My room is upstairs at the front of the house, the front of the house gets hit directly with sunlight. The problem is this room is easily 5-10 warmer than the other rooms away from the front of the house, I'm guessin because the second story is covered with bricks too, which you can still feel the heat from after the sun goes down, like its fuckin molten or something?

I have 3 windows probably measurin a total of 9 by 7 feet, they all have tint on them which did make a pretty big difference but it still is too hot to be in there in the afternoon, its probably about 85 degrees when the temp is set to 70-75. I don't have curtains, which im sure could make a difference anything else i could do? I was thinkin about gettin one of those portable A/C units, but that shit runs around $500, is there anyway to adjust the flow of air from the a/c to allow more air in? I guess that would mean replacin the current flow with a bigger outlet pipe? Suggestions or comments. please....

 

You're mostly likely never going to get your upstairs to be as cool as downstairs. Heat rises.

Additionally, any room that sits on the south and west sides is going to get dramitically warmer due to it's position with the sun. Nothing that you can do.

Install a ceiling fan if you haven't already. But increasing the duct size could send the air flow out of balance. And you don't want that.

 

There should be adjustments on the duct somewere that adjusts the amount of air going to each room. How many thermostats are in the house? Try leaving your door open to the rest of the house and put some curttains up to help keep the sun out.

 

I would definately say put up some blinds if you don't have them and a ceiling fan. I was having a bit of problem with my place. It's on the top floor and my wife was home during that nice heat wave and the place was in the mid 80's. Closing all the blinds and running the ceiling fan was helping a lot.

Also, where are you looking at portable AC's. You can get a pretty good window AC for around $200. It kinda sucks to have to get those if you have central air. but it will definately work. I would try the ceiling fan first.

 

You need blinds and/or curtains in there, period. Without them, its like a greenhouse.

 

Try a window unit (probably about $175). That's what I did in my house because I had the same problem with the room upstairs. Remember that cold air goes down and heat goes up, and your room upstairs is closed to the roof so the heat from the roof transfers more easily to your room than the rest of the house downstairs.

 

I grew up in a 2 story house in San Antonio, TX so I know what you mean. I simply stayed down stairs at least until the sun went down. To make things more bearable, I never wore a shirt around the house. Some heavy curtains will help, but all in all, heat rises and we have had a hot ass Texas summer so you may have to just wait for some releif in October...

 

fuck a window unit, i dont even think thats allowed because its in the front of the house and this is an upper middle class subdivision, i seen the portable window units at home depot and loews it just goes inside the room,

forgot to mention i do have wooden blinds and a ceiling fan ,

 

My daughter's room is like that in our house. The problem with adjusting the ducts is if that one is already wide open the only other choice is to cut the airflow to the rest of the house, which is a major pain and less efficient.

I've got casement windows (and it's in the front of the house anyway) so a window AC unit is out of the question as well. We ended up having additional tinting put on the windows to further block the sunlight, which helped noticably but on really hot days it still isn't enough. You might want to try that and keep the blinds closed with the ceiling fan on and the door open during the summer.

 

Do you know waht kind of tint was used on the windows? Some tints block the heat (UV?) better, while some are just to block the light. If you leave something infront of the tinted window, like maybe an empty can, does it get hothot? or does it stay cool tot he touch (room temp). If it gets really really hot, the tints might not be made for blocking the heat.

 

I don't think the windows are the main problem. I believe is the proximity of the room to the roof.

 

it is heat blockin tint, not just tint that blocks the light, i think it does have to do with the roof bein close to the room, because up in the attic the clearance from my room to the clearance is reallll low, i guess upgradin the insulation in the attic could help?

 

Damn reading owns me.

 

I'm in the same exact boat as you. Adding insulation in the attic didn't help much. Do you have an attic fan? If not, install one. I'm about to at my house and it should work pretty well at sucking all the hot air out of the attic, which of course leaves less heat to radiate down into the house.

You can have all the insulation you want, but with radiant heat, the insulation will just get hot too then your room will get hot.

You can try closing the downstairs vents to force more air upstairs, but that doesn't do much. If this attic fan doesn't work for me, I'll be at my wits end.


I read an article about this stuff called Attic Foil. Pretty much it's supposed to reflect the heat away from the attic but it looks like a pain to install though. The guy that wrote it said the foil/fan combo lowered the temp by 10 degrees in his bedroom.

I haven't checked out the sites he recommends, but here they are:
www.fifoil.com
www.solec.org
www.cor-a-vent.com
www.lomanco.com

Let me know if anything looks promising

 

im gonna look into an attic fan...