HVAC return question

[Dominant buck]

Redoing kids 2nd floor bedroom. Remove return vent looked inside and sew no duct work? Is this normal.  I'm Original owner bought new in 1996, here is pictures 

[Lunatic]

No its not 

it looks like the builder cheated and did  not connect to it. You have one less return and you are loosing heat as well

Edited April 25, 2021 by Lunatic

[Dominant buck]

12 minutes ago, Lunatic said:

No its not 

it looks like the builder cheated and did  not connect to it. You have one less return and you are loosing heat as well

Ty,  SOB builder, Renaissance builder, did alot of building in Monroe mid 1990s- to this day!!

[Lunatic]

7 minutes ago, Dominant buck said:

Ty,  SOB builder, Renaissance builder, did alot of building in Monroe mid 1990s- to this day!!

If there is no duct near by to connect to, just close it to prevent heat loss

Edited April 25, 2021 by Lunatic

[mike033089]

Not saying this is correct either. But look below the return hole. Is there duct work that is cut open?  My house built in 87 is a ranch has no actual duct down from the return grate to the duct work. However the duct work is cut open within the wall and the studs and sheetrock make up a chase that air is sucked down into from the rooms and returns back into the unit. 

[Lunatic]

6 minutes ago, mike033089 said:

Not saying this is correct either. But look below the return hole. Is there duct work that is cut open?  My house built in 87 is a ranch has no actual duct down from the return grate to the duct work. However the duct work is cut open within the wall and the studs and sheetrock make up a chase that air is sucked down into from the rooms and returns back into the unit. 

I never heard of anyone doing it this way but this could be it. It would work

[Booner]

Back in yesteryear, this was very common. Builders used Wall bays as a chase. 

Problem with it is it's very dirty,, returning a lot of crap back into the unit. But you must confirm that it is connected  to some sort of a return plenum or pan. 

Lots of times the return duct just goes up to floor rafters. Thre will be a sheet of metal nailed to the rafters and blocked off to create a plenum. 

Check and see what you have. If it's even a plenum return.  Or you were jipped. 

[Dominant buck]

4 hours ago, mike033089 said:

Not saying this is correct either. But look below the return hole. Is there duct work that is cut open?  My house built in 87 is a ranch has no actual duct down from the return grate to the duct work. However the duct work is cut open within the wall and the studs and sheetrock make up a chase that air is sucked down into from the rooms and returns back into the unit. 

This might be it. This room is on 2nd floor, I can see the insulation from attic above, below it goes like 20 feet or so , I made up a string line with metal nut on the end, when I lower it I can hear it hitting metal/tin,  in basement I see a long duct , im assuming it's tied into this duct.    But still half ass, in my humble opinion,  I think its as bad as the "ass eyed fox " butchered job

[mike033089]

7 minutes ago, Dominant buck said:

This might be it. This room is on 2nd floor, I can see the insulation from attic above, below it goes like 20 feet or so , I made up a string line with metal nut on the end, when I lower it I can hear it hitting metal/tin,  in basement I see a long duct , im assuming it's tied into this duct.    But still half ass, in my humble opinion,  I think its as bad as the "ass eyed fox " butchered job

Interesting. 20’ seems like a lot. I would think you’d hit the bottom of the framing wether it be the floor joist/bottom plate/subfloor or the return duct for the second floor a lot sooner.  Run your system and put a piece of paper over the vent and see if it stays stuck to see if it is actually pulling air into the return.  

[MGHunter66]

Very common in the past to use the bay between studs as a return. Probably leads down to basement where you’ll find it transitions to ductwork leading to furnace. Hell they even used the bays between floor joists in some applications 

Edited April 26, 2021 by MGHunter66

[buckhound]

Yup the bay can be used as the return as long as its not sucking air from the attic , basement or crawl space..at some point the duct should tie into it. 

Edited April 26, 2021 by buckhound

[JerseyJaysTaxidermy]

I was on a job once where there was registers in the wall near the baseboard and registers in the wall 7ft above them..
Only thing I could think of was they closed the upper ones and opened the lower ones to let heat out low to rise, and in the summer they closed the lowered and opened the uppers to let the cool air drop from up high..

And between the 2 was just an open bay- no duct work.

Not sure how common it is but it seems like a shortcut I wouldn't be happy my contractor took. Maybe it's no big deal but I'd want the duct.

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[KBfishing]

16 hours ago, Dominant buck said:

Redoing kids 2nd floor bedroom. Remove return vent looked inside and sew no duct work? Is this normal.  I'm Original owner bought new in 1996, here is pictures 

Get out the phone camera and see if there is a duct opening on the floor or on the ceiling behind the wall.