Floor air return grates

[jlm]

After pulling up the carpet and refinishing the hardwood floors, I was left with a couple big holes in the floor for cold air return. When the carpet was down, the holes had been half-blocked with plywood and small metal grates were over them. Clearly plywood wasn't going to cut it, so I started to look for replacements. Seems that 18"x30" grates are EXPENSIVE, no matter what material they're made out of.

I decided to try to make relatively simple egg-crate style grates myself, and these are the results. There are a couple minor flaws, but overall they came out better than I expected they would, and for only about $30 worth of oak (instead of the $300+ each I found online!).

If I ever have to make something similar again, I don't think I'll use oak, though. Oak is definitely not my favorite wood to work with.

[smorris]

Nice, real nice. I need to make something like that myself to replace the ugly return I have now.

[Uncle Cracker]

Very nice solution...

[bthere]

That's a pretty cool looking grate (I guess in the winter it'll be hot looking). At any rate, that must have taken a bit of time to put together.

[jlm]

That's a pretty cool looking grate (I guess in the winter it'll be hot looking). At any rate, that must have taken a bit of time to put together.

Yeah, the glue-up was time consuming, and more than a little stressful in the beginning. Trying to keep all the parts (they're all half-lap joints) aligned, clamped, and square before the glue set was a challenge. Once the first few pieces were together to make a the outside frame, it went a little smoother, as I just had to glue in a few pieces at a time, clamp, and wait. I was tempted to put it all together at once, but I think if I had done that, it would have been a complete disaster.

[docrowan]

Those look beautiful! Congratulations on a nice job.

[atgcpaul]

Very nice. That is a lot of half laps to do precisely. Good job!


Paul

[dbhost]

Vents in the floor? I haven't seen anything like that for over 20 years... Kind of pointless here with slab construction...

[cwsmith]

Very nice job indeed. So nice in fact that it sort of detracts from the floor...

Naw, just kidding, but you did do one heckuva nice job and I took a moment to call my wife to show her how nice they look. Now you've got me looking at the metal grates that I put in on our new floor and I think I'm embarrassed. So now I have another project added to the ever growing list.

Thanks, really very nice work,

CWS

[shoottx]

Very Cool

[Pappy]

Most excellent!

[lrogers]

Next time use teak and you sell them to the boaters. You did a really nice job on those.

[HarmsWay]

Wow those are amazing! How did you attach the grid part to the outer frame? Is it strong enough to stand on? What are the dimensions of the grid pieces? My MIL has a beautiful wood floor and with ugly metal returns that really detract from it. I'd been thinking of building something like what you've done with some of the scrap wood I can't seem to throw out.

Bob

[jlm]

I attached the outer frame (which has a 3/4" x 1/4" rabbet to keep it from sliding around in the hole) to the grid with splines and glue. The frame itself is mortise-and-tenon. The grid pieces are 1/2" x 3/4" (the 3/4" dimension is vertical). The opening are about 3/4" square.

And yeah, I can stand on it (160 lbs), though it does flex slightly. I wouldn't place a piece of furniture on top of it, but walking across it doesn't seem to be a problem. The many, many half-lap joints seem to make it pretty strong.

[RAFlorida]

Jim, that's some great work there.

I think it looks better than any of the metal vents going. The only cause for worry would be the breaking point of the slats if some one were to just stand on it...("get off the #$#*$ you dumb @#$#@*! lol). But a work of wonder non the less.