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enduring

Toe Kick Ducting Help

enduring
10 years ago

I am going to have a bathroom cabinet installed in a few weeks. I have prepped the floor with tile and I have a 6" floor opening for a duct (per carpenter's request) for the toe kick heating/cooling vent that I will have in my vanity.

Now I am having difficulty finding the parts to make this venting work. I can find the grills, but not the boots to go from 6" floor round hole to horizontal duct to toe kick. All within the limited 3" or so vertical space.

I have seen the ToeDuctor kit, but it does not show the boot installed on a round floor opening, but in the FAQ section it says that it will fit.:

http://www.toekickductor.com/faq.html

The Toeductor kit is also very expensive at round $60 plus an outrageous price for shipping.

I have seen this image (below) at Midwest Duct that might work but I can't see the whole thing to know how the rest of the unit would connect to duct work.

Comments (19)

  • MongoCT
    10 years ago

    If you have space in the basement below, can you use a regular 90-degree register boot?

    Look through the three pages of this link to see different 2-1/4" and 3-1/4" high ducts.

  • MongoCT
    10 years ago

    With the boot I showed, you'd rotate the boot 90-degrees clockwise from what is shown in the photo.

    You'd have to cut a larger hole in the floor. The reason I offered the boot is that they are readily available. When you get into some of the other less common fittings you have to order in quantity.

    If you use a boot and the vanity is already in place, enlarge the hole in the floor, then slide the boot "up" from below in the basement and then slide it "forward" so the 2-1/4" by 12" rectangular opening on the boot slides into the same-sized hole in your toe kick.

    You mentioned "oval flex duct". If you already have that, there are oval toe kick boxes:

    If you can't source one, You could always fashion your own duct out of a wall stack fitting, or even a section of wall stack itself and a 6" round for the transition. Wall stack is the type of duct that fits into a stud bay. A few pop rivets to hold things together, then mastic or aluminum tape to seal any seams. No duct tape!

    Stack duct:

  • enduring
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks Mongo some of the ducts you've shown might work. I need to look some more on the link you provided. Below I have a plan view of my floor and vanity

    I called Midwest Duct and asked the receptionist about the box duct in the first image. She was very helpful even though she couldn't answer many of my questions, she know what I was trying to do. She said it is open at one end 2.5"x12", but she didn't know the other dimension across the box. To me it looks like 12". She didn't know where the 6" hole was in relationship to the box. There were no drawings of the duct, just the photo.

    My vanity will be 21" deep.

    I have the 6" round in the floor that is already tiled :) So there is no cutting a larger opening.

    The centerline of the opening is 6.75" from dry wall before the cabinet is installed. Then from centerline to toe kick area is about 10 - 10.5". I am assuming the toe kick is 3.5" recessed and 4" high.

    Here is a plan view of my vanity size and location of floor duct:

    The wall stack fitting might be an answer to either extend the Midwest Duct to the toe kick, or construct my own box and round duct connection.

  • MongoCT
    10 years ago

    With the location of your round floor opening already set in stone...err...tile...I agree it'd probably be easiest, fastest, and least expensive to fashion your own. Or at least fashion part of it.

    If you pick up a section of wall stack and a 6" (crimped or non-crimped, as you need, the one in the photo is crimped) collar like this:

    You can make something that fits the toe kick space nicely. It'd actually look very much like the photo of the toe space head you have in your first post.

    If the dimensions work you could also minimize your on-site fabrication by using that Midwest Duct toe space head you show in your first post and simply extend the open end of it to your toe kick cutout with a home made rectangular sleeve.

    Home made solutions. Such fun!! Good luck with it.

  • enduring
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks again Mongo, this looks do-able. I wish it was earlier on in my remodeling cause I caved this am and bought the "Toe Ductor", with shipping and the grill the cost was around $90. I know that is outrageous, but I just can't fiddle with one more thing :/ With the holidays coming and daughter traveling to visit and son graduating (yeah!) I just need something that will go in now. I need to get tiling instead!

  • MongoCT
    10 years ago

    No worries. When I work with HVAC sheet metal I usually have to cancel my Red Cross visit, because I give so much blood when fabricating the sheet metal.

    You just happen to be a lot smarter than me.

    And you use fewer band-aids.

    Congrats on the kids!

  • enduring
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    You have such a great sense of humor. Thanks for you help. I will report back with how it all turns out. My vanity will go in next week.

