Cooling off My House

I agree with putting a fan in the window and blowing the hot air out. It will also draw the cool air into the room.

For a more expensive fix hire a HVAC inspector who may tell you that you need more insulation in that area of the house or that the vents need to be organized/placed differently.

I watch Holmes on Homes often on the HG channel. He often finds that the cooling/heating system was improperly installed or that the house needs more insulation in different places.

J.:

If you have the doors shut - the air is NOT circulating throughout the house - and if the room gets hot or warm - then all it is doing is circulating hot or warm air.

When it is cool in the morning - open the windows - let the cool air in.
Then close the windows and the blinds to keep the sun from shining in.
The fans should be FACING the room - why? Because the BACK of the fan will SUCK IN the cool air from the other part of the house and spread it around the room.

Sounds like your house isn't properly insulated either. And your roof might not be properly vented either. Do you have soffet vents under the eves of the house? These vents allow the hot air (as hot air RISES) that gets caught in the attic to seep out.

Hope that helps!

Are you having the crazy heat too?

First and foremost make sure your filter is clean! Here was me and Troy in bed last night, is the AC still running? Yup. When did you last change the filter? Well I bought the new filter three months ago but you wanted to do something to make it fit better before I put it in. I did? Yup, ya want me to run down and change it? Yes. :p It hasn't been nearly as bad today but then, oh my god!!! we have storm warning!! I forgot what rain is.

Okay so after you stayed awake through my story. Check to make sure the vents are open and that no little creatures stuffed anything in them. Hey! It happens at my house. Check to make sure there is no dust clogging the returns.

My kitchen never gets really cold because there is no return so maybe that is the issue. The bedrooms are always colder because there is always one return in each room.

I'm guessing that your living room is on the West side and the kids' room and your rooms are on the East. Your living room is getting afternoon sun.

I suggest buying thermal curtains for your living room to keep much of the heat out. Also, get up in the attic and see how much insulation is up there, and if you can get under the living room, see how much insulation is down there too. You might need to add more.

Make sure that the air conditioning vents are not blocked...especially the return vent, which pulls the air back to the unit. If you can, put up a ceiling fan to move the air. Finally, you might just need to look into getting a window air unit for that room. It will help overall because you won't be running your house air to try to cool that room down more. I put one upstairs in my house...what a help! I bought it at Lowe's for $99.

Best of luck!

Do you feel cool air coming out of the livingroom duct? It could be clogged.
ETA after someone else's post, DEFINITELY check your filter. Most need to be changed once a month for the best efficiency.
You can close off ducts in rooms that don't need air if you have that option.
I keep the bathroom duct closed, don't see any sense in wasting pressure to that room since the door is open all the time anyway.

Not an immediate fix, but you might want to consider shade trees or other plantings. Chat with your local county extension, a good landscaper or the energy company, they will tell you what to plant where, decidious, vines on a trellis, evergreens, shrubs etc to keep your living room cooler in the summer. They may also recommend plantings near your central air unit to keep it cooler and working more efficiently.

More immediately, you can consider getting those one way reflective coating sheets for the windows. They are supposed to keep the heat down.

good luck to you and yours,
F. B.

At night when it cools down, I open all the doors and windows and use box fans in the windows...it really helps but you have to make sure to have at least 2 doors/windows open so there can be a cross breeze coming through, ya know?

I hardly ever use my central AC but it hasn't gotten very hot either...just the box fans in the kitchen window and in the bedroom windows. Totally works...just remember to turn them off before it gets too late in the morning or before it gets hot or you will be blowing in hot air! Ugh!

Is the living room on the south side of your house? It will get more direct sunlight and absorb more heat.

Add window coverings to the outsides of the 3 living room windows. Bamboo type shades that can be rolled down during the day and up at night are available at some home improvement stores or online. You can still close the blinds inside the house, but keeping the sunlight from penetrating the window glass into the house is even more efficient.

You can add plants outside or move potted plants to provide shading to the sunniest exterior walls of your house.

Of course, building a patio covering or trellis to the south or west of an overheated part of the house will reduce sun exposure.

Closing alot of the AC vents can end up working against you. It can cause your AC system to become unbalanced and work harder, increasing your power bills. Same thing happens when you close too many doors between rooms.

