Home remodeling - where to move this register?

[Dan]

So, need some advice from people with more remodeling chops than me. See the attached pic: this register is where a base cabinet leg needs to sit, and half of it will be underneath the cabinet. The ducts run through my basement, and I have access (though I'll have to open up some sheetrock). I have two choices:

1) Shorten the duct about 3" - 4". That would get the register completely under the cabinet, and I would then use an adapter like this one to connect the existing register to a register mounted in the cabinet toekick. There would be less sheetrock hassle this way, but I think I would lose a lot of efficiency with heating - this is the only register in the kitchen. 

2) Extend the duct about 5" - 8". That would get the register completely out from under the cabinet. I think this will be better for efficient heating, and if I measure well, will be an easier patch job for the floor too (everything that shows will be covered by the register grill). I would need to tear up more sheetrock though, and I suck at sheetrock. 

I am definitely leaning towards Option 2, what do you think? 

 

 

 

 

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Edited April 23, 2017 by Dan

[alpinegirl]

Go for it! Option 2 all the way. In the long run, heating efficiency is worth the sheetrock hassle.

[Pat Donnelly]

I'd go option #1, nearly out of sight and no worry about dropping or spilling stuff down into the ductwork.

[Corey]

I looked at who started the thread before opening it. I assumed Kurt! Haha! 

[ursle]

Raise the cabinet a few inches and direct the airflow where you wish

[ibrussell]

I did option 1 in a kitchen.  Didn't change temp in the room much, but everyone would work next to it in the winter to have extra warm feet.

[monodude]

option 1....

[Eric Brammer aka PSR]

• No, combo option #2 with suggestion #3! When you redirect heat flow, the Heat Goes Up, elsewhere! So, insulated above the re-directed ducting, and then, have an 'expel' zone that correctly spreads the heat somewhere you'll want it to go! But, mostly, be sure that old iron grill vent opening is NOT a weak-spot in the Floor!  (btw, I've an Assoc. Deg. in Arch. Design, and have remodeled a few pre-Victorian houses, so, no Bull Here!) If you're worried in the plumbing, ask at least 3 contractors how they'd fit this; Pick the one with the least mods, but best 'finished product'; they may not be the same folk! Once you've got the 'workload' figured, fixate on the result. 

Edited April 24, 2017 by Eric Brammer aka PSR

[Dan]

12 hours ago, Eric Brammer aka PSR said:

• But, mostly, be sure that old iron grill vent opening is NOT a weak-spot in the Floor!  (btw, I've an Assoc. Deg. in Arch. Design, and have remodeled a few pre-Victorian houses, so, no Bull Here!) If you're worried in the plumbing, ask at least 3 contractors how they'd fit this; Pick the one with the least mods, but best 'finished product'; they may not be the same folk! Once you've got the 'workload' figured, fixate on the result. 

Thanks PSR! That is actually a new register grill (2014 or so) in an very old boot -- the house is 100 years old; the forced air heat is probably only about 40-50 years old (there is asbestos tape on the duct work, joy, so it was installed before the 70s, I guess (?). I have done a lot of work on floors elsewhere in the house and I make up for not knowing WTH I'm doing by massively overbuilding. By the time I am done, the vent opening will be the strongest spot in the kitchen. There will be a cabinet leg there, so want to make sure it's good for the next 50 years until the next sucker redoes the kitchen. 

[workshop7]

I have witnessed many issues on the projects I've worked on when venting heat inside or thru wooden  cabinets.  Lots of separation in the seams and warped doors.  Is that wall in the picture an exterior wall?  If not you could duct up into that wall and install a larger vent in the wall.

[Dan]

Thanks Workshop7! The cabinets are Ikea, so the cabinet carcass is just MDF, not plywood or solid lumber. The doors are lumber, I think, but wouldn't be directly in the line of fire. Would an MDF cabinet still be a concern from your perspective?

I could go up into the wall, but it would be an odd location - above a counter. If I decided to use a wall register, I would probably go somewhere else in the kitchen -- there is an old chimney in the kitchen wall (it's out of use now, it was for an oil burning furnace that was removed before I bought the house), and I think I could run heating duct up there and then add a register in the kitchen. It's a straight shot and would be a shorter duct run that what's there now. Also a much bigger project though...

[Dan]

So, here's a general update. Thanks everyone for your input! I realized that extending to the right is not a slam dunk because there will be a hutch / open shelving there, so the register wouldn't necessarily be in the clear, or at least it would affect the design of the hutch (hutch design is still TBD). So I was leaning towards toe kick register despite the efficiency concerns...but cabinet warping obviously doesn't sound very good. Net net, now leaning a little more towards Option 1, but still a little on the fence. Need to get it figured out today though...I'll come back and see if there are any updates before I pull the trigger :)

[lowrider]

In my opinion ! Placing the register closest to a door or window ( coldest area in the room is normal practice) you know the old principal hot air rises. What your situation presents is a choice for a poor second option. Whatever works best given your limitations will always be second to this principal. Extending the ductwork provided you insulate it under the cabinet should minimize shrinking of woodwork.

[big mario]

19 hours ago, Dan said:

but cabinet warping obviously doesn't sound very good.

We've been doing toe kick heaters for years, both hydronic and forced air, and have never had a warranty call backs for warped cabinets, I wouldn't worry too much about that.  I have a small bookshelf in an area that otherwise would have been dead space under a window in my kitchen, and I came out of the toe kick without any  issues for 14 years now. Go for it and don't worry about it, especially with engineered materials.

Mario

 

[softbootsurfer]

under the cabinet as some suggest, makes the most sense...there would be no warpage as that cabinet looks like MDF or some composite material anyway..a toe space heater would supply the same amount of heat you get now, the hardest part would be matching that flooring where the register is now, though you could also pull that existing cabinet and take some from underneath to help match the existing flooring and simply fill with plywood to bring back up under cabinet...a picture of the whole room would help me with a better visualization of the situation, but from this pic, under the cabinet would be the easiest and most effective solution ...my experience comes from over 40 years as a frame and finish carpenter, builder contractor in Aspen and an education as a woodshop teacher, which I left as I did not want to be inside with the Dust!   regardless...good luck with your project 

Edited April 25, 2017 by softbootsurfer
experience counts

[Beckmann AG]

Cicero would argue against expediency, so plot a course that:

1. Preserves structural integrity

2. Optimizes heat exchange

3 Enhances aesthetic.

In that order. 

(I had 3 years of HS Latin, so I know whereof i speak).

[Dan]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate getting the same laserlike focus and capacity for deep thinking that we usually apply to carving applied to a more prosaic concern

I'm sold on the toe kick register. The patched flooring will not show - it will be under a hutch / open shelves, so no concerns there; it just needs to be reasonably level and structurally sound and I can patch with plywood as softbootsurfer suggested. 

It will be tight under there, but I'll insulate the duct work under the cabinet as best as I can. They are composite - I initially said MDF, but I think it's actually even lower on the food chain - chipboard or something similar. At any rate, they should be reasonably stable. 

@Beckmann AG, unlike me, Cicero did not have a day job to go back to next week  So expediency comes more to the fore than would be the case if I had more time. I do hope this will be a reasonable compromise between expediency and craftsmanship...at least it won't be shockingly worse than the work that I and other previous owners have done in the house already. Oh, the tales this house could tell...

[Dan]

OK, here's one for the history buffs. We found this old plumbing permit in scanned city records from when the house was built. We eventually deciphered the owner's name as CE Wicklund, and through googling, figured out it was Charles E Wicklund.

 

Doing some more searching using that name, we found a rather melancholy news article in an old local newspaper...see below. He only lived in the house for about half a year!

 

And then their daughter married unhappily and one day...decided she had had enough: https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=59126318

With so much sadness associated with our house's early days, we hope that the work we're doing to honor the house and bring back some period charm would be appreciated by the original owners. We think they might be still around, keeping an eye on things  

 

 

Edited April 25, 2017 by Dan

[big mario]

My wife and I have a craftsman bungalow built in 1917, and have always treated the house with respect, and all the work we have done has been with an eye to the past.  We both feel that we are only caretakers, and we try to preserve the work and the materials of past with a nod to the future.  I love old houses, and my job provides me with ample opportunity to work on them, and if the owner is willing, bring them back.

Mario

[ursle]

Wow, you have enough ghost story material for a book,how did the husband die, was it in the house, where is the daughter? 

Is the house haunted, and you've only scratched the surface.

Is the house in a historic zone or are you free to open up secret passages and find forgotten "treasures"

[Dan]

15 hours ago, ursle said:

Wow, you have enough ghost story material for a book,how did the husband die, was it in the house, where is the daughter? 

Is the house haunted, and you've only scratched the surface.

Is the house in a historic zone or are you free to open up secret passages and find forgotten "treasures"

Hi Ursle,

We don't know how the husband died, but he was in his 60s, so possibly just old age. We don't know anything about where he died, but we suspect his wife probably died in the house. I can't say that we've had any really haunted experiences, but sometimes the house creaks in a way that sounds like footsteps...

The house is not protected by historic regulations, and we've had a fairly free hand in making changes, which in our case is mainly bringing things back closer to what they used to look like, before 100 years of trendy updates. We have opened some walls, but never found anything too fascinating. Our best find was some newspapers from the 50s: it was the sports section, and the lead article was about East and West Germany fielding a unified team for the Olympics -- times have changed!

I did put in my own time capsule for future owners: I installed a countertop that I expect will be in the house for decades (it's a one piece stainless L with integrated sink), and underneath the counter I put in a copy of the local free paper, and a This Old House magazine, lol. 

[Corey]

3 minutes ago, Dan said:

I did put in my own time capsule for future owners: I installed a countertop that I expect will be in the house for decades (it's a one piece stainless L with integrated sink), and underneath the counter I put in a copy of the local free paper, and a This Old House magazine, lol. 

What a great idea!  I'm totally doing this next time I have something open.  

Maybe an issue of Carve magazine?  ;) 

[Beckmann AG]

On April 25, 2017 at 2:14 PM, Dan said:

Cicero did not have a day job to go back to next week  So expediency comes more to the fore than would be the case if I had more time.

I hear you on the time frame thing. I've got a decayed floor/subfloor to replace, involving R&R of two significant articles of plumbing in cramped quarters.

Time allotted is roughly 8 hours or one digestive cycle, whichever comes first...

[Dan]

On 4/26/2017 at 6:30 PM, Beckmann AG said:

I hear you on the time frame thing. I've got a decayed floor/subfloor to replace, involving R&R of two significant articles of plumbing in cramped quarters.

Time allotted is roughly 8 hours or one digestive cycle, whichever comes first...

Haha, that is a far stricter deadline than any I've set myself -- it will be tremendously motivating!

[Allee]

Hope the kitchen's going well apart from the register head-scratch. I've just done mine (recognized the Ikea cabinet straight off, hahaha), but as I'm having to rip ceramic tiles off the floor and prep it for vinyl plank I suspect yours will be finished well before mine!

I'll think of you this weekend, when I'm dismantling the bulkhead that holds the OTR microwave. Sigh.