first freeze of the year last night, hence why I am posting

a) we noticed when we moved into this house that the master bedroom was hot in summer/cold in winter relative to rest of house. MBR is above our garage.

b). had a new supply run with better config and sizing to room, added a return - solved the problem for the summer/warmer months

c). winter months - room is always colder still.

d) a few months ago had new insulation blown into attic and last month, had brand new triple pane windows installed in the entire house.

e). last night, room still felt colder than rest of the house.

With new insulation and windows in place...what might be the issue?

Do you know if the walls are insulated? Our MBR is not above anything but we have this same issue. The 3 walls to our MBR are all exterior walls and I just chalk it up to that for the 4 degF temp difference between our MBR and the living room

hard to describe, but there is an attic space in the garage. try to explain..the headboard of our bed is up against that wall. That attic space does have insulation in that wall, but it's just the rolled batts of insulation on the vertical wall. I've been curious enough to know if that wall is "colder" than the rest, and hence why I can feel cold air in the room.

So, that wall behind our head board is not exterior, it's in the garage...not as cold as exterior. Above that attic space is a dormer window, which open to our MBR above our headboard, so there are 3 "exterior" walls on that....I thought the new windows might resolve the issue for that, but perhaps its the insulation in the dormer window...

Tempted to by IR gun to measure temps around the walls and see where heat might be getting out...frustrating.

To help out a little, you can turn your fan on low in reverse. This blows the hot air on the ceiling down into the room, but be sure it's on low so as to not create a draft and defeat the purpose.

reverse?

What direction does this bedroom face ?

IR is the best way to find your answer. Be sure to shoot temps at any outlets that are on exterior walls

CapCity12thMan said:

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reverse?

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Insulation is not near as effective if you have drafts. Check for that.

yes understood...I have always just done forward at the lowest speed our fan goes, and it doesn't have a breeze effect....it's really slow but I think its enough to push/keep warm air down.

I've always done reverse at high speeds just for circulation cause I don't like cold wind blowing on me

sts7049 said:

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i'm willing to bet you dont have proper insulation between the garage space and your bedroom.

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This!

perhaps this will confirm your suspicions?


this link contains a video of the inside and a photo of the small hole to get up there (would really love to have an attic ladder installed so I can actually use the space for storage).

https://imgur.com/a/SW7WCJP

i think that video pretty much tells it all.

is that wall in your garage the same wall underneath the wall in your MB? or is it on a different side?

i think your batt insulation is pretty weakly installed and not doing its job. but you might also need to look at the garage wall too, because if the drafts and temperature gets into that wall and it is poorly insulated as well the cold could travel through.

might be a good application for foam to seal it up properly

the wall with the insulation in it is the wall behind our bed...the other walls you see in the video are exterior walls with no insulation (appear the small blue wall is that layer of foam behind brick, and the long OSB wall would have brick just on other side of it. It's cold in there for sure.

I was thinking it might be good to spray foam the thing, drywall it up, platform it and load it with shelving, and install an attic ladder and get some use out of it. OR - would just redoing batt insulation all around work?

Good gravy,

How do we know that your return is not pulling more air back than you ductwork is supplying? If that is happening then the negative pressure is pulling in air from the unconditioned spaces through the penetrations in the wall, which we can see in the video. (Electrical box)

Batts don't stop air movement well. They stop conductive heat best, You might benefit from installing a housewrap on the outer wall of you bedroom and sealing around the edges.

You haven't said anything about the insulation between the room and the garage. If it has none, then that's a problem.

Where is your thermostat? This will room have a significant higher heat requirement than the rest of the house because your temp is going to be measured from near the main return.

You need to be careful doing foam on an older house above a garage. You could end up with fumes trapped in your room.

we put in a 12x12 return in the room that is supplied by a 10" line split into two registers. The summer months the temp in the room is fine, hence why I don't think the returns are an issue. Agree after looking at the video and getting up there, the space around the insulation and the electrical outlets seems like a perfect spot for some draft activity.

