(no subject)

[rootofnewt]

In many rooms of this house, the heat/ac vents are beneath windows. So, not only are they on exterior walls--they're right beneath uninsulated spots.

This seems highly inefficient to me.

I realize the original source of heat for the house was a central stove unit which was accessed via four rooms--that made sense--the heat was at the core of the house (the kitchen had a stove, which certainly warmed the room--it was only replaced last summer.)

Even with heavy curtains, we lose energy because of the placement of these vents. This irritates me. I want the windows for light, so I don't want to cover them over with mylar for the winter. I'm tempted to do so in the bedroom, however.

Comments

[krasota.livejournal.com]

I've never seen register covers that would work with this kind of register. They're weird. Baseboard, sticking-out thingies--not baseboard-heat, mind you.

[knkdyke.livejournal.com]

ohhh... are they actually in the *wall* and not in the floor?

[krasota.livejournal.com]

they come out of the baseboard.

i'll take pics. you might like to see the weirdness. i should show you our circuitbox, too. it's outside. be a pain in the ass if we ever have to flip a switch.

[knkdyke.livejournal.com]

ok... having the circuitbox is definitely weird.

the heat vents in the baseboard, that's not too weird. About half of the vents in my house come through the walls and the other half come through the floor. In my case, the ones that come through the wall are not near the windows, but the ones that come through the floor are.

so yeah, I feel ya' (as they say). I don't think I've ever seen those diverters for vents in the wall.

[krasota.livejournal.com]

http://www.explodingcat.com/krasota/stuff/vent1.jpg
http://www.explodingcat.com/krasota/stuff/vent2.jpg

Basically the same pic. You can see the lovely fake wood paneling, the nice (albeit scuffed) wood baseboard), the cream (new) carpet chosen by my landlord, and the rug on which we rest our shoes and boy's keyboards (the air is not remotely hot up where they are, due to the window being there)... the bottom of the asbestos (i kid, i think) curtains are visible, too.

too dark and cold to go take a pic of the circuit box. it's something our electrician swore at and rubbed his head at.

[knkdyke.livejournal.com]

Well, I agree with your electrician on the electrical box issue. One thing you might be able to do is find out if the outside circuit box violates some code or another. If it does, your landlord *must* have it moved.

As for the vents... sheesh. I'm not sure what to tell you.

What kind of heat do you have. I'm assuming it's forced-air something (gas, oil, electric). Are there any other vents in that room?

Sometimes, closing an inefficient vent actually increases the heat in the house, by routing the heat to a different vent which is more efficient.

[krasota.livejournal.com]

The other vent is under another window, behind our couch. ;)

here's a horribly rendered version of our front room (http://www.explodingcat.com/krasota/stuff/frontroom.jpg) ;)

As for the circuit box, it's actually considered safer than current fire codes. The old baseboard outlets were all brought up to code (couldn't even handle polarized plugs) when we moved in--the wiring is only 12 years old (when the AC/heat was put in). I'd guess forced air--natural gas. We have a big furnace unit in the pantry. The AC thingy is outside.