I live in a pretty old house in the midwest, built 1929, bought in '21, single-story, ~1300ish sqft, and with a large, spacious basement. Every time summer comes around I’ve had issues with the basement getting MUCH colder than the rest of the house (like >10 degrees F difference), presumably due to poorly-insulated floors and cold air sinking. The HVAC is still capable of keeping the main floor at the temp set on the thermostat, but the temperature differential indicates it’s working quite a bit harder than it really needs to be, and is probably wasting quite a bit of money.
I’m planning on getting an insulation specialist in at some point to go over options for shoring up the insulation, but I’m wondering if there’s anything else I could do to recirculate air in the basement through the rest of the house - even with good insulation, I feel like the laws of thermodynamics would still result in a basement at least fairly colder than the rest of the house.
Is there anything I could look into that is reasonably cost-effective for circulating air from the basement to the rest of the house so my HVAC doesn’t have to work so hard in the summer? Thanks
When I was a kid some family friends had put an air-moving fan in the floor from the basement to the first floor. On hot summer days it would pull the cool air from the basement, and in the winter it would circulate the air from near their woodstove in the basement to the upstairs.
Maybe that would help? Wiring would be the hardest bit to figure out. After that it’s just cutting a hole in the floor.