Air balancing is an important element in maintaining home comfort and efficiency. Moving the right amount of air to the right place is vital for both air conditioning and heating. Neutral air pressure—the ideal condition for cooling and heating—means “not too little, not too much” when it comes to air volume entering individual rooms.
Balance doesn’t happen by accident. It requires a careful air balancing procedure by a qualified HVAC technician with the equipment and expertise to achieve equal airflow throughout the HVAC system.
- When a system is properly balanced, air volume entering rooms through supply ducts equals the amount drawn out through return ducts, resulting in neutral air pressure in that room.
- When the supply volume is too high, rooms are pressurized. Conditioned air is forced out of the house through minute structural cracks and gaps, wasting cooling or heating energy.
- When the supply volume is too low, the room is depressurized. Negative air pressure in a room sucks unconditioned outdoor air in through cracks and gaps, making the A/C or furnace run longer to compensate.
An unbalanced state also impacts comfort. Rooms closest to the blower receive an oversupply of cooled or heated air while rooms furthest from the blower remain stubbornly difficult to cool or heat.
Getting in Balance
Air balancing involves evaluating airflow to individual rooms using specialized equipment to measure the static pressure inside the ductwork as well as the amount of air reaching each room through the supply ducts. Since blower output is a fixed amount of air volume, the system is balanced utilizing doors called dampers. Usually installed where each branch duct forks off from the main trunk duct, these doors are adjusted to increase or decrease the amount of conditioned air reaching individual rooms. When all rooms receive the correct volume of air to maintain neutral air pressure, the system is balanced.
Other factors may make proper air balancing problematic. When duct leakage exceeds specifications, the ductwork may require professional sealing before proper air balance can be restored.
For more on professional air balancing in Yuma, contact Hansberger Refrigeration & Electric Company.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Yuma, Arizona about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about air balancing and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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