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Balancing your system
Your Central City Air installer made the basic adjustments to the air distribution system in your home. But you and your family are the only ones who know exactly to what degree you want the various rooms conditioned. For that reason, you are the most logical person to "balance" the system.
Balancing is a simple procedure of controlling the amount of conditioned air delivered to the various rooms in your house.
There are five easy steps in balancing the system.
- Pick a day when the temperature of the outside air is typical for the time of year. Leave the thermostat on one setting for several hours before proceeding to step 2. All dampers, ducts, and registers should be open.
- Check the temperatures in all rooms. You can do this by using thermometers. The thermometers should register equally. Take temperatures in each room two or three feet off the floor and near the center. Doors to rooms should be left in their normal positions: closed or open. Let the system operate about 30 minutes before taking thermometer readings.
- If you find some of the rooms are too cool (in the cooling mode), or too warm (in the heating mode), partially close dampers to outlets in these rooms. Make any adjustments in one room at a time. It is best to start with the room that contains the thermostat. Caution: Only move dampers a very small amount at any one time. Never make a large adjustment in the damper position or close dampers completely as this will reduce system airflow and can cause system damage.
- As air delivery is reduced at some outlets, it automatically increases at others. So after air has been reduced to rooms that need less conditioning, allow the system to run for 30 minutes or more. Then check temperatures again; the formerly uncomfortable rooms will have become conditioned more to your requirements.
- Continue to make very slight adjustments to the dampers until rooms reach the temperature balance you want. Be sure to allow enough time for the temperatures to stabilize after you make each adjustment. Also, check temperatures in each room each time, because as you cut the delivery to one room, you can never be sure which other rooms will receive the resulting gain.