OT: Uneven Heating... Recommendations?

[2metalhips]

My thermostat (Honeywell) has a circulation setting. The furnace fan comes on every 20 minutes and runs for 10 minutes independent of whether the heat or AC in on. It helps to even out the temp variants in the house/condo. It's not perfect but helps.

[djg21]

Originally Posted by 2metalhips

My thermostat (Honeywell) has a circulation setting. The furnace fan comes on every 20 minutes and runs for 10 minutes independent of whether the heat or AC in on. It helps to even out the temp variants in the house/condo. It's not perfect but helps.

Same with the Ecobee. I can have the fan run full time, or for alternating minimum periods of time (i.e. 20 min/hour). It does help.

[xeladragon]

Originally Posted by 2metalhips

My thermostat (Honeywell) has a circulation setting. The furnace fan comes on every 20 minutes and runs for 10 minutes independent of whether the heat or AC in on. It helps to even out the temp variants in the house/condo. It's not perfect but helps.

Hmm... interesting. I think I can do that with Nest as well. I'll have to double check.

[NHAero]

The IR scanner is a good idea.

The HVAC trade is by far the worst in US residential construction. How much of the system is in an attic and above the thermal boundary of the house? It's so common to see air handlers and ducts in the attic above the insulated ceiling below - that's putting your heating system outdoors.

If I were diagnosing this, I would:
- Look at the placement and condition of the heating equipment, especially if it's in the attic. Note defects to be remediated.
- Measure the air flow to each room and the temperature of the delivered air to calculate the heating capacity delivered to each room.
- Do a quick heat loss calc for each room and compare to the above.

If your daughter's room has a shortfall and there aren't obvious system defects, then use the balancing dampers and lower the air flow to your room.

Don't assume that a house built recently doesn't have these issues. A good friend's son bought a new, very nice looking, large house a few years ago just south of Boston. That winter was the one (2015?) we got pounded with snow. The house had mega ice dams caused by uncontrolled heat loss from the heated portion of the house, and from the heating system components located in the kneewalls and attic. The resultant mold damage necessitated them abandoning the house and having it gutted and rebuilt.

Yesterday I was assessing causes of high fuel use in a beautiful ocean-front home. In the crawl space I could see two disconnected ducts. Of the four air handlers, two were above the thermal boundary in the attic. Nothing unusual here :-(

The lack of understanding of basic building science, and the quality of the HVAC trade, is such that I could easily expand my work to be a fulltime forensic investigator.

[unterhausen]

Originally Posted by Hilltopperny

You can check for a draft by the window as well. Windows should be insulated around the outer perimeter in order to fully retain heat.

I recently did a tile backsplash in the kitchen, and when I took off the window trim it turned out there was zero insulation around the window. Not even fiberglass. This house was built at the advent of 6" studs, so they were worried about insulation, but they did a horrible job of it. They also failed to insulate the wall behind the soffit in the kitchen. I should rent an IR camera too.

[Dave]

If the duct to the room is accessible, a booster fan in the duct might help. There are a lot of electric heaters made that plug into a wall outlet and really can add a lot of heat to a room. Most would be perfectly safe placed on top of a dresser.

[paredown]

Agree with the criticism of the HVAC folks, and a close second would the crappy insulation installers, followed by the guys installing windows and doors who haven't got a clue...

[Tandem Rider]

If the room is cold in winter, there isn't enough heat getting to the room to overcome the heat loss from the room, I know, duhh. The camera is an excellent idea, it might tell you more than you want to know. Temporary "fix" might be to toggle the fan onto continuous run. You really need to fix any obvious issues with the building itself first and couple that with inspecting your ductwork for any issues. Get up into your attic and look around for insulation pulled back or missing. Check your basement or crawlspace to make sure the box sill got insulated. If that doesn't resolve it, then pay to have a heat loss calculation done and the airflow into each room measured, not guessed at.

[buddybikes]

New house, forced hot water. We went through that with old house, had heat pumps to add, wife sat under one in winter. Tiny house now and cozy warm

[zennmotion]

I'm not an HVAC expert, but nobody has mentioned the role or importance of the return vents that allow circulation through the system. Forced air in but no escape makes for a very inefficient system with cold rooms. People often park furniture against or near the returns thinking that's no big deal since they're not "heating" vents. Make sure that the return vents 1) exist in the cold rooms and 2) are not blocked by furniture or dust bunnies. If they're old and gross with dust restricting airflow, vent covers are often more easily replaced than cleaned

[xeladragon]

Thanks everyone for your input. From a glass-half-full perspective, at least the heating/insulation at my new place is better than what I had previously (new construction in 2008; my mom's house built 100 years earlier is better heated/insulated). Looking forward to trying a few of the recommendations... will report back.

[Dekonick]

https://www.amazon.com/Flair-Compati.../dp/B07TLHNXJT

Try something like this.

[jds108]

When you're only using the heat from the central system, go ahead and close any vents to even out the temps.

The problems that come with closing vents are only going to happen when you're using the A/C.

Cooling takes much more airflow, and thus closing vents can cause problems.

[daker13]

Originally Posted by cash05458

I understand your hesitance on space heaters...but maybe try one of those ones that has a bit of oil in it and heats slowly...they have no fans etc...apologies that I don't know exactly how they are called but they sort look like old style room radiators on wheels...we use one in our house here in vermont in a room that doesn't get enough heat and it really helps...and they don't get hot enough to burn a child...just put out a slow steady area heat and as far as I know are fairly immune from accidents that might involve a young kid...

Welp, you might be at the point where you're getting more input than you can handle, but I agree with all night lotus party.. I used to have your exact same problem. Our house has been renovated here and there, but my daughter's room has always been colder and draftier than the other rooms, in spite of new windows--I suspect there's little insulation in her walls.We have big 1" baseboard copper pipes and everything heats up quickly (except for her room), but it made no sense to jack up the heat for the whole upstairs at night just to keep her room warm. I bought one of the Delonghi space heaters that Cash is talking about. It uses little electricity, keeps the room nice and warm, and has worked great. It needs some space and I kept an eye on it to make sure she didn't pile stuff up around it inadvertently, etc.

This specific kind of heater was an easy solution to my problem. Granted, I have baseboard heating but we do have central AC as well, and there are some rooms that just don't get very cool due to the duct routing--some rooms are farther from the action and I don't see any solution to that (unless there's an obvious blockage, etc.).

[Dave]

Originally Posted by zennmotion

I'm not an HVAC expert, but nobody has mentioned the role or importance of the return vents that allow circulation through the system. Forced air in but no escape makes for a very inefficient system with cold rooms. People often park furniture against or near the returns thinking that's no big deal since they're not "heating" vents. Make sure that the return vents 1) exist in the cold rooms and 2) are not blocked by furniture or dust bunnies. If they're old and gross with dust restricting airflow, vent covers are often more easily replaced than cleaned

I had a new spec home in 2003 that had bedrooms with no returns, mainly due to the open design that left no walls, except exterior walls to run ducts down to the furnace in the basement. Some upstairs room had supply air ducts routed through exterior walls, so one space between studs had little insulation.

When I built my retirement home and acted as the GC in 2011, I made sure that all rooms had return vents. I also have R26 insulated walls and R60 ceiling insulation. This house has twice the square footage, and a heated & cooled 1800 square foot shop, but costs less to heat and cool than the 2003 spec home.