From The Detroit News | By Ken Calverley and Chuck Breidenstein
DETROIT, January 23, 2025 ~
We still design homes for heating in a cold weather climate.
When we modify the temperature or humidity or cleanliness of the air, we are conditioning it.
Decades ago, our concern focused on surviving the cold winter months, so heating homes became a requisite.
It was thought we could all find ways to cool down in the heat of summer, but staying warm in winter was a priority.
For years, every home had a fireplace, or wood-burning stove, to provide some measure of warmth.
Large, coal-burning, furnaces were later installed in basements. These depended on warm air rising to move the heated air up through grates in the building floors, and, later, on ductwork to help distribute the warm air to specific rooms in the home.
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Sophisticated boiler systems evolved to carry heated water through pipes to cast iron radiators in individual rooms of the home and these systems were later zoned to allow for more heat in a given area.
We installed transom windows above doors and left space below the doors to encourage convective movement of heat.
In later years, we learned to adapt blower motors to those furnaces and force the air through ductwork to various areas of the building.
These forced-air systems have evolved over the decades in many ways.
Initially, we did not understand the fluid nature of air and so assumed that if we put it into a pipe, it would move to any point of exhaust where we provided an opening.
Return air duct systems were intended to move the conditioned air in a loop through the living area and back to the furnace, to be reheated and repeat the cycle.
We learned to introduce the warm air at the coldest points of the home, below windows on exterior walls while return air vents were placed high on walls in the center of the structure.
The use of many different materials for the air distribution pipes led to sheet metal being popularized.
The galvanized steel was readily available, easily formed, offered little resistance to air movement, and provided for relative ease of installation.
Within the past 50 years, our affluence allowed many homes to introduce cooling by simply adding a condenser unit and coil to the existing heating system.
With one distribution system and one blower motor, we could now condition the air year-round, providing heat and humidity in the cold winter months and cooling and dehumidification in the warm summer period.
We learned that by moving the conditioned air through a filter we could clean it, and filter technology evolved to remove even the smallest particulate.
Blower motors now use less expensive electrical current to adjust velocity and burner technologies provide for increased efficiencies through higher and better rates of heat exchange in the units.
We have discovered that each joint in the duct system is a weak point with regard to efficient movement of conditioned air, as well as bends, framing obstructions and fittings. Good design in building construction allows us to economically design and install air distribution systems that are sealed and create little resistance to airflow.
Proper duct sizing is also a critical design issue to maintain sufficient air pressure in the delivery system.
Better understanding of various potential air contaminants has led to the development of devices that are installed in the duct system to kill viruses and bacteria.
There are some other effective ways to introduce heat into a space including radiant ceiling units, in-floor electrical and hydronic systems, and electrical resistance units of various capacity.
But the best value we have found for year-round movement, conditioning, and cleaning of the home air is forced-air systems.
The one caveat we attach is that the system must be professionally designed, installed and maintained to deliver optimum performance.
Professionals like those you can find every day at InsideOutsideGuys.com.
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For more advice, listen to the Inside Outside Guys every Saturday and Sunday on AM760-WJR from 10 a.m.-noon or contact us at InsideOutsideGuys.com.
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