Why Are Some Rooms Hotter than Others?

Is there a room (or multiple rooms) in your home that are always significantly warmer or colder than the rest of the house? Are you unable to bring this room to a more manageable temperature, no matter how hard you might try? This is a sign that your home’s HVAC system may have become unbalanced, and that you should seek a repair from a professional Austin air conditioning repair technician.

Is My System Unbalanced?

Before you make the call to have your HVAC system inspected, there are a few things you can check yourself to see if you can resolve the issue.

• Air filter: your HVAC system has an indoor air filter that should be changed regularly. A dirty one may be reducing air flow, preventing some rooms from receiving treated air. You should replace this filter at least once per year, so check it and replace it if necessary.
• Vent closure: It’s difficult for cold air to reach a hot room if the vents in that room are closed. Check to make sure they’re open and pointed properly to optimally spread the air throughout the room.
• Window leaks: Conditioned air may be escaping through an open or leaky window, which can make it difficult to cool that particular room. Check for air leaks around your windows.
• Air duct issues: A crushed air duct, or duct with a leak can cause conditioned air to escape before it ever reaches a particular room, resulting in it being much hotter than the rest. It may be worth going up into your attic to inspect your ducts and see if any are constricted or leaking.

If none of these appear to be an issue, you are most likely dealing with an unbalanced HVAC system, and should schedule a repair as soon as possible. Diagnosing this issue can be complex, so it’s best to let a professional inspect your home and suggest an optimal repair strategy.

Causes of an Unbalanced System

When your duct system is new, it’s most likely pretty closed to balanced. Proper duct installation involves the use of dampers to fine-tune your system and ensure each room receives the amount of conditioned air it needs. However, this balance can rather easily become disrupted for a number of reasons. Here are six ways your system can come unbalanced:

Multi-Level Homes
A multi-level home is difficult to balance properly, particularly a large home with an immense amount of air to condition. In a warm climate like Texas, the best solution is to use a zoned system, which uses a different thermostat for each level of your home.

Uninsulated or Long Duct Runs
In order for cool air to get from your air conditioner to the rooms furthest away from it, it must travel along ducts. The longer a duct run is, the more energy that air is going to absorb, which warms it. Furthermore, if a long duct run is uninsulated, this effect will be magnified, many times over. Check your duct runs for uninsulated segments and have them properly insulated to prevent this issue. However, in worst-case scenarios, you may have to re-structure your ductwork to balance it out.

Inadequate Return Vents
Your home needs to have a return vent which sucks the warm air out and returns it to your air conditioning system. So it might surprise you that your home probably only has one return vent, even a larger home. Leaving your doors open can help warm air reach the return vent can help with this problem, but if it doesn’t seem to do enough, you may need to install additional return vents.

Improperly-sized System
An air conditioning system that’s too small may never be able to cool your entire home properly. A system that’s too large may shut off too quickly, before cool air can reach warm rooms. This can be resolved by running fans to help circulate the cool

Room Use
How you use a particular room can greatly influence how difficult it is to cool or heat. For example, a home office that has a computer, server, and other heat-producing electronics is going to be much more difficult to cool. Many of these issues can be resolved by simply adjusting the air flow to this particular room through the dampers in the air ducts.

Renovations/Additions
Whether you or the previous homeowner have remodeled or renovated your home can significantly impact your heating and cooling system, particularly if walls were removed. If this issue is minor, you may be able to get it fixed by adjusting the dampers in your ducts. If not, you may need to run additional ducts.

Whether you need a minor repair or a complete re-structure of the ducts in your home, trust Texas AC & Plumbing Specialist to get the job done right. We offer a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee on all our services, including a lifetime workmanship guarantee to help you rest assured your issue will be fixed properly, or we’ll make it right.

Schedule a service appointment today! Call Texas AC & Plumbing Specialist at (512) 580-7551.