Ideas to Cool A room Down...

My master bedroom is consistently 8+ degrees warmer than the rest of my house. The thermostat is in the hallway, which is on the other side of the side, has normal ceilings, and is in the dark...The master has huge vaulted ceilings, two floor to ceiling windows and to get it to 75 in there the rest of the house has to be 68.

Not efficient.

The windows are new. That helped. But other than the new windows and black out shades. How can I cool the room down?

Open to all thoughts here. Would not want to go straight neck and install a window unit... but I know that might be the cheapest and most effective option.

What else might I look into?

Solar shades or tint the windows?

Have an AC company balance your system.

This seems to be the best idea. You may need another vent in that room.

Mitsubishi makes self contained, free standing ac units.

Get a remote thermostat and put it in your room. Then partially close off the vents on the other side of the house to restrict the air there. Also keep ceiling fans on 24/7 to circulate air throughout the house.

One thing I enjoyed about our San Antonio house was that it had 2 HVAC units. One for the 2nd floor that was all bedrooms and one for the first floor. Might have cost more initially, but it cost less per month to keep the house the way we liked it. Plus when one of the compressor fan motors burned out we had a section of the house that was still cool until the unit could be repaired.

There are ways to balance the air flow like stated previously. Our current house has a good balance during most of the year, but middle of the summer the only thing that keeps the southwest corner room as cool as the rest of the house is leaving the ceiling fan on and lowering the Roman Shades. The new portable room AC units would probably be the cheapest route up front, but will add to your energy cost.

Of course, you could always make one of these.

Probably the duct work going to your bedroom is crimped and not allowing the air to flow through unrestricted.

I use a oscillating floor fan at night. $17 at Walmart.

I'm thinking of getting Yeti to insulate and do the walls on my next house. Throw a few ice cubes in the bath tub and stay cold all summer.

That just reminded me of the one bedroom in our San Antonio house that stayed warm. Went up into the attic and they had the strap holding the flexible duct not only so tight that it was only allowing half the air flow to that room, but it was strapped up to the bottom of the roof. We cut the strap so the the tube was laying across the insulation (on a couple 2x4's to keep it elevated a bit) and the room was then like the rest.

This. You need a greater amount of air blowing into the bedroom. This will help balance.

I have black out shades as far as that part goes. And the ducting looks fine. Its just the last run on the line. The farthest from the unit.

I think to see a big difference, i might have to go redneck and get a little window unit. But I hate that then you have to use those plastic panels to close off the windows. With the airport being so close, the noise is a bear. Part of the reason I replaced all the windows was to cut down on that rumble.

Keep the ideas coming. I am going to look into all of them.

How old is the house and what kind of duct work do you have rigid or flex? Mine is flex and has dampers installed on a few of the trunks to different rooms so that I can control the air flow to each room. Yours may not be set correctly. Do you have powered turbines in the attic? Is the attic ventilated well? There are tons of videos on youtube about this topic. Is the Master bedroom on the west side or east? Evening sun is a killer. If you think heat is being transferred through the windows, they make insulated drapes that could help. I dunno, just some ideas.

House built in 2001.

Faces North. North West East corner of the house. Windows in the master all face north. The long wall of the run faces east.

Flex ducting. (I have closed the vents in the two extra bedrooms)

Had the roof replaced last year (thanks hail) and the contractor doubled my turbines, I have 6. Not powered, whirlybird style.

Black out curtains installed and the windows are energy star blah blah and less than 4 years old.

I was thinking about a mobile swamp cooler deal, but I from what I am reading they do not work very well.

Make the room humid unless you open windows and dont work well if you have more than 20% humidity. Which we often do.

But do these work here?

Have you tried closing off a few of the vents in other parts of the house?

Yes almost half of them are closed

Well, that is a bunch of good corrective actions. Maybe some blown in attic insulation would help? Is there at least an 18 degree differential between the air return in the house and the air coming from the vent? Does the rest of the house get to 68 as you have set it?

Wal Mart has in room A/C units that look interesting. We are thinking of getting one to take to our RV at Fork as it can test a little warm in August just running the built in if we are there during the mid day hours. Cheap and simple to use.

