All the duct work could be moved to one side of the basement possibly call someone and let him look at it.
Moving ductwork from basement to attic.
Draw a floor plan of your home including the location of the hvac air handling unit the existing ducts sprouting from it and the room or rooms in your basement where you would like to place new.
You ll need to find a corner such as in a closet to build a duct chase to get ducts from basement to attic.
A drop ceiling could be fasten right below the duct work and that is about as much height as you could get.
Drop sill would be hard to raise.
According to nrel researchers david roberts and jon winkler moving the ducts from a vented attic to a new location inside the conditioned space will reduce electricity used for cooling by 15 to 20 and will reduce the size of the needed air conditioning equipment by 0 5 to 1 ton.
I d definitely bring the heat ducts down to the floor.
You ll also need to provide a return path from a basement air handler or main level return to the second floor.
That s a vital start but it won t make for effective heating in the basement.
No thought was given in the basement to duct location.
It s one thing to blow warm air into a room but cooler air needs to be allowed out of the to make room for the warm stuff.
We went through and moved the ducts over to the edges of the basement since they tended to run right down the middle of the basement ceiling.