Cooling Your New Home Addition? Try These Options

July 7, 2015

Cooling your new home addition involves decisions that balance cost, comfort, quality and convenience. Depending on the scope of the new addition project, it's easy to become overwhelmed. Just take it step by step.Evaluate your home's efficiency, HVAC system design and lifetime costs, and work closely with your HVAC contractor.

Evaluate Your Home's Efficiency Any time you're undertaking an HVAC upgrade or modification, it's always a great idea to evaluate home efficiency, which has a direct impact on HVAC performance, energy bills and comfort. Ask your HVAC technician to perform an energy audit to highlight elements in your home, such as air sealing and insulation, that could use a boost. You'll also see the projected energy savings. Following any home efficiency upgrades, your HVAC contractor calculates the cooling and heating load of your home. This information is required to determine the best cooling solution for the new addition.

Cooling Your New Home Addition The following are common cooling solutions you can choose from:

  • Duct addition - It makes sense to just extend ductwork to the new addition. If the load calculation determined by your current HVAC system can handle the extra work, this may be the most practical solution.
  • A/C upgrade - Depending on the age of your system, an upgrade may be the best option. Consider replacing your A/C if it's over 10 years old and your furnace is it's over 15 years old. This will allow you to upgrade to an adequately sized system that can also handle the new addition. Often, after efficiency upgrades to the home, you can actually upgrade toa smaller heating and cooling system and save money long-term.
  • Independent ductless system - Ductless mini splits were practically designed for cooling and heating new additions. You'll save square footage by not installing new ducts, and ductless comfort and efficiency are tough to beat.
To learn more about cooling your new home addition, contact Lozier Heating & Cooling. We've proudly served Des Moines residents for more than 100 years. Our goal is to help educate our customers in the greater Des Moines, Iowa area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Credit/Copyright Attribution: "Thinglass/Shutterstock"