Air conditioning question: No 2nd story return - fan or extra vent?
Question:I can't have a 2nd story return put into my house and the heat builds up extensively in the 2nd story due to a lot of windows facing west & very high 12+ ceilings in the rooms.
I want to put a ceiling fan on the landing so it will force the hot air downstairs and around the corner to the 1st story return.. however the guys installing my fan seem to think a vent outputting cold air down the stairs would work better.
To me, all that is doing is sending cold air downstairs instead of pushing down the hot & eliminating it.
Can someone offer a good opinion?
My attic is well insulated and these are the two solutions I've narrowed it down to (with professional input)
Answers:
whatever. (to the first post) from what i've seen working in new construction and living in old :( well insulated attic still needs to be vented.. i would go with a large attic fan or roof ventalator. poor vents in the attic will heat the wood around it .. then it starts to radiate down into the rooms below. the old houses dont breathe-there usually are no eve vents to let the air in and then for it to escape out the roof vents.. all adding roof vents does is it gives the air somewhere to expand to. adding the cold air return return up there somewhere will help greatly, a 10" in my hallway helped but not enough. it really helped because my cold air return on the 1st floor was sucking the hot air downstairs and running all the time.
so.. after the ceiling fan
1st - is the attic vented? if not do that first. (power vent) cheapest and least mess.
2nd - if they can put a vent in why not a return air?
3rd - i dont have any west facing windows and have the same problem. i also didnt have a attic access until recently and man is it so hot up there.
See me waving? I have the answer. We just discovered that our neighbor and the electric company were right. We have a/c upstairs in three windows. All we have to do is close the middle door downstairs (in the foyer) and turn on how many a/c's we need to eliminate the humidity downstairs. Even if we use one we get results. Two is better on hotter days, we have yet to use the third. This means, we are using the energy of a 10,000 btu system (2 a/c's) and cooling 5 rooms. Big rooms. I have never been this active in the summer in my life. It's so great to be able to work downstairs.(we have 3 other rooms downstairs that we use periodically throught the day, but not enough to cool it)
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