furnace cold air return diagram & plenum 3d drawing

Furnace Fresh Air Intake 101

Fresh air intakes are a key component the HVAC organization utilizes to maintain a safe and comfortable indoor surround in your dwelling house. Nosotros are going to discuss what a fresh air intake is and how a properly installed fresh air intake can increase your unit's efficiency, performance, and prolong the life of your furnace. We will also cover how fresh air intakes play a vital role in determining your home's indoor air quality.

What is a fresh air intake?

A fresh air intake is exactly what it sounds like, a path for your home to accept in fresh air from the exterior. In many homes the fresh air intake is simply an open up duct ran from an exterior vent into a basement, or any room housing the home'south furnace. Fresh air intakes can exist in multiple locations throughout your home, particularly in newer homes built to modern building codes requiring homes to exist much tighter than older homes.

Homes are built "tighter" to decrease the air lost from the edifice in lodge to create energy efficient structures in hopes that we can slowly decrease the stress on our aging power grid and conserve energy resources. The tighter pattern is too required because of the health implications of air pollutants that are drawn into older homes from attics, basements, and clamber spaces. Throughout this article we volition take a close look at indoor air quality simply first nosotros volition address the direct correlation betwixt fresh air intakes and forced air furnaces.

Why practice furnaces need a supply of fresh air?

The easy answer is oxygen is a central element in combustion, therefore, your furnace needs air. A gas furnace needs approximately xxx anxiety of air for every foot of gas used. This is roughly the equivalent of running a bathroom exhaust fan into your furnace's combustion chamber.

However, the best reply is a scrap more complex and requires us to delve into the different types of furnaces and expect at the home as one giant ventilation system that the furnace is only a office of.

Conventional/Standard efficiency furnaces

These furnaces are likewise known as "80 percent furnaces" because they have an almanac fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE) rating of lxxx. This means that twenty percent of the possible energy found in the natural gas that can be used for heat is lost during the combustion process due to venting.

Conventional furnaces draw air from the area immediately surrounding the furnace. Just imagine a box mounted in the eye of a room in your firm with an exhaust fan pumping air into it and a vent carrying it up out of your house. All the air that your conventional furnace is venting creates negative pressure level and crusade air to exist drawn in thru the path of least resistance.

The furnace is going to pump air out of your business firm regardless of you having a fresh air intake or non. The difference is where the replacement air volition be drawn from. If yous accept a fresh air intake, the air is immediately replaced with fresh air from exterior the domicile. Homes without a fresh air intake shut to a conventional furnace volition often draw air in from attics, clamber spaces, dryer vents, and a host of other unconditioned spaces that reduce the quality of the air yous and your family unit exhale.

In addition to reducing the indoor air quality of your habitation, a conventional furnace in a pocket-size or restricted space without a directly fresh air intake will be less efficient considering the blower motor will either run slower or use more electricity to proceed up, depending on the type of fan motor.

Air drawn from unconditioned spaces often contain college levels of corrosive contaminates that reduce the life of your furnace due to the burners, heat exchangers, and other components inside the furnace's combustion chamber corroding.

Many homeowners block fresh air intakes due to their belief that venting cold air into a domicile they are trying to heat is counter-intuitive. Therefore, you volition find the fresh air intakes in many homes blimp with insulation, rags and other materials homeowners instinctively take hold of when they experience a typhoon coming from the open pipe duct they observe in their basement or room containing the furnace.

The quondam proverb goes, "Heed to your instincts, they are there for a reason." In this instance, don't heed to your instincts because the fresh air intake is there for a reason!

Blocking the fresh air intake in a minor or restricted space containing a furnace can lead to negative pressure and can cause a back-draft of toxic fumes and carbon monoxide to flow back downwardly the flue vent.

High efficiency furnaces

These furnaces are besides known as "90 percentage furnaces" because they take an AFUE rating of 90. This means that 10 per centum or less of the possible energy plant in the natural gas that can be used for estrus is lost during the combustion process due to venting. These types of furnaces accept a dedicated pipeline that runs direct from an outside vent into a sealed combustion sleeping room of the furnace and a sealed vent to the exterior of the abode for venting the toxic fumes from the combustion process.

