I live in a two story apartment, and my upstairs is extremely hotter than the downstairs. What can I do?

Question

My downstairs cools down to about 75 degrees while my upstairs is nearly 81 degrees. I have tried closing the vents downstairs, which helps, but it is still not enough. Is there any cheap solution? Would it be worth adding insulation in the ceiling? I have storm windows and cheap blinds.

Answer 1

The cheapest solution I can think of would just be to buy a bunch of powerful fans and put one in every room upstairs. Good luck!

Answer 2

well with the information you have given it is kind of hard to answer. do u have central air or just air conditioners or neither? try seperating the rooms by hanging a curtain at the bottom and or top of the stairs. also try an in room air conditioner you don't have to put in a window. depending on the size or the rooms this should keep the downstairs air downstairs and make the upstairs cooler. they offer all of these items at and kmart, walmart, sears, or other department store and its a fairly cheap solution for the summer or winter as you could get a space heater and keep it downstairs so the warm air will stay there. goodluck.

Answer 3

This is a common problem in a two story building, and there is a way to make it cooler.

Hot air rises and cool air falls, that's why it's always warmer in the top floors. The best and cheapest way to resolve the problem is to install an attic fan in a central location upstairs. They come with an automatic thermostat to remove warm air, and shut themselves off when the hot air is expelled. Your cooler air will be at the floor level, so the attic fan doesn't remove it.

As previously mentioned, keep as much direct sunlight out as you can. Window glass has a tendency to magnify the heat from sun rays. That's also the reason people leave the car window cracked open when they park in direct sunlight, so the hot air can have an escape route.

Answer 4

I had a situation like that. I put those square fans in the upstairs window and blew the hot air out. I sealed around the fans so that hot air from outside could not come inside. The cooler air from downstairs could come up.

Secondary efforts should be to reduce the heat coming in through the windows. I put up reflective plastic sheeting that sticks to the inside of the windows, that looks like a mirror from the outside. From inside you can still see outside.

Probably the next step you can't do, but maybe the land lord would be willing... If you are on the top floor, beneath the attic, that space gets very hot without good ventilation and insulation. Outside, the air temp might be 95 degrees. But the attic will heat up to 140 - 160F.

Also If you can get it done, have them blow in a foot of dry insulation topped off with 6 or 7 layers of radiant barrier chips.

Also, if they will do it, install a wind-turbine that will pull the hot air out of the attic. Install a trap door beneath it that can be closed by a pull-cord during winter. Or you will need a sturdy bag to cover it in winter. You don't want the warm air to escape in the winter time.

A more expensive version of this is the solar-powered attic fan to pull the heat out of the attic without depending on wind or circulation of the rising attic heat. This can be turned off in winter.

;-D Stay cool!

The link is a builder's help site.

Answer 5

if you have central air, cool air is heavy and drops so you open the upatairs vents and close the lower ones. Next I would place a floor (box) fan at the bottem of the stairs blowing up. If your upstairs rooms have doors, keep them closed. I open the doors till an hour before bed , then I close the upstairs since it's starting to cool outside anyway. another trick is to turn your air conditioner fan with central air to RUN which will redistribute the cool air. Turn it to auto when you leave for the day.
option three is to get an additional ac unit for the bedroom.

Answer 6

Heat rises, so of course you upstairs is going to be warmer than the downstairs. Make sure your vents are open and close any blinds - shutting out the sunlight will help considerably. Could be too that your AC isn't large or efficient enough to handle heating two floors. You might want to have that checked out.

Answer 7

I would go to Sam's or Costco and purchase a good quality fan. Experiment with placing the fan upstairs blowing the hot air down, and downstairs blowing the cool air upstairs to see which works best for you. You may be surprised at how effective it is to keep the air moving in your apartment!

Answer 8

try installing a roof vent, the kind that looks like a beachball with fluted vents and rotates with the wind or rising hot air from the roof cavity. A single one can reduce roof heat by about 10 degrees, you may need two, one at each end. Cheap and easy to install on a wide variety of roofing materials.

Answer 9

yes insulation would help in the ceiling,,, but heat rises so you need to find a way to remove it,, crack open a window or two so the cool air can push out the hot,, install reverse window fans that will pull the air out,, how about small air conditioners in a couple of windows?? install ceiling vent fans to move the hot air outside,, many possiblities

Answer 10

Room darkening blinds.. block light from upstairs. Insulate the attic hatch at the least.

I had three floors once.. good luck