Shouldn't it be easy to keep my bedroom cold in the winter?
November 18, 2024 6:22 PM Subscribe
How do I keep my room cool overnight when it is cold out? I need my room 64-66 degrees Fahrenheit to sleep. I use a in/out air exchanging window fan to cool my bedroom before going to bed, but I can’t keep it in overnight because the streetlights shine in too much. We have central heat on to 65 (thermostat downstairs), but I have the vent closed with a towel in it.
Yet in the morning my room is often the hottest room in the house, even hotter than other room on the same floor. It generally is like 5 degrees hotter than when I went to bed. Maybe it is because I have bay windows facing south in my room, and also in the room below me? In my room I have blackout shades and blackout curtains, except on one window I just have the shades. Below me I have twisty blinds closed. I have my ceiling fan running all night in the direction that is supposed to suck the hot air up (whatever it is supposed to be in the summer). I run my window air conditioner in fan mode when it is cold out, but it doesn’t seem to keep the room cool. Any idea why? Is the air not coming from outside? Is it because there is no reverse air flow?
I tend to get up between 9am and 11am, so it could make sense that the sun is warming it up. I'm in a rowhouse with very thick brick walls between houses.
I was looking for an in/out air exchange fan which doesn’t let much light in, and someone on Reddit recommended this one. It has good reviews on Amazon, and Wirecutter lists it as the top window fan. But another Reddit thread had a lot of people saying it didn’t really do that much. Who should I trust? I know I can return it but I try not to do that if possible. I’m not trying to have a fan blow on me (I’m very sensitive to that), I want it to cool the whole room. The room is about 200 square feet with high ceilings.
It is usually fine once it gets really cold, but these transition times are when I often wake up burning hot. I'm in Washington DC.
Yet in the morning my room is often the hottest room in the house, even hotter than other room on the same floor. It generally is like 5 degrees hotter than when I went to bed. Maybe it is because I have bay windows facing south in my room, and also in the room below me? In my room I have blackout shades and blackout curtains, except on one window I just have the shades. Below me I have twisty blinds closed. I have my ceiling fan running all night in the direction that is supposed to suck the hot air up (whatever it is supposed to be in the summer). I run my window air conditioner in fan mode when it is cold out, but it doesn’t seem to keep the room cool. Any idea why? Is the air not coming from outside? Is it because there is no reverse air flow?
I tend to get up between 9am and 11am, so it could make sense that the sun is warming it up. I'm in a rowhouse with very thick brick walls between houses.
I was looking for an in/out air exchange fan which doesn’t let much light in, and someone on Reddit recommended this one. It has good reviews on Amazon, and Wirecutter lists it as the top window fan. But another Reddit thread had a lot of people saying it didn’t really do that much. Who should I trust? I know I can return it but I try not to do that if possible. I’m not trying to have a fan blow on me (I’m very sensitive to that), I want it to cool the whole room. The room is about 200 square feet with high ceilings.
It is usually fine once it gets really cold, but these transition times are when I often wake up burning hot. I'm in Washington DC.
How do I keep my room cool overnight when it is cold out? Occam's razor: just open the window!
If the blackout curtains are an issue, you could find a way to secure them in place vertically. So that air could still flow in from the window and out the sides, without the curtains flapping and moving. Ex. install an s-bracket on the underside of the lower windowsill. clip or otherwise secure some sort of tie or bungee between the curtain and the s-hook.
I live in an apt where I can't control the heat output in the winter and it's usually unbearably hot for sleeping. I just open my window anywhere between a crack and wide open depending on the different factors night by night.
Don't bother with the air conditioner btw. They don't usually work when the outside air temp is below 55* F or so. someone more sciency can explain better.
posted by seemoorglass at 6:31 PM on November 18 [2 favorites]
If the blackout curtains are an issue, you could find a way to secure them in place vertically. So that air could still flow in from the window and out the sides, without the curtains flapping and moving. Ex. install an s-bracket on the underside of the lower windowsill. clip or otherwise secure some sort of tie or bungee between the curtain and the s-hook.
I live in an apt where I can't control the heat output in the winter and it's usually unbearably hot for sleeping. I just open my window anywhere between a crack and wide open depending on the different factors night by night.
Don't bother with the air conditioner btw. They don't usually work when the outside air temp is below 55* F or so. someone more sciency can explain better.
posted by seemoorglass at 6:31 PM on November 18 [2 favorites]
Is this a house you rent? Own? Rent a room in? There's obviously something not right here, but what your potential solution might be will depend a lot on what kind of work can be done to fix the problem.
Can you do some investigation to see if the heat is coming from within the room, from the sun coming in or from outside the room? That will help you narrow down what problem you need to solve. What temperature is the room before the sun comes up? What temperature is it in the hallway outside your room? What temperature is it in the room below or above you? Do you have any other ventilation in the room that adds or removes air other than the blocked heat vent?
Other potential sources of heat to consider are humans (about 100W of heating power) and anything electric that's running at night.
Regarding your air conditioner, it never moves air from the outside to the inside. So when you have it in fan mode, all it does is move air around (and heats the room up a little bit with the waste energy from the fan). You'd need to have it in cooling mode to remove heat from your room, which is probably not what you want to do since that would cost you money (and it may not, as noted above, work below a certain outdoor temperature).
posted by ssg at 7:18 PM on November 18 [1 favorite]
Can you do some investigation to see if the heat is coming from within the room, from the sun coming in or from outside the room? That will help you narrow down what problem you need to solve. What temperature is the room before the sun comes up? What temperature is it in the hallway outside your room? What temperature is it in the room below or above you? Do you have any other ventilation in the room that adds or removes air other than the blocked heat vent?
