Anyone in Lakewood have problems with 2nd floor ac?

amother

Denim

Sun, May 17 2015, 10:33 pm

It's so hot upstairs! central ac for 2nd floor is going the whole day but the thermostat wont go past 78 degrees. I've heard that many houses here were made with this 2nd floor ac problem. It was not installed the right way. Aside for putting in window units, does anyone know what could be done? Thanks!

cool_mama

Sun, May 17 2015, 11:19 pm

My neighbor had the same problem and they called someone down. He realized that the compressor wasn't attached right and when he fixed it the ac worked perfectly

SingALong

Sun, May 17 2015, 11:30 pm

Are your filters changed? Are you keeping all upstairs doors closed?

Btw if u have a double story foyer and thermostat Is in hall near foyer it effects the system. DH moved our thermostat to our room and that helped. We also put foam insulation in the attic/roof that helped a lot.

amother

Denim

Mon, May 18 2015, 2:46 pm

SingALong wrote:

yes we are changing the filters. From what you wrote it seems that we would have to do the foam in the attic. Was that costly? How long did it take to get the job done?

Sanguine

Mon, May 18 2015, 3:05 pm

Why is this an exclusive Lakewood problem? My second floor a/c has been a problem since we put it in 14 years ago. It's a... never mind. I'll take my a/c problems to LII.

amother

Denim

Mon, May 18 2015, 3:36 pm

Sanguine wrote:

Why is this an exclusive Lakewood problem? My second floor a/c has been a problem since we put it in 14 years ago. It's a... never mind. I'll take my a/c problems to LII.

It seems that many new houses have gone up in lakewood over the last 15 yrs and this problem is common with the 2nd floor ac. The 2nd floor has its own unit. Any advice is appreciated no matter where you live!

Sanguine

Mon, May 18 2015, 3:40 pm

amother wrote:

Any advice is appreciated no matter where you live!

Oh, I thought I'd get advice Scratching Head

UQT

Tue, May 19 2015, 8:36 pm

if the second floor is it's own unit it may be as simple as adding freon. Call a guy to come in. Our downstairs unit needs every 2 years or so. Seems like there is a slight leak somewhere, but it's so expensive to fix, the guy said it's cheaper to add Freon as necessary. I know its needed when it keeps running and running but the house is as hot as ever.

amother

Denim

Tue, May 19 2015, 9:44 pm

OP - the thing is ..it works in the middle of the night or when it is a cloudy not so hot day. It seems that when the sun is strong the system can't fight the heat. So from around 10am to 10 pm it can be 80 degrees upstairs. It takes a few hours to cool off and then we see the thermostat slowly going down - 78 degrees...77. ...76 ...by 2am it will be nice and cool. It must be an issue with the attic maybe the fan or maybe we need the foam ( not sure what that really is..). I will call someone again. A few yrs ago we were told it would be way too expensive to re-install the system properly but it is really out of hand now and I wanted to know what to expect before I call someone.

Sanguine

Wed, May 20 2015, 3:53 am

laidback wrote:

We put in spray foam in our attic. Now our second floor doesn't go over ⋅70
Awesome!

Why haven't we thought of that? It's not the air conditioner, it's the (lack of) insulation from the roof!!! We had this in our previous house (then a rental). The attic is hot. Who cares? No one lives there. But if it's not insulated, your second floor is like living in the hot attic. It's like expecting your A/C to cool off the whole world.

Problem solved! - Thanks

laidback

Wed, May 20 2015, 4:43 am

Great! I am so happy to have helped! There are grants, and diff ways to get this for almost free, tell your dh to look into this.

Sanguine

Wed, May 20 2015, 7:03 am

laidback wrote:

There are grants, and diff ways to get this for almost free

In Israel? I don't think so. But the gov't did have a deal to turn in your old, not energy efficient but still working a/c, for a good price on new efficient a/c's. I even discussed it with the a/c repairman and I would take out my mini-central air upstairs and put individual units in my kid's rooms since they're never all home anymore so it's a real waste of money to cool all the rooms. (our room is half a flight down and we have our own unit).