OT - How to make a room in your home cooler

[LiveMusic]

In my brother's home here, my bedroom is on the west side of the house. Not good. He has a fancy meteorological gauge and the very accurate thermometer showed 2.3 degrees higher in this room. So, instead of 78.0F, it's 80.2F. That's not comfortable to me. So, how could I help this?

 

What about putting aluminum foil over the windows to block the sunlight? About 6' by 6' windows in this small bedroom.

 

And the clincher. It just stopped raining yesterday after about 30 days of rain. Like, 20 inches in one month. I saw the sun yesterday, what a treat! Anyway, a few days ago, the roof leaked and got into the ceiling and it rotted and he knocked a hole in the ceiling (exposing the attic) about 2' feet square. And we will repair this hole.

 

Just as a physics curiousity, we wondered if air in the attic could get into the bedroom. The air in an attic can rise to 140*F here. Can hot air go DOWN into the room? Hot air rises but wondering if it can push down into the room. We might need to accelerate our repair job if it can.

 

Any tips to reduce the temp in this room?

[meccajay]

You guessed correctly. In most cases if the space between the ceiling and the attic is not nicely insulated, the attic heat will transfer to the room below. It also sounds like the attic may not have ample insulation between the roof layer and the attic ceiling. Keep in mind, in some homes people convert the attic to a bedroom and live comfortably up there, as long as the insulation and roofing is above board.

 

The fix, for me it would be as simple as a $100 window AC unit, and that would be it. Although, if I were you, I'd try to take advantage of the recent leak, and turn it to a positive by insulating that attic while the repairs are being done. Might make all the difference.

[KenElevenShadows]

I would definitely consider putting in better insulation. It'll knock the temperature back down. And consider the roof insulation as well. A lot of people install circular vents on the top so that the hot air in the attic can rise and escape.

[Barandine Vondenger]

Originally posted by LiveMusic:

In my brother's home here, my bedroom is on the west side of the house. Not good. He has a fancy meteorological gauge and the very accurate thermometer showed 2.3 degrees higher in this room. So, instead of 78.0F, it's 80.2F. That's not comfortable to me. So, how could I help this?

 

What about putting aluminum foil over the windows to block the sunlight? About 6' by 6' windows in this small bedroom.

 

And the clincher. It just stopped raining yesterday after about 30 days of rain. Like, 20 inches in one month. I saw the sun yesterday, what a treat! Anyway, a few days ago, the roof leaked and got into the ceiling and it rotted and he knocked a hole in the ceiling (exposing the attic) about 2' feet square. And we will repair this hole.

 

Just as a physics curiousity, we wondered if air in the attic could get into the bedroom. The air in an attic can rise to 140*F here. Can hot air go DOWN into the room? Hot air rises but wondering if it can push down into the room. We might need to accelerate our repair job if it can.

 

Any tips to reduce the temp in this room?

YEs one winter I had it so cold that the air over the fire place heated as it was from the live flames,well sir; it FROZE SOLID and fell to the ground and I had to cut it into hannal'in chunks so's i could hannal it an' , an', put it in the oven to thaw it so it would rise again and finish heatin' the hoose,yas..

ahem.. ..

to reduce temps stop the HEAT BUILD UP!

try to cover the winders on the hot side of the hoose and remember when sunlight comes in so does heat and so one should allow the RISING HEAT chunks to excape by a draft winder.. I use a fan to pull or vent THE COLLECTED heat from the house(this may be three or more rooms) and take advantage of the blowing wind by opening winders to allow the breeze to entre'.

dress for SUMMER light clothes and drank lots of iced dranks.

set a small fan on the floor to pull up cooler air and think yourself cooler too ..

Thats right THINK yourself cooler. YOU are capable of lowering your internal body temputure by sheer thought(like CAIN on KUNG FU the teevee show) and when it gets really HOT, hot,hot,?

what do ya' do?

Why, you just go to your refridgerator, open the ICE bin and suitcase oh say TEN or twelve smallish cubes and except for an easily ignorable constant sub-anal drip you're cooler by one maybe one and a half degrees and experience NO ILL EFFECTS except for intestinal bloating and colon/sphincter damage which is easily fixed by three or four simple surgerys and or extractions or extrusions. oy! them extrusions are tough..

mo sto fthe sewo idsa reuhli esan dsho uldb eonl yre adfo rent ertai nment pu rpose sonl y

[alfonso]

It's true that heat goes up, but what plays a big role too is pressure. when you have such a heating of air, if there is not a good airflow, the air pressure increases and this increases temperature too.

 

So it's very important to avoid heat coming inside, expecially the sun rays, don't think you need aluminium, any traditional way is good, and insulation of the hot exposed surfaces it's good, but if you are able to have a good airflow from down to up, with air escaping at the highest possible level of the roof, to avoid pressure and humidity, it's a good 50% imo.

