How can I cool off the second floor of my home?

Question

I have the air temp set at 75 degrees to cool my home. The first floor of my home is freezing but the second story of my home is warm. What can I do to improve the cooling of the second story.

Answer 1

make sure the aircondition vents are open upstairs...also, try closing off the vents downstairs and focusing all the cold air to the vents that go upstairs...otherwise, get some of those circular fans from costco....

Answer 2

There are several things to consider if you want to cool the second floor.
First on your heat and ac unit do you have the vents on the unit or the vents at the end of the duct work. If you have the type that has the damper on the unit check to make sure it's open all the way. If not Open it. Otherwise shut a couple of the vents off downstairs and just maybe it will travel up.
Do you have good ventilation to the attic via the gable vents?
Is your attic well insulated?
If all of these things are fine then you might want to consider a small window unit (if you have 220 wiring then good) a window unit will be much cheaper to operate.
Then you have ceiling fans and attic fans. Attic fans will make it downright COLD! at night.
The thing you have to keep in mind is heat always travels up...so heat from downstairs helps keep it hot upstairs add that to the heat in the attic and it's hot!
If it were me .......and I slept upstairs I'm lazy so I'd go with the window unit.
sounds like a plan to me. It's amazing how many things you have to think of just to cool the second floor.

Answer 3

This is a common problem with 2 story or more houses. The a/c is not properly sized in the ductwork. It may not have enough supply or return or it could have an undersized blower. Since the house is already built you can't really redo the ductwork as it's inside your walls. You can have a 2nd system installed to handle the a/c load upstairs but this will be somewhat costly. Alot of people just put in an window unit upstairs and turn it on at night when your up their trying to sleep. If you have a black roof and or no shade on the house a power attic vent can drop the temp of your upstairs by several degrees. My house was at 78 on really hot days and I installed a power vent for the attic and it dropped me down to 73 which felt alot better and it wasn't too expensive to put in either. Good luck.

Answer 4

Simple really and not too expensive.
Have a pro come over and talk to you about installing a zone system in your home. You will need to keep those doors shut on the rooms that you want to cool or the cold air will run back down your stairs to the lower floor.

A zone system works by directing that cool air upstairs without blowing it out downstairs. It requires a separate thermostat upstairs and some work on your duct work, but it is well worth the investment and you wont need to up-size any existing equipment.

Hope that will give you some ideas to think about.

Answer 5

The newest thing being installed in houses today is reflective barrier insulator that was developed for space by NASA. That is a foil type insulator sheet made to go directly over the attic insulation and it reflects the high thermal energy of the outside very effectively.Plus it keeps the insulation and celing cool all day long.

In fact it is a rated by the US govenments Energy Star as one of the best investments a homeowner can buy . And it is also part of the tax credits on the Federal Income tax for 2007 . Energy Star has a website, you can view on the net.

You can buy this reflective thermal barrier in 1000 foot rolls for about 20 cents a square foot and install it in your attic yourself. I installed this in my attic last year and my upstairs temperature dropped nearly 10 degrees, I did nothing to my AC system, no new ducts nothing.. My energy savings from this alone amount to about 20 %. in Natural gas and electricity.

There are several companies that sell this product on the internet. One i bought from was Radiant Guard in Frisco TX. Their Ultra product.

This product will defenitely eleviate your warm upstairs to a comfortable level. Plus in winter, it will give you gas savings.

Answer 6

Check your attic vents to make sure that the hot attic air is properly vented out

Typically 2 story homes have an A/C unit serving each floor.

It sounds like you have only 1 A/C unit controlling the entire house. Where is your return vent located (1st or 2nd floor)?

You may want to have a return vent upstairs and downstairs. Proper air return is very important.

Answer 7

My house had this problem during the summer. It was a pain and it made it terribly hard to sleep. One day I found out about attic fans, essentially it circulates the air in your attic, preventing it from heating up too much. If your attic heats up, it heats up the rest of your house. The attic fan is quiet, inexpensive to run and has made a huge difference. Another idea is to add ceiling fans and/or small A/C units to your room/s.

Answer 8

Sounds like to me you need to do a little balancing to the system. In other words, you need to cut the air flow down to the cold parts so more air goes to the warm parts. First, shut some vents down some with the dampers in the registers to force more air upstairs. Cold air doesn't want to go up very easy, so try turning the fan switch on the t-stat to ON. This will continuously circulate the air in the house. Make sure the vents are open all the way in the hot areas, and close some down in the colder areas. Remember, don't shut too many off all the way. The system needs to have enough airflow to work right. Just try shutting a few down some to force more air upstairs. You may have to do some trial and error, but eventually it will even out and should have the whole house comfortable. Good luck!

Answer 9

Have ceiling fans installed on your second story. It is just a weekend project, won't take long. The best fans are made by HUNTER.

Answer 10

Check to see if you have a damper( I believe its called) it adjusts the amount of air flow too all the vents leading upstairs.