Our home isn’t very big, only around fifteen hundred square feet.
And it is fairly new and well-insulated.
Our furnace and central air conditioner do a great job of heating and cooling the house. There’s one small problem that I’ve noticed, however. If we close the doors of the three bedrooms, which are located at the farthest distance from the heating and cooling units, those rooms don’t receive as much of the heat and/or cool air. We are empty nesters, but our dog is like having another child – mainly because we dote on him so much. If we leave him in the house when we go away, we shut the bedroom doors to prevent him from jumping on the beds and getting his fur on the comforters. But when we arrive home, the bedrooms are significantly cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer than the rest of the house. I remember when we had the house built, the builder discussed that the placement of the heating/cooling unit in the basement would determine its efficiency in reaching each of the rooms of the house. We discussed the pros and cons of placing the units closer to the main living area of the home. Bedrooms, he explained, are typically not as important, as ceiling fans in the summer and blankets in the winter will compensate for any inefficiency. I now wonder if we let him talk us into a bad decision. I even called another HVAC company to discuss the situation. He explained that the ideal location of the furnace/air conditioner unit is one where there is a supply of natural gas, an exhaust vent, and fresh air circulation. His explanation made much more sense than that of the original builder.