Question

Alright Mamas, I need help with circulation in the upstairs bedrooms. My AC is currently set to 69 downstairs and we have 2 fans running upstairs and it is STILL 77 degrees in ny daughters room. We have no ceiling fans, and no money to install them right now. What can we do? We are melting upstairs and its not even that hot yet.  

Answer 1

We usually close the vents downstairs when AC is running.  

Answer 2

If you can shut the fans in the doorway and have them draw the cool air that's downstairs up into the other rooms. Also once you get the money you may want an AC guy to come out and see if it would help at all to move your thermostat. Sometimes the thermostats are not set in the most convenient space to get both the upper and lower levels cool.  

Answer 3

Close some of your registers on the 1st floor.  

Answer 4

How old is the home? Do you have dampers that need to be switched?  

Comments

@wickiup88284 okay, so full disclosure, I know nothing about HVAC systems. Haha. We moved into our new home last fall. When it came time to turn the heat on, our heat was blasting upstairs, but was not keeping up downstairs. The furnace would not stop and my upstairs was 80 degrees while downstairs was 66 (I had it set at 75 just to get it up and it never went past 66! ). So, I called an HVAC guy to come out and look at it. Turns out we have a damper system (most newer homes do), which my husband and I had not had this type of system prior, so we had no clue! My dampers are levers within the duct work in the basement that open and close each duct. Mine are nicely labeled now, but if yours arent you'll have to go through and and play with it to determine which duct goes where (bathroom, bedroom one, bedroom two, etc. ). Also, our basement is not finished, so it's easy for us to open/close. I imagine that some finished basements cover some up. The idea is to close the upstairs and open downstairs in the winter as heat rises. Vice versa in summer.  

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@gordongordy Yep! Mine still isnt perfect yet. Gonna have to go play with it some more, haha.  

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Also, my home is brand new construction, so our duct work and system is new. We have like 10 damper switches. I guess slightly older systems would still have dampers, but maybe only one. that's what the guy told me anyway.  

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@tarsus thank you! You sound like a true professional

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@wickiup88284 bahahaha! You have no idea how frustrated I was. And then how dumb I felt when the guy came over to tell me to flip a switch (basically). Lol!  

Answer 5

Comfort First Heating and Cooling, Inc. 815-642-5800 www. comfortfirstheatingandcooling. com

Answer 6

If the home is older you may need new insulation in the attic.  

Answer 7

Same problem for 25 years. We keep downstairs vents closed

Answer 8

We keep most of the downstairs vents closed and it forces the air upstairs. Also keeping the drapes closed on that side of the house until the sun is on the other side of the house helps.  

Answer 9

Agree with closing the downstairs vents also if she gets a lot of sunlight through her room window, room darkening curtains to keep the hot sun out.  

Answer 10

We also got a portable ac unit for upstairs. best 200 dollars I ever spent. Helps cool the upstairs so much!  

Answer 11

Close all your downstairs vents

Answer 12

If you do not have attic fans, those help a lot! They will lower the temp by about 4 degrees. Also, remember that hot air rises and cold air drops. Close vents on the 1st floor and open all vents on second floor when the ac is on. Do the reverse for heat in the winter.  

Answer 13

Our bedroom is the hottest in the whole house. We have ceiling fan, another standing fan, and we bought a portable air conditioner. It’s not the window kind but just free standing and vents out the window. I sleep like a baby now. Like a freezer. love it.  

Comments

@slier9412 Sounds like we may have to invest in a portable ac. Do you find it cools the whole floor, or just your room?  

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It depends on the square footage you want it to cover. Ours we got just for our bedroom because it seems that’s the only room upstairs that gets so hot. You can get at Home Depot like we did and get there card and make payments. I couldn’t live without it.  

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@slier9412 we use the portable ones too, depends on the BTU size for the amount of space it will cool.  

Answer 14

If you close registers downstairs, my AC guy said to do it slowly over time so you don't freeze up your unit. Also don't close all of them. He said the better thing to do is block the return on the main floor.  

Answer 15

We leave the fan on the air conditioner on all the time, we also have blocking curtains in the hottest rooms

Answer 16

Set the fan to “on” instead of auto on your thermostat to keep recirculating the air throughout the house so it reaches a more even temperature

Answer 17

Same issue here . closing down stairs vents doesn’t help much. I got some blank out curtains for the bedrooms upstairs, need to get some for the windows by the stairwell and I was going to look into an attic fan. we’ve been here 2 years. the summer is terrible for sleeping upstairs

Answer 18

We installed an attic fan and that helped tremendously. Our upstairs was her very hot and stuffy also.  

Answer 19

Go in your basement and look at the ducts, there will be one that goes to each room of the house, usually they are labeled but you may need someone checking rooms to see where they go to, on each of the ducts will be a lever to close off or leave open the vent. It controls a flap inside the duct pipe that faces the way the lever does. In the summer you want the upstairs ones open (running same direction as the pipe) and downstairs one closed, in the winter you want the opposite. Doing them in the basement is so much more effective then covering or closing the one in the actual rooms

Comments

I see someone posted a picture of what I was describing

Answer 20

I'm having an ac issue, as well. Anyone working today? I think, I need freon.