Jumper Ducts - Pressure Balanced Rooms - Video Blog

Hi, my name is Matt Risinger of Risinger Homes. We are a high performance green building and remodeling company in Austin, TX. In this segment of my video blog I'm talking about jumper ducts. These are very important in ensuring the rooms of your house are a comfortable temperature. Most homes have poor return air pathways out of the bedrooms and as a result bedrooms can very greatly in temperature throughout the house. Let me show you how to do it the right way.

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People & Blogs

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• HVAC
• Jumper Ducts
• Return Air

[bodicleanair]

Along with dumping conditioned air into the hallway, does the jumper grill/duct also create a pathway for sound to travel from the bedroom into the hall? Great videos, thanks for posting.

[MattRisinger]

This jumper duct is allowing the air to flow from the supply in the bedroom to the return air duct located in the hallway. It's definitely better to have a ducted return to the unit but it's not always possible. This jumper duct does create some noise issues but the flex duct quiets down the noise better than a large undercut on the door or a direct transfer duct through a 2x4 wall cavity. Ducted returns are best, follow by a flex duct jump ceiling to ceiling, then last choice is wall returns

[lacochinit]

i like the idea of the jumper duct but the concept is the same .put a grille on the bottom of the door to keep the room from pressurazing. (nothing new) but who pays for it. if the builder,s most of the time are always complaining about the budget.

[MattRisinger]

Just to clarify, I'm not proposing a grille on the door but rather a ceiling grille with a length of flex duct to the hallway with another grille. This gives the necessary return air without compromising the aesthetics of the door. It's probably $50-100 per room to do this depending on the cost of the ceiling grille. That's a low price to pay for comfortable rooms, but you will need to tell your HVAC contractor to add this cost to his bid as most aren't doing this as a standard practice.

[MattRisinger]

@78mondo32 I have both at my house and I think the transfer grills move more air but the sound issue is a problem at my own house so that's why I almost always go for transfer grills. I can't always get a ducted return, but definitely agree that putting a ducted return is the best route to go. -Matt

[PutSome5tankOnIt]

That was a good demonstration, in theory. Individual returns located in rooms (especially bedrooms) with doors that can be closed is the best scenario. Builders tend to like a single central return because it keeps costs down. The simple way around that is to keep those doors slightly open. Just the width of a shoe is usually adequate but that sacrifices privacy.

[buckners1]

I'm an HVAC contractor and I use the transfer returns. If you cut a grille in the door, that room has no privacy and it looks ugly. In Florida (at least my city) you have to have a return on any room with a door on it except the bathroom.