Closing your bedroom door provides benefits like reducing noise, ensuring privacy, and enhancing safety by keeping potential intruders out. On the flip side, leaving the door open is reported to naturally make hot weather more bearable, thanks to better airflow.
Although closing off unused rooms may seem like a way to save energy on heating and cooling, it can actually force your HVAC system to work harder. In order for your air conditioner to work efficiently, you should keep the interior doors in your home open as much as possible.
Keep Doors and Vents Open
Especially with central air, closed doors and vents only obstruct the blower fan and ventilation, which leads to balmy, hot air. Closing a door unbalances the system, causing pressure changes and air leaks. Open vents and doorways help keep air flowing and your home cool.
Sleeping with your bedroom door closed can help maintain your desired temperature, which is crucial for a restful night's sleep. In the summer, sleeping with your bedroom door closed can help keep the air conditioning in, while in the winter, it can help keep your bedroom warm and toasty.
Our Experts Say: Leave Doors Open For Better Warmth
A closed door is an obstruction to the natural flow of air in your home. With an open door, air can pass freely through the full opening of the door.
Closing your bedroom door provides benefits like reducing noise, ensuring privacy, and enhancing safety by keeping potential intruders out. On the flip side, leaving the door open is reported to naturally make hot weather more bearable, thanks to better airflow.
Since the door is closed, you're pressurizing the room, which forces the cool air out of the room through the tiniest opening possible. As air-conditioned air escapes, it must be replaced with air coming in from the outside. Depending on how many doors you close inside, the temperature can go up by 300 to 900 percent.
During hot weather, keep interior doors open to help your air conditioner circulate cool air more effectively. Closed doors can trap heat in certain rooms, forcing your AC to work harder to maintain a consistent temperature throughout your home.
Sleep Quality
One of the main reasons for sleeping with a bedroom window open is that doing so can improve our quality of sleep, ensuring we wake up feeling fully rested. Scientists have found that a room temperature between 16° and 18°C is ideal for sleeping at night, although this varies by individual.
Ultimately, the decision to lock or not to lock your door at night is up to you. There are many benefits to locking your door, but it is important to make sure you follow fire safety guidelines and take necessary precautions in case of an emergency.
Contrary to popular belief, closing your bedroom doors does not improve the efficiency of your HVAC system and may actually increase your utility bills. When you close a bedroom door, you effectively block the air's pathway, and that blockage can lead to issues with airflow.
While leaving your wardrobe doors open can make it easier to access your clothes and other items, it can also make your room feel cluttered and disorganised. It is generally best to keep your wardrobe doors closed when not in use to maintain a clean and tidy appearance in your room.
So, to answer the million-dollar question: it is best to keep the interior doors open when your AC is running. Why? For starters, it allows better airflow and minimizes the pressure problems inside. Leaving the interior doors open can also make it easier for your AC to cool your home evenly, using less energy.
Creating a Safe Refuge
A closed door can create a temporary safe space that keeps the intense heat and toxic smoke outside. With the door closed, the air inside the room stays cooler and cleaner. This “safe zone” can be the difference between life and death as it gives firefighters additional time to rescue you.
In general, it's standard for door swing direction to be inswing, whether it's an external or interior door. For an interior door that's in a hallway, such as a bedroom door, the door swings into the bedroom to avoid disrupting the heavily-trafficked hallway.
Sleeping with an open window can negatively impact your health as well. While cold air itself can't make you sick — colds and flus occur because germs overwhelm a person's immune system — it can potentially dry out nasal cavities, resulting in increased mucus production and a possible sinus infection.
Factors that keep people waking up in the middle of the night may intersect with natural body rhythms like your circadian rhythm or sleep cycle. Insomnia, stress, aging, hormones, medications, and pain are among the possible factors impacting your nightly sleep.
Keeping your bedroom door closed has been proven to slow the spread of a house fire. Additional benefits include reduction of toxic smoke levels and lower levels of heat inside the bedroom. It is important to note – within 60 seconds of a fire starting, ceiling temperatures can reach over 1,000° F.
Closing Doors To Unused Rooms Creates AC Inefficiency
If the intake is blocked because of a closed door, the balance is off, negatively affecting the air flow your system needs to cool your home efficiently. Your system can become damaged, resulting in AC Service.
Be sure to close all internal doors at night as this will help to stop any fire or smoke from spreading should a fire occur. Finally, take your phone with you to bed so you can call for help in the event of an emergency.
By using ceiling fans, or portable fans for trouble spots, you can keep the air moving and avoid stuffy air and that stale smell. If your stale air problems are caused by moisture, a dehumidifier can help by taking that moisture right out of the air in any room that's giving you trouble.