    Thanks about the congrats on the kids. Son will graduate in 2 weeks and be an engineer. He will be moving from the corn fields of Iowa to north of Albany NY to work with M+W engineering firm.

  • enduring
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Update: I bought the Toe Ductor for a lot of money. But it was an easy solution and worth the freedom from hassle. My DB set it in place for me.

    It is a hair under 3.75" tall at the square box where it is the highest. The vanity was built to have a 4.5" inside clearance, from bottom side of vanity floor to the top of my room floor.

    Here is a picture of it. I think there is enough room to flex it out the side of the vanity, but I will probably send it out the front, into the main part of the room.

  • raehelen
    10 years ago

    Hi Enduring! And if you don't post again before, Merry Christmas! Is that your tile showing under the cardboard? Have you got it butted up to each other, ie with no grout lines? We are cutting tile (by we, I mean DH is doing the actual cutting, I am carefully choosing each tile, so far have enough for entire floor, and not ONE duplicate!) as I type.

  • enduring
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Raehelen, Merry Christmas to you too!

    Yes that is my tile. The spacing is about 1/16 or 3/32". I used these leveling system spacers and I think they were around 1/16". There is a slight rounded edge to the tile. The grout is Laticrete Spectralock in Dusty Grey. It is a real nice color with these tiles. My tile is highly variegated. It mostly went in ok but I had a lot of repeats, and I was told there were over 100 different patterns. But I bought them online and didn't want to fuss with returning. When I laid it this late summer, I had the whole batch laying in the yard so I could lay out the room and strategically position repeats under cabinets locations before I committed to anything.

    Good luck on your tiling. I read several days ago you were getting ready to tile. I still have my shower to do yet. My carpenter is in today installing my cabinets. They are very pretty. Some small details need tweaking.

    here is a picture of my floor. the thresholds need to be caulked, as does the shower pan off to the right. The thresholds ended up being black travertine. Only color I could get locally that would work. I just tell myself, that with old age, it will be good to have the high color contrast for visual cueing to step up to the slightly higher bathroom floor :)

  • raehelen
    10 years ago

    Gorgeous! What is your shower curb made out of again? It looks very similar in colour to mine! Speaking of thresholds, our tile will be about 1/4" higher than the hardwood in the bedroom. Our tile place had given us a piece of schulter trim, but DH said it won't work, he found another metal piece that needs to be screwed in, now am second guessing, sigh it seems a step backwards as we had screw in metal thresholds in house #1! (But then was between vinyl and carpet). Perhaps being between limestone (lookalike) and tigerwood, it'll be OK?

    Heading off to pick up granite vanity top, and now that we have pieces of tile, can perhaps pick a grout colour...

    Was it hard pushing grout into 1/16" joints? WE had 1/8" spacers, but DH was worried it would be too hard to do, so he bought 3/16" ones. Have never had a tile floor before, and basically I will be the only one using this BR, so cleaning grout shouldn't really be an issue... can't be worse than scrubbing all those indents in the old vinyl floor!

  • enduring
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks Raehelen. The shower pan is a Kohler cast iron in "Ice Grey" I will use the Dusty Grey caulk at the tile/shower pan junction.

    I think I used 3/16" grout spacing or maybe it was 1/4", for my first bathroom floor. I really like it. It is a high contrast tile and grout layout. It is epoxy grout, so easy to keep clean. It is in a heavily used bathroom. Are you getting a cementous grout? Have you considered epoxy or urethane grout?

    Your tile sounds lovely and being porcelain it will be so practical. The tigerwood sounds beautiful. Can't wait to see your pictures.

    BTW, I love reading your post, your just sound so full of life. I think your a hoot.

    Our 24 year old daughter just rolled in on the Mega Bus from Chicago. She is so sweet. Our son is about to graduate from Iowa State the is weekend. It will be our family christmas too. We're going to get a glass of wine and watch "UP" :)

  • raehelen
    10 years ago

    I did consider epoxy grout (after reading about it on GW). The guy at the tile place thought it was much harder to work with and has sort of talked me out of it. With floor and shower, we have about 130 sq ft to grout, though with the LFT, I guess it's not too much work . I just don't want to bite off more than we can chew. Doing the glass mosaic BS in our kitchen was a b**ch, and I swear I was cleaning grout off for weeks afterwards...(though there was a rippled glass tile in there that though pretty was not easy to wipe). On the other hand, I don't want to regret not doing epoxy if it's that much easier to keep clean. I don't have a housekeeper, so it's up to moi to keep everything shipshape!

