What is a Cold-Air Return?

In regards to cold air returns, if two are existing in same area and due to construction one is closed off. Is this ok to keep just one return for said area or should the one now closed be redirected?

Question: I recently repainted a room were the return vents are up high on my wall. My question is I didn't pay attention on which way the "fins" were pointing. I would like to hear the proper direction they should be facing (towards the ceiling or facing down at me looking up). Thanks!

Our Goodman gas high efficiency furnace in our purchased home blew hot air through the cold air returns, (yes, they are cold air returns, one on the inside living room wall and one in the hall) and no warm air through the registers. What kind of problem is this?

A stuffed animal was thrown into our cold air return. It's a large Carrier brand furnace where the filter is located in the ceiling opening and not on the furnace side. We can't get to the toy. Is this a fire hazard?

How do I uncover an air conditioning return that someone covered with plywood when they put in a new floor?

We moved into an apartment. There are five units in our building. We have two vents on the floor and three about six feet off the floor.

We assume the bottom ones are cold air returns, but if we uncover them they pump in cooler air and cigarette smoke from other apartments. Can we cover our bottom vents without worrying about the furnace? It is a very old house.

If a room has a heat duct and no cold air return, will it cause that room to stay cooler or at least contribute to it?

i have one bedroom in my house that is always cold in the winter. it has heat coming into the room and i am told that there was a cold air return but it was covered up after that room was remodeled. Will the cold air return being covered up cause this room to not get warm?

I suffered similar problems when I went from an old, very inefficient furnace to a very high efficiency model. The two furnaces worked very differently.

The old one had a burner that looked like the rocket nozzle on the Space Shuttle, only upside-down, and it had a huge fan. The burner was huge, because to work, it was blasting most of its heat up the chimney.

The new furnace had a two-stage burner and a variable-speed motor. This meant that only enough heat was generated to warm the air to the desired temperature.

The old furnace, with its big fan, blasted very hot air up the ducts and into the room below my inefficient, leaky windows. The new furnace gently wafted mildly warm air into the room.

The result was, that while the thermostat said the room was warm, the flow of hot air was not countering the radiant heat loss and drafts from the windows, which are usually far away from the thermostat.

In rooms without cold-air returns (the bedrooms), the problem was worse because the airflow from the registers could no longer blast hot air into the room in spite of the lack of returns. It's like blowing air into a paper bag. Once it is full (of cold air) you can't put any more in. (warm air).

We got in the practice of leaving doors open, which helped a bit. The big improvement came when we put some work into making the house more efficient with new thermal windows, added insulation and lots and lots of caulking. This meant that the temperature was even in all parts of the house, so when the thermostat said it was warm, it actually felt warm.

High efficiency furnaces are not designed to heat leaky houses. Cut the heat loss and you should feel more comfortable.

Keep in mind that tightening the building envelope makes it even more important to have a combustion air source for the furnace, which is what the outside air vent is for. The available outside air helps prevent carbon monoxide backdrafting into the house.

A homeowner.

I just had a new high efficiency furnace installed but i don't have a lot of heat and a lot of cold air before the heat comes on. I have two cold air returns in my home and now coming in from the outside vent.