Insulation between the room and garage - the room is above the garage.

Thermo is about 3 steps out the master bedroom door, in the upstairs hallway. Return for upstairs is about 5 feet from that. The landing at the top of the stairs is always warmer in the winter, as the heat from downstairs ends up there, IMHO.

So...other than the housewrap idea...how do you solve insufficient batts along that wall?

Spray foam at all of the electrical boxes. More batting isn't going to change much. You could put a layer of 1/2 inch foam over the batts on that one wall.

CapCity12thMan said:

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The landing at the top of the stairs is always warmer in the winter, as the heat from downstairs ends up there, IMHO.

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So it sounds like the thermostat is in the warmest spot on the floor.

Wouldn't say warmest everything is relative to how the MBR feels. There is a vent at the top of stairs I keep closed for that very reason, keeping less warm air up there...keeeping the downstairs cooler at night helps that prob too, so my goal is to just keep bedrooms warm at night really. Good thoughts on some solutions. Friend told me to just get a space heater for the 90 cold days we have and that might be cheaper but I'd rather solve the problem

One hvac unit on the house or two ?

Is house true two story ?

Or just the MBR is only room upstairs ?

Two story, one unit for each.

resurrecting this since we are having such extreme temps.

I purchased an IR thermometer. Interior walls in the house are the same as ambient temp (68). Exterior walls in other rooms are a couple of degrees less (65-66).

I gun the wall behind our bed (to which there is an attic space as previously described, above the garage), and along the bottom of the wall the temp gun reads 53-58. This room is just always colder and we just had the attic blown with new insulation and new windows installed.

So with that reading, is it logical to assume this is what is bringing the temp down in that room a few degrees (assuming airflow is appropriate to the room)?

Again, my first thought was insulating that attic space. It has batts in, but they are at this point 30 years old and by my little experiment here - insufficient. thoughts...

I had a room above the garage with the same problems. The unconditioned garage space on the floor adds a lot more surface area to let heat in or out of the space relative to other rooms in the house. I wound up adding an extra layer if insulation to the attic and walls I could reach. That and an extra duct pretty much solved it. If that doesn't work, you're next least expensive option would probably be to add some foam board to the ceiling of your garage.

There is insulation in the walls, Is there any insulation in the floor?

Room over our garage is always cold too. I think the floor is uninsulated ans causes
the issue.

Aggieangler93 said:

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Room over our garage is always cold too. I think the floor is uninsulated ans causes
the issue.

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It is surely insulated. Maybe just not very well. It's just that first floor room have the ground below them and second floor rooms have a conditioned floor below them. Having an unconditioned floor below makes for a much bigger heat transfer problem even if it's insulated.

yeah my first step will be to insulate that attic space in the garage. Too much cold diff on that wall versus the others

Win At Life said:

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Aggieangler93 said:

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Room over our garage is always cold too. I think the floor is uninsulated ans causes
the issue.

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It is surely insulated. Maybe just not very well. It's just that first floor room have the ground below them and second floor rooms have a conditioned floor below them. Having an unconditioned floor below makes for a much bigger heat transfer problem even if it's insulated.

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That makes sense. I have some lighting to add to my garage, so I will poke a big enough hole to see if there is adequate insulation there or not. May look at having one of those blown in companies come in and add it.

I've been considering getting something like this for my garage doors. Youtubes on how install are out there. Doesn't seal it but at least in the summer should help and hopefully in the winter.


https://www.lowes.com/pd/Insulfoam-Common-1-25-in-x-1-6875-ft-x-8-ft-Actual-1-25-in-x-1-6875-ft-x-4-5-ft-Garage-Door-Insulation-Kit-1-R-4-8-Faced-Polystyrene-Garage-Door-Foam-Board-Insulation/50244957?cm_mmc=shp-_-c-_-prd-_-bdm-_-google-_-lia-_-102-_-sheetinsulation-_-50244957-_-0&placeholder=null&ds_rl=1286981&gclsrc=ds