Open windows at night and close them before the outdoor temps reach 70 if possible.

The blinds might not be enough to block some of the solar heating you are getting.
You might want to see about having some heat blocking film installed on those windows - it can make a big difference.
They sell some do-it-yourself stuff at Home Depot and Lowe's.

http://www.gilafilms.com/en/Residential-Window-Film.aspx

Maybe have the fans blow out instead of in? That way they can push the warm air out? I don't know, just a thought! You could go so far as to putting a blanket over the window but it does look a little tacky! You can also buy that window insulation stuff. It's mostly used in the winter to keep out the cold, but can easily be used in the summer to keep heat out! It isn't that hard to put up, patience and a hair dryer is all you need.

It really depends upon how bad you want it and how hot it really feels in there!

Have you tried checking the registers (vents with adjustable levers on them)? First make sure the living room is all the way open. If you close or partially close the registers in smaller rooms, it can blow more air into other rooms. It won't necessarily solve the problem, but it may help it a bit. I know my SIL was having problems with the temperature of he bedroom until she closed the register that was open in her closet. Seemed to fix the problem.

It also helps to keep ceiling fans running in the rooms and doors open between rooms.

When our house was built we also had really uneven cooling. The builders came back in and "balanced" the ac. I am not sure what exactly they did, but it was something in the ducts. It didn't take long and it also helped our problem.

Close the AC vents (completely or partially) in the parts of the house that stays cooler and open the ones in the warmer areas.

We keep our house very cool. 66* on the central air in summer. It was 99* here today and our unit is running most of the day to keep up, but it's doing an admirable job. We have no real shade trees, but have added insulation two times in the last 8 years. It makes a world of difference.

We also do not have blinds or shades on our dining room or kitchen windows, but all the others stay closed in these temps. We close the vents to the basement as it stays cool down there, and open the upstairs ones . We do the opposite in the winter generally. We live in a front to back split house ( entry, kitchen and dining on the main walk in level, then down 7 steps to basement or up 7 steps to the living room and some bedrooms, etc). A lot of open area as the upper living room is lofted.

We change our filter every singe month. I do home daycare and am required to test my fire alarms, etc and do drills each month. I just make this part of the monthly stuff!

In this heat, We do NOT turn the oven on at all, hardly use the stove, limit the use of washer and dryer, etc. we knew a heat pattern was coming so did some laundry later at night over the weekend to get it all done for the week.

Really sounds like you need some long term attention in the way of insulation, etc, however. The difference ours made was maxing. We did it ourselves with stuff from Home Depot, including rental of the machine. I highly recommend it!

I never understand why anyone should need additional ac units or even using fans unless they have insufficient sized central air units and insulation, etc built into their homes. Seems a great waste of money in energy costs to try to keep cool some that is so inefficient?

Stay cool!!!

I use the hose to cool off my house in the late afternoon. It help cool the materials and allows the heat to dissipate. Sometimes just leaving a sprinkler on where it hits the roof and wall for a half hour will do a wonderful job.

As for issues:

There may be holes in the vents and the air is escaping before it gets to the vents in those rooms that are hot.

You many just have too many vents coming off the central unit before it gets to this room. I have a mobile home and the rooms closest to the unit are the only rooms that cool or heat well. The rooms at the other end of the house have to have window units for cooling or space heaters in winter. If you have your H/AC guys come out talk to them about the zones in your house and find out if there is something else to do.

You can always add a 110 unit in one of the windows. They fit in a regular size one and the little accordion parts pull out to fill in the rest. I always make sure and cover the areas really well so that if we have a high wind and torrential rain it won't come inside the house.

Sit your fan right in front of the vents so it blows the cool air directly as it comes out.

I would make sure to keep the main doors to the outside shut and the blinds darkened and the curtains pulled.

Another thing you can do it go to a local home supply store and buy some insulation. Ours is thin Styrofoam with silver on the both sides. It has a Penguin on it and it's for insulation of windows and stuff. It's about 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick and comes in a 4 foot by 8 foot piece. I called our Lowes and this is the product number. 41503

We can pop it in and out whenever we want the sunshine or to open the windows. It can be cut to any size and we use it to darken some rooms too.