Cold room on 2nd floor

[Jas29]

Hey,

on the 2nd floor of my parents house there is one room thats very cold hoping u guys have some suggestions on how to warm
up the room i took a picture of the bottom of the room its fully insulated don't know about the other walls though



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[The Stig]

does it have a heating vent in it? Is the vent covered up? You could always put a space heater in there

[Jas29]

there is a heat vent in the room and we are using a space heater its really cold in there compared to the rest of the house when the temps go into the negatives

I was thinking about using a vapour barrier to keep the cold air out
edit: will there be any downsides of doing this don't want moisture up there

[lakersftbl69]

Got two lowes and buy one of those electric heaters for now maybe

[Jas29]

Originally Posted by lakersftbl69

Got two lowes and buy one of those electric heaters for now maybe

i'm using a space heater now looking for a long term fix.

[Steve Dallas]

Best way to warm your room:

[Sir Nuke]

go here and get one of these for your bed......, pick one.....any one.....and you'll be SET!!

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171508

[Steve Dallas]

Originally Posted by Sir Nuke

go here and get one of these for your bed......, pick one.....any one.....and you'll be SET!!

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171508

That was my first thought. Shoulda stuck with it.

I was going for the humor angle though

[Bangarang]

maybe check the attic for insulation above the room. it looks like it may have been a deck previously, in which case they may have just closed it in not worried about the change in temperature for some reason.

[Jas29]

lol thanks for the laughs guys to bad its my grandparents room and there is a deck beside it so i will go up there and check

Edit: the room also could have been an add on seeing as how one of the support poles is a foot away from the bottom of the stairs pretty sure that doesn't meet code

[Nessal]

Call an exorcist.

[GnyaTek]

Likely the room was an addition, as mentioned above. Insulation in the walls and ceiling may not be as robust as the rest of the house. Also, the vent probably was added on after the fact, so the air flow likely isn't as good as the rest of the floor (heat pump not designed to handle the extra square footage and/or ducting/air flow not designed to move the air efficiently to the addition). Since the room is extended out, it has outside exposure not only on one side, but likely three plus the floor itself, giving alot of area for heat transfer/loss to the outside. Thermostat controls are likely in another location on the second floor, one that doesn't lose heat as fast ... the heat shuts off when the temp is reached elsewhere, which isn't warm enough in that room, and then the room loses heat faster as well making it much colder.

One possible way to help mitigate ... close down the vents more through the rest of floor - rooms, hallways, and closets (1/2 way closed, or more later if the desired impact isn't met) but leave the vent in that room wide open. This should restrict the flow of heat somewhat to the rest of the floor and force more warm air flow into that room. The heat will run longer to warm the rest of the upstairs floor before the thermostat recognizes the shutoff temp also adding more heat to that room.

[Jas29]

there is a a full bathroom in that room that makes me believe it is not a add on. the room that the thermostat is in is on top of the garage which is not heated. Also i opened the floor beneath the room up and it is fully insulated which makes me to believe the rest of the walls are I will go into the attic tom and check. The insulation has the number 28 on it could that be the R value?

i don't know much about theis kind of stuff trying to learn only 18 right now so sorry if these are dumb questions

[FenwickHockey65]

We have an addition built along the same lines as that. I just threw a space heater in there, warms it up pretty fast.

[GnyaTek]

Originally Posted by Jas29

there is a a full bathroom in that room that makes me believe it is not a add on. the room that the thermostat is in is on top of the garage which is not heated. Also i opened the floor beneath the room up and it is fully insulated which makes me to believe the rest of the walls are I will go into the attic tom and check. The insulation has the number 28 on it could that be the R value?

i don't know much about theis kind of stuff trying to learn only 18 right now so sorry if these are dumb questions

the 28 probably indicates that it is R-28 insulation, which probably is about the right value for floor insulation for BC. Not sure what R-values would be recommended for walls and ceiling ... looks like if you were to add to an uninsulated attic you'd want R-49 to R-60 at a guess.

If adjusting the vent openings in the other rooms on the same floor doesn't help, the best thing would be to add a space heater (either a stand-alone one or a baseboard wall unit).

[Steve Dallas]

On a more serious side, I have an oil-filled radiator. Works very well at pumping out the heat.

http://www.amazon.com/Delonghi-TRD07.../dp/B000A33B1C

[hotrodsally]

When I was having my townhouse remodeled a few years ago, I became quite the HGTV addict.

On one show with Mike (the burly guy you don't wanna mess with), they featured a house with the same problem. It turned out that the duct work to the room (which was built over a garage) was uninsulated and running though an uninsulated crawl space over an unheated garage.

Their solution was to insulate the crawl space and wrap the duct work in insulation.

Hope you're warm soon. Good luck.

[habunow1]

You need to find where the heat lose is going and to do this you might want to get someone to come with a IR camera (shows temp difference) and go around the outside of the house and look for the temp differences. This is the best way to find if there is a gap which might not be insulated or needs vapor barrier. It cold air at the temp you are dealing with does not need much area and its not always easy to find. Proberly windows are where floor/roof and walls are meeting up. Hope this helps.

[Iwantone2]

Originally Posted by Nessal

Call an exorcist.

This

[formare]

All goOd thoughts so far - perhaps also check the exterior windows to ensure they are not leaking lots of air. Also, take the electric outlets faceplates off and see if air is coming through - many times they are not insulated properly.

[its a syn]

does it have a return air duct? if not your heat may be collecting at the ceiling causing a very noticible heat inversion in that room. A ceiling fan set on low will help circulate the heat which may all be at the ceiling to get forced down into the cold air at the bottom of the room. I know sounds crazy to add a fan to get heat. We have a house w/o a basement and every winter we switch the rotation on our ceiling fans to mix the heat better in the house as we can get 10-15 degree diff in top to bottom in some rooms when real cold.

[Ivas]

Every older house has a "cold room". In ours, it's where we put unwanted guests. After a shivering night in there they wanna' go home, hurrah!

[INtha305]

The supply vent in the room may not be getting the proper CFMs. Could be the way the duct work was done.. To fix the problem it may be as simple as relocating the flex that feeds that room To a different location on the trunk line in your attic... Call a company over and have someone take a look at it. Maybe the flex feeding that room is collapsed or damaged. Could be a few things

[justa25thTA]

I"ve got an IR camera that I have used to locate missing insulation. Take a thermometer around to the different rooms and measure the air temperature coming out of the vents and see how consistant it is.

[garcmol]

There's no radiant barrier. You'd see an improvement in heat retention if you pulled down the rest of the ceiling material and installed something like this between the ceiling material and the insulation:



Just like it can be used in an attic to keep those high temps out of the house, it can be used to trap that heat in the room. You've got air swirling around under the floor. Block that air from entering your insulation and you eliminate opposing forces (hot/cold air).