On today's eposide of "What Were They Thinking"...

...We have the "duct to nowhere." It was discovered by Di after she peeked under the carpet to discover why it felt like there was no flooring in the doorway to the office closet. After ripping up some carpet, she discovered that there used to be a heat vent in the floor or wall where the closet doorway now resides. And instead of removing it and/or boarding it over, the PO's just decided to cover it with carpet. They also did a poor job covering the gap in the flooring where the wall used to be...

The PO's oviously removed some of the ductwork, since the "phantom duct" stops in the middle of what is now the doorway into the kitchen from the dining room. I haven't yet checked the basement for further evidence. The thing is, that duct would be really nice to have back. The heating/cooling to the second floor is crappy, since it now relies on only 2 vents. There are actually 4 vents in the walls, but only 1 really works. 2 that don't are in the bedroom and the office. Those are split off of one duct, so only a little bit of climate-controlled air goes to each. The bathroom vent is poorly placed behind the bathroom door, so that one really doesn't contribute to more than the warmth of the bathroom. The vent that works is in the front bedroom, which we don't use for anything. If they had left that duct alone, we'd have much better airflow on the second story.

I'd been wondering if the dining room was originally open to the kitchen. We now have a more definite answer to that question, though we still don't know if there may have been a smaller doorway in place of the 6' wide gap that's there now. Eiter way, when it comes time to re-do the dining room, I'm going to push to get that duct back where it belongs.