Help!! Need help heating my home

Aaron Solomon

I live in a poorly constructed townhouse where the heat and air conditioning comes out of the same forced heat vents. Unfortunately, the vents in the house are in the ceiling so the heating is very poor on the main floor. Too cold for our young children to even be on!

We would like to figure out a way to heat the basement floor so that the heat rises to the main floor and keeps the main floor warm.

Does anyone have any suggestion as to how we can heat the basement floor so the heat will rise to the main floor?

Thanks.

Aaron

Josh M.

Aaron are you trying to heat the basement or the main floor? Because you won't get the basement floor heat to rise to the main. The main benefit of Radiant Floor Heating is that the heat doesn't rise like forced air. For example if your basement has a ceiling height of 8' and you have a room temp of 68 degrees you will have a ceiling temp of around 60 degrees. Too cold!

Why not heat your main floor instead of the basement? If the joists are accessible you may be able to retro-fit a radiant heating system.

ALH_4

Or

Or even install a few steel panel radiators. How large is your townhouse? Are your heating bills particularly high currently?

Mike T., Swampeast MO

While I'm not a particular fan of forced air heating (especially when it comes from the ceiling), ceiling fan(s) constantly running on low and pushing the air down can help immensely. It won't do anything to heat the floor, but at least the air temperature in the rooms will be much more even.

Bob Forand

Just a question, do you regularly change your air filters ?