[jonKranked]

Did a booster to the master bedroom and some butterfly valves at the old house because the downstairs bathroom and 2 kids rooms would go sub-zero before you could even feel it in the rest of the house, made a huge difference. Still need to do it in the new place since the master bedroom is at least 15 degrees hotter than my office, while lot of wasted cooling power from mid-directed air.

tell me more, our upstairs is always notably warmer than our downstairs, sometimes by as much as 5°

 

[jimmydean]

Full 18 next time, eh? Good man!

 

[maxyedor]

tell me more, our upstairs is always notably warmer than our downstairs, sometimes by as much as 5°

Luckily indoor weed grows are a thing so inline vent fans are cheap as hell these days, I think mine was $40. You just pop one in the duct headed to where you need more cooling/heating and it pulls the air into that duct exhausting it in where ever you're lacking. Wiring is the only tricky part, you can do it the easy way and put it on it's own switch, or they make remote controlled ones, but then you have to not lose the remote. I used the blower fan power from my furnace as a trigger for a relay that turned the secondary fan on so that it kicked on when the HVAC kicked on.

Balancing it was tricky, you don't want to suck air out of your downstairs rooms with the upstairs booster, that's why I had to put dampers in where I could, evens out the resistance throughout the whole system. Took a few tries adjusting the rheostat on the blower and tweaking the dampers, but I got it basically worked out. The dampers added restriction, the blower reduced restriction, I'm sure it netted me a slightly less energy efficient set-up if all you cared about was maximum cooling, but I no longer had to set the thermostat to 65 in order to get a livable bedroom.

They also make vent covers with built in booster fans that can just plug into an outlet, maybe worth a try, never messed with one though.

Replacing ducting with insulated duct also made a huge difference, running your cold air through a 130° attic shielded by 28ga tin is just stupid.


Worth noting I live in a hot area, so we have large AC units, I knew mine was capable of cooling the whole house, it was just out of balance. I don't know how shit works up there in Cheese-steak land or Toshi-ville when they spec out an AC unit since you guys aren't actually supposed to see multiple 100° days in a row. In that case mini-splits are the shit!

 

[stoney]

I

Luckily indoor weed grows are a thing so inline vent fans are cheap as hell these days, I think mine was $40. You just pop one in the duct headed to where you need more cooling/heating and it pulls the air into that duct exhausting it in where ever you're lacking. Wiring is the only tricky part, you can do it the easy way and put it on it's own switch, or they make remote controlled ones, but then you have to not lose the remote. I used the blower fan power from my furnace as a trigger for a relay that turned the secondary fan on so that it kicked on when the HVAC kicked on.

Balancing it was tricky, you don't want to suck air out of your downstairs rooms with the upstairs booster, that's why I had to put dampers in where I could, evens out the resistance throughout the whole system. Took a few tries adjusting the rheostat on the blower and tweaking the dampers, but I got it basically worked out. The dampers added restriction, the blower reduced restriction, I'm sure it netted me a slightly less energy efficient set-up if all you cared about was maximum cooling, but I no longer had to set the thermostat to 65 in order to get a livable bedroom.

They also make vent covers with built in booster fans that can just plug into an outlet, maybe worth a try, never messed with one though.

Replacing ducting with insulated duct also made a huge difference, running your cold air through a 130° attic shielded by 28ga tin is just stupid.


Worth noting I live in a hot area, so we have large AC units, I knew mine was capable of cooling the whole house, it was just out of balance. I don't know how shit works up there in Cheese-steak land or Toshi-ville when they spec out an AC unit since you guys aren't actually supposed to see multiple 100° days in a row. In that case mini-splits are the shit!

I'm assuming there was drywall removal to install said boosters? Or is all of your stuff running from the top dow?

 

[maxyedor]

I

I'm assuming there was drywall removal to install said boosters? Or is all of your stuff running from the top dow?

I have a column in the stairwell that houses the duct, and from there it branches out in the attic so everything could be done up there. Don't think you could install a booster behind drywall, at least not per code if you care about it.

 

[Toshi]

Everything's behind drywall in my house. Nothing's in the attic, for better or worse--only R-50 of insulation up there! All the ductwork for the 2nd floor is between the 1st and 2nd floors in the ceiling/floor.

I will ask the HVAC outfits what they recommend, whether minisplit or otherwise, though. Monday's quote day.

 

[stoney]

Everything's behind drywall in my house. Nothing's in the attic, for better or worse--only R-50 of insulation up there! All the ductwork for the 2nd floor is between the 1st and 2nd floors in the ceiling/floor.

I will ask the HVAC outfits what they recommend, whether minisplit or otherwise, though. Monday's quote day.

I think we're on the same track then.

 

[rideit]

Nothing a sawzall can’t fix.