I have a central air-conditioning but it does not cool the upper level of the house?
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When we design a heating & cooling system to go into ahouse, we do not arbitrarily pick a size or tonnage of equipment. We have to perform an engineering load on the house. And some contractors, not all, perform individual room load calculations like we do. The individual rooms of your home have their own idiosyncrasies. Obviously you do not need a degree in engineering to know that your upstairs is warmer in the summer than downstairs.
However, you do want your HVAC company who installed the equipment to be aware of these facts so they can design the system to handle the individual rooms and their necessary temperatures.
Now, we are dealing with this issue post-install. Your options at this point are as follows:
1) Depending on location of the primary system, and how the ductwork is arranged. You can have a licensed contractor install an electronic zoning system. This system allows you to control the different zones in your home independantly. So, I assume that your bedrooms are upstairs and thus sleeping at night is uncomfortable. A zoning system will allow you to control the upstairs temperature independantly from the downstairs, and vice versa when you are not upstairs. For more information on these zoning systems, go to http://www.howellsac.com. It is reasonably low in cost, and will actually improve your electrical savings.
2) Have your HVAC company check to see if you have a secondary return upstairs. This is the cheaper solution, however in many homes I have seen that the original install company has either undersized the upstairs return, or did not install one in the first place. If we are not removing the heat out of the upstairs by way of the return, then all of the registers, open windows, and ceiling fans will not make a dent in the amount of heat that generates in the upper floors.
I hope that this has helped. If you want more detailed help from a contractor who has been in the industry since 1969, then go to http://www.howellsac.com. I will be happy to answer any and all of your questions.
I am having the same problem in this relentless heat. Even the ceiling fans don't make enough difference, so I will probably get a small window ac unit for the bedroom. They aren't terribly expensive and are energy efficient.
Ok first heat rises so see what you can do to help the unit.
Make sure all windows are closed and attic/crawl space areas are properly sealed off
Clean all of your vents (have a pro clean them too if you end up calling for help-see below)
Close all window treatments (blinds/etc) when they are open the suns rays h eat them up and make your unit have to work twice as hard
Close the doors to all of the rooms before you go to work. Whn you get home go in each room and open the door-you should be greeted by cool air in every room. Open the door and let it move to the hall way.
If none of this works call the ac guy but i really hope this helps
That is a problem with 2 story houses. My suggestion is to install ceiling fans, if you don't already have them, in all the rooms upstairs and keep the doors open. This will help circulate the air. Make sure the vents are open and unobstructed. You might need to turn the thermostat down when you are going to be upstairs since the downstairs stays cooler and that's probably where your thermostat is. You can try closing off a couple of vents downstairs to try to force more air upstairs. The other and more expensive solution is to install a separate unit for your upstairs. It would cost more but you could control that unit solely for the upstairs and keep it the temperature you want.
heat rises and it seems that the unit you have either has clogged venting or not enough power to cool the square footage. Also the coils of the AC unit could need cleaning. call an AC company and ask for a tune up, usually under a hundred bucks. While they're there, ask if the unit you have is sufficient for the square footage. If an addition to the home has been made that could affect the out put. There could also be insulation issues. and a wall unit will help too.
Your thermostat is probably located on the lower level so it is turning the AC off before the upstairs is cooled.
Try this.
Close all the downstair vents and make sure all the upstair vents are wide open.
Once the upstairs is cool, now try opening the downstairs vents, just partially so the downstairs can now get cooled.
Its going to be trial & error getting the right configuration of the vent openings but thats what you'll need to do.
In many of the newly constructed buildings I've worked on, the setting of the vent openings have been pre set by the technician putting in the system. Afterall, the entire system is mathmatically configured based on the AC unit being installed, the duct work size and the size of the building.
The question doen't provide nearly enough information. A hundred different things could be causing this problem. You didn't even mention if this was a new problem or has it always been that way. If it has always been that way then it was probably poorly designed or installed or both. If it's a new problem then it probably has to do with air flow restriction, dirty filter, dirty ducts, or somebody may have stuffed something in a duct. I had a similar call one year and found that the teenager that lived upstairs had stuffed a quarterpound of pot in the duct.
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