A floor plan would help with problem solving.

It may take a combination of different ideas to make it blend in in different parts of the run.

Maybe too late, and don't know whether this would even make sense with the system you are using. But, instead of having the ducts cross the entire house, would you be able to use a minisplit or other system for the other side?

Michelle,

Just wanted to say I feel badly you are going through this. Our original HVAC contractor wanted to run duct runs throughout our main living space too. He started doing the ducts and we asked him to stop. In the end we got an HVAC plan done from an HVAC designer in Toronto and he advised using a high velocity system that allowed the ducts (mainly 4 inch runs) to go through the I-joists. Our ducts were only needed for AC as the heat in our house will come from in-floor. The high velocity system does allow forced heat as well though. Has youre equipment for the furnace and other HVAC being bought? Are all the duct runs now in place?

Do post a floor plan and perhaps a solution will be seen by some posters on GW. What height are your ceilings? Ours are only 8 foot which made it all the more difficult to deal with drop downs for ducts and we might have not minded as much if the ceilings had been 9 foot or taller.

Carol

Depends on floor plan. Second unit may be an option, run chase in the garage open, high velocity units.

I appreciate all comments so far....THANK YOU. I'm sick about this.

Attached is the floor plan. There are three bedrooms upstairs....two of them are over the kitchen/mud room areas and the other bedroom and a play room are over the master bedroom suite.

The ceilings are 9 feet high. The HVAC unit has been purchased, and the runs are already in place. But, I am open to all options, within reason (can't pay to go to baseboard heat....but I did actually propose that to DH out of desperation).

The HVAC runs from the hallway entering the master suite along the wall by the foyer, stairs, half bath, kitchen, and ends at the entrance to the mud room area.

Is there a basement where the runs could have gone? Where is the furnace located?

You might want to cross post this on the HVAC forum too.

Carol

There is a basement, but the hallway there is also full of runs. Maybe we could go in the rooms down there? The furnace is in the basement under the mudroom area.

I would probably do this so it looks like a consistent, intentional element:

Are these the runs for 1st floor or second floor heating? My guess is that these are the second floor runs, but I know HVAC can be a bit different in different areas.

Rrah, yes they are for the second floor.

Pal, I thought about that too....but do you think it would look odd in the kitchen? Or no? We're thinking about putting a faux beam dividing the living and dining rooms (where the columns are placed) to help tie in more interest. Then maybe add coffers to the living room. Thoughts on that?

Michelle...any chance you could have a smaller unit put in the attic for the second floor rooms with ducts in the attic space with heat coming down through the second floor ceiling? That is what we ended up doing in order to eliminate ductwork on the main floor. We have found that we can keep that heat zone pretty low, around 64, as the heat rises from the main floor and keeps the space around 68.

Given that it's too late to make changes to the HVAC itself, coffered ceilings to match are the typical solution.

By framing with 2"x4"s the contractor made no effort to minimize the intrusion. I use 2"x2"s. Even non-structural steel only 1" deep could have been used.

Ditto Worthy's suggestion. Our first floor supply and return run along the basement ceiling. I requird the HVAC guys to snug the return to one side and the supply to the other. That allowed me to box them in identically on the two sides, use the same dimensions on the other end of the rooms and then make a coffer pattern in the ceiling.

Everybody thinks it's a great architectural element, but it was pure functional.

Brian

another vote for keeping the ducts in the
living space.
if done correctly it passes for architect detail,
but is as brian says, purely functional.

palimpsest posted my first thought also. I like the
way you think btw!

shame that it is only at this stage that
duct runs are being reviewed.

best of luck

Thanks to everyone who commented. I appreciate all the suggestions. So if I'm understanding correctly, the majority of you agree with leaving the run where it is. Do we widen it as Pal suggested? We cannot duplicate the run on the other side of the room as the windows are set too high. But we can add coffers. Is that what you would do with a wider run? Thank you.

Perhaps a few more photographs of the area you are planning to add coffers to would help, Michelle. I think I would insist the contractor re-frame around those ducts using either 2 x 2s or the non structural steel Worthy posted about. If you use the one inch steel than the height of the box would reduce by 2 1/2 inches so around 11 1/2 inches. 11 1/2 inches would be less difficult to pull off as an intentional feature.

Carol

Thanks Carol. Unfortunately the height cannot be reduced as there is a support beam involved in the structure of the run. I will get better pics the next time I'm there.

