I'm just closing on a new, two-story, 3-bedroom, single-family home. It’s Energy efficient with an HRV.
Cold air returns on the second floor are located in all rooms on the walls (two - one low and one high), except for the loft.
Loft overlooks family room below. Cold air return is located on the floor (carpeted) just in front of railing. I've asked builder to re-locate but no deal. It's partly an aesthetics question - just doesn't look good, but is it also a code violation or poor practice?
Patrick

You normally don't have a coldair return in each room, unless its a room where the door will usually be closed or if its the master bedroom(gotta have it be the perfect temp). In a loft, the return should generally be one up high and one low. If it isn't high then it doesn't cool very well on the loft but if there isn't one low then the 1st floor will be colder during the winter. If the return air is in the floor of the 2nd floor in the loft then it should be OK. If it were only in the 1st floor floor then there would be a problem. As for codes, where I am there arn't any for locations of returns.