Central Air...

'ello gang. This is our 1st winter in our home. We have central air. It works find for the common areas which sit pretty much directly over the heating unit in the basement. The bedrooms (1.5 of which sits over a garage) seem to get less air. Especially the room in the back that has only 1 wall joining it to the rest of the house. That room gets downright frigid. Is there a way to evenly distribute the flow a bit more?

I've closed and/or choked the dampers hoping to force more of the warm air to the bedrooms but it seems to have little effect.

Rip out all of the walls surrounding the cold rooms and stuff more insulation in...

/thread

Originally Posted by joeski3d

'ello gang. This is our 1st winter in our home. We have central air. It works find for the common areas which sit pretty much directly over the heating unit in the basement. The bedrooms (1.5 of which sits over a garage) seem to get less air. Especially the room in the back that has only 1 wall joining it to the rest of the house. That room gets downright frigid. Is there a way to evenly distribute the flow a bit more?

I've closed and/or choked the dampers hoping to force more of the warm air to the bedrooms but it seems to have little effect.

Do the returns have dampers. In addition to opening the vents to let more heat in, you want to open the returns to suck more cold air out (pressure will force more heat in too). In winter, you preferably want to close the returns that are high on the wall and open the lower ones (this sucks the cold air out of the room and pulls the hot air down from the ceiling).

Insulating the walls will help a lot in addition to sealing any leaks in windows/doors to the outside. If the colder rooms are at the end of a long HVAC run, you could add an inline fan to help "pull" the air flow along. Make sure all your duct work is sealed up with paste at the seams and wrapped in insulation

Good info JonJon. All the returns are low and wide open. Unfortunately I have no access to the duct work that goes beyond the garage. I guess I could sledge a few cinder blocks out to take a look... but I think I'll get a pro to do it so that if something happens along the way I have someone other than myself to blame.

I'll insulate that room when it warms up a bit though. That and replace the old windows.

Originally Posted by joeski3d

Good info JonJon. All the returns are low and wide open. Unfortunately I have no access to the duct work that goes beyond the garage. I guess I could sledge a few cinder blocks out to take a look... but I think I'll get a pro to do it so that if something happens along the way I have someone other than myself to blame.

I'll insulate that room when it warms up a bit though. That and replace the old windows.

real easy thing to do is get a temp and CFM measuring device and check out all the vents. See if it's a pressure leak, temp drop, lack of airflow, etc.

I can feel the warm air coming out of the vent when the unit is running. It's just a weak push compared to the rest of the house and it's working in a square room with 3 outside walls. I had the ducts cleaned over the summer. The guy didn't say anything about potential problems. Not to say he didn't see any but giving me notification of such a thing was part of the job description.

Chances are its cheep work and 4 " runs instead of 5 or 6 "
Sealant on the joints isn't required by code of any district I've worked in for residential for forced air heating but it would have helped

Insulation in the walls and new windows would probably make the biggest difference
You could also run cable from your panel to that room and install a baseboard heater if that's possible. Expensive to run but it would take the edge off

Have you checked the HVAC unit and made sure it is not covered with leaves and debris that might diminish its performance ?

Or , the unit might be very old or too small for the home. You might have a 2 ton unit and need a 3 ton.

Originally Posted by Raymond42262

Have you checked the HVAC unit and made sure it is not covered with leaves and debris that might diminish its performance ?

Or , the unit might be very old or too small for the home. You might have a 2 ton unit and need a 3 ton.

This is a heater

But changing/cleaning filters would be a good idea

Unless he has a heat pump... then the condenser would be running. I'm betting that you duct is either undersized, or damaged. If you didn't have this problem before, it could have been damaged during cleaning.

You could also add a powered duct fan in line with the duct to increase your cfm to the room.

Originally Posted by dirty vert

Unless he has a heat pump... then the condenser would be running.

Edit: nevermind. I think I misread you post

The condenser shouldn't be running unless he HAS a heat pump

have an energy audit done! they should look at your power bills, check your insulation, measure duct flow, do infrared pictures, run a blower door test. sometimes subsidized by state or power company. winter is best time to have one done. they will tell be able to tell you where to put your money to make your home more comfortable and energy efficient.

you might have bad duct connections and are blowing conditioning air into wall cavities or perhaps your duct is running in unconditioned space and you are losing heat.

Part of it may be that your garage is substantially colder than your basement. A cold unconditioned space below will make for a colder conditioned room above.