Uneven heating issue with town home.

[SatinSilver]

Originally Posted By: Reddy45
The madman usually doesn't respond to threads so we can only go off what he said in the first post.

And we didn't get enough info in the first post to provide a decent answer.


It's kind of funny but every thread he starts the first two posts are always from him.

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted By: Patman
Originally Posted By: azjake
It's simple. Hot air rises and downstairs is always going to be cooler than upstairs in the winter months.


That's not the case at all in my townhouse. The thermostat is on the main floor and we set it to 72F. It was a bone chilling -9F overnight and our bedroom was only 60 degrees when I woke up. The kids bedrooms are at the front of the house and are even colder than ours! We always need electric space heaters to warm up our second floor bedrooms in the winter here. And our home is not that old, it was built in 2009 and has no leaks from old drafty windows or anything like that. I had the same problem in my previous townhouse, which I also bought brand new.


I've experienced the same, with the 2nd floor being colder than downstairs in our townhouse. We just had our furnace replaced and added registers with louvers all throughout, but it's still colder upstairs. The ducting arrangement simply pumps way more heat downstairs tha upstairs. The bat insulation in the ceiling probably isn't very effective either - we don't have attic access, but we had some electrical work done recently that required cutting to gain access, which is how I know.

Two more things:

Our townhouses have individual basements, as well. The temperature actually never dips too low, but there is no insulation between the basement and 1st floor.

Heat does rise, but he stairwell in our place is in the back corner of the house and the single return register is on the main level, limiting the amount of circulation between floors.

 

[JC1]

The shame with all of this is that the builders get away with this. People Don't like guys like Mike Holmes, but if money was no object we'd all have him build our houses, and we'd all live comfortably.

My House is 2600 sq ft two story, built in 2002. There have been many deficiencies I’ve found over the years. Here is what I did to fix them. Hopefully you can use some of these to be more comfortable.

Duct Work

I watched an Episode of Mike Holmes many years ago and there was a 4 story townhouse with these exact same issues. They had to open all walls and seal all Duct work to make sure no air leaked out. That was a major job. No most people will not do that, but let me tell you if you seal at least the lowest floor in my case it was the basement it made a big difference. If I ever manage to open up the other areas and seal them, I know it will make a major difference. I used foil tape. I also insulated all basement duct work with a special duct insulation. That keeps the heat in the Duct.

I'm sure most of the guys reading this will check the duct work running off the furnace and feel warm air blowing on their hands when it should be going upstairs.

Window Casings

I also removed all the window casings in my house and removed the fiberglass batts that they shoved in the gaps of the window frames and wall framing. Cheap b-a-s-t-a-r-d-s didn’t use the window spray foam to seal any window. This also made a huge difference. I guess this wasn’t building code at the time.

Garage Leaks

I also checked the Garage where it met the cement walls. They used drywall tape to make the appearance that the drywall was well sealed. I ripped that all off and shot spray foam Great Stuff in all those voids. That made a big difference as well.

Attic Insulation

I also topped up my attic insulation to R60. That makes a big difference upstairs. Added those Styrofoam baffles to keep the air flowing in the attic from the soffits. Also found out in my Sons room the idiots that did the insulation jammed batts into the attic soffits to prevent air floor in the roof. I corrected that as well.

Basement Sill Gasket

On houses with basements made of poured cement or cinder block walls, the area where the cement meets the bottom framing plate will have leaks over time. The cement parging outside cracks that creates leaks. To fix this you need to get the low expansion window foam and inside your basement spray in between the Top of the basement wall and that wood framing.

Other Issues

This past summer, I had to change the shingles on my roof. I had to open part of my two car garage and soffits on my porch to inspect some stuff underneath for leaks.
Mother bleeping builder didn’t have exterior plywood/osb sheathing on three sections for the front two bedrooms. One section was 4 inches wide by 7 feet long. Second section 4 ½ wide by 6 feet long and the third section under my sons bedroom in the garage was 7 ½ inches wide by 7 ½ feet long. You could see the pink fiberglass exposed to the freezing cold. No wonder the dam house is freezing in Winter and Hot in Summer.

