Home Guides Home Home Improvement Sustainability Do You Need Two A/C Units for a Two-Story Home? Email Reddit Two A/C units aren't always necessary for a two-story home. A single A/C unit in a two-story home often produces no-win situations. Crank the thermostat down to offset the natural warming in upstairs living spaces and it’s too chilly downstairs. Make the downstairs comfortable and it’s too hot in the upstairs bedrooms. Installing two separate A/C units dedicated to each level is one answer. It’s also an expensive installation and consumes more energy, boosting operating costs. Two alternatives exist to dual systems that may enable you to live with one central air conditioner. Reduce Upstairs Heat Gain A lower cooling load in upstairs living spaces allows more moderate A/C thermostat settings and avoids over-cooling downstairs rooms. During the summer, heat energy accumulating in the attic can raise temperatures up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. This acute heat conducts through the ceiling into upstairs rooms, offsetting the effect of air conditioning and requiring lower thermostat settings than the rest of the house.

Attic fans that exhaust heat and upgraded insulation in the attic floor can reduce attic heat accumulation and keep upstairs rooms cooler without lowering the thermostat. Install A Zoning System Zoning divides a single HVAC system into separate cooling zones controlled by independent thermostats. Motorized dampers in the ductwork respond to signals from a central controller to direct cool air to one zone in response to a dedicated thermostat, while simultaneously shutting down or decreasing airflow to another zone that doesn’t require as much cooling. Zone dampers open and close independently of one another. This enables a single air conditioner to maintain different temperatures in upstairs and downstairs zones. References Alternative Energy eMagazine: HVAC Zoning ControlsCalifornia Energy Commission: Residential Zoned Ducted HVAC Systems PDFEnergyStar.gov: About Attic Ventilation Photo Credits Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images Suggest a Correction How to Sell a Condo in a Tough Market Selling a condo in a tough market is something that ...

How to Make Your Dream Home a Reality The first thing you want to do when looking for your ... Does the Seller Have to Sign a Counter Offer? The seller is never obligated to sell a piece of real ... how much 3 ton ac unitThings That Affect Housing Prices There are a large number of things that affect housing ...ac unit can't keep up 4,037 posts, read 8,939,249 timesaverage cost of ac window unit Moving into a two story house, I'm trying to prevent the electricity bill from exceeding my mortgage payment (kidding...kind of). We have two AC units, one that controls the downstairs and one for upstairs. In my head, it seems to be less costly to only run one at a time (or at least set the other one significantly higher) depending on where we are in the house;

lower unit during the day and and the upper at night. Will running the lower unit when we're upstairs keep hot air from rising as much or will it push the hot air up to the bedrooms? I'm struggling to understand the relationship between the two. Anyone want to do their good deed for the day and help me wrap my brain around this? 16,450 posts, read 27,949,097 times 4,575 posts, read 7,333,295 times Originally Posted by Zippyman Good to know, thanks. Do you think it's using more energy by having to bring the upstairs temp down from a higher temp in the evening than it would if we simply kept the temperature more constant? I hope that at least makes sense. Originally Posted by DetroitN8V It absolutely does use more energy to cool the upstairs from a higher temperature, but you're probably on a "time of use" plan, where the energy is much cheaper at night.. (my plan starts off peak at 7pm), so instead of $.25 per kw daytime/on peak, im paying $.05 per kw/off peak..

running from 7pm to midnight continuously costs the same as running only one hour from noon-seven pm..I guess the true determining factor for how I set the thermostats will be if the upstairs AC can kick on at 7pm and have the upstairs cool enough by the time I go to bed. I just stopped by the house and it was 95 degrees upstairs! 311 posts, read 315,749 times You might not want to turn the upstairs off completely, I don't think you want it going up to 95! With a programmable thermostat I would just set the daytime temp to 80-85 so that you can still use the upstairs if needed without boiling, then set it for a cooler temp for nighttime. Just remember if you set it to be 76 at 9pm the unit is going to turn on earlier than that so it's at the desired temp at that time. It's going to take a couple hours for it to get from the 80s down into a comfortable tempersture. Probably will take some trial and error to figure out the desired temp and time so the unit doesn't run on before 7pm.

Originally Posted by phx1205 You can turn off "recovery mode" on every thermostat I've had. That makes it so it turns on at the set on time, rather than turning on early to get to your desired temp at the start time. Good advice though, thanks. 3,821 posts, read 3,650,684 times 1 posts, read 8,808 times Fayetteville, N.C. — A partial power failure led to two small fires Thursday afternoon on the campus of Methodist University in Fayetteville, but city officials said there were no reports of injuries or damage. Fire crews responded to the campus, which is on Ramsey Street, at about 1:30 p.m. after getting calls about fires in Davis Memorial Library and Keith Allison Hall. Officials said the fires were caused by partial power failures that led to the overheating of multiple HVAC units. Fire officials were on scene Thursday afternoon clearing buildings from smoke and making sure there were no other risks from the power failure. Triangle Area Special Offers