what do your heat vents / air returns look like?

[phil]

My house , like many others originally had some sort of burner in the basement with a vent in the hall in the middle of the house so the heat got upstairs through convection.

later in time forced air was added, they added some air returns and typical 4x 10 heat vents. the heat then comes out near the perimeter and returns near the center of the building.

I didn't have the grate in the hall floor, it had been covered and I fixed the flooring ( by adding some planks cut and "threaded in to fit" so the patch isn't noticeable at all anymore.)

I found the frame for a similar hall vent , it looks like a picture frame but I dont really want to add that back.

a couple of the air return vents were cut through the baseboards which I'm now restoring so I'm trying to make a custom brass vent cover that looks "authentic".

I have one old heat vent , it sort of has a flapper door. I thought of using that as an air return vent but it was taller than the baseboard and I decided it might be best if I just make a new one. its going to be about 5" x 22 inches. the baseboard is about 7 inches tall. what was there was a grill nailed to the baseboard but it's ugly painted garbage and non original anyway.

I came to the realization that many other old home owners would also have heat systems that were added through time and I wondered how others handled the issue of making the newer heat vents and air returns fit the style of their house.

for the standard sized heat vents, I changed most of them from the plastic crap they had to the ones from the 50's or so that are a bit heavier gauge tin. I can buy fancy wood or metal ones but a lot look a bit gaudy or plastic, shiny aluminum, or just don't fit in . I think I can find 50's ones in thrift stores and places like that. They aren't 1920's but they are so common and typical that no one really thinks about them looking out of place.

i dont think my house originally had any air returns, back then the house was just leaky enough that they didn't return any air and the basement was separate from the rest of the house. I'm not going to get rid of forced air or go to the length of installing radiators. No point trying to move away from forced air. Il need to replace the furnace eventually for a more efficient one but for now my old gas gobbler is working. It's a weird green color , probably from the 50's or so.

Some of the heat distribution vents are below the joist in the basement and take up headroom, I thought maybe I could make them flatter and wider rather than the typical round pipe to increase headroom in the basement, but that could be modified later down the road. Ive been meaning to at least pull them out to wash them outside and remove any old asbestos tape. If I just wrap those with wet paper towel the old paper tape gives up easily without becoming a friable asbestos hazard. I have a pretty big air return vent and distribution vent that is box shaped. I can perhaps make some access doors for dust removal or just cut holes and patch them up again with tin to clean inside the big box vents. I've vacuumed inside them but it would be nicer to actually wash them out inside and get rid of any old dust. I guess I could call in a duct cleaner guy but I can probably find a way to do that myself.

[Gothichome]

Phill, Gothichome has standard vents of 1964 vintage on the heat side and several utilitarian grates on the return side. Nothing fancy by any means. I do have three fancy return vents iin the basement though awaiting installation.