Anonymous wrote:We did it too before we moved in. House is only 1800 sf but every house in the neighborhood is the same and everyone has the same problem - AC just doesn't get to the bedrooms. We put a heat pump in the attic and we're always comfortable.

You meant a ventilation fan that suck out the hot air in the attic or roof to keep the upper floor cooler? If so, how much you spent on that?

We did it too before we moved in. House is only 1800 sf but every house in the neighborhood is the same and everyone has the same problem - AC just doesn't get to the bedrooms. We put a heat pump in the attic and we're always comfortable.

We did it when we moved into our house because it was a big deal for me - someone was always uncomfortable. Hot upstairs, cold downstairs, etc. It cost about 2k and they had to do very little work on the ducts and it was done in 1 day. Our heating bills are lower and everyone is more comfortable.

Our house is about 2800 sq feet and has a 2 story foyer, which makes heating and cooling tricky under the best circumstances.

Its something I looked for when we were looking for houses.

2 zone system and 2 systems are different things. You can easily create two zones by splitting the main trunk and putting in dampers. Probably $1,000 on top of the replacement, depending on how you have them controlled.

Two systems is much more expensive. Find a reputable HVAC installation company to price out some options and then get 2nd quotes, and 3rd if need be.

It might not work without replacing all your duct work. We just replaced our whole HVAC system last month (it died) and the way the duct work runs in our house, we cannot have dual zones unless we replace all the duct work to further separate the zones. That was going to be a massive cost, so we ended up just going with a more efficient unit with a higher SEER rating than we previously had.

In my opinion, it would depend upon the size of your home. If your talking adding a second system, this would be expensive as the contractor would likely need to run new duct work and electrical. If your moving in 3-4 years, you would likely not recoup the cost. Your system is likely old and inefficient as was my main system (21 years old). I just replaced mine two weeks ago with a new Bryant 2 stage system (16.7 SEER) unit and it seems to be working great.

I don't know if the cost is totally justified, but it is not something we would do without. I'm sure it depends on the size and overall value of your house though. Our house has a 2-zone system and the A/C could still not adequately cool the house on the hottest days. One of the units died and we replaced it with a larger unit, and now the system is much better. So it really depends on the house.

Our gas furnace needs to be replaced. We're thinking about creating two zones - upstairs and downstairs. Right now, if it's comfortable downstairs, it means the bedrooms are hot. We're also going to move in 3-4 years. Is a two-zone HVAC system a selling point? Would it add value to the home to justify the cost?