Any advise would be appreciated.
We moved into a 30-year-old home and this is our first winter and we've noticed that some of the rooms are colder than the others but none of the rooms are actually at our set temperature.
We set our thermostat to 72 and I've attached a picture of the layout and temperatures in each room.
The room that has the thermostat in it faces east, but I've never seen direct sunlight hit the thermostat. And that room its self never seems to make it to the set point.
We're worried that this could be an issue with our HVAC since no rooms in the house actually make it to 72, 68/70 is actually our preferred setting. Our realtor said that the HVAC was old and that we would likely need to replace it in a few years. But we're wondering if there could be another issue.
I've attempted to play around with the dampers and in doing so I can make all of the rooms upstairs warmer but the problem rooms still don't hit 68/70 and I had to set the thermostat at 74 to get most of the house around 68/70 and by doing that the master upstairs becomes horribly cold.
Could this be a damper issue and I'm just not setting them right? Or is it something else because there aren't actually any rooms that are hotter than I want them to be.
I was reading about boosters for specific rooms but I'm worried that adding them will make other rooms colder.
I was also wondering how complicated and expensive it is to move the thermostat to another colder room upstairs and if that would help.
Thank you for your time.
Best Answer
I think two things will resolve 95% of your problem. Get a new thermostat (I like my Nest), and adjust your vent dampers seasonally and to suit your space usage.
Your thermostat apparently has issues with temperature, and a modern "smart" thermostat offers many benefits. One is the ability to run a fan outside of the normal heating/cooling cycles to equalize temperature in your rooms.
The variance between rooms isn't particularly concerning. Solar gain, airflow differences, human activity, and other factors can explain that. The highest temps are seen where cooking and bathing tend to introduce heat. Tweak your vents and see where that gets you. Be sure to look at the returns, too. They're critical to proper air movement.
Replacing your furnace won't do much unless you spring for multiple zones or automatic vent controls. That's probably not a practical approach for cost reasons.