How should I adjust the air vents in my home to maximize efficiency?
I live in a 2-bedroom townhouse. Downstairs is a large living room & kitchen open space plus a half-bath. There is one medium-sized vent in the middle of the ceiling in this space.
Upstairs is two bedrooms and a full bath. There is a regular vent near the ceiling in each room.
The termostat is at the bottom of the stairs.
I noticed that when we started using the heat this year, the upstairs got pretty hot and the downstairs, where the termostat is, was a tad chilly.
I decided to mostly close the upstairs vents thinking that this would force more hot air downstairs, which would float upstairs, and would keep the air around thermostat at a more even keel, reducing energy use and costs.
Another problem is that there is a large sliding glass door downstairs that might suck away some of the benefits of sending more hot air downstairs.
If the staircase is enclosed you can try this idea; I did and it made a world of difference in our comfort and saved a bunch of money …
hang a curtain across the stairwell. I spent $20 at KMart for a medium-weight cloth curtain about 6’ long and 5’ wide, plsu $9 for an adjustable length spring rod to hold it up. You want solid cloth, not something sheer.
I put one at the top of the stairs leading up from the basement and one about 1/2 way up the stairs from the main floor to the bedrom floor. They’re not qute long enough to go from floor to ceiling but htey still cork off about 90% of the airflow.
Once you’ve done this, wait a couple days to see how the heat works out & adjust your vents to balance the temp.
if you have an open stairwell or a balcony at the top of the stairs then you’re screwed.
As to the sliding glass door …
Any curtains or blinds that you can keep closed will reduce the heat loss. Check for drafts. Something as simple as a rolled-up towel on the floor against the door will reduce air sneaking under it.
Good advice so far. Buy or borrow one of those quick read digital kitchen thermometers, and write down numbers for each room. Compare with the thermostat setting. Leaving the registers open in the coldest rooms, gradually close off the warmest registers until you get the balance you want.
Naturally, things will change on days that are really cold and/or windy.
The vanes on each register are bendable, so you can adjust the direction of flow with two pairs of needlenose pliers. If a register points in a useless direction, like under a chair, you can buy plastic De-Flect-O® diverters to turn the airflow by 90 degrees. They attach magnetically.
No wonder UGG boots and bunny slippers are popular.
You have to think of the air flow pattern as a complete system. Right now you are warming the warm upstairs air and sending it downstairs. It’s a plus if you run the fan since the warm air will drift upstairs and be circulated to the downstairs.
It sounds like you are doing it right, make sure that any ‘valves’ are fully open to the downstairs. These include the vents and ones in the ducts.
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