I have a split level house, three levels.
On the bottom is the garage and a family room. The family room is the coolest room in the house and it has a ceiling fan.
On the second level is the kitchen and the living room.
Third level - the warmest - is my office, the bathroom and the master bedroom.
Would running the ceiling fan in the family room help push the cool air around enough to make it worth running all day?
Should I have it pushing air down or pulling air up?
I don’t think you’re going to get an authoritative answer because it isn’t a simple question. There are a lot of particular variables.
But, you should use the fan for ‘night flushing’. When it cools down in the evening, turn off the AC, open high and low windows, and run the fan. It will draw in cool air from the low windows and expel hot air from the uppers.
On edit: I misread. I thought the fan was upstairs. Where it is, is pretty useless I think.
I agree, I think your fan will be pretty useless down there whichever way it goes, except for when you’re actually in the room.
Your house sounds very much like our house’s layout - a side-side split with family room and garage on the lower, then a second level with common areas, and an upstairs above the family room with bedrooms, yes? If so, you can get incredible levels of temperature stratification in those houses. Right now, the upstairs is 78, the middle level is 76, and the lower level is 73. There has at times been a 12-degree difference from min to max.
All that aside, people in this situation have tried doing some things to better air flow, such as putting in a duct in the wall with a small fan to push air from the lower room to the upper room (reversing it in the winter), or sometimes cutting a hole in the ceiling/floor (and covering with decorative grates) to install a small fan to equalize temperatures. While it’s a pain in the ass (and IIRC a contractor could charge you $500-$1000 to do it and fix everything up), I’ve read that it can make a big difference and improve both the temperature balance and humidity control in the house.
Thanks for the advice. I am contemplating just moving my office down there. But it very cold down there in the winter and I’m not sure I then want the hassle of heating it during those times.
The fan is an interesting idea. I may look into that.
Ceiling fans in the rooms on the top floor won’t change the temp, but they can make it feel more comfortable. Having the air moving can make a room that normally feels hot feel a lot more comfortable. The moving air evaporates sweat off of your skin making you feel cooler.
If you get a lot of heat in the afternoon but it is fairly cool in the mornings and at night a whole house fan in the attic will pull all the hot air out and allow the cool air to replace it.
Look into getting an attic fan or two as well. Most houses already have one, especially older, split levels, but get a bigger one of you already have one. Also, clean your filter in the air handler/furnace downstairs. Usually you can take it outside and hose them off really good and let them dry out. I can’t stress it enough as to how important it is. Shit, you can even buy a new one at Home Depot. Just look for a hog’s hair filter.
Also, clean your return grill off, it’s usually in the hallway on the wall across from the bathroom upstairs in split level homes. The return is what sucks the hot air out of the house. It’s roughly 16" x 20" in size, so you know what to look for.
Also, heat rises, so just remember that whenever you’re doing stuff to get the cool air upstairs. Good luck !
A ceiling fan is useful in a room to improve the distribution of hot & cold air within the room. It isn’t gonna do beans for moving air between rooms.
You have the classic air balance problem. You need to change all your filters & ensure your A/C system is working its best. Then 1) Minimize the convective flow of air between floors, and 2) Adjust the vents in each room to compensate for the convective movement you can’t eliminate, plus any radiative heat load.
For the former, you need to block your stairwells. I hung a basic spring-loaded “tension rod” in each of my stairwells & hung a floor-length 4’ wide curtain on the rod. Total cost for two stairwells: $30 at Target and an immediate $50/mo reduction in my heating/cooling costs. That reduced the flow by WAG 90+%. You just brush the curtain aside to go up or downstairs. And if you’re having a party or moving a couch, just slide the curtain all the way to one side on the rod, or pull down the rod. The inconvenience is almost, but not quite, zero.
Then adjust your vents. In summer you need more A/C on the top floor than the middle, and more on the middle than the bottom. So start by closing the botom floor vents completely, opening the middle floor 1/2, and fully opening the top floor vents.
Try that for a few days & see what needs adjusting. YUO’ll probably alsohave to change yuor thermostat setting up or down a bit as it no longer has the same relationship to the whole-house temp it used to. Remember the numbers on it don’t have godlike accuracy. So whether the thing says 70 or 80, as long as the tempfeels comfortable and the total A/C run time per day seems reasonable is reasonable, you’re doing the right thing.
And yes, come Fall you need to change all the vents to be mostly open on the bottom floor & mostly closed on the top floor. Hint: Once you have your summer settings refined, take a pencil & make a small mark on each vent next to the little lever so you can return to those settings next Spring.
Finally, ceiling fans: Their purpose is to mix the hot air at the ceiling with the cool air at the floor. For that, they work equally well whether blowing up or down. But they also can produce a felt air movement. In winter we call that a “draft” & it’s a bad thing. In summer we call that a “cooling breeze” & it’s a good thing.
So the rule of thumb is blow down in the summer to make the temp feel cooler/lower (down = lower ), and blow up in the winter to make the temp feel warmer/higher (up = higher).
Missed edit window: This
should read
Try that for a few days & see what needs adjusting. It doesn’t take a big change in the settings on one vent to make a big difference in that room and a corresponding small change the other way in all the others. Adjust the most extreme problem out first, then tackle the lesser ones.
You’ll probably also have to change your thermostat setting up or down a bit as it no longer has the same relationship to the whole-house temp as it used to. Remember the numbers on it don’t have godlike accuracy. So whether the thing says 70 or 80, as long as the temp feels comfortable and the total A/C run time per day seems reasonable, you’re doing the right thing.
The A/C is brand new. I’m assuming that came with new air filters as well. Also install at the time was a new furnace.
I suppose I’ll have to break down and get an A/C expert to look at the ducts and figure out how best to balance the house. I was being lazy and cheap trying to get away with just moving air around.
Can’t get much cheaper than what LSLGuy suggested. Opening and closing the dampers on the vents is free. Adjusting your t-stat is free. A curtain across your stairwells $30.
I can’t see a service call from a pro costing less than that.
PS change your filter regularly. Once a month is a real good frequency.
The hole in a ceiling/floor idea concerns me, as that would also permit rapid advance of fire from one room to that above, along with conveying the products of combustion, which often prove fatal to occupants at a level above that of thermal burns. Given that ducts and pipes must be sealed where they penetrate floor/ceiling assemblies (602.8 IRC) (708.2.1 UBC), I’d tag such a penetration as a code violation.
Older homes with basement heaters often had 2’ x 2’ grates in the floors to allow heating transfer by convection, but they proved short of impossible to save in a fire situation, because there was no compartmentation of the dwelling any more.
Not every penetration or opening from one level to another above is a code violation, nor by default dangerous, otherwise spiral staircases and those second-level balconies common in 1990’s-era homes would be violations.
And IIRC, that code on ducts and pipes does not cover an air balancing system, right? It’s intended to cover sealing around the ducts and pipes - am I mis-remembering?
You’re correct regarding the cited code references-I attached them to illustrate the importance placed on sealing openings to reduce fire spread. It is also true that some openings are completely acceptable, but in the cases of stairways and balconies, the structural framing is afforded the protection of a single 1/2" layer of finished gypsum drywall. Someone cutting a hole in a floor/ceiling between rooms opens an entire joist cavity and the framing members are thus exposed to fire without protection. In the case of lightweight wood truss construction, the entire floor assembly is now exposed.
If a P.E. and/or the AHJ sign off on a properly protected floor/ceiling penetration, then the OP can have at it. I’m just cautious when it comes to compromising fire resistivity of a structure.
Sounds good - I understand completely your cautionary note. I just wanted to clarify a couple of points.