Other potential sources of heat to consider are humans (about 100W of heating power) and anything electric that's running at night.
Regarding your air conditioner, it never moves air from the outside to the inside. So when you have it in fan mode, all it does is move air around (and heats the room up a little bit with the waste energy from the fan). You'd need to have it in cooling mode to remove heat from your room, which is probably not what you want to do since that would cost you money (and it may not, as noted above, work below a certain outdoor temperature).
posted by ssg at 7:18 PM on November 18 [1 favorite]
I can’t keep it in overnight because the streetlights shine in too much
Fix this part. Eye mask, or creative cardboard/foamcore to block the light - you could probably make a funnel to direct the incoming air straight up (into the warmer air on your ceiling) and see very little light bleed.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:26 PM on November 18 [1 favorite]
Fix this part. Eye mask, or creative cardboard/foamcore to block the light - you could probably make a funnel to direct the incoming air straight up (into the warmer air on your ceiling) and see very little light bleed.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:26 PM on November 18 [1 favorite]
Okay so here's a machine that may solve your problem. My wife sleeps very very hot and I sleep very very cold. So, to solve for her problem without us living in a walk in freezer, a couple years ago she bought a BedJet, which she uses in the summer to cool the bed down to a temp that helps her sleep, and then in the winter, I move it to my side of the bed and use it to keep me nice and toasty warm.
It's hard to overstate how much of a lifechanging experience this machine has been. She bought the Cloud Sheet that they sell, and that's made a huge difference as well - it is stitched down the middle, so in the summer I don't feel her cool air and in the winter she doesn't feel my warm air. It's not an AC; it circulates the ambient air in the room through the sheet to keep you cool. It's well worth the investment - we both sleep a lot better in our respective uncomfortable seasons when we use it.
posted by pdb at 7:31 PM on November 18 [2 favorites]
It's hard to overstate how much of a lifechanging experience this machine has been. She bought the Cloud Sheet that they sell, and that's made a huge difference as well - it is stitched down the middle, so in the summer I don't feel her cool air and in the winter she doesn't feel my warm air. It's not an AC; it circulates the ambient air in the room through the sheet to keep you cool. It's well worth the investment - we both sleep a lot better in our respective uncomfortable seasons when we use it.
posted by pdb at 7:31 PM on November 18 [2 favorites]
Heat rises. If there are high ceilings in the room below you and the whole house thermostat set at 65 degrees is mounted at 5' from the floor, the air underneath your room may be at 75-80 degrees. This will warm your bedroom floor considerably. Is there a ceiling fan in the room underneath you? Could it be operated at night to keep the air in that room circulating?
Is it possible to lower the whole house thermostat temperature several degrees?
posted by tronec at 7:33 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
Is it possible to lower the whole house thermostat temperature several degrees?
posted by tronec at 7:33 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
I run my window air conditioner in fan mode when it is cold out, but it doesn’t seem to keep the room cool. Any idea why? Is the air not coming from outside? Is it because there is no reverse air flow?A window air conditioner does not bring air in from outside, except any that leaks in because it is improperly installed. When the cooling function is on, it sucks in air from inside, cools it down, and then blows it back into the room. When the cooling function is off (i.e. fan mode), it just circulates air in the room.
Opening your window is the first thing to try. Start with that. If that doesn't work or lets too much light in, try a window fan that draws air from outside. The one you link looks great from a light-blocking POV, but you could try a $20 unit if you prefer.
Opening a window (with or without a window fan) will work better if you can allow some air exchange with the rest of the house. The easiest way to do this is to open the bedroom door (just a crack), but if you can make changes then install a door air return to allow a draft without letting in light and noise from the hallway.
posted by caek at 8:40 PM on November 18 [2 favorites]
Can you open the windows in the room below yours and/or other surrounding rooms? If the area around your room is cold, your room will be colder, all other things being equal.
posted by Mournful Bagel Song at 4:38 AM on November 19 [1 favorite]
posted by Mournful Bagel Song at 4:38 AM on November 19 [1 favorite]
Turn the thermostat down to 55 in the evening.
posted by heatherlogan at 6:10 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 6:10 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
I feel your pain for different reasons - don't ask me why, but the boiler for my entire apartment is located in my bedroom closet. My room is always a bit warmer as a result.
Turning the thermostat down in the evening helps a lot. I usually bump it up to about 65 when I get home from work, but then a bit before bed I turn it down to 60. Sometimes even lower. I also open the window right near my bed just a crack; both seem to help.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:18 AM on November 19
Turning the thermostat down in the evening helps a lot. I usually bump it up to about 65 when I get home from work, but then a bit before bed I turn it down to 60. Sometimes even lower. I also open the window right near my bed just a crack; both seem to help.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:18 AM on November 19
1. Can you program the downstairs heat to go down to 60 degrees at night, instead of 65? The heat likely rises to your room, esp if the door is open to the downstairs.
2. Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but have you tried a fan (not an external fan, just an indoor fan, like a box fan pointing at you)? It's what I do when the bedroom is too warm.
Indoor fans don't cool the room, but they cool *you*, and very effectively at that.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:12 AM on November 19
2. Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but have you tried a fan (not an external fan, just an indoor fan, like a box fan pointing at you)? It's what I do when the bedroom is too warm.
Indoor fans don't cool the room, but they cool *you*, and very effectively at that.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:12 AM on November 19
Is there some reason you can't turn down the heat at night, and back up in the morning? Have it turn down to