Effeciently cooling a 2 story house???

jsalassi

I have a 2 story house that was built back in the 80's. It's 1492 square feet plus a garage. I belive have a 1 ton Lennox unit on the outside, and then inside the house in a downstairs closet i have the furnace and the turbine unit that pushes air through out the house. I live down stairs and my brother lives upstairs. We live in Texas. When summer started the upstairs rooms started to get really hot. To increase the flow of cold air upstars my brother has chosen to close most of the vents in the various rooms downstairs in hopes that more are will be pushed upstairs, well, i think this works except for the fact that in the room downstairs where i am, i have the vent half open and the air comes blasting out of the vent causeing sore throats and what not. A friend of mine owns a 2 story town home and asked me if i can adjust the flow of air between upstairs and downstairs from the attic, since thats where she can adjust it in her new town home. I checked around in the attic and i cant find anything to adjust the flow of air. I can barely see any ducting up there.

So my questions are,
1. Is there a better way to get more cold air upstairs without having to have the vents downstairs closed?
2. Is it bad for me to leave the vents downstairs closed?
3. Can i have some sort of air "director" installed in the attic to help witht this? Is there a high cost associated?

coolmen

Hot air rises so unless you remove this air from the space it will not cool.Adding supply cool air to a area alone will not work properly.how many returns do you have and what size on the second floor,how many supplys??
I would figure out how to get more RETURN air on the second floor.bring duct up a closet space or wall cavity

MAS2006

Make sure your attic is vented correctly(soffit and ridgevents). If it is not it will radiate heat through ceiling. Think about increasing attic insulation. Two stories are a problem in Texas heat, well placed shade trees help.

redline

Check the insulation and make sure that you have the proper amount.
Install an attic/gable fan to remove the hot air out of the attic. Attics can be 20 to 30 degrees hotter than the outside temp. The cooler the attic air - the cooler the rooms below it will be.

An attic fan cost less than $100 and are cheaper to run than the a/c.

redline

An attic fan will increase the life of the roof shingles.