Cooling upstairs bedrooms

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Shanemc

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Topic # 184108 10-Nov-2015 15:26

Hi there looking for some advice on keeping a couple of bedrooms cool in our house. I can’t seem to find anything that seems authorities on the internet (go figure). We have a two level late 80’s house brick and weatherboards, with a concrete tiled roof. The children’s bedrooms are on the east side, so get the morning sun, so we usually keep the blinds down. However, although no sun in the afternoon, they are really hot. Pretty tricky as we have a 6 month old that we would like to get sleeping in the afternoon and early evening. I’m thinking of installing some kind of vent system. Perhaps from the ceiling of each room to the outside. If so is it better to bring cold air in or vent hot air out? I see smart vent have some kind of ‘summer’ system, is that what that is doing. If so I could look at their system. Any experience people have had then using them to cool rooms?

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Reply # 1424456 10-Nov-2015 15:31

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If you want cool, put in an aircon. You have multiple kilowatts of heat coming in from the sun, exchanging air with outside slowly will not make a huge dent in that. Have tried, failed.

I put in a 3kW aircon, cool within minutes of hitting the go button.

Richard rich.ms

Shanemc

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Reply # 1424463 10-Nov-2015 15:43

I was thinking a fan driven venting system, rather than passive.
I suspect air con would be prohibitive in terms of cost at this stage. Maybe in a year or two. Although I'm not even sure how practical it would be for the bedrooms. Do you do one for each room? Maybe the whole upstairs?
An alternative I was considering was getting a 2nd hand portable one and seeing if that would work in the meantime.

E3xtc

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Reply # 1424466 10-Nov-2015 15:47

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We had same sort of problem. Our little man (at the time 12months ish), was getting baked in his room during naps (saw his room spike to just under 30!!!). His was North West facing, so took the hit all day long and then into the afternoon too.
We had/have block out blinds, tinted windows, and also normal roller blinds. Tried a fan to move air around, blowing over ice etc (tried all the suggestions a google search throws up). Looked into a vent/extraction solution thingy too, but to do it properly as has been mentioned above - if you want to cool you really need aircon - we found that doing a heatpump just made sense as you got both heating and cooling benefit - whereas by the time you sink the cash into a decent venting solution you still don't get any actual cooling or heating.

In our situation we couldn't do a normal high wall mounted heatpump due to being a pole house, and also second storey (drop of about 3 storeys), and couldn't do a heatpump situated anywhere else on that level (as the cool air would just roll down the stairs)...so we could only really do a fully ducted heatpump :(
More cost, but a great solution in the end (heating and cooling for all the bedrooms on that level), and managed to get an awesome price too (through these guys who I would recommend http://www.heatpumpsauckland.co.nz/).

Really feel for you as it's a horrible situation to have your little person struggling away through the heat/cold. Good luck!

E3xtc

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Reply # 1424468 10-Nov-2015 15:49

those portable aircon units do work - but just note that they will be noisy as, and also need a window kit to vent outside to. And by the time you cost them up, you are half way to a proper solution anyhow :\

richms

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Reply # 1424480 10-Nov-2015 15:58

Issue I had with a portable is that they are blowing room air out at a huge rate as well. Small duct so noisy, and it means that there is lots of air coming into the room thru every crack available, Lots from the roofspace thru the lights etc, which is very hot air. Actually made other rooms hotter when it was running.

Richard rich.ms

Shanemc

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Reply # 1424493 10-Nov-2015 16:09

Hi E3xtc, do you mind me asking how much your ducted aircon was?
I imagine it would be a similar problem for us, cant do the whole floor, as the cold air would just run down the stairs.

We have 3 rooms upstairs. 2 childrens rooms beside each other, then master bedroom maybe 6 metre down the hallway. So is the aircon unit situated in the roof space - Is there an outside unit?

Cheers

xontech

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Reply # 1424495 10-Nov-2015 16:11

We are in a similar situation to you and almost went fully ducted heatpump (circa $20K). But decided to try a combination of more passive / less expensive options first. First up on the list is window film (around $1500 for 3 bedrooms) to cut down on heat coming through the single glazed windows. Will also have a pedestal fan in each room temporarily but may look at ceiling fans and/or some sort of ventilation or even "proper" heat recovery/ventilation.

We have pretty good roof insulation so don't think we are getting much "heat soak" coming down from the ceiling.

Our place is very warm and dry in winter so I think a heatpump would be overkill in winter. For us it is more about cooling the house in summer than heating it in winter.

Jaxson

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Reply # 1424547 10-Nov-2015 17:19

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xontech: window film (around $1500 for 3 bedrooms)

Cripes, how big are these windows?!

MadEngineer

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Reply # 1424552 10-Nov-2015 17:34

How's the insulation?

pdath

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Reply # 1424626 10-Nov-2015 19:17

Have you got insulation in the roof? If not, that is the first thing you should do.

Remember when using a venting system remember that as well as an exhaust from a room you also need an intake. The room temperature will slowly drift towards the intake temperature. So if you are going to exhaust from the room, think about where the air is going to be sucked in from, and what temperature that air will be. If you are going to blow air into a room think about how it is going to leak out, and about what temperature the air will be that you are pumping in.

There is a strong chance a venting system will not make much difference if the ambient air temperature outside of the room is quite high as well.

Consider a heat pump. If you can't manage that, consider a system fan in the room blowing air over the hot child.

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MadEngineer

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Reply # 1424836 10-Nov-2015 22:18

touch the ceilings and the walls. no good if they're hot to the touch due to lack of insulation

gzt

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Reply # 1424839 10-Nov-2015 22:23

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You mentioned windows. Do they need to remain closed for security reasons?

Shanemc

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Reply # 1424847 10-Nov-2015 22:51

Thanks for the replies.
Yep there seems to be reasonable insulation in the ceiling and no down lights. But I'm assuming much of the heat is being stored up there or even drifting up from the bottom floor.
No problem with having the windows open, but we don't seem to get much airflow in that room. There is only one window. And once the blinds go down there is practically no airflow at all.
So one thought was to vent the hot air out the ceiling and having cool air come in through the open window. That side of the house should be in shade after midday. I was thinking with an inline fan, this would create some airflow at least.

timmmay

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Reply # 1424942 11-Nov-2015 08:14

Remember if you put in an inline fan that could make the room cold in winter.

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E3xtc

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Reply # 1424946 11-Nov-2015 08:21

Our ducted solution I think (from memory) was about 4.5k - it's a small Panasonic unit with 1 inlet and 3 outlets. So we have an outlet in each bedroom, and the inlet in the hallway. It was a special that the guys were running last year, was real cheap, in fact even with a Panasonic "mate hookup" and an install we couldn't match/beat the price. Also if looking at other brands, they will generally be a bunch more expensive as Panasonic are one of the few manufacturers that make small ducted solutions (ie less than 8kw - ours is 6kw).

We got it in during the tail end of last Summer - bad timing for what we had initially got it for (ie the intense heat) - but it was perfect for winter too (just ticking away through the night at real low to keep the rooms at a reasonable temp). Already used it this season for taking the heat out of the room too. If you can afford to do the it properly then it is well worth it - because it just works.

Someone else raised a point re the window film- not sure if this would make a tangible difference to the room really - I would probably throw that money at a heatpump if I had to choose...we have it also (on double glazed windows) and the room was still being hammered.

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