HVAC question

[Ristorapper]

Empty nesters. Two story stick house built in '99. Very rarely spend anytime in the basement. Temperature during this hot spell generally runs about 10 degrees cooler in the basement. Understandable beings all the appliances used upstairs and hot air rises and all.

Can a person shut/close most or all the vents in the basement to try to keep the upstairs cooler? Thought i read somewhere or heard someone say that it is hard on the equipment (central air/fan) to do so.

What ya think?

 

[grizzly]

just so u have enough vents upstairs to move enough air so coil don't freeze up. and keeping some air moving in basement keeps it from getting to humid in basement

 

[LBrandt]

Just the wife and I, so also shut down the vents in basement all the time because we just use it for storage (junk stuff). Have an air exchanger so no problem with humidity.

 

[walleyeman_1875]

I had the same thing going on with my 2-story. Basement always cooler in summer and winter. I added a manual duct damper. This allowed me to direct more airflow to the basement or upstairs. This was done on the main duct. Fairly easy to do and works alot better than choking down all of the individual vents.....although I still restrict certain vents to help balance things out.

 

[eyexer]

I have all but three ducts closed in my basement all the time.

 

[BrokenBackJack]

Same theory as zone heating or cooling.

 

[Kurtr]

with icf basment i have every vent closed and it is 63 in the winter or summer.

 

[eyexer]

with icf basment i have every vent closed and it is 63 in the winter or summer.

yep that's what I have

 

[johnr]

I open the vents upstairs in the summer, and close the basement. I then reverse this in the winter, with the exception of the bedrooms. We use our basement mainly, and its a good 70* down there in the winter, same as the main floor. When we had all the vents going in the winter, the basement would be 5-8* cooler.

 

[quincy3iii]

Closing all you vents will raise the humidity. It will also put an extra load on the fan coil/blower motor. It is not the same idea of a zoned system. Every system is designed for a certain heat/cooling load and altering that load requires bypassing that load on the air conditioner. If this is one or two vents you'll be fine. If it more than that a professional should install a bypass duct from your supply to your return.
P.S. I'm an HVAC mechanic. Trust me.

 

[DirtyMike]

I usually just go to the basement....

 

[Allen]

hell, with as "tight" as most HVAC vents close and the less than stellar fit between HVAC pieces, you should be able to close all your basement vents with no problem. I do it here in the summer, and I did it at my last house where I did the HVAC for the basement and taped all the connections.

Granted, I did freeze my A coil at the last place one time, but I think that was way more due to the plugging of the filter (sheetrock dust and too long of an interval between changes) than anything else. I upped the ante on changing the filter and didn't have any other problems over the next 5 or so years.

 

[Petras]

The other option would be to install a "vent" in the return air duct in your basement. Then if you do like I did and get a programmable thermostat and set it to circulate it will run 35% of the time when the system is not calling for cooling. If you open that "vent" that you install in the return duct you will pull the cooler air in from the basement and send it upstairs. Just a thought! It helps in our home, especially at night.

We have one of these https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0166QE9QC/?tag=nodakangler10-20

 

[Obi-Wan]

I have the furnace fan switch to on and the fan runs all the time which helps keep and even temp between the basement and main floor.