On one project we went through trying to design a ceiling to deal with HVAC ducts below the ceiling plane (It was a row house with masonry walls and joists that ran opposite the way the ducts had to go--there was no other place for the ducts in a conventional system)

Anyway, we came up with trays and such for a couple of the rooms and it got more and more complex because of dealing with windows and such that we decided to go with just one large dropped area through the entire house, the same width and depth throughout so it didn't call any more attention to itself than possible.

In my house there is only one area that has a soffit and when I opened it it was completely empty except for one corner. However, I've been in similar houses where they took it out and replaced it with a boxed out area only around the spot that it's needed. They got a higher ceiling over a 3' x 12' area, but now they have this weird box dangling down in one corner that screams "Plumbing". The large soffit is lined up with the stairs and a doorway so it looks at least much more necessary than that box which looks like a mistake.

My point is, I would make it look intentional but you have to be careful not to over-design and over-complicate the ceilings in the process. A rectangular spine running down the center without anything else *might* be all you need.

Question for you HVAC/building experts out there -- would it be possible/reasonable for the builder to add a chase from the basement in the master closet/hallway area of the house so that the dropped ceiling areas might be confined to the master hall/closet/bath and mudroom/pantry areas? So the run to that side would be across (the basement ceiling) and up, rather than up (to the first floor ceiling) and across?

I hear what you are saying palimpsest. In that scenario, would you leave it as built now (2.5 ft wide), or widen it to the 4ish ft as in the sketch you posted?

I am not an HVAC person but when we revamped my HVAC we ran all the horizontal ducts in the basement and there are probably 7 vertical ducts, either supply or return (in a very small house, and they all have to be buried somewhere, because vertical chases are sometimes even more an esthetic issue. I am taking 4-5 inches off of 2/3 of one entire side of the house so that the wall is even instead of having multiple vertical chases. So the answer is possibly yes, but the vertical(s) have to be concealed as well as that horizontal and it depends on what's happening upstairs, too. One vertical to go upstairs may not be enough because there need to be multiple outlets.

palimpsest, so I suppose it would depend on the actual layout upstairs? How much space would one need for a vertical?

It looks to me like there might be logical options for verticals in the master closet, whatever is at the end of the hallway to the master, the mudroom closets, etc. You might even be able to conceal one in the built-ins flanking the fireplace if needed. If it were mine, I would much prefer ceiling drops in closets, baths, and other utility areas to a soffit across the main part of the house.

The vertical runs we are burying are oval 3x10 or 3x12. There is one big return that is round that will have to be boxed in in a corner. Again this is a relatively small house so your ducts may need to be larger?

In terms of the soffit, I would make it however wide it needs to be to line up with the most things or to make the most visual sense.

I saw a house recently where a soffit ran down a hallway and it was only about half the width of the ceiling. I think the hallway would have made more sense with the entire ceiling lowered, because there was no advantage to the added ceiling height over half the length of the hallway.

Michelle1973,
If you are willing to make the faux beam near the dining room wide enough, perhaps the ductwork could jog over to the ceiling of the powder room and mudroom area? Then you wouldn't have the asymmetry in the ceiling of the dining room and kitchen, and the dropped ceiling in the hallway off the living room has a logical place to terminate.

I agree, if you have other separations on the ceiling, like the faux beam, that could provide a logical termination of the soffit at one width and it could be different on the other side of the faux beam, if it works out.

Here is a place where there was a truncated soffit and we actually made it longer to make visual sense:
{{gwi:2133685}}

And the chase on the right was made thicker to line up with a fireplace, rather than being a dinky little chase with a small pipe in it. {{gwi:2133686}}

I really appreciate all the creative ideas, but I think the soffit run is going to have to stay due to the beam that is also there.

So, do I have them widen it so it is as wide as the hallway is going into the master suite as palimpsest drew above? Or leave it as is (about half as wide as the hallway)? And would you add coffers in the living room? I would like to put ship lap on the ceiling in the kitchen and dining, then the dining and living will be separated by a faux beam. Thank you!

Ok, one last suggestion from me.

In the living, make the soffit as wide as the hallway until you get to the false beam that divides the living/dining areas.

In the dining/kitchen, can you run the ducts -- as low profile as possible -- in another false beam from the divider post to the end of the stove wall cabinet run (and then over the doorway or in the back hall to get to the vertical in the mudroom). You could then do a similar false beam from the opposite post to the other end of the stove wall cabinet run. Because of your island/cabinet/doorway placement it wouldn't be perfectly symmetical, but it might be close enough?

Then add a final false beam to separate the kitchen and the dining areas, and perhaps it all looks intentional.

Good luck working things out.