How can I get my air conditioner to cool off upstairs too ?

Question

We live in a 800 sqft apt. 400 upstairs and 400 down stairs. We have a 1200 btu air ( I think that is right, it is the bigest 110 we can get). The down stairs can be freezing but still hot up stairs. We have tried to pull it up the stairs with a few fans but it does not help. We can not install an air conditioner upstairs. Well we could but it would have to be a free standing one and we can not afford one right now. Any advice? We have a 2 year old and an infant we need to try to keep cool durring the day and night.

Answer 1

Put your fans in the upstairs window(s) facing outward, this will help to draw the cooler air from downstairs, not a lot, but it should help.

Answer 2

The problem is because warm air rises over cool air. Almost nothing you can do would make it much cooler upstairs, except moving your air conditioner upstairs, so that the cool air flows through the upstairs, then downstairs. Another thing you could try is to get some window fans for the upstairs, and set them on exhale with the AC running. They would pull the warm air out and give the cold air room to move upstairs.

Answer 3

You could close off some of the vents downstairs, forcing cool air upstairs

Answer 4

Since cooled air settles, the ideal would be to have the A/C upstairs, and fans blowing it downstairs.   Since that's not possible,  you could try getting two big fans,  place one at the bottom of the stairs, blowing up, and one at the top of the stairs, aimed towards the largest, or hottest room up there.

Or, you could have the kids sleep on the first floor.

Answer 5

Bummer. Cold air is heavier than hot air and will always be cooler at the lower level. There really is no solution to your problem under these circumstances. Fans blowing up the stairs will not work as you already know.

The creating negative pressure upstairs with the fans blowing out of the window will help somewhat but be sure that the fans are sealed all around and air isn't just short cycling.

At this point anything might help a little.

Answer 6

1200 btu doesn't sound very powerful to me.  It might not be strong enough to cover both floors.

I would say to keep trying with the fans, and to put some foil on the windows upstairs to block out the sun and heat.  Depending on which rooms are affected by the most sun through the bulk of the day (say 10am to around 4pm) you might be able to knock down the heat up there by several degrees with the foil.  It might give the fans and a/c unit a chance to make a positive change.  They could be working but the incoming light and heat is cancelling that out.

Answer 7

Keep everyone downstairs near the cool air until you can do something with the up stairs. That a/c unit is not big enough to cool you whole house.

Answer 8

window fan.shuts in the window.just face the fans out.hot air rises.

Answer 9

Hot air rises  sorry about that but thats science..... How about a vent in the roof it would suck the hot air out and would only come on when it get hot, its on a thermostat.

Ceiling fans are great too.  When I was a kid we all stayed in the living room in the summer.  Eat sleep and watched TV.  Long story short  My mom and dad got a central air unit $1600.00  cooled the whole house after us kids were gone...

Answer 10

1200 btus is pretty small and you have an upstairs space, which gets much hotter than a downstairs space.  

Get some black-out roller shades (not expensive) for the upstairs windows to block out as much light coming in as possible and close up the windows and close the shades first thing in the morning.  Then when day cools down, open the shades and place the fans in the window facing out to blow out the hot, stuffy air.  During the day, run the fan upstairs to keep the air moving.

If you can, put some additional insulation in you attic.  You can also do this yourself and it can help a lot.