closed or open doors (Austin: house, closing, costs)

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

When cooling a home in and around Austin do you keep all the doors to the rooms open or closed. Wondering which one maximizes cooling.

[love roses]

We leave all of ours open

[tourbound129]

We keep the doors closed.

[pbnj07]

I guess it really depends on where your thermostats are located. If they're outside of a bedroom with a lot of windows where heat can build up, I would close that door.

[woodinvilleguy]

Every cooling system is different. I have a lot of returns in the system so It makes sense that it shouldn't matter. Now, if you have rooms that aren't used like a media room, then you could close of that rooms returns so you aren't heating/cooling that room.

If you don't have a lot of returns then you want to keep doors open so you have air flow moving through the rooms.

[centralaustinite]

Yes, doors should be open unless a room has its own return, then that door can be kept closed if you like.

[ATX Homeboy]

Originally Posted by centralaustinite

Yes, doors should be open unless a room has its own return, then that door can be kept closed if you like.

Yep, gotta have a return in every room that you expect to cool.

If you shut the doors to a room without a return then you will only cool the room to a certain temperature regardless of how low you set the themostat. Think of it like filling a jar with cool air. The whole purpose behind Air Conditioning is to condition the air. The exact physics behind air conditioning is REMOVAL of heat, cooling of air is a secondary effect, and dehumidification is a result of the process too.

So, if you want a cool house then you really need to keep your doors open.

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

Thank you for the information. I would have gone in and kept the doors closed thinking I was going to save energy. I'm glad I asked.

[CptnRn]

We generally leave ours open, but you certainly can save some money on HVAC costs by closing off the registers in some rooms or closing the doors. Some air circulation will usually still occur from gaps below the door but those rooms will not be heated or cooled as effectively as the rest of the house. Which is OK if you are not going to be using them. You do need to make sure that the return air path is not blocked for the rooms you still want to heat or cool.

Closing off too many rooms can result in humidity problems. You have a large air conditioner cooling off a smaller amount of air from the rooms that remain open. As a result it cools the air down faster, and stops running, with results in less moisture being removed from the air by condensation at the cooling coils, and higher humidity. My programmable thermostat is called a thermidistat. When the humidity is high it keeps the system running a little longer to help remove more of the moisture from the air.

[BentBow]

If you keep the doors closed, you will get ghosting under the closed door, on the carpet, as it filters the dirt out as it passes across it fast.