You might notice that some rooms in your home stay nice and cool during the summer months while others seem to stay uncomfortably warm. While this might seem like an error on your HVAC installer’s part, the truth is that there are many different factors that can lead to this phenomenon – and you can correct most of them yourself.
Solar Heating
The sun shines bright and beautiful in Florida, but that doesn’t mean you should leave the drapes open all day. Even the best insulated windows will let in some solar heat, and for rooms that have more than one window or one that is very large, this can lead to significant warming. It’s best to leave the drapes closed during the hours when the sun is shining directly into these windows. You’ll be surprised how much cooler it will keep these rooms.
Closed-Off Registers
If you think about it, your ductwork is a lot like a series of water lines. When you have all of your faucets fully open, the pressure of the water coming through them is greatly reduced. The same can be said for the registers that are connected to your air ducts. If you’re noticing that some rooms are much cooler than others, it may do some good to partially close the registers in those rooms so that more cooled air goes elsewhere in your home. Similarly, you can also make sure that the registers are fully open in the rooms that tend to stay warmer.
Blocked Registers
Most of the time, the registers in your home will be installed somewhere on the floor and just a few inches away from baseboards. If you have plants, furniture or even drapes blocking them, then the air isn’t filling the room as intended. There are several things you can do here. First of all, if you can’t avoid hanging drapes directly over your register, you can purchase inexpensive covers that are designed to redirect the airflow to the side rather than directly upward. Unfortunately, in the case of furniture, the only real thing you can do is move it out of the way. Try to remember that the air coming from these registers needs to fill as much of the space as possible.
Inefficient or Old Systems
The further away a room is located from your air conditioner’s blower, the harder the unit has to work to send the air into it. As such, if you have an old or inefficient system, chances are that there isn’t going to be much you can do about these differences in air temperature. Fortunately, however, you can call your air conditioning service to assess the costs of upgrading. These days, with all of the new technologies available, doing so may not be quite as expensive as you’d think.
As you can see, there are several things that can cause some rooms in your home to stay nice and cool while others always seem to feel uncomfortably warm. By checking all of the above issues, you can make sure that your home stays nice and cool all season long.
