Closing your upstairs vents greatly reduces the temperatures in those spaces, causing the temperature to drop throughout your home as the cold air from those spaces circulates to other areas of your home. Your HVAC system, to hit the higher temperature that you've set, will stay on longer.
If your home has a second story, you can partially close your upstairs vents. Heat naturally rises, so your furnace can still maintain a balanced level of warmth around the house. Close all gaps, cracks and crevices around your windows and in the walls.
There Are Dangerous Long-Term Effects On Your System
The pressure built up within your system due to closed vents can also result in long-term damage to your system. Leaks can be caused or made worse inside your HVAC system ducts, which can greatly impact the efficiency of your system.
Air vents should be open to prevent damage
Increased air pressure can create cracks and holes in the ductwork. It can also cause your furnace's heat exchanger to crack. Leave all air vents open to prevent extensive damage to your home's heating system this winter.
It is a common myth amongst homeowners that closing air vents saves energy and makes the home more comfortable. Many think that by closing cold air returns, the conditioned air is redirected to other areas that the homeowners want, but closing air vents in vacant rooms is far from helpful.
Winter Thermostat Settings
Set the first floor's thermostat to your desired temperature, and then decrease the temperature setting on your thermostats by two degrees as you go up. Warm air on the first floor will rise and make the upper floors more comfortable.
If you have a top/bottom return vent setup, close the top vents in the winter months. Closing the top vents will make your system draw in air from the bottom vents that are at the low point in the room where cold air settles.
It's ok for your attic to be cold in the winter because the roof vents are open. An attic with good air sealing will not cause your home to become colder or expend additional energy for heating.
Since that warmer air is at the top of your room, you will want to make sure the highest air return is open and the lowest is closed. Conversely, in the Winter heating season, you will want to pull the coldest air back to the furnace to be warmed and create circulation.
It's a common myth that closing off rooms in your home will save heat or that closing vents in unused rooms will help you lower your energy costs. However, closed-off rooms and vents can actually make your heating and cooling system less efficient and cause other problems in your ductwork.
It is typically best to always leave your air vents open, even in unoccupied rooms. It may sound counter-intuitive, but leaving vents open will use less energy, extend the life of your HVAC unit and save you more money in the long run.
That said, closing your vents is best for saving energy but not for redirecting cool air throughout your home. Some homeowners believe that by closing the vents in their basements, cool air will automatically be redirected toward the upper levels of a house. Unfortunately, that's not how your furnace fan works.
Adjust the dampers.
If the second floor of your home is warmer in the summer months, keep the dampers on the second-floor vents fully open and only partially open the vents on the first floor to force more of the cool air to enter the second-floor areas.
This is the last thing you expect to happen when you close off too many vents. Unfortunately, there isn't the correct amount of airflow and this can cause the coils to freeze and cause damage to the unit's compressor. This typically results in repairing or replacing it before the unit can run efficiently once again.
Attic vents must remain open year-round to avoid spending thousands of dollars on home repairs and electricity bills. Keeping your attic vents open even in winter may sound counterintuitive if you want to save on heating bills or if you want to keep your home safe during winter.
When snow accumulates on the roof, it may seem like the vents are blocked and unable to function, but in most cases, the snow will not impede the flow of air through the vents. The heat generated inside the attic will melt the snow on the roof and allow the hot air to escape through the vents.
If winds have loosened the vent, snow can blow underneath. You also want to check the ends of the ridge vent to make certain they are solid. Some ridge vents require blocks to be installed at the ends to prevent precipitation from blowing in.
Open the windows wide.
Ventilate briefly but intensively. By opening the windows wide, we help the air exchange occur faster and prevent excessive cooling. In the winter months, about 5 minutes is enough to provide our rooms with the right amount of fresh air.
Air is drawn in through the attic fan and air is expelled through the roof vent system to keep your attic cooler and drier, preventing ice and moisture issues throughout the winter.
When To Close the Vents. If summer is the right time to open your crawl space vents, winter is the perfect time to close them. Colder weather results in drier air. Dry air and freezing temperatures are the biggest risks for crawl spaces due to the likelihood of freezing pipes.
Other solutions to the problem include adding a secondary system to the home or using a ductless split system. These are commonly used to supply supplementary heating or cooling. You also can also add insulation in the attic space, where much of the heat is lost during colder months.
Sometimes more heat vents are needed. But, often a solution is to partially close downstairs heat vents and make sure upstairs heat vents are fully open. The blower or fan adjustments. Some recommend keeping the fan on all the time.
Heat rises – Blame physics: hot air rises while cold air sinks. That means your upstairs typically gets hotter than your lower levels, even if your air conditioner's working in overdrive. Your roof's hot, too – Unless you have shady tree cover, your roof absorbs a ton of heat from the sun.
In the winter, the reverse strategy should work. The downstairs thermostat should be set to your ideal temperature, and the upstairs thermostat should be about 2 degrees cooler. The heat should be balanced pretty well with this method, and your downstairs will get a little bit extra warmth to keep you comfortable.