New house we just purchased has a forced-air heating system, the ductwork was installed in 1951 when the home was built and it's built like a Soviet tank. The furnace is a oil-fired Thermo Pride that was installed in 2011. Converting to natural gas is on the list of things to be done but just not happening this year.

The heating works pretty well but we seem to have an issue with one bedroom. Of course it has to be our 6 month old's room and he wakes up crying in the middle of the night because he's cold. I'll walk into the room and it will feel like an instant 10+ degree drop. The register in his room is open but the airflow is very, very weak. My other son's room is on the other side of a wall with this room and when the heat kicks on, you can feel it all the way across the room if I'm sitting with him playing or reading.

Is there a damper somewhere? A blockage? There seems to be no heat making it to this room and the old drafty single pane windows with storm sashes don't help. That's another project when I hit the lottery or rob a bank I jokingly tell my wife.

We had hot water radiator heat at the old house and kept it at 68 morning, day and evening and 65 at night but this system seems too chilly at those temps so I keep it at 70 during the morning, day and evening and 67 overnights.

sounds like their is a blockage of some form, is there a diverter in the path, perhaps the previous owners shut that room down as it wasn't used much, or the duct is clogged.

I would look in the attic to see if there is some kind of manual diverter that directs the air to your other bedroom or to be sure the ducts are unrestricted.

Pull the cover off the duct in the cold room and see if it's blocked there, some folks do that by cutting a small piece of wood to close the end and then put the cover back on like normal.

In the interim, get a portable radiator to keep his room warm. My bedroom is just like this, at least 5 degrees cooler than our master bath even though I know air flows. Insulation and ducting is all good.

We keep our house at 68 but have a radiator in my daughters room to keep it at 70.

We have one similar to this.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/De...HygtgCFZN3wQodG8oIAw

quote:

Originally posted by SIG4EVA:
In the interim, get a portable radiator to keep his room warm. My bedroom is just like this, at least 5 degrees cooler than our master bath even though I know air flows. Insulation and ducting is all good.

We keep our house at 68 but have a radiator in my daughters room to keep it at 70.

We have one similar to this.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/De...HygtgCFZN3wQodG8oIAw

Please don't do this.

Space heaters cause 32% of all fires and 79% of heating related fires.

Google results from fire + space heater.

Nothing to do with air flow.
Our new edition is over a crawl space. Room got unusually cold, I got under neath & noticed half assed insulation job. I was pissed, took 2 days to finish the job results have been outstanding.

Hope you can the problem for your little man. May he sleep warm & tight.

I am betting airflow issue based on your description. We had one upstairs bedroom like that. I took the grill off the floor vent and found a damper about 6 inches into the duct from the floor outlet. I opened it fully and all is well. There can also be dampers in other places in the duct work.

You could also try adjusting outlet in the other room that has a lot of air flow to see if that impacts the cold room.

Ok, so far we have:

Check the attic, and or ductwork for blockage.
Add a portable heater.
Don't add a portable heater.
It is not airflow, add insulation.
It is airflow try monkeying with the dampers.

More information is required in order to make reasonable recommendations. How about some pictures. Also more information on the house and the ductwork would be swell.

Do you have a return register in that room?

It also could be that there is a hole or tear in the duct going to the cold room. Check the seal where it branches off the main duct as well. a little duct tape may solve the problem.

I am betting on a damper in the attic.

quote:

Originally posted by gjgalligan:
Do you have a return register in that room?

We had a room like that and the lack of a return air duct was the problem.

Ironically my last call of the day today was a melted outlet. First question out of my mouth, "were you using a space heater?" "Yes."

I told them same thing I posted above about googling the words space heater + fire. Also gave my standard analogy:

Let's say you buy your dream car. A brand new Porsche, fire engine red. Your 80 year old neighbor coincidentally purchases the exact same car the same day. You drive yours to the redline everywhere you go, she drives hers like an 80 year old woman. Which one is more likely to have a catastrophic failure?

Then I explain that's exactly what you're doing when you use a space heater. They draw 1500w, the circuit is 1800w, 80% of entire circuit for one item. That leaves (5) 60w lamps worth of capacity til you reach 100%, after that you should pray your breaker is operating properly.

My old HVAC system was designed with a direct shot from the fan through the coils into one upstairs bedroom and branching ducts to the rest of the house. In winter (heat on) that bedroom was a sauna and in the summer you could hang meat in there. I'd say about 50% of the heating/cooling capacity was directed into that one room. (The air flow into that room was so strong that it actually blew the screws of the outlet cover out when we closed the vents to try to stifle the flow.) I had a diverter installed into the duct to cut off must of the flow so the rest of the house could get some effect.

A couple of years ago a new system was installed and it doesn't have that problem. I'd first check the ducting.

flashguy

Call a Preist...

Someone obviously died in that room and you have a poltergeist.

Sheesh...come on guys...think!

Is the supply lead in the basement or is the lead in the attic. A lot of basement leads have a damper usually within a foot of the takeoff. Like mentioned before take the register off make sure someone didn’t stuff a towel up inside. If it’s in the attic hard pipe or flex if hard pipe may have to manually feel the pipe and see if there is a damper. If it’s flex verify that the liner hasn’t pulled loose and pulled off or been stepped on a smashed

quote:

Originally posted by Patriot:
Call a Preist...

Someone obviously died in that room and you have a poltergeist.

Sheesh...come on guys...think!

Beat me to it. That's what I was going with. It's either a ghost or that room is the portal to hell.

Could be several things...

Blocked pipe
Unhooked pipe
Closed damper
Improper ducting
Improper take off location
Lack of return (are you closing the door at night?)
Lack of supply (does it blow warm air at all?)

BTW, radiant heat will always feel warmer than a forced air system.

Look for something like this



or this



Somewhere on the duct leading to the under-heated room. The two shown are fully open. At right angles to the duct would be fully-closed.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Look for something like this



or this



Somewhere on the duct leading to the under-heated room. The two shown are fully open. At right angles to the duct would be fully-closed.

My dampers are inside the vent with no handles. You need to remove the register reach down into the vent and adjust. Not sure if this is common or not. 1964 construction.

After a year of being hot/cold in the new office & just chalking it up to the shitty overall construction, I found that the vent above my desk wasn't hooked in to the HVAC duct. The flex duct was too short, so they just pointed it at the vent - about 4' away. You could feel air moving when the fan was running so......

I found this out when a tree frog landed on my keyboard.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
My dampers are inside the vent with no handles. You need to remove the register reach down into the vent and adjust. Not sure if this is common or not. 1964 construction.

Wow. Why bother? Or do the registers themselves not have controls?

Our home has the levers pictured. It was built in 1967.