I fixed all that up and also sprayed some spray foam where the metal I-beams could create leaks into the bedroom. His bedroom is much warmer this year.

Basement Insulation

I also finished my basement and when I did, I removed that plastic insulation blanket that covered the upper 4 feet of the walls and I insulated it with 2 inch rigid foam combined with Roxul R12 in the walls.

Good luck guys and let us know if you can make your house more comfortable going forward.

 

[The motor guy]

How do you close the vents? I only see where you can angle the vents.

 

[JC1]

Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman
How do you close the vents? I only see where you can angle the vents.


Some people use the dampers that may be in the lower vents. Remove the covers and stick your hand down to feel if there is a metal flap inside the vent. In basements some people use the magnetic covers to close them off or buy a metal vent cover with the louver that can be closed.

 

[SatinSilver]

If the furnace is on the first floor the dampers are probably on that floor not far away from the furnace. You should see a lever on the duct to adjust it. I would open them all and adjust down the road if need be.

 

[JC1]

I also recall the buildee calling the technician when we bought the house and they came to balance the system that they didn't set the furnace fan on the higher setting. You may want to check that.

 

[Andrew1972]

Originally Posted By: Finz

Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
You cant be a "fairy" and live in NH..


Now that’s old-school talk right there...

Yep!!!! You can actually be whatever you like and carry what you like in NH as we stamp Live Free or Die on our license plates.

In NH unless you are really poor or don’t care about owning a decent home the heating systems keep up/sized for cold temps. Summer heat in homes others hand some AC and mostly undersized or poorly zoned.

 

[javacontour]

It is not that simple.

I have two HVAC units, so I can set the temp of each floor of my home.

If it is a sunny winter day, the downstairs will be warmer. Why? South facing windows, lots of them. The sunlight heats up the downstairs.

The upstairs has two south facing windows, so it doesn't get the same heat.

The heat really doesn't rise from downstairs to upstairs. At least not enough to make any meaningful difference.

So while theory says it should work that way. In practice, it doesn't, and/or there are other factors in play.

Originally Posted By: azjake
It's simple. Hot air rises and downstairs is always going to be cooler than upstairs in the winter months.

 

[Wolf359]

Lots of people don't know how to do a proper manual J calculation. In theory the house could be balance. If the top floors are too hot, then the duct work going to them need to be smaller. Depending on the size of the room, they can be fed with different sized ducts. Lots of builders take short cuts.

 

[Warstud]

Where is the heating/cooling system located?

 

[Nick1994]

Ideally you would have 2 separate heating and cooling systems. One for upstairs and one for downstairs.

With one the duct work needs to be perfect, supply and return needs to be a certain size. This is difficult though, since it often means you have to rip out drywall and redo the duct work and who knows what the effect will be. Might make it worse or it might make it too hot. Then it could be opposite in the summer.

Closing vents might help, but it might be bad for the system and could cause it to choke.

Talk to a few HVAC guys to see what can be done, they might be able to just add a duct and it’ll balance out.

 

[The motor guy]

Has it been checked for balance in the runs? Do you have a ceiling fan to keep air moving? [/quot


What does that mean? Even amount of air coming out of all the vents? Imo that's the problem here. They blow like crazy upstairs and there are like 4 of them and downstairs only has two out of four that blow somewhat okay downstairs. I closed off a couple vents upstairs and it just makes a loud whistling noise.

 

[The motor guy]

Originally Posted By: Warstud
Where is the heating/cooling system located?


The thermostat is located upstairs. It's an electric heat pump system.

 

[The motor guy]

It's about 7 degrees cooler downstairs.

 

[Warstud]

Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman
Originally Posted By: Warstud
Where is the heating/cooling system located?


The thermostat is located upstairs. It's an electric heat pump system.


If the heat pump system is upstairs then the upstairs is going to get most of the heat because the air diminishes the further it's away from the source. Now there are fans (Forgot the proper name) that can be installed say mid-way along the duct that help push the heat further.