustments to optimize the delivery of warm air to your upper floor in the winter.
However, in the summer, the rising warm air will pose a problem to the second floor. What’s more, your hot attic will add more heat to the area. For those reasons, you’ll need greater airflow to the second floor to keep it comfortable.
Open all the higher-floor dampers and partially close the dampers to the rooms on your lower floors. Your air conditioner will now force cold air to the rooms on your upper floor more efficiently.
Remember, even if you follow these steps, airflow will be restricted if your air filters are dirty. If you’d like to know more about effective seasonal HVAC care, contact us at Air Assurance. For more than 30 years, Broken Arrow residents have entrusted their HVAC needs to us.