Leon P. Gander’s Post

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Professional Engineer. Author of two unique knowledge-elevating books. “Understanding the Building Construction Process, Simply Explained” and “Electrical Design for Buildings: Basic Guide, Simply Explained”.

What is Return Air? An air handling unit that supplies air in a building requires a continuous replenishment of air to supply. For example, a residential oscillating fan has two sides: a discharge or high-pressure side and a suction or low-pressure side and the air discharged from it is equal to the air supplied to it. A building air handling unit must be in equilibrium, so, the volume of air that is supplied from it must equal the volume of air returned to it. For example, if 100% outside air is brought into the building, the same volume of air will be discharged from the building to replenish that from outside and keep the air system in equilibrium. In a building when there is concern for the possibility of contaminated air returning to an air handling unit (called the return-air), the air will usually return through ducts (return-air ducts). Hospitals are good examples of buildings where some or all return air may be ducted. In many other types of buildings, air that must return to air handling units is often not ducted. Instead, air makes its way back to the units by a pressure differential created on the suction side of the fans in the air handling units that causes the supplied air to return back to the units. A common route for air to return to an air handling unit is via the ceiling space, which becomes one large duct called a return air space or return air plenum. The use of a ceiling space as a return air plenum has important considerations in building construction. The discussion above about air movement shows that any smoke in the return air plenum would be drawn towards the air handling unit. If an air handling system is one that recirculates most of the air, smoke could be drawn through the air handling unit and be widely distributed in the building via supply air ducting. For this reason, building codes dictate that materials for use in air plenums must show minimal ability to support combustion in case there were a fire in the plenum. As well, materials in the plenum must contribute minimally, if at all to fire and smoke production. To ensure this minimal fire and smoke contribution, there are tests performed by various laboratories that assess suitability for installation of building components in air plenums. For example, some electrical cables are acceptable for installation in plenums and such ratings relate to the composition of the outer jacket material, which is different from the jacket on cables that do not have a plenum rating. Plenum-rated cables are more expensive than non-plenum rated cables.

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