SpacePak Winter Supply Shut-Off

We use the SpacePak air conditioning in our new home to cool the house in the summer. The SpacePak system is only used for air conditioning so there are two steps to take each fall in preparation for winter. Because the SpacePak system is not used for heating the house it sits unused all winter. The problem with that is warm moist air can rise up into the supply ducts and the air return. That causes two problem; the first is a loss of warm air and the second is a condensation problem.

Obviously losing warm air up into the duct system isn’t a great idea especially with the cost of fuel to heat our home. The other problem is having the warm moist air rise up into the cold ducts and then condensing and causing water to drip back down into the house. In fact, I’ve seen houses that didn’t address this problem with a serious amount of water dripping out of the ducts on a really cold day.

SpacePak systems come with winter supply shut-offs for the room terminators (registers). The simple winter shut-off is really just a plug of sorts (see photo). It’s a simple metal disk with a round piece of felt attached to the back. When you push the shut-off up into the room terminator the felt helps create a nice snug / tight seal. The plug effectively seals off warm air from rising up into the duct system.

The other big item is plugging the large air return. For this I use a piece of foil / bubble / insulation cut slightly larger than the air filter. By cutting it slightly larger it’s easy to push into the opening and have it stay in place without falling down. If you need a place to buy some Foil Insulation then Amazon has some that will work well. I also took the time to remove the EZ Kleen aluminum air filter and clean it. These filters can be cleaned with warm water. I just set them in the but and spray them down real good. This way everything is all set for next summer when the heat comes and we want to fire up the air conditioner.

So if you have a SpacePak air conditioning system and you live in a cold climate make sure you plug the room terminators each winter. You’ll save money and possible damage to your home from dripping water.

If you don’t have central air then check out some information on a portable air conditioner.

Home » Air Conditioning, Maintanence

Submitted by Todd on September 29, 2008 – 6:00 am2 Comments