How do you keep both levels of your home the same temp.?

[marshallandcartersmo]

Our downstairs is freezing.............upstairs is hot. We have a split level 1800square foot home, with most of the lower level below ground. If the thermostat (which is upstairs) is set at 74, it's at least 65 downstairs by the time the upstairs cools off.
I've heard of getting two thermostats, but don't I need two outside units for that---no way we could afford that.
I thought about closing off the vents downstairs, but then I'm worried about it smelling musty with no air flow, since the downstairs is mostly underground.
What do you do??

 

[Ready to go in Ok]

We have 2 units, and it's still hot upstairs! That's where the kids live though, I never go up there. So they each have a fan for their rooms if they need it. It's hard to work up a sweat when you're a slug though. And I guess I should add my kids are teens and young adults. Don't want anyone to think I have toddlers up there burning up!

 

[JadenLayne]

Humm, I'm not familiar with underground.....do you have any windows? We keep our windows open downstairs and it keeps it warmer.

We do have two thermostats though but even with that the upstairs is still always warmer than the downstairs.

 

[marshallandcartersmo]

Humm, I'm not familiar with underground.....do you have any windows? We keep our windows open downstairs and it keeps it warmer.

We do have two thermostats though but even with that the upstairs is still always warmer than the downstairs.

The downstairs is split into two rooms..........one room that is on the front of the house has two windows, but they are up high and if someone was outside you'd see their feet. The other room has no windows.
The downstairs is just an unfinished basement that got finished.

 

[paintnolish]

Haha! We have a 2 story 1925 home. The upstairs is 20 degrees warmer than the downstairs! Right aboutt the second landing on the stairs, the temp goes right up!

 

[MinnieFan4ever]

We live in an older home too, built in 1926, but we have 2 A/C units. With both of those running and ceiling fans, the upstairs stays pretty cool. We do however have one room that it always warmer than the others, so we keeps the blinds closed. That seems to help.

 

[Poohlovr]

Our upstairs never got cool, but downstairs you might be freezing because we were trying to get the upstairs (where the bedrooms are) cool.

Our solution? We put window A.C. units in the bedrooms. We were able to set the thermostat, which is downstairs, higher, since we were no longer trying to cool the upstairs with the central A.C., so the electric bill really didn't change.

The bedrooms only needed small units (5000 BTUs), so they really didn't cost much (plus, we got one of them at Target marked way down).

 

[Poohs Pal]

Shortly after building our house and suffering the same problems we had our home zoned. We have one heating unit and one AC unit. We have 3 zone's controled by their own thermostate. The zoning works through the heat ducts by shutting up the area you need to be a different temp. It works with levers in the duct work by opening and closing as the rooms temp needs to be adjusted. It works great and my monthly consumers and our propane usage is much lower. When there is a fire in the fireplace in the winter we can turn our heat almost completly off but the other area's of the house can control the temp for that room. Hope I explained the system properly. Susan

 

[kathie859]

I live in a bi-level too with the lower level partially below grade. We have windows at the front and a walkout at the back. The lower level is always cooler since it's below grade and HEAT rises

I'll occasionally cut the a/c vents off in the downstairs to help alleviate the chill--but right now with temps in the 90's--I'm happy to veg out in the downstairs family room

 

[Laxmom]

Same problem here with our 2 story. We have had to close some of the vents on the first floor and open more on the second floor. Visa versa in the winter. With some trial and error, we have been able to get it pretty consistent.

 

[Beth76]

We have a ranch with a finished basement and the same problem. We finally--just last week--shut the vents in the basement. We're hoping that it will warm up the basement a bit and help cool the upstairs better. It's definitely helping in the basement, but the main level still isn't cooling to less than 78 degrees during the day. I'm hoping it's just because of the 100 degree heat lately. Right now we have all the vents closed in the basement, but if it gets too warm, we could always just open one.

 

[EthansMom]

We had two-zone heat & central air installed in our home a few years ago, with the main floor and the daylight basement each having their own thermostat. The two levels are still usually at different temperatures. The daylight basement has the insulation of the ground around 1/2-3/4 of the walls, so it naturally stays cooler in the summer and hotter in the winter. Also, since we don't live in the basement... it is mostly storage with a rec room, we keep the thermostat settings different than we do upstairs to save money.

 

[Monte Cristo]

Shortly after building our house and suffering the same problems we had our home zoned. We have one heating unit and one AC unit. We have 3 zone's controled by their own thermostate. The zoning works through the heat ducts by shutting up the area you need to be a different temp. It works with levers in the duct work by opening and closing as the rooms temp needs to be adjusted. It works great and my monthly consumers and our propane usage is much lower. When there is a fire in the fireplace in the winter we can turn our heat almost completly off but the other area's of the house can control the temp for that room. Hope I explained the system properly. Susan

They are called motorized dampers. We have ours in 3 zones as well...upstairs, downstairs, and bonus room. Whichever thermostat is calling for AC (or heat in the winter), that corresponding damper will open and air will flow to that zone. All 3 or any combo of the 3 can be open at the same time. Works great.

 

[HOGFAN]

ceiling fans in all the upstairs rooms

 

[WonderfulDreamer2]

2 zones as described earlier, plus when we had the home built, we had some sort of really thin metalic insulation of sorts that went on the roof and on the ceiling of the 2nd floor. Plus we have ceiling fans. I hate being hot...and in GA...IT GETS HOT! I keep my thermostat upstairs set at 68 and downstairs at 70 and I have to honestly say, it has been great all summer. I was so afraid of that problem.
I've also heard they make portable non window air conditioners. Maybe 1 upstairs for the summer would be a good idea.
Hope it gets to feeling better for you.

 

[kendall]

Same problem here with our 2 story. We have had to close some of the vents on the first floor and open more on the second floor. Visa versa in the winter. With some trial and error, we have been able to get it pretty consistent.

That works for us too to some extent. We also have the ceiling fans on low in the bedrooms, and that seems to help disperse the hot air.

 

[marshallandcartersmo]

Thanks so much, some great responses. As of this evening I've closed two vents in the downstairs, we'll see what happens. I just worry about it getting musty smelling.

Opening a window downstairs is good advice too---DUH!! Why didn't we think of that!!

 

[olena]

When we replaced our heat-pump last year, we also got dual zoning for the house. It blows the air where it's needed. In the summer, the upstairs vents put out more AC than downstairs and the reverse is true with the heat in winter. It's been WELL worth it. The whole house is comfortable year-round and the system is very efficient, which has saved us $$$ so far.

 

[KERdad06]

We have a bi-level as well. In the summer, I close the vents downstairs so that the A/C doesn't make it any cooler. I also bought magnetic covers for the vents downstairs, they are white and cover the whole vent so almost no cold airs comes out of them. Has been working great for almost 7 years!

 

[2angelsinheaven]

Our issue is that our living areas are always freezing and the bedroom is always burning hot. Yuck! It could be 75 in the living room and it will be 81-82 in the bedroom and we are in a tiny 1/1 condo. The vent is open, I tried closing other ones to push more air to the bedroom but there was no change. Any ideas?