Tips for 2 story air conditioning

[janette]

Summer is coming and with energy costs going up need some ideas on how to conserve. We have a 2 story house with an upstairs & downstairs unit. The upstairs is hot no matter what we do, I've tried keeping the thermostat lower up there but don't want to go very low since it just goes out the attic.

Are there any tricks to keeping it cool effciently? Should one of the thermostats be set different? Which should be higher?

Another consideration is looking for a new unit. Our house is about 15yrs old and has the original AC. I know in our previous house we replaced an ancient air conditioner and our bills improved so much we wondered why we hadn't done it sooner. Know of any good websites with reviews and compares of units?

TIA!

 

[ducklite]

Open the upstairs vents all the way, and close half of the downstairs vents. Cold air falls.

Install a ceiling fan in your staiwell, leave it on all the time on low. That will make a HUGE difference.

You might also want to get an attic fan installed. We cut our A/C bill by about 30% the first year we had an attic fan out in in our NJ house.

We do'nt have one in FL, instead we have a radiant barrier. You can retrofit them, but they aren't inexpensive to install, an attic fan is much less expensive to retrofit.

Anne

 

[janette]

I've assumed we have an attic fan but I'll have to ask the AC folks, I do plan to give them a call to do the routine maintence and check the AC units.

Our Den is 2 stories and has a ceiling fan, it isn't a big one but it is on all the time. I'm looking to replace it and will probably go with something larger & more blades.

 

[lindalinda]

I have also put little fans that go on the registers in some of our upstairs rooms. The ones that automatically come on and pull the air and they seem to help.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Multiple thermostats, multiple AC units, Janette? If so, try running only the one for the upstairs, see if the falling cold air is sufficient to cool the downstairs.

If your unit is under a 13 SEER, see about the cost of replacing it, especially if it is under 10. http://www.eesi.org/publications/Fact Sheets/acfactsheet.htm

 

[olena]

We just replaced our heat pump with a Trane heat pump. We also got zoning with programmable thermostats. That has turned out to be the best choice. We can set two temps for our two floors and when it's hot upstairs, the dampers adjust to force the cold air upstairs and vice-versa with the heat. It works wonderfully and has been much more efficient and comfortable.

Look into zoning.

 

[janette]

Multiple thermostats, multiple AC units, Janette? If so, try running only the one for the upstairs, see if the falling cold air is sufficient to cool the downstairs.

Yes, we have 2 units and 2 thermostats. I'll try turning the top one down, my DH will like that since he likes it cold and his office is upstairs.

I'm not sure a heat pump will work for us, we have gas heat and electric AC. Our heating (gas) bill is usually not bad it doesn't get too cold here.