Closing heating registers
by Eddie
(Boston, Mass, USA)
Will closing heating registers and room doors in the unused rooms of a two story Gambrel style home save energy in the winter months? Does this save any oil? Will this cause any trouble for the furnace?
Answer from Green Energy Efficient Homes
There should be no problem with closing forced air heating registers and closing the doors of rooms you don't use in winter, as long as certain conditions are met, namely:
- Any rooms you are closing off do not need to stay heated to keep water pipes from freezing. If there are water pipes in walls or under cabinets in any of these rooms you will need to make sure there is enough heat in the rooms to keep the pipes from freezing.
- The cold air return for a particular floor is not in a room you are closing off.
- The thermostat that controls the furnace is not in a room you are closing off.
The other consideration for a forced air furnace is the furnace fan speed. Many high-efficiency furnaces can be set to run their fan at different maximum speeds. If you do shut off some rooms I would suggest checking your furnace manual to see if you can reduce the fan speed, otherwise you'll have a lot of air blasting through a smaller number of registers than the furnace was sized for. On my furnace (a Bryant Plus90i, made by Carrier), I can just switch one or more of a set of 'dip switches' inside the control area (easily accessed by removing the furnace panel) to choose one of several different fan speeds.
For rooms you don't usually use, but might access at a particular time each day, you can even get a programmable-thermostat heating register, which opens the louvers only during the times when you program it to do so. This can save you energy both during heating and air conditioning seasons.
Vent Miser Programmable Heating Register
The Vent-Miser is an easy to install, battery operated heating register with timer for forced air heating systems. You can program it to let air through the register only at specific times, so the room is warm in winter when you need it, but doesn't waste heat at other times.The Vent-Miser is not a thermostat, it runs independent of your heating and cooling system. It can be used for both heating and cooling. Works best with regular alkaline batteries, not rechargeables.
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