It is common for families living in two-story homes to experience a hot upstairs and cold downstairs in summer. Installing a new air conditioning unit may remedy the situation, or it may just be the beginning of the solution. Find out why.
Reasons for Temperature Variances
Making adjustments to your thermostat to fix this problem only gets your downstairs freezing cold, worsening the already bad situation. Here are the 2 things that could cause your upstairs and downstairs to differ in temperatures and how you can fix your heating and/or cooling problem.
1. Your Heating and Cooling System Can’t Serve Both Floors
When your HVAC system is not able to maintain the same temperature upstairs and downstairs, you end up with these inconsistent temperatures between floors. Use a zoned heating and/or cooling system in your home to solve this issue.
A zoned heating or cooling system separates your home into zones of different floors, the upstairs and downstairs, to enable you to cool the hot upstairs and heat up the cold downstairs.
How a Zoning System Works to Solve Uneven Heating and Cooling in a Two-Story Home
A zoning system can be implemented in two ways:
Multiple thermostats
A thermostat is installed in each of the two zones in your home (upstairs and downstairs) to help you control your air ducts’ electronic dampers. This ensures that you can set your upstairs thermostat to cool the hot temperature and the one downstairs to heat up the zone.
Electronic-Based Dampers in the Ducts
The second option is to install electronic dampers in your ductwork. These are valves that are designed to open and close to regulate the flow of your home’s heated or cooled air.
2. You Have Poor Attic Insulation, Leaking Air Ducts or Blocked Soffit Vents.
Poor attic insulation, leaking air ducts and blocked soffit vents can also cause your home to have hot upstairs and cold downstairs.
Poor Attic Insulation
To check if your attic has sufficient insulation or not, look out for attic floor joists. If you can see any joist then your attic is not properly insulated. Call a professional heating and cooling company to help fix this issue or follow this guide to fix the issue the DIY way.
Leaking Air Ducts
If the HVAC air ducts linked to your upstairs are leaking, it means their function is impaired, causing the upstairs to heat up. You need to get these ducts fixed to stop the leakage or have them replaced.
Blocked Soffit Vents
Soffit vents are found at the lowest points of the roof. They allow the free flow of air into the attic from the outside environment. When your soffit vents get blocked, no air flows into the attic. Poor insulation of the attic could be the reason the vents are blocked, causing your upstairs to heat up. Get your vents unblocked to enable free flow of air.
Other Common HVAC Problems
Other common problems your heating and cooling system might experience include: fouling, contamination, scaling and corrosion. These problems lower the efficiency of cooling systems hence should be fixed as soon as they are detected. When you get your heating problems fixed, you can have your system inspected for these other issues as well.
Call The Cooling Company for all your zoning needs if your home has a hot upstairs and a cold downstairs or use the HVAC installation online estimator form.
