My son is renovating his basement. I told him that the exsisting heat vents located in the ceiling were were a mistake by the previous ownner, they should be brought down the wall,right above the basebroad. Heat vents tipically are not in a ceiling. I'm I correct?

Hi voorhis

Although heat rises, in my area most of the basements I have worked on have the vents coming out off ceiling. Cheaper for contractor.

Each run going down wall would be 7 feet plus about half the basement width. To control heat flow, would have to install electronic gates ( don't know what they are called in trade) and thermostat to operate the gates.

Don't forget that u also need a return, which would be in ceiling.

Chuck

Supply vents are typically in the ceiling of basements. Heat rises but remember these are usually a/c cooling supplies also. Heat and a/c supply vents are also usually close to exterior walls. A supply duct coming down a basement wall would loose a lot of heat to the concrete because there is not space for insulation between it and the concrete.


Edit for Creahands
Correct. Which is why you don't see ducts in exterior walls. You can have floor vents in the upper floors at the outer perimeter of the room by going under floor. Not in basments without coming down exterior walls.

Retrofit and remodel basements have heat gartes in the ceiling because many folks found it easy to tap them right where they were already hanging. When I remodel or build from scratch the duct runs down to the floor. This is all done inside a stud cavity and outside walls are used if they help me get the right location. My outside walls are already covered with 2" rigid insulation foam board so I am not worried about heat lose inside the exterior wall, half is under ground anyway. You do need to provide cold air return equal to the supply. So in a nut shell Voorhis, you were correct and gave you boy the right info.

One room of the basement is as bb described. Heat ducts in the ceiling and rigid foam insulation, but no return.

Open the vents and you'll roast. There is a second kitchen there too.

No zoning or cold air returns.

Other parts of the basement has a cold air return, 2 registers and it can get hot too. There is no insulation. It gets cold down there with the AC running and the vents turned off.

I personally don't think the location matters too much. Ceiling or floor. Insulation and returns matter more.

I look at it this way. The basement floor is about the coldest living space you will find. Without a floor vent or a return you will never get any heated air to reach the floor. It just has no reason to go down to the floor when it comes out at the ceiling and wants to rise.

I have found with the new furnaces, there's plenty of air movement to place your registers close to the floor in basements. I have done this several times and my basements are warm. I also run my cold air return down an interior wall, central location where possible, trying to draw from as many of the rooms as possible. If your framing is too close to the concrete, attach a piece of Styrofoam to the concrete so you don't lose any heat to the cold concrete wall. Attach a rectangle pipe to the round duct at the top and continue it down.