Some Rooms Cold, Others Not

[stuemke]

We've got a basic 3 bed/2 bath home. When our central air kicks in, it pours cold air into two of our bedrooms (on the west side of the house) and into the living room. Our master bedroom (on the east side of the house) is left untouched.

All the vents are clear of obstacles. Any ideas how to improve the airflow to the east side of the house?

-stuemke

[mattison]

Do you have balancing dampers on the take offs at the main duct??

[stuemke]

I'll have to crawl into the attic area to take a look... and that'll wait 'til tomorrow, as the attic is bound to be EXTREMELY warm right now.

What should I be looking for?

-stuemke

[mattison]

Just off the main duct each branch will have a little handle kind of like this http://www.plenumsplus.com/CommSlvDamper.jpg

While you're up there inspect your ducts good for any seperations and also if it's flex check the one going to your bedroom and see if it's colapsed.

[stuemke]

Thanks for the quick help! I'll get up there tomorrow morning and take a look.

One more thing... our house has lofted ceilings in 90% of the rooms, so there's not a lot of crawl space in getting to the vent for the master bedroom. Any ideas? (I'm looking at less than 1.5 feet of space from the attic entry, over the living room, and to the master bedroom.

-stuemke

[Ed Imeduc]

Did you look to see if the duct or flex pipe for that room is still together in the attic????? If you close down all the rest of the registers some ,do you get more air then???

ED ;)

[stuemke]

Here's what I saw from inside the attic. The is a large box above the air conditioning unit. That box has five or six outlet pipes running to different areas of the house. None of the pipes has a damper.

I've closed the vents (or closed them as much as possible without completely cutting off the air) in the rooms on the west side of the house, as well as the vents in the kitchen and entry. There wasn't much of a noticeable change (if any) in the master bedroom on the east side of the house.

I'm guessing there wasn't a noticeable change because the air is leaving the air conditioning unit and running through the pipes before hitting the "roadblock" (closed vent). If the block were earlier (damper just off the large box in the attic) and each was opened slightly, would more air be forced into the master bedroom pipe (with no damper)?

-stuemke

[mattison]

Those dampers are only a few bucks each and pretty simple to install. Check the ducting going to that room good though. If it's flex duct it could have very well become disconnected or collapsed.

[stuemke]

I'll try to check the duct leading to the bedroom, but it's going to be tough. We've got vaulted ceilings throughout the house, and the duct running from the living room to the bedroom is in a vertical space of about 24 inches. It's possible... but it'll be tight.

-stuemke