How are floor and ceiling registers used?

Floor registers are part of your heating and ventilation system. They give you an important way to regulate airflow within your home.

Here are some of the ways Imperial Floor Registers can add comfort to your home:

• Maintain uniform temperatures from room to room
• Direct air flow away from certain areas
• Isolate rooms that you don’t need to heat or cool
• Block cold air from entering the home from the basement
• Help circulate cold air from the basement to cool the home
• Move warm air produced by a wood stove to the upper floors

What is a grille?

Grilles are the vents through which air is pulled out of a room for circulation back to the central heating or cooling unit. Grilles do not have the damper controls found on registers. Imperial Grilles are installed in cold air return ducts.

Characteristics of grilles

• They have no damper to close off the flow of air.
• They may be located in floors, ceilings and walls.
• They provide return air circulation within a room; where unobstructed flow is required for heating/cooling system efficiency.
• You may have several small grilles located throughout your home or one large central grille installed near the furnace.

If you have one or more of these problems:

• My laundry room seems hotter and more humid than usual.
• My clothes take an unusually long time to dry.
• My clothes are hotter than usual at the end of a drying cycle.
• The damper on my outside exhaust vent hood does not open fully when the dryer is operating.
• The outside of my dryer seems unusually hot.

This is one of the easiest and inexpensive home improvements you can make

When it comes to decorating, one area of the home that is often overlooked or passed over are heat registers.

These vent coverings are easy to forget about, as they can seem like such a basic part of your home. The floor registers and grilles that originally came with your home have probably seen better days. Using decorative registers in your home can really help improve the overall look of your new or current room design.

If you are installing a new floor, you should add an attractive finishing touch with new registers and/or grilles. Imperial Floor Registers add style, class, richness, quality, originality, and high value to any home. They come in a variety of materials, finishes and styles for a perfect match or distinctive detail.

Floor registers give you added control over air circulation and protect you, your kids, and your pets from any harm from open-air ducts.

Selection Tips

• Use Imperial Floor Registers to accent a room with a style and finish that matches the scheme of that room.
• Rooms with carpeting will use a different floor register that a room that has wood floors such as typical dining room and kitchen areas. By choosing a decorative register to match that specific type of flooring, you will achieve the best overall look for the room.
• If you have hardwood flooring in a certain room of your home that has been stained with an unknown color, simply get an unfinished wood floor register and have someone match a stain to your floor.
• Match the floor register to other items in the room like cabinets, shelving and wallpaper.
• Match ceiling and wall grilles to blend with the room’s new look.
• In most cases, a straightforward design with blended accessories will give the most practical look that you and the rest of your family can live with for years to come.

Planning points for you dryer venting system

• When planning a new dryer vent system, always select the route that will provide the straightest and most direct path outdoors.
• Plan the installation to use the fewest number of elbows and turns.
• Elbows allow the dryer to sit close to the wall without kinking and/or crushing the transition duct.
• The male (crimped) end of each section of rigid metal or flexible metal (semi-rigid) ducting must point away from the dryer.
• Rigid metal duct joints should be made air and moisture tight by wrapping the overlapped joints with duct tape or aluminum tape.
• Duct that runs through an unheated area or is near air conditioning should be insulated to reduce condensation and lint buildup.

Branching

The total amount of air that your furnace or air conditioning system can move stays the same even if you add a branch.
Whenever you branch, you must reduce the size of the pipe to maintain air velocity.

• For each branch of ductwork, determine your start point and your end point.
• The new supply line should always be drawing off a main air supply duct.
• Use a take-offwhen your start point is a rectangular main duct.
• Use a teeor wyewhen your start point is a round main duct.
  Tees split, but do not reduce, and an appropriate reducer must be added.
• Use a boot when your end point is at a room floor, wall or ceiling.
• Use elbows to make any necessary turns between the start point and end point.
  A 90º round adjustable elbow can be adjusted to make any angle from 0º through 90º.

Register Size Selection Guide

Applicable to floor, ceiling, and sidewall/ceiling registers

• Register sizes are based on the duct size
• Measure the duct opening in the floor before ordering or purchasing your register
• Do not use the top plate size as a reference

Soot vs Creosote

Soot and Creosote are byproducts of the combustion of wood or coal in wood stoves or fireplaces.

Physically, soot (image on top) is powdery to touch, brown or black, and only settle on the surface. Soot is formed from the smoke. As the smoke rises from the stove, the dry particles cling to the pipe lining. Due to its color and consistency, soot can soil your carpets or stain surfaces such as walls and floors. Cleanup can be extremely messy. Protect the area surrounding your wood stove from soot with heat-resistant stove boards.

Creosote (image at the bottom) is a more severe combustion byproduct; it’s tarry, thick, and sometimes flaky. The smoke from flames travels upward and mixes with cold air and moisture from the top of the chimney. Once cooled down, it sticks to surfaces more like cement, making it harder to remove. Over time, the risk of chimney fire increases as the buildup gets thicker.

Toss in a stick or sprinkle some soot remover ideally, once per week, onto a brisk hot, burning fire to prevent further buildup.

Use Soot Remover Dry Sponge to quickly clean soot on exposed surfaces of wood stoves and fireplace walls. Diligently cleaning these surfaces will prevent the accumulation of baked-on dirt and soot.

What are creosotes?

Creosote is a byproduct of burning plant-derived materials or fuels. When combustion happens in woodstoves, the rise of high-temperature smoke from the flames mixes with cold air and moisture from the top of the chimney. The condensation forms traces of coal tar in the pipes that solidify and get thicker over time.

The buildup of creosote is a fire hazard and health risk. Annually inspecting woodstove pipes is recommended to prevent chimney fires and downdrafts, avoiding toxic substances from entering your home.

Once inspected, what do I do next?

Second Stage

You will notice minor or formation creosote buildup. The creosote is thicker, starting to form layers, and it looks more like tar than soot. Sometimes, it may look flaky to an untrained eye, but the creosote has firmly adhered to the pipe lining. A more industrial and rigid approach to cleaning is needed. Rotary loops and drills are required to remove the creosote at this stage. Often, chemical solvents help loosen the buildup for easier removal.

Sprinkle some creosote treatment powder onto a low fire or bed of coal twice-weekly for four (4) weeks to break apart the creosote buildup. Then use a chimney brush or rotary loop and drill to clean out the loosened creosote.

Imperial Burn Indicator (Magnetic)

Use a burn indicator to determine the burn temperature.
Place it on the single-wall stove pipes 18” above the stove.

Tips to consider when installing wood stoves

Stove Pipe Components

• 18-in minimum clearance from combustible materials is required
  
• 24-gauge, cold-rolled steel construction for durability and lasting performance
• Black matte paint coating that resists heat, surface scratching, and chipping
• Paint coating that tolerates maximum continuous operating temperatures of 700° F, with short exposures up to 800° F
• Crimped male ends on most stove pipe components for snug pipe connections
• Install crimped end down toward the stove to prevent condensation or creosote leakage
• Secure stove pipe connections with at least three (3) self-drilling stove pipe screws
  
  

Heat Shield and Stove Boards

• Heat Shields can reduce the clearance between stove pipe and combustible materials by 67%
• Stove Boards or thermal hearth pads (Type 1 or 2) insulate and shields floors, walls, and ceiling from heat, hot coals, ashes, and soot
• Stove Boards (Type 2), when used as a wall protector, require 1-inch clearance from walls; use wall spacers
• Combination of stove boards, stove pipe, or elbow heat shields in any wood stove installation is a standard practice
  
  

Scroll down for other types of installation.