Two bedrooms with different temperatures...what's the deal?

[mattkime]

one of your kids is evil and therefore sucking all the heat out of the room. make him stop.

[pinkoos]

[quote mattkime]one of your kids is evil and therefore sucking all the heat out of the room. make him stop.
Yeah, the younger one does look like a "Little Devil."

;-)

[Harry in MI]

The valves are usually called dampers and should be placed as close to the main supply ductwork as is reasonably possible. They are usually little 3" handles that should be inline with the flow direction to be wide open.

If you can't "fix" the problem with a few damper adjustments then I'd be with iaJim with his advice "It might be worth it to call a heating guy to look into this. "

Ductwork is a place where a great Furnace/AC system can be made really mediocre by poor ductwork design and installation.

[BigGuynRusty]

Pinkoos Quote.:
"Two bedrooms with different temperatures...what's the deal?"
Physics!!
You can expend a lot of Time/Effort/Cash on trying to balance out your house temperature.
Growing up my bedroom was on the north side of the house, I loved it!!
15º temperature differential during the winter, I still love sleeping in a cold room!!
Sometimes I used to close my bedroom door, close the heater duct, and open up the windows!!

BGnR

[Stephanie]

[quote papercup]
One room/wall getting more sunlight
Along the lines of what papercup said - where are these bedrooms located? For instance, the coldest bedroom in my house is located on the northwest corner of the house. The hottest bedroom (mine) faces east.

No matter where I've lived, the bedrooms on the north side of the house have always been the coolest. It's that whole "sun" issue that causes problems

[Numo]

Hmmm, I have the same problem as pinkoos with my 2 kids bedrooms. The strange thing is, we didn't notice it when we started living here 15 years ago. I wonder if dampers can gradually work themselves shut?

In our case, the ductwork is inaccessible without tearing out the garage ceiling. I wonder if a person could run a metal cleanout cable down the ducts to see if it hits a closed damper. I think I will try it.

[pinkoos]

[quote Stephanie][quote papercup]
One room/wall getting more sunlight
Along the lines of what papercup said - where are these bedrooms located? For instance, the coldest bedroom in my house is located on the northwest corner of the house. The hottest bedroom (mine) faces east.

No matter where I've lived, the bedrooms on the north side of the house have always been the coolest. It's that whole "sun" issue that causes problems
Both rooms are on the backside of the house, one at the northwest corner (that's the one that gets stuffy with the heater on) and the other at the northeast corner (this one gets cold at night even with the heater on).

[modelamac]

Harry in MI nailed it. The dampers/air flow regulators are usually placed near where the various ducts branch out from the main duct.

Each room should have its own duct, as well as a return duct. The former tend to go to the outside walls and returns are on inside walls. The ducts going to the outside walls usually have more turns in their path, cutting down on air flow. In addition, the longer they are, the slower the air flow due to friction again.

We have found that the bedroom that is the greatest distance from the furnace in our 2 story colonial is the coldest in winter. It is also on the NE corner. The warmest is right next to it, with only one outside wall. It is tough trying to balance the air flow in the entire house. Doing it yourself takes a long time (weeks) because you have to adjust the dampers one room at a time and keep track of temps, but it can be done.

I also had to partially block 2 return registers on the main floor to get proper circulation to the second floor. The return ducts is where the furnace blower gets its air, and if properly regulated, will tend to create a vacuum in the rooms where you want the extra hot/cold air to balance the temps.

A lot of patience and methodical effort is required, but it can be done by the home owner.