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I’d like to build a ducting system to actively push air from one room to another. Is that a thing? (self.homeimprovement)

submitted 6 months ago by ch00f to c/homeimprovement

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So my home office is in our basement while my wife’s is in a finished attic space. We have a mini split system, but it has to be all heat or all cooling, and many days it’s cold in my office, but hot in my wife’s office.

Thanks to a defunct chimney, I have a pretty decent path from the attic to the basement that could easily accommodate some kind of ducting.

I’d like to make a system that can push air from my office to hers or vice versa as needed. I think this would really help the house in general as cold air tends to pool in the basement.

I’ve seen plenty of ducting booster fans, but I’d like something with a speed (or at least direction) control accessible from the outside.

Does something like this exist? It would need to force air through maybe 30-40’ of ducting.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I've been thinking about building a similar system for my home.

I live in a geodesic home and the main floor is almost always at a comfortable temperature but the basement floor is always cold.

Thinking about purchasing some vent booster registers and wiring them in with some ducting in one of the walls to suck the cold air out of the basement and push it up into the main floor or possibly all the way up to the top floor.

I checked AliExpress and there were some sellers there who had what I was looking for in the 40 to $80 range, but I imagine the main cost is going to be dropping 10 to 20 ft of ducting through the walls.

I don't think that one of them by itself will completely solve the problem but I feel like since it would be sucking the coldest air in the entire house and mixing it in with the hottest air in the entire house that it would at least help ameliorate the issues.

[–] Death_Equity 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

In your case there are a lot of complexities that may make such a simple solution less viable than OPs.

The total volume of the two spaces, the floor and wall construction, if the basement is finished, and the layout of the basement and main floor all come into play.

Adding ducting to the walls may be a major hassle and expense.

If it were my house, I would probably push air up from two spots into the main floor via registers I added or add more returns to the basement and hope the HVAC circulation helps with the top floor without having to add dampers to the main and top floors in both cases.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

I tested the idea with a small blower fan. Well I say small but it's a decent sized and can move a lot of air.

I put it at the base of the stairs and by itself it caused the air temperatures to normalize between the bottom floor and the middle floor.

But it's also super power hungry and I don't want to burn 300 watts of power an hour 24/7 to normalize the Air temps.

There is a central wall that goes from the top to the bottom in the middle of the dome and I believe there is a pocket that I can utilize to hide the ducting.

I guess when I finally execute on the plan I'll take some pictures and show off my handiwork.