Due to high efficiency furnaces having their ain fresh air intake, no air is drawn from inside your habitation. Since high efficiency furnaces describe air directly from outside, the furnace itself does not require a fresh air intake in social club to supplant inside air that otherwise would accept been drawn from the room the furnace is located in.

However, this does non mean that your home does not need a fresh air intake just because you take a loftier efficiency furnace. The open flue on conventional furnaces better permit for the escape of moisture. Homes where conventional furnaces have been replaced with high efficiency furnaces are often susceptible to excess wet that ofttimes forms on the windows and causes mildew. Especially in cases where the fresh air intake is blocked or removed due to the belief it is not needed because a loftier efficiency furnace has been installed.

Leaking ductwork and other gas appliances, such as gas hot water heaters, too create negative pressure that causes air to be drawn into the home. Even brand-new ductwork installed to the nearly current free energy codes lose around ten% of the air flowing through information technology, near ductwork loses much more.

No matter what kind of furnace you take installed, the system will push air out of your home. A fresh air intake ensures the air being replaced is not from surface area of the dwelling house that reduces the indoor air quality of your home.

Indoor air quality

One of the very first things we do upon entering this globe is breathe. The average human breathes in virtually eight liters of air a minute, totaling around eleven thousand liters of air a solar day. Yet, we seem much more concerned with what we accept into our trunk thru eating or drinking than the massive amount of air nosotros take in.

We are constantly bombarded by a public tidal moving ridge of information constantly stressing the wellness benefits of eating unprocessed foods. On the same note, the use of h2o filters in the abode and/or only consuming pre-filtered bottled water has go mainstream.

I think it is safe to say we, as a society, are becoming more aware of how of import information technology is to manage the quality of what we practice or do not put into our bodies. It is hard to dispute the idea that managing what ane puts into their trunk lends to a healthier and higher quality of life.

While the corporeality of air filtration products and systems signal indoor air quality awareness is on the rise, it never gets the attention it deserves because breathing air is something you lot did before you e'er formed a consummate thought. It comes to u.s.a. so naturally we practice not even consider its farthermost importance until it is hindered.

The moment our animate is hindered, whether it be from choking, the air current being knocked out of usa, or struggling to go to the surface of the water, all thoughts are pushed from our mind and every molecule of our beingness is focused on ane thing, taking a breath.

While starvation or dehydration can exist similar at their acme, they both take a substantial corporeality of fourth dimension to set in. The loss of the ability to breath sends us reeling in a mere instant. Yet, we give footling thought to the quality of what our encephalon is so quick to let us know we need virtually to live, air.

The EPA cites studies that indicate the average person can spend close to 90 percent of their time indoors and that the air in most homes and buildings tin be more seriously polluted than even the largest cities and most industrialized areas.

One of the most important aspects of indoor air quality is the replacement of stagnant air inside your home with fresh air. The air in your home should be recycled near five times per hour.

Fresh air intakes ensure that additional contaminants from the unconditioned spaces of your home are non existence brought into the mix of air being circulated throughout your dwelling.

We have covered what a fresh air intake is and how it is an integral part of your homes HVAC organization. Having a properly installed fresh air intake is the commencement step to improving your domicile's indoor air quality, and our parting tip is to double cheque that your fresh air intake is actually ran to an outside vent and not just terminated in the attic or some other inside space.

Steve De Vries is a "Carmine Seal" refrigeration technician with over 20 years of experience in the HVAC industry. He has been a certified Lennox Premier technician since 2006. Steve is also a Master gas-fitter licensed by the province of Manitoba. Forth with his Ruby Seal Provincial accreditation he besides holds an electrical license. Born and raised in Winnipeg Manitoba, Steve has a very good understanding of a diverse climate and the affects information technology has on our construction. Well versed in duct design, fabrication, ventilation, and air quality, Steve understands all the variables to accept into consideration for our region besides equally the scientific discipline to achieve desired comfort, which is so much more but temperature.

For More Contact Our Winnipeg heating and cooling expert today, or call the states at +1 204-799-4926

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Source: https://www.weather-tech.net/furnace-fresh-air-intake-101/

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