[Master Brian]

I am a bit curious if this is a bad idea, good idea, or why not try sort of thing.....

Long story, I have a 1915 Bungalow with about 1300sqft on main level, about 600-700sqft on 2nd and about 600-100sqft in basement. Currently, my forced air furnace and a/c supply the basement and the 1st(main) floor. To heat the 2nd floor, I'm using electric baseboard and various space heaters, to cool, I rely on a smaller window unit. Obviously, neither of which is very cost effective.

I'm thinking about coming up through two 1st floor closets with 6-8" ductwork and installing a couple of registers in the 2nd floor. If I do that, I'll install either manual or consider electric, zone opperated, dampners so that I can more easily fine tune things. I don't know how efficiently it would push cool air up, but I've considered seeing about installing a return duct as well if I can find a good place to do so.

I realize that most likely in winter the heat will rise faster to the 2nd floor than first and it'll be hard to cool the 2nd floor in summer, but anything is better than what I have now. I've tried to get quotes on installing a seperate system up here, but no one gets back to me with those and to be honest right now I'm not ready to spend $5k+ on a system....

I realize that when systems are installed they are more or less supposed to be sized to the house, which is why I'm curious if I can or should do this. I can get furnace and a/c specs if that helps with an answer. I also should probably point out, when the system was installed there was no insulation in the 1st floor or basement. I have since insulated most of the basement, blown dense pack cellulose into the 1st floor walls, and insulated the attic space that is directly above the 1st floor. I plan on finishing the basement this summer/fall as well as adding to the 2nd floor walls and 2nd floor attic. I'm hoping that the insulation not only makes things easier to heat/cool, but will compensate for the fact that the HVAC system may not have been installed with the 2nd floor in mind.

 

[beenthere]

I'd try it and see how it does now that you improved your home's insulation.

 

[Master Brian]

I'd try it and see how it does now that you improved your home's insulation.

So you are saying, run the ductwork to the 2nd floor and see if it helps???

Do you think that adding a return air on the 2nd floor would help anything or not? The way it sits, there are 4 return air ducts on the 1st floor. One in each of two bedroom of the three bedrooms on that floor and one in the hallway at bottom of stairs and one in the dining room which is around the corner through a cased doorway at the other side of the stairs.

My thought is if I add a return air upstairs, it might help pull some of the hot or cold air back through the system, rather on trying to combat gravity by going downstairs...

 

[Marty S.]

Sounds like my friends daughters house. There was 2 bedrooms and a bath upstairs with no duct so saying it got hot up there in the summer was an understatement. We ran supply and return up through a closet into the attic and branched to flex from there. Kept it a central return in the hall and made 2-6" supplies for each bedroom. They close one register in each bedroom for heating and open back up for cooling.

 

[beenthere]

Yes, add a return upstairs.