Second Floor Cooling Issues

Greene Solutions receives calls this time of year that start with “The second floor is too hot”, “I need Insulation ”, “Can not get cool air upstairs”, “I must have a disconnected duct on the second floor”, “Our room over the garage is too hot” “The baby’s room is hot”. Well I could tell them to move further North and eliminate heat altogether - but that solution is never taken seriously! Most homeowners are convinced that insulation is the culprit and insulation is always part of the solution. It is just one step in cooling down a second floor, so fixing a second floor comfort issue should be viewed as a process that involves multiple steps. Recently we visited a homeowner with a master bedroom that is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. The summer being the most miserable for them. The room was partially over the garage and the room was partially vaulted. They also had an outside wall that could be viewed from the garage attic. The Thermal Camera detected the front of the room over the garage was hotter than the rest of the floor, the ceiling also was hot along the top and sides where insulation has less R-value. Inspection from the garage found that hot air freely flowed under the floor and the walls had no sheathing to stop air flow. A flow meter measured low air flow from the master bedroom duct work as compared to the rest of the home. The Blower door test discovered the recessed lights in the bathroom were leaking into the attic. The Solution: The home owner tackled the open duct work in the basement. The result was a 25% increase in duct flow from the master bedroom supply vents. Greene Solutions removed the insulation and applied two part closed cell foam to the bedroom walls from the garage. This solved the hot wall and floor issue. We drilled holes from the garage ceiling below the bedroom and dense packed the ceiling with insulation as that space was almost empty of insulation. This made the floor temperature equal to the rest of the room. In the attic we removed the side vault insulation, sealed and insulated that area and along the top of the vault with foam. We then blew insulation over the vault to an R-49 and added LED retrofit lights to the existing leaky recessed lights which closed the air flow. The results were immediate for the homeowner - Instant improvement in comfort - So much that we were asked to finish the rest of the attic!