Air conditioner solution?
Question:I have so many questions(sorry, we just purchased our first house, and want to get things 'right' with it)... We have a pretty large house(2400sq ft.). Mainly my family 'lives' in the back of the house(which is actually an addition). (It was explained to us that while building this addition, the people started taking 'shortcuts' because of money issues) I'm not sure what the issue with the air is, but the front of the house stays very cool, while the back continues to stay hot. Currently we are using a window unit in the back addition of our house to supply air to the three rooms we mainly use. I had thought about using magnetic strips on the vents to divert the air to the back of the house, the problem is the thermostat is actually in the front of the house, and we are concerned that by using the magnetic strips the air will just continuously run, since the front of the house will stay hotter... Any ideas?
Answers:
You need to check your airflow and duct work. Sometimes, in an effort to save money, some people will close off the vents or ducts to parts of the house they don't use. Check the amount and temperature of air coming out of the vent in the warm parts of the house. Or since it's an addition, the ducts may not have been properly installed. Spend a few dollars and get a professional to look at it if you can't figure it out.
it may not have been insulated properly, bad windows or incorrect duct work. do you get as much airflow out of the addition areas? you may have to close parts of we ll say smaller rooms w/o windows a little to allow more airflow to the outside walls. bathrooms for instance usually stay cool -shut them down first, plus basement vents right out of the plenum can lead to alot of air loss. try that first. it may take some time ,but keep trying
The best thing to do would be to move the cold air (or in this case the warm air) return into the addition. This would make the cold air move from the old house out to the addition before returning to the air conditioner. However, this might not solve the problem if the air conditioner isn't "big" enough for the amount of square footage that you are trying to cool. Either way more house means bigger bills, but your HVAC system is probably going to work better than a stand a lone window model.
If it was my house I would see about moving the air return into the addition, but this might not be practical.
When we first purchase our house, we only had enough for one A/C in the house. We simply purchased a floor fan and diverted the air flow to even the temp - Worked like a charm!
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