Performing maintenance on your heating ducts can be messy, and sometimes accessing parts of the system can be nearly impossible without opening your walls. Fortunately, home builders and researchers are working toward a solution. One concept gaining momentum is that of open building, which focuses on flexibility, ease of access and disentanglement of systems. If you are building, renovating or putting an addition on your home, try incorporating open building principles to make it simple to change or upgrade your HVAC system.
Total Flexibility
The idea behind open building is keeping the support structure of the house separate from the interior fill-out, and installing your HVAC, plumbing and electrical systems in logical ways which will allow for future upgrades and replacement. The goal is ultimate flexibility to change or improve your home without having to tear down and start from scratch. After all, chances are you’ll have to replace one or more of your internal systems before you need to rebuild the whole house.