Heat Registers by Zena

Or, why we love these wooden vents

Storch Woodworking’s superb vent design, now made by Zena Forest Products.

After install, our flush-mount vents blend seamlessly with the rest of the floor.

Each vent is made with wood and glue. There are no staples or metal fasteners anywhere, so installers can trim them down to fit the room without having to worry about messing up their blade.

We sell these vents both along with our flooring and on their own, so we get orders for all kinds of wood species. These pretty custom madrone vents were especially fun to make.

Along with the flushmount style, we make retro vents that can go over tile, carpet or whatever flooring you happen to have. These are like those metal ones everyone is used to seeing, but with pretty wood.

Cabinets pose another problem for HVAC, as they can sometimes block a duct. Solution: a toekick vent that allows air to travel out from under a cabinet.

A nice pairing: maple toekicks with walnut cold air returns.

Cold air returns require a different style and come in all shapes and sizes. We custom make each one with a grid of square or rectangular holes.

Each flush-mount register or return has two pieces: the frame and the insert. This means you can still remove the insert if you drop your Lego inside.

I’m especially proud of this enormous cold air return I put together.

For about a year now, we’ve been making wooden heat registers and cold air returns. On the face of it, this may seem an odd fit for a business that primarily makes flooring.

We think it’s a great combination, though. Matching heat registers to the flooring is a subtle way to make a hardwood floor look even better. The registers fade into the broad expanse of the floor, with no metallic grates to catch the eye.

We used to order these vents from Joanne Storch at Storch Woodworking. She has honed this design over the past 30 years. When she retired in 2017, she trained us to make them ourselves. Read more about that story on our register page.

Why we love these wooden vents:

• Aesthetics: First of all, we just like the way they look. From the natural wood grain to the proportions of the insert to the frame, these vents are beautiful.

• Generous airflow: There’s a tension between strength of the vent and the air it allows through it. Joanne designed these vents to maximize both.

• No metal: Each vent is made of wood and glue - nothing else. So, if you need to trim a frame to get it closer to a wall, you won’t catch a staple with your saw. We use tried and true joinery to make sure the vent stays strong.

• Local species: It can be hard to find wooden vents made with native Oregon hardwoods, like Oregon White Oak, Western Bigleaf Maple and Oregon Ash. Since we already produce this lumber, we can make registers out of these beautiful, local woods.

• Smooth flooring: There’s nothing to catch your eye - or your toes. Our main product is a flush-mounted vent that sinks into the floor, so that the top of the vent is level with the floor. Look through the gallery to see how this works.

I could go on and on about these registers! But suffice to say that we’re very excited to be carrying on Joanne’s legacy of quality heat registers. If you just have to have some of these vents for your home, send us an email.