If you have a bedroom, basement, or any room in your house that is much hotter than the rest of your home in summer, here are some suggestions and tips to resolve the problem.
The easiest solution is… The air vents (aka registers) that are installed on the walls of your home have controllable vents that can be open, closed, and also direct the air by moving the small slider on the vent itself. Sometimes the best solution for fixing a room hotter than the rest of the house is by simply opening the air vent all the way. You may need to slightly restrict or fully close the vents in a few other rooms of your house to get more cooled air into the room that is too hot. Fully closing the bathroom air vent is acceptable because when the fan in the ceiling is on, it is sucking out some of the cold air anyway.
Another easy solution is to turn the thermostat lower to make your whole home cooler. Please note this will increase the workload of your air conditioning unit and make your electricity bills higher. This is only recommended as a temporary solution if you have no other choice.
If you can allow the door to your room to be open, consider putting a fan in the hallway and direct the airflow into the hot room. Any type of fan will work for this but a box fan should work the best. This should allow the cooler air in the hallway enter your hot room therefore cooling it off.
If you don’t care about appearance, you can REMOVE the air vent completely as the vent cover actually restricts airflow. There are 2 small metal screws holding the vent into the wall. You will need either a flat or Phillips screwdriver to remove the screws. Then grab something to stand on to get up to the air vent, remove the screws, and take the vent completely off. Do not remove the vent cover while the air is on as dust and particles may blow into your eyes.
If all else fails, you may need your air ducts cleaned by a professional. There may be a massive amount of dust inside the ducts thus restricting maximum airflow.
There are many different “air vent” products on the market that will cover the vents completely, divert airflow, and assist with higher airflow. Many of these products are available online and are relatively inexpensive.
Wall vent air deflector
Boost airflow from air vent
Cover air vents to stop airflow into rooms
A reason why your room may be hotter than the other rooms of the house is caused by electronics such as computers and TV’s. Anything electronic generates excessive heat especially computers. One tip to implement is to turn your computer completely off when not using it. A large desktop computer can actually raise a rooms temperature by as much as 5 to 15 degrees. Lamps and anything containing a light bulb will also generate heat. Turn off anything that could be generating heat that could be raising the temperature in the room.
If opening the vents and turning off electronics in the room do not help with cooling it off, consider a window mounted AC. This obviously is not the best option but it will fix the issue. Many small AC window units are under $200 and are somewhat efficient when considering the amount of electricity they use. They are easily installed and you do not have to have it running all the time. Some have thermostats on them and some simply have an on/off switch. Having a window mounted A/C unit in your hot bedroom can be the perfect solution to cooling off a hotter than normal bedroom.
How to cool your house for less
Do you have other suggestions for a room that is hotter than the rest of the house? Please leave a comment below.
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