Hello all,

I'm a new homeowner, and recently had my house-to-be inspected by a home inspector. Luckily, there weren't too many issues, considering the house was from 1949. However, when the current owners renovated in 2011, they built cabinets into the AC air intake, so that the intake is only 2-3 inches deep in the wall. This is the only intake for the 1,240 sq ft house.

I'm looking into getting an AC contractor out to install a new air intake, most likely on the other side of the house to evenly cool the place.

However, I'm noticing that a couple posts on here are only concerned with the surface area of the air intake vent itself. Does the air intake depth behind the vent matter that much?

Also, their energy bill seemed very high. Granted, there was a stay-at-home mom, but I'm wondering if the system not getting an adequate supply of air is causing it to run constantly and would decrease the performance of the AC system, thereby increasing the energy costs?

Any ideas on what kind of money we'd be looking to spend by installing these air intakes? We're in Texas, so more than likely, we'll be installing them on the ceiling. I can't imagine it should be that much to cut through the sheetrock on the ceiling and run ductwork back to the main unit?