[Stewie]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Thanks for the tips (two years later)... that's pretty much my issue. I closed a vent in the basement, and as it's been discussed in this thread, it didn't make a difference upstairs. Last night it took about 3 hours to knock off 5 degrees upstairs, all while it was 20 degrees cooler in the basement.

Stupid n00b question... I've thought about running the attic fan (or 'whole house fan' as apparently non-Midwesterners call it) early in the morning when it's in the 60s to cool off the house a few degrees, but it looks like that might not help much overall due to moisture/humidity levels.

Is there any value in running it at any time during the summer, possibly to help pull up the cool air from the basement? I've seen a lot of conflicting information online... I tried it last night and there was a noticeable difference in airflow coming up from the basement, but I've only had the AC on a couple of days, so I haven't had much time to experiment. I've read in some places that it's not a good idea, you'll be sucking conditioned air out of the house, etc... and I've read in other places that running it for 20 minutes before turning on the AC can be beneficial... and another site said you can run it with the AC on, dependent on a few factors like air returns, etc.

The seller paid for a home warranty, which at first glance covers seasonal maintenance, so I'll probably just go that route sometime soon, since I don't believe anyone lived there for a while and it could probably use it... but, I'll check out the info in the OP this afternoon, too.

Does your system have dampers? Most do. I'd check to make sure they're set properly.