Looking to reduce heat/cold in second story (El Dorado Hills: loft, houses)

[Mig1980]

Good day everyone. My wife and I moved into our home in El Dorado Hills about a year ago. Our home lives like a single story but has a huge second story loft (only thing on second story).

We have been blown away at how cold it gets in the winter and how hot it gets in the summer in comparison to our first floor. Today is a 16 degree difference between the two floors. The first floor is at 71 and the upstairs is at 87 degrees. These are readings without the AC on. We do have dual thermostats but I would like to address the issue, not just crank down the thermostat.

I want to ask if anyone has experienced similar issues and has had success with improving the issue substantially? Any companies that are reputable and can work through the problem?

[Ruth4Truth]

I don't know anything about your house, such as: was it originally built with the loft, or was the loft later created by eliminating an attic? Because that's what it sounds like happened. The loft sounds like an attic space that was opened up to create somewhat of a "cathedral ceiling" look and some extra living space.

Attics, which is basically what you have there, exist precisely for their insulation capacity. They keep the rest of the house cooler in summers and isolate the house from the worst of the cold in winters. It's normal for them to trap heat in the summers, etc. That is their raison d'être, their natural function. It sounds like the seller wanted to get more $$ for the house by opening up the attic so he'd be able to list extra square footage when selling the house.

So, now you're stuck with kind of a fake 2nd story to the house. You could either close the attic back up, letting it do its job as an attic, and accept the fact that you have what realistically is a 1-story house, or you could bring someone in to put the highest R-rated insulation in the ceiling up there, and hope that makes a significant difference. The foregoing may sound harsh, OP, but----truth out. I'm sorry this happened to you. Best wishes.

P.S. I'm curious now; maybe there's a way you could look up the original plans for the house, or find a record of it when it was first built and put on the market, to see if it was originally designed to be a 1-story. Not that that would solve your problem; you still have to decide what to do with the situation. But I'm curious. Maybe there's an elderly neighbor nearby, who remembers what it was like when first built.

[Mig1980]

Good day. The home was built with the loft as is. The loft is enclosed on all four walls and has ceiling with an attic. The builder could have easily added bedrooms, bathrooms, etc but they decided to just leave it as a loft (750 sqft roughly)

I am looking for recommendations on companies that are reputable and can analyze the issue and help me address it as much as possible.

[Ruth4Truth]

OK. thank you for the additional information. It still sounds like that part of the house is uninsulated. I don't know if Sac houses in general are uninsulated. Many older Bay Area homes are. The weather was deemed to be so mild, that insulation was believed to be unnecessary. YMMV in Sac.

[Mig1980]

I have confirmed over the last year that the loft is fully insulated on all walls and ceiling. Whether it is enough insulation, that would be something I would like a company that deals with this sort of stuff to tell me.

[Moddedintegra56]

get a whole house fan

[Valley Boy]

Heat rises. Second story is always more hot than the first story. Especially bedrooms over a garage. At my parents it would be like 75 on the downstairs and like 85 in my bedroom, when I was young.

And that is why I live in a ranch house now!

[NoVaFirstTimer]

One method is to turn off the dampers on your HVAC ducts that feed air into your 1st story and leave the ducts to your 2nd story open.

Cold air falls so if you just cool the 2nd story, the air will naturally fall into the 1st story. If dampers do not work, then just turn off the vents in the 1st story. Can be expensive with all the wasted air. But at least 2nd story will be closer to desired temperature. Good luck!