  • enduring
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    I have only used cement grout once and epoxy grout 3 times. You could run a thread on it here on GW and get feedback. I know some think it is over kill. It does give the grout a slightly different look, a bit plasticy shiny, but not bad. A tile show room in the Des Moines metro area uses urethane on all their floor sample areas. They say the you just put the lid back on and it can be used again. They change out the floor tiles and like the ease of not mixing the grout from dry.

    There is a definite procedure to working with epoxy but it can be easily followed.

    Here is a picture of my floor grout from my 1st remodel. It is a mixture of 1 part Silver Shadow and 2 parts Platinum, with the grout at the toilet flange being straight Platinum. My plumber likes to not have to drill through tile so he asked that I make a bigger opening at the tile layer, then I filled it with the epoxy grout.

  • lillo
    10 years ago

    Merry Christmas to both of you Enduring and raehelen , and congratulations enduring on the graduation of your son and new job . Wishing you both a great time with your families during this blessed time of the year .
    I am 99% done with my MB . I just need to get the company to repolish and seal my floors and a waiting for a carpenter to fix the inside of my drawers . I can probably post a reveal after the holidays before solving these two issues . I am so happy that I can use my MB now for the holidays and my DH couldn't believe himself the day he slept back in his bed in the MB .
    See you after the holidays .

  • raehelen
    10 years ago

    Thank you Lillo! Merry Christmas to you and your family as well. I am looking forward to seeing your reveal pictures! It looks like the three of us are getting close to being done, though you are nearest the finish line! We have been using our MB the whole time, perhaps not the wisest decision, but both DH and I get stiff backs from the firm guest bed (memory foam topper is on the to do list...)! Every day as I clean drywall dust off of everything, (Hubby says he finished sanding weeks ago, and doesn't believe that I'm cleaning up anything but 'ordinary dust'- like how would he know...???), I wonder how much of that I'm breathing in every night! Part of me feels badly to hear all the troubles you have had with your various trades, and sorry, but part of me also is reminded that hiring someone instead of DIY is never a guarantee that it will get done right or even quicker! One of my favourite shows on TV is The Block, and I question

    how in the world do they get so much done in one week!!!

    Our son and his new wife will be in town tomorrow, and I am so looking forward to him helping install the 12mm thick shower doors, uh I meant to say, I am so looking forward to having them here for Christmas! LOL

    Thanks to both you and Enduring for all the support and encouragement along the way...Happy Holidays!

  • enduring
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    How sweet of you Lillo! Merry Christmas to you and your family too. I'm sure your DH will have "visions of sugar plums dancing in his head" this Christmas Eve, sleeping in his new and lovely bedroom.

    Graduation went off beautifully. Nice speaker and a great singer at the ceremony. Our DS is a real character. I hope NY state can handle it :) He'll be moving from the corn fields of Iowa to just north of Albany to work for an engineering firm. We will miss him dearly but look forward to some road trips. There is a thoroughbred racing season in Saratoga Springs that I would love to experience this summer.

    Bathroom related, I have my laundry stack of cabinets in the bathroom, and they are going to be pretty. Monday the vanity goes in. The template for the counter will be after the New Year as the stone shop will be closed the rest of the week from early Christmas Eve on. I am looking for chrome pulls and have ordered some different styles online to see how they look. Depending on the electricians schedule (and his wife's) he may or may not be able to get here at the end of the week to finish up the electric. I will call the plumber today and have him install the toilet ASAP, following the cabinet install. I have to get that darn tile up in the shower and do my caulking. I have a stone travertine (black) shower curb that I will be using for the shower niche sill. That will have to be ripped to get it to fit into the depth of the niche. The black will match the veining in the porcelain and the thresholds that I have. I toyed with the idea of cararra thresholds and sill for the niche but didn't go with it. We will see if that was a mistake. But already I can see the benefit with the dark threshold as it clearly marks the floor transitions.

    LOL, this bathroom was supposed to be done last July!

  • enduring
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    You up too Raehelen? Thanks, and you are so articulate in your response to Lillo. I am really looking forward to seeing Lillo's and your bathroom too. The shower doors, I remember you said you got them at Costco, I hope you post a blow by blow account of the installation. I haven't got the shower door situation figured out yet.

    Merry Christmas! to you both and to Mongoct.

    BTW, my cabinet shop really likes the Toe Ductor that I installed (even with the cost - of course they can pass that on to the customer). Vanity will go in today. Yeah!