We moved into my grandparents house last year around this time. We currently have Central Air which was installed when my grandparents lived here a while ago. The basement and first floor are cooled fine but the upstairs is still a sauna. I have to run window AC units to keep it bearable. The only vents are in the floor of the two upstairs rooms. One is 4" x 12" in the bigger room and probably about 2" x 10" in the other room. The house was built before central air was even an option. I’m wondering if we’d benefit from a cleaning/tune-up (not sure the last it’s been done). Am I going to need additional air vents/returns? How easy/costly are my options?
Cold air drops; the first easy solution may be closing the first floor vents so all of the cold air goes to the second floor and sinks to the first floor thus cooling the entire house. It may not be the total solution but it is very easy and very free.
Does the AC ever shut off? If it does put a thermostat on the second floor. I am assuming you may only have one zone.
Yep, 1 zone as of now…That was going to be my other question. I’m pretty sure the AC unit shuts off, at least outside it does. Right now it’s set to 76 inside, but even when I crank it down to 71, it’s still hot upstairs.
You could always install a blower into the ducts that feed the upstairs. The furnace doesn’t have enough balls to really push the air all the way up. Electric blowers that can activate when the AC turns on can be wired into the thermostat.
My old house (ranch) had central AC and it ran 18 hours a day on days like these. I kept it at 70 however. Ranch houses suck because it is basically like living on the second floor all of the time.
Cordless thermostats are getting more common and require little installation time saving you money.
even if you only have 1 zone you may have some dampers in the basement… close the ones for the first floor half way… this should force more air into the upstairs risers assuming they are separate… a decent install should have the upstairs and downstairs separate in order to better balance the system… what may have happened sometime along the way was someone wanted more air flow so they opened all the dampers all the way robbing the second floor of the balance of the air
::update::
Apparently while I was at work, the AC took a shit. No AC in the house at all right now. Currently a cool 90 in the house. Guy came out and fixed a loose connection but I guess the motor gave out after he left. AC is blowing but no cold air.
The other thing is do you have an air return on the 2nd floor or just outlets?
Any sort of venting for the attic?
I added both to my house (An attic fan, and a warm/cold air return on the 2nd floor) and it dropped my 2nd floor temps dramatically. I’m still messing with the dampers to get the airflow right as my upstairs is still noticeably hotter than downstairs.
2 story, 1 zone. The temperature differerences between upstairs and downstairs are huge (downstairs is cool upstairs is warm). I can get it to keep up with the cooling but it’s REALLY wasteful. I have it set at 73 during the night and it’s unnecessarily cooling the lower level. My parents had the same problem as you though, just not enough cool air to go around.
The solution I came up with was to do a 2 zone system with dampers. Basically, block off one section of the house when I only need it cooled in 1 area, and vice-versa. It will allow you to really bump the pressure in the system upstairs since you’re feeding less vents. My parents implemented this at their place, and it was VERY successful. I am installing mine next weekend.
edit: As 97formula stated, Returns are a big deal too. Is there a return upstairs?
I’d love to do something like that with my place, the only issue is that I’ve only got 1 main trunk for an outlet and my furnace is in one corner of the basement. I’d have to find something that could open/close seperate drops off the trunk. Who knows, maybe when I replace the furnace next year I can find something/do something like that.
No returns, just a floor register in each of the rooms. I am starting to think that some way of venting out the hot air might be my best choice. How hard is it to add returns or vents. If I do a 2 zone, I’m guessing a Electrician/heating and cooling professional would be in order. Hopefully when I get home the AC will be repaired at least.
Upstairs to cool it now I have a window AC in both rooms to cool it down. I also have two computers, which if all run at the same time will trip the breaker. This = Highly Annoying.
We redesigned the output a bit on mine. The way it is now, is it comes off the air mover with great dimensions, then to tie it into the legacy duct work, they drop it to like 1/2 the size. The upstairs feeds off the same trunk as the downstairs currently. So we are replacing about an 8 foot section. Then we are going to separate and block off the section of where it goes upstairs now, and put an end-plate on it. We are going to attach the upstairs duct closer to the air mover and put a damper on right at the beginning. The new re-designed section is going to have a damper custom fit inside of it. That whole piece is being built out by an HVAC shop and they did it for super cheap. I am crossing my fingers that this is going to solve a lot of issues.
Is that similar to the blower mentioned earlier in the thread? I think that is part of the problem is that it’s just not enough oomph to make it up stairs adequately. That and the warm air is trapped with no escape.
My dad’s currently on disability so money is kinda tight. I wouldn’t really have a problem paying for small fixes, but large HVAC renovations are another story.
in your basement do you have little levers at the beginning of each branch off the main duct from the furnace? seriously you should be able to solve this problem with some adjusting of those levers