A High Flow Air Return Extends the Life of Your Air Conditioner

**Our honesty policy: This post may contain affiliate links and I may be compensated if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you. Some are, some aren't--I do some comparison shopping. The important thing is you will know exactly what we are talking about. Drop a note/comment if you have any questions on the products as these are materials and tools we use on our own projects.

Ever hear a whistle coming out of your air return and wonder if something could be done about it? Or have you gone one step further and considered your air return as a choke hold on your air conditioner and your unit is working harder than it needs to?

You are on to something!

Depending on your current setup, getting a high flow air return grille can make the difference!

Check out this picture:

I’ll give you one guess as to which one is the old one and which one is the new one.

There are two kinds of air return grilles:

1. Stamp faced grilles
2. Fixed bar grilles

The old air return on the bottom is a stamp faced grill. The top one is a fixed bar return grille.

Fixed bar grilles are also known as a high flow air return grilles. Much more aerodynamic, a fixed bar return grille allows much more airflow with less drag. You can see the holes are much bigger with it’s design. The supporting bars are nearly nonexistent in comparison to the columns of unstamped metal in a stamp faced grill.

All of this is only good news for you. This allows the air conditioner to work less. Less stress on an air conditioner translates to longer life.

Increased airflow also means the air throughout your home cools faster. So your comfort level increases with a fixed bar return grille.

Going back to my original whistling comment, the return no longer whistles. In all honesty though, the return grill was the simplest and easiest fix of all the ducting repairs done en masse. We also replaced the 15″ return ducting with 16″ ducting, pulling the flex duct tight with three rigid and insulated elbows along with minor tweaks and improvements to other supply runs. With all these improvements, the change in noise level from replacing the stamp faced grill with a fixed bar grill was immediate. The upgrades made an air condition startup almost silent. We still heard the unit on top of the house kick on but we didn’t hear the filter suck into the air return duct and start whistling for the duration of the cycle.

How much of it was due to ducting versus the grille upgrade? It’s hard to tell, but it certainly helped!

Why is this not installed by default?

I would argue the vast majority of us have a stamped air return installed by default in our homes. I really question why.

A high flow return grill is going to cost more up front, but is it really that much more at  a contractor rate?

Why is a house in the $400,000 range without an better air return for a mere approximately $100 (retail–not contractor pricing!). Pretty sure you’ll get your money back with a bar style return based on energy savings…or just one avoided call out to an HVAC company because the A/C is not working as hard.

If you have a 20″ x 30″ return air filter grill like we do you can get one like we installed here. It’s a little light on details (it is actually all steel construction) as is the TruAire website (direct link here)–there is only one picture for the 290 series. However, TruAire is a trusted name in the HVAC industry. You can also check it out at your local HVAC supply.

A few tips when replacing your stamp faced air return with a high flow air return:

The frames are the same size. Maybe this is intuitive, but it’s always nice to know ahead of time.

Proof that it’s a nice snug fit.

• The holes probably won’t line up, but you’ll have a nice new place to put a screw just in case the hardware is a different size (aka the old holes won’t be too large and leave you with no bite into the wood).

• Don’t forget to caulk the frame. You don’t want unfiltered air going through your air conditioning system. Seal up the frame and make sure everything passes through your new high flow air return.

Let’s extend the life of our air conditioners and start enjoying cooler air quicker!

An easy change from a stamp faced grille return to a bar style return will help get you there.

Cheers!*

*Krampus, a special release Christmas beer from the Texas Beer Refinery.