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I live in a two story townhouse with a basement. This summer, they replaced the furnace and air conditioning unit. Last winter I put 3M film over the windows to help with drafts and it worked great, I was warm and comfy all year.

This year I did the same and my room is always cold and the heat is set to the same temperature. I figured a new furnace would heat better. My bedroom is on the 2nd floor and the furnace is in the basement. That is 2 floors away. Heat rises. In the summer the upstairs is a lot warmer than the ground level living floor. Now in the winter it's the opposite, the upstairs is colder. I don't get it.

Is there a way to keep my bed room warmer without turning the heat way up or adding supplemental heat with a plug in heater?

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  • What type of heating system do you have? Do you have radiators or heat registers (vents) that air blows out of?
    – mikes
    Dec 26, 2012 at 17:56
  • Just regular heat..with registers
    – squinny
    Dec 26, 2012 at 18:57
  • Can you check if you're getting any airflow from the registers in the bedroom?
    – Timo Geusch
    Dec 26, 2012 at 20:39
  • yes i am getting airflow. its usually set to 70ish degrees. when i put my hand over the register it doesn't feel like 70 but maybe it is. its defiantly warmer air than the air in my room. see thats why its so confusing to me. it warms it up but not as efficiently as last year. which it shouldn't be with a new furnace. It almost has to be set to 75 to be comfortable and that should not be necessary..idk maybe im wrong. is 75 to high to be comfortable? I live in metropolitan Detroit by the way so ya its 25 degrees outside
    – squinny
    Dec 26, 2012 at 20:43
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    Closing a vent partway or completely in the room closest to the thermostat may help to keep other rooms warmer.
    – TomG
    Jan 26, 2013 at 15:27

2 Answers 2

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I would also expect the new furnance to provide better heat than the old one. First thing to to is be sure you didn't arrange anything in the room different from last year. You don't have anything blocking the air registers. Check and make sure the air filter on the furnace is not clogged. If the room has only one register leave the door open so the colder air can circulate out of the room. If nothing in the room has changed contact the installer and ask them to check for any blockages or leaks that might be preventing the heat from reaching the room. It may be a problem with the blower pushing the air to that end of the house. If you have never had it done an energy audit is always a good idea. Most utilities offer them for free. They may point out missing duct insulation or air leaks that make the room colder than the rest.

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  • Nothing has changed in my room other than i moved a desk kind of closer to my cold air return. i had a desk before that had a solid wall for essentially the legs of the desk. now i have a desk from IKEA that is in the same spot that doesn't have a full wall as the legs it has like those 12" x 12" storage cube things there. The bottom ones have a small box in the opening of the cube that i could not see blocking airflow. Could restriction to the cold air return cause my room to be colder?
    – squinny
    Dec 26, 2012 at 20:36
  • Yes it can. For the warm air to come in the cold air has to go somewhere. You want to exchange the cold air for the warmed air. This is where duct insulation is important. You want the air to be as warm as possible when it comes out of the register.
    – mikes
    Dec 26, 2012 at 20:48
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Your symptoms -- a room far from the heating/cooling source is difficult to temperature-control -- are consistent with duct leakage. The first thing you should do is try to rule out a major leak by, as best you can, tracing the ducting running from your furnace (or air conditioner) to the uncomfortable room; look for a disconnected joint or a large hole that may have been created during construction which was never plugged or the repair has deteriorated. If you find no major leaks, the cause could be (and often is) the compounded effect of many small leaks – seams and junctions inherent in most duct work, an inadvertent drill hole during construction, and/or the small holes into which a damper is mounted. Believe it or not, all these small leaks typically add up to 20 to 40% of the conditioned air leaking out and not reaching its intended destination. The rooms farthest from the conditioning source – your furnace or air conditioner – suffer the most, simply a matter of more opportunities for leakage to occur as the length of the path and the number of turns/elbows increase.

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  • Don't post duplicate answers. At the very least, try to tailor your answer to the question being asked.
    – Niall C. ♦
    Oct 24, 2013 at 12:14

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