You may notice changes in your comfort level, hot and cold patches in different parts of your home, or an increase in your energy expenses as the season’s change. This could suggest that your system requires “balancing.” This function is referred to as “Air Balancing.”

Many factors influence your AC and heating system’s ability to keep you comfortable. For example, rooms with west-facing windows may require more cooling than rooms with north-facing windows. Additional cooling may be required in rooms with a lot of electronic equipment. The ductwork in your home was built to allow for changes to meet these requirements.

Air balance is an important aspect of routine HVAC maintenance that can help you avoid uncomfortable temperatures and save money on electricity. Here in this article, we will discuss Air balancing and why it is important for your home.

What is Air Balancing?

Air balancing entails regulating an HVAC system so that each room in the house gets the appropriate amount of conditioned air (hot or cold, depending on the season) to ensure maximum comfort. When installed, all residential HVAC systems should be balanced.

In an ideal world, if you set your thermostat to 72 degrees Fahrenheit, every room in your house should be warmed or chilled to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Many homeowners discover that heating or cooling one floor causes the other floors to be uncomfortably hot or cold. Individual rooms don’t always seem to reflect the rest of the house’s temperature.

Why Is Air Balancing Important?

Your comfort is the most crucial reason to have an air balancing service visit. Your HVAC system’s job is to keep your home or company comfortable and functional during the day. It will disrupt your life and make you uncomfortable if you have to shift rooms with the sun or can’t sleep in a certain bedroom in the winter. Air balance may provide you with complete independence in your own house, which is something you should always strive for.

Some people mistakenly believe that air balance issues are caused by a malfunction in their system. When this happens, people may try to solve an issue that doesn’t exist by replacing or adding units to their system. If you think your system needs more power or that something is incorrect, air balance could be the issue. Air balance can often entirely cure these issues.

Air balancing is a good strategy to improve the efficiency of your system. It will consume a lot of energy if your system pumps too much air into a small room while trying extra hard to cool a large one. Your system will use substantially less energy than before by testing and redirecting air to flow properly in different places. This can help you save money on your electricity bills while also extending the life of your unit.

How to balance airflow in the house by DIY method

Air balance can sometimes be achieved by installing more vents to the room with an imbalanced airflow. That may correct the air balance problem in that room, but it still doesn’t address the problem with the HVAC system. For example, if one of your three rooms has an air balance problem, and you correct it by introducing additional air to the room, your HVAC system will be working overtime to meet the home’s temperature requirements.

Several factors can affect air balance, and several solutions must be employed in tandem to obtain a properly balanced home. Consider the following:

To achieve the perfect Air Balance, you may need to install a lot of insulation to those rooms with a lot of exterior walls and flooring.

In the unbalanced rooms, look at the windows. It’s possible that the windows in the rooms with the most Air Balance concerns need to be upgraded. The insulating quality of your windows should have been addressed by the home’s original builder, and if better windows were required to meet the room’s CFM requirements, they should have already been installed.

Instead of just adding vents to enhance airflow in a room, investigate the duct size as well as the room’s placement in respect to the HVAC unit. To enhance the airflow to the affected room, a duct may only need to be reduced.

How To Get Your Air Balanced by a Professional?

Professional air balancing provides a more quantitative and comprehensive approach to air distribution across an HVAC system. A professional will inspect the system and do tests and measurements to see what can be done to improve the air quality in your house.

Their approach may entail the same damper changes as the DIY fix. However, they may also entail technical labor such as altering fan speed, replacing supply lines with larger or smaller ducting, installing dampers where none exist, or even advising a change in the HVAC unit itself.

Professional air balancing can be divided into two categories. Comfort balancing is similar to DIY air balancing, but it pays more attention to details like the blower fan. A thorough air diagnosis and balance are included in a more involved method.

A professional air balance isn’t inexpensive because it’s so complex. Although the actual cost will vary, the most commonly cited figures range from $100 to $200 per opening. Depending on the number of vents in each room and the ease of access to the HVAC pipes, diagnosing and balancing a typical single-family home can cost between $8000 and $2,200.

What are the benefits of air balancing?

Boost Your Energy Efficiency

Airflow has a direct relationship with HVAC system performance. In a home or workplace, unbalanced airflow forces the system to work harder. Fixing any issues that prevent balanced airflow ensures that air conditioning energy isn’t wasted.

HVAC Equipment Has a Longer Lifespan

The amount of dust, mold, and buildup that accumulates in your heating and air conditioning system over time is reduced by good ventilation. Because of this, as well as the increased efficiency of balanced airflow, the HVAC system should endure for many more summers.

Increased Levels of Comfort

In the summer heat, living rooms with insufficient air conditioning are uncomfortable. Air balance seeks to provide the right quantity of cool airflow to each room while avoiding hot spots and stuffy spaces.

Improved Air Quality

Air quality is improved by efficient air exchange, which reduces the number of mold spores, pollen, and dust suspended in the air within a home or office.

Wrapping up!

Always call a professional if you find any air balancing problem in your house. You can try to fix things your self but we recommend you to call professionals for long lasting results.