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I am building a new home (Wisconsin) with hydronic radiant floors on the first floor and a separate duct system for AC (to be used about 1 month per year) and forced air heat on the small 2nd floor space (with a heating coil in the air handler from my boiler). The installer sealed all the supply ducts fairly well but to my surprise is using several stud and joist spaces for the return ducts. Is this an accepted standard of installation or just sloppy technique. I can try to seal the return spaces with caulk and drywall gaskets but am debating whether I should have them redo the project with sealed return ducts. Thanks for your thoughts.
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... "panning " floor joist bays and stud bays is an old practise , but it is not a good practise..
all of your ductwork should be sealed, and it should not be sealed with duct tape... they should use fibered duct seal...
"panning" is notorious for leaky ductwork and poorly performing HVAC systems....
if he balks, discreetly check the code in your jurisdiction, ....
what do the heating specs say?... probably don't address it.. but sometimes even the worst HVAC contactors refer to ASHRAE specs, which should hold him to the better standards...
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I am building a new home (Wisconsin) with hydronic radiant floors on the first floor and a separate duct system for AC (to be used about 1 month per year) and forced air heat on the small 2nd floor space (with a heating coil in the air handler from my boiler). The installer sealed all the supply ducts fairly well but to my surprise is using several stud and joist spaces for the return ducts. Is this an accepted standard of installation or just sloppy technique. I can try to seal the return spaces with caulk and drywall gaskets but am debating whether I should have them redo the project with sealed return ducts. Thanks for your thoughts.