Question about air return/venting

I have a TV that I want to mount on the wall in the basement living room. The living room is finished but the adjacent room is not, so the one side of the wall is bare, which makes things much easier. There are metal panels on the unfinished wall where I want to mount the TV from the other side. There is an air vent on the wall in the living room towards the bottom. On the unfinished side there is an air duct on the ceiling. So the air duct on the unfinished side flows through the space in the wall on down to the vent on the other side. The problem is that in order to mount the TV I will need to reinforce the beams which will effectively block air flow. It looks like an air return to me and I'm pretty sure I can move the vent to the unfinished side of the wall towards the top of the wall. However, I am not really familiar with this sort of thing and am unsure if this is the case or if I am causing another problem by doing it. Any anyone give me some advice? Hopefully I'm being clear. I can provide pictures or diagrams if needed.

 

What you are describing sounds like a panned return where the stud cavity is being used as a duct. I'm not a HVAC pro, but my concerns would be the desire/need to have the supply and return in the same room. If you relocate that return to the unfinished side, is there a return on the finished side.

Another issue would be, is there a furnace or water heater located in the unfinished side that would now compete for air and possible backdraft.

Bud

 

There is no return on the other side. There is a furnace in the same room, but that will eventually be sectioned off. It's really just the leftover unfinished space. I've included a little sketch of the layout. Except for the bathroom and bedroom, there are no doors. Another option (I think) is to keep the return in the same room but move it to the top instead of the bottom of the wall. I was only thinking of putting it on the other side because, aesthetically, it looks better.

 

You do want your supply and returns in the same room to avoid pressurizing one and depressurizing the other. You don't want an isolated return in with your furnace because the furnace is drawing its combustion air from that room and depending upon the leakage from the furnace area to the rest of the house and/or outside, it may already be struggling.

The return on a furnace can exceed the safe pressure level in the room by 10x over. And, when you say you will be sectioning off the furnace you will need to provide an outside air supply or connect that room to the rest of the house with open air passages.

Bud

 

If it is panned just move the register to the other end.

 

airman.1994, I'm not sure what you mean. Move the register? I did't mention it in my diagram but the registers are in the living room on the ceiling close to the wall opposite the TV. Do you mean the return or am I mixing up my terminology? What other end are you referring to?

So since I need to keep them in the same room, would there be an issue moving the return above the TV? I looked at the rest of the wall and other than that there really isn't much of an option to move it to a different section of the same wall that I can see. There is cabling and such as well as cross joints (or whatever they are called) between studs.

 

"So since I need to keep them in the same room, would there be an issue moving the return above the TV? "
If that is the only option that is better than moving it to the unfinished room.

Bud

 

So, after talking to a friend that used to do HVAC an idea came up and I kind of feel stupid for missing the obvious solution. Couldn't I just widen the stud? I kind of left some of the detail out but there are three studs in that section: the left and right that are the ends of the vent/wall cavity, and a stud in between them. The middle stud is what it will mount to but it is too narrow. I considered reinforcing this but decided against it because it would block the airflow but that's only because I, for some dumb reason, only thought about reinforcing it horizontally instead of just installing another stud right next to the existing one to widen it a bit. The airflow impact would be minimal. Any issue with that approach? If I do that, what's the best way to secure the new stud to the top and bottom horizontal beams? Just some 45 degree nails?