Walking from one room to another shouldn’t cause you to feel like you walked through an invisible wall – with one side much warmer or cooler than the other. Warm and cold spots in a home can be frustrating – your bedroom doesn’t get as cool in the summer or as warm in the winter as your kitchen or living room. Inconsistent temperatures throughout your home may be able to be corrected easily, depending on what is causing them in the first place.
Some of the more common reasons for hot and cold spots in your home and, maybe you have to call an AC technician, are:
Dirty Air Ducts
Over time, dust and debris builds up in your ducts. Often from filters not being changed on time but dirty duct work can also occur from small holes or tears in your ducts or large holes that are repaired that let in excess dust and air debris. The distribution of the dust is often not even throughout your duct work, causing some areas to allow air flow to continue like normal while other sections have limited air flow. The rooms the ducts with limited air flow lead to are often the areas in your home that suffer from hot or cold spots.
The Fix: Be sure to regularly change your air filters – on average every 1 to 3 months. Homes with children or pets should change their air filters more often, typically every month. Another way to prevent hot and cold spots is to have your ducts inspected and cleaned. A duct inspection will catch and air leaks that need repair and a duct cleaning service will remove build up in your ducts – leading to better air flow throughout your home.
Air Leaks in your AC
Aside from leaks in your ducts or your AC system, leaks through windows and doors can also cause a room to become to warm or cold compared to the rest of your home. During the summer months, while your air conditioning is pumping through your home, cool air is escaping through leaks in certain rooms making the room seem warmer than other areas. Comparably, in winter, the warm air is escaping into the outdoors making the room colder than expected.
The Fix: Inspect window edges for any holes in the seal and check around doors for gaps (the bottom of doors is a common culprit). You can DIY repair the seals around windows and replace the weather stripping around the doors and along the bottom. If a window has a bad gap or is loose or your AC installation is irregular, you may need to contact a handyman or window installer for more serious repairs and an AC repair company.
Air Conditioner Age
As air conditioners age, they become less efficient or their technology is out dated compared to newer models. If they are unable to put out adequate air flow or are not properly warming or cooling the air, then it could be the cause of your hot or cold spots in your home.
The Fix: A new air conditioner can resolve your efficiency problem but since it can be costly to fully replace an air conditioner you can attempt other solutions while you save for a new air conditioner. Check for the above issues to help minimize risks of hot and cold spots caused by other issues. Also, you could try HVAC Zoning, which is the use of multiple thermostats to control the temperature in different areas of your homes. Like in two-story homes, a thermostat is installed upstairs and another downstairs that enables the homeowner to control separate temperature in each level of the home. If your hot and cold spots are severe, then a thermostat in that room may help you better manage the temperature in it.
However, if you do not see the problem clearly or none of these tips helped you to solve your A/C problem, please do not hesitate to contact us to receive more information about it!
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Last modified on April 13th, 2023 at 4:35 pm