[LiveMusic]

We were just thinking that covering those windows with aluminum foil would be VERY cheap. We're into function, not aesthetics, for now. Hey, we're broke. Also, aluminum is so reflective. I've seen white trash do this a lot... cover their windows with foil. Going back to my roots. There are vents in the end of the house, up under the overhang. Not ridge vents, not soffit vents. Like open slats up under the overhang. So, at least it IS vented. When I said 140*F, that was just a figure I've seen for anywhere in the deep south. That attic temps reach that high.

 

BTW, many years ago, I installed "radiant barrier" in my mother's attic. I damn near killed my nephew, installing that stuff. It was in JULY! Hooboy, 140*F heat, that was BRUTAL. I kept him hydrated. I did the hard part. Bad news was the attic space was pretty tight, not that much pitch to the roof. That was a horrible job and I chose the worst month to do it. But her A/C bill did go down. It works off the principle that reflected heat never enters the home. Effectively, it reduces attic temp.

[pseudonym]

The second "law" of thermodynamics says, basically that hot goes to cold. If you have a radiant heat source "the sun" hitting windows that have a surface area 6'x6' in a small room, then you will have a lot of heat gain to the room. Unless they are insulated windows, or treated with a reflective material.

 

You can buy some sun screen material pretty cheap to block the sun from hitting the window , it's better to block from the outside than the inside.

 

Also, you mentioned ridge vents, good idea if you can afford it. You may think it's too expensive now, but you can save a-lot on cooling/electricity in the end that way.

 

Also make sure you have good supply and return to the A/C unit and the filter is clean and coils not mucked-up. Hope this helps.

[Dak Lander]

Originally posted by arellspencer:

YEs one winter I had it so cold that the air over the fire place heated as it was from the live flames,well sir; it FROZE SOLID and fell to the ground and I had to cut it into hannal'in chunks so's i could hannal it an' , an', put it in the oven to thaw it so it would rise again and finish heatin' the hoose,yas..

ahem.. ..

Damn, that was nearly as cold as it gets in North Dakota.

Most winters there you need to build your fire in a microwave oven and run the microwave oven to keep the fire from freezing.

 

Oh Yeah, I remember one time, in about 1962, it was so cold the microwaves froze. It was so cold it stayed dark nearly all the time.

[LiveMusic]

I don't see how people can live with that cold. I spent a week in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Of course, I was up there to see a girl. Anyway, it was, literally 30 below zero. I couldn't believe how the cold wind would come into the house. It found ways to get in. Man, that's not for me. I hate brutal heat but brutal cold might be worse.

[KenElevenShadows]

Originally posted by pseudonym:

You can buy some sun screen material pretty cheap to block the sun from hitting the window , it's better to block from the outside than the inside.

That's for darn sure. In my old house, we had a couple of windows that faced the sun constantly. For the hot summer months, I purchased a screen and hung it on the outside over the window. That helped SO much. It was the difference between bearable and ridiculously horribly hot. Essentially, the entire window was in shade the entire day, a good thing.

[Tedster]

Some good suggestions. Have you included roof vents/fans? Something to encourage the hot air out of the attic.

 

***edit note*** I see Sir Ken of Eleven Shadows already mentioned this.

 

Not gonna help you at this point, but this is one reason why I really wonder what is going on in people's minds who cut trees down around their houses. "Oh, it MIGHT drop a branch and damage the roof if we have a windstorm." In the meantime, how much is it saving you on your air conditioning bill?

[BOOKUMDANO]

For we southern Californians, the biggest source of heat inside the house is the hot air from the attic filtering downward. If you cover up, isolate, and insulate a room, the problem gets worse because now the attic heat is building up hour after hour in the isolated room below. I imagine the problem is the same over where you are.

 

You say cost is a factor so consider this..ceiling fans? Not necessarily good from a cost standpoint. SCE studies here show that celing fans and attic fans add a tremendous amount to an electric bill OVER what it would cost to just run central air...I couldn't believe it until I looked at the SCE numbers last summer when I was considering attic fans.

 

My suggestion ...if you don't have central air, get a Penguino for the room. It'll turn your room into anything you want, including a freezer, in about five or ten minutes. Just fill the tank with water and run it when you need. Take it with you when you permanently leave. Works extremely fast on most any size room. I used them years ago before I had central air and they're great. You won't spend a lot in electricity because you won't run it continuously..unless you want icicles in the room.

 

In fact, most everyone in the house will probably try to cram into your room since it'll be the most comfortable one.

[henrysb3]

If a Penguino is a swamp cooler, i.e., it uses water flowing thru a mesh pad, it won't work in Loosiana - too much humidity. That's why we don't have them here in the midwest. This last month, Consumer Reports did tests on room air conditioners and a couple from Sears came out as "Best Buys". I'll try to locate the model numbers for you.

 

Ken's suggestion of a shade or awning would help a lot, and the foil would, too, but it could make your room really dark. If you have some overhang that shades the top of the window, you could foil the parts that aren't shaded and let some light in thru the top.

 

Henry