5 Ways to Fix Hot Spots in Your Home
Ask the pros at General Heating & Air Conditioning which method is best for your home.
Do some rooms or areas in your home always seem too warm? You might think your only option is to crank the AC, but using this method to correct a hot spot will just create cold spots everywhere else. Instead, try one of these 5 methods to improve the evenness of temperatures in your home.
Check Your Ducts
It is important to have your ductwork inspected regularly by a trained professional. Otherwise, the ducts could develop holes, leaks, or blockages that prevent cooled air from reaching its destination. If you have a particular room that always seems hot, the problem could be that no cooled air is reach it. Try putting your hand over the air register while the AC is on. Can you feel cooled air? Is the flow as strong as at other registers in the home? If the answer is no, you definitely need to get your ducts inspected.
Get New Curtains
Solar heat gain is a top cause of hot spots. If you notice that a room with a southern exposure is getting hot, heat from the sun could definitely be playing a role. Simply getting better curtains that block or even reflect light away from the home can help.
Install a Zoned Thermostat
Another way to deal with hot areas is to install a zoned thermostat system. This gives you independent control of the temperature in each of the zones. A zone could be an individual room, group of rooms, or floor. For example, you could make the sunny side of your home one zone, which would allow you to set the thermostat lower for those rooms to offset solar heat gain without freezing out the rest of your home in the process.
Reroute or Adjust Ducts
If you have an older home that was built before central air, you may find that whoever added the AC ductwork later on made some mistakes. Excessively sharp bends or ductwork of the wrong diameter for the power of your AC unit can result in airflow issues, which in turn can result in insufficient cooling in certain areas. At General Heating & Air Conditioning, we can check for these kinds of issues and help you correct them.
Install a Ductless Air Conditioner
If the hot spot in your home is in an area without an air register, you might consider installing ductless AC in order to cool it. A ductless AC unit is similar to a window unit, but it will be permanently mounted in an unobtrusive location of the wall or sealing and should deliver better performance to boot. Ductless AC is ideal for locations like sunrooms, enclosed porches, additions, attics, and garages.