When I moved into my apartment, I noticed one of the air registers seemed to be installed the wrong way, in that the main, center set of louvers was pointed toward the wall with a window rather than toward the middle of the room as I’ve always seen it done up until now. See image: ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs
But then I started to second-guess myself once I noticed it’s like this everywhere in my apartment where there’s a register by a window (the others still point toward the center of the room). So was my first instinct right in that all my registers are indeed installed backwards, or is this some new trend in HVAC systems that I’m unaware of?
I’ve been seeing that more and more in new installations in commercial settings in buildings with lots of windows. I assume they figure that’s going to be the (in winter) coldest area in the room so they might as well direct the warm air right at it. I also see it in hotels in rooms with pools, but I assume that’s to keep the windows from fogging up from the steam.
You could probably turn the around, but I doubt you’d notice any difference one way or the other. I think the only issue you might encounter with the setup is that in summer if you do a lot of cooking or take hot showers with running the bathroom fan, the windows may fog up, but other then that, I wouldn’t worry about it.
If it is directed to the center of the room then the outside edges of the room will feel cool and the center will have a draft. Let the heat flow from the outside to the center of the room.
In office buildings many times the outer zones are heating and cooling only. While the interior zones are only cooling.
It may be directed toward the window because a window allows for more heat loss than say, an adjoining wall. Now this may seem counterproductive but if you heat the outside walls of a structure, the middle of the structure will follow. This is why when heat is supplied from floor registers or radiators, they’re usually placed directly below windows. If your heating system is incapable of raising the interior temperature of the outside walls, it’s doubtful you’ll ever be really comfortable with its performance.
It seems to be done that way to heat the coldest part of the room, so the room heats up evenly. I know with base board heating the radiator is many times on a external wall also.
Given that I live in Texas and my heating demands are usually a lot less severe than my cooling demands, would it benefit my electricity bill to turn them around?
I don’t think it will affect utility bills. If you like air blowing on you, have them blow towards living space.
The net effect is probably going to be the same. Blowing them at the walls will almost certainly leave dark spots on the walls over time. You can clean it, as it will be dust and fine particulates.
One reason that you might want to blow them towards the room: If you blow air on a wall it could lead to condensation on the other side of the wall. Now, if the insulation/vapor protection is perfect (most aren’t), you reduce the chances. But blowing air directly on an exterior wall seems like it would increase the likelihood of mold forming over time on the materials behind the wall.