When we upgraded our HVAC they replaced the duct to a larger one for a spare bedroom that does not stay the same as the rest of the house. It helped some but that room is still not quite equal. Fortunately our master is the shortest duct so it gets the most. They installed dampers on all the ducts and balanced it a ltttle more but I am sure it could be improved but again it's a spare bedroom.

Inline duct fan?

Do they have to vent to the outside? I really want to avoid opening these windows and adding plastic and all junk.

BUT it looks like the only way to not do that is swamp coolers which, as stated, I am reading make the room humid and wont work well in Texas... needs to be low humidity to work, thats not this part of Texas. Maybe down on the border or out west Texas.

Be sure to look into before buying. If you can vent it directly outside I think they would work, but if you have to use the hose that comes with them they put a lot of heat back into the house. That hose gets HOT.

You could put a poltergeist in there for the summer.

I like Perry's idea,Wal Mart has in room A/C units that work great.

The thing Kattelyn posted should also work. They make them that fit right into the register holes too.

The only thing that will fix the problem is money.

More insulation, balance air registers, larger duct to bedroom, second unit, blackout shades and more money. If that doesn't work, its just more money, pretty simple.

800 dollar mini split from ebay or Amazon will work too. I have one in my garage.

Also, heat blocking window film on the windows in the bedroom will cool it off.

this...worked wonders for our previous house. Tinting the windows is also a good idea.

--Plant a big tree outside that room that will provide shade to that part of the house.

--Go to Home Depot/Lowes and fully insulate the attic above that room (might as well do the whole attic) with extra layers of insulation

--Insulate/line the windows

--set up a cross draft/cross ventilation at night time by cracking open a window in that room and a window perpendicular to the one you cracked open

--Buy a really big Yeti cooler and sleep in it (don't forget to make some air holes)

--Cover the inside of the windows with Reflectix (really cheap at Home Depot/Lowes). Might as well line the entire room with it while you're at it.

My office was way too hot. I had to have the AC unit replaced and had them add an intake near the ceiling to draw warm air from the office. That also makes the AC pull cooler air into the room from the hallway.

Drawing hot air out will be as effective as moving cool air in.

Get a mini split system for that room. You could hang meat in there with it.

Put aluminum foil on the windows. Not only will it block the sun, it will look classy.

And the blocking other vents as I learned is not always a good idea. I was an inspector many years ago and spoke with many AC guys about this. I maybe wrong and if there is a pro out there that knows the truth, then please correct me. But I learned (and this is for the most part not a golden rule) that AC units are installed for size based on the size of the house (how many square feet versus tons it takes to cool it). Closing certain vents actually can cause it to "back up" and actually lose efficiency. I was told it is better to keep all the vents open to create a even flow for the system.

I tend to agree. Its not like the air will circle back, against the incoming air, and land coming out of another vent... I think it just creates pressure and leaks out anyways just slow.

But I tried it, no real difference.

These problems are why towns like Frisco are making us put returns in every room in all new houses.

Shed the Derek blanket?

That is a good point when we upgraded our HVAC they installed a 2nd air return just outside the room that was not getting enough air.

I have not got it yet.

I think its gonna take some time but I am eager to see it.

I could tell you what is going on, but I would have to stop by.My guess is insufficient return in the master. What is the delta T?

You're going to love it. I have to give 1shot credit for helping me with the pic.

Let my Ex Wife sleep with you. Problem solved

I knew he was going to be sending you a pic of his 1shot.

if you're handy with your tools, you could remove that section of the house or even move it further north

Box fan(s) to blow cooler air from other part of the house back to that room?

I am surprised no one has mentioned going back where you came from yet

Our old house. The closet in the master bedroom was against the garage attic. I put up some sheet insulation on that wall in the garage and it made a huge difference in cooling the master bedroom.

Arctic air,works great.Just watch the T.V.ads,if you have any doubts.

Just go window unit and be done

In my opinion, a good hvac guy can correct this. You may need a new plenum built that will balance out the delivery of the air. Long story short, when I replaced my unit several years ago I was dealing with the same problem. This guy redid all of my duct work and balanced out my entire house. Some of the best money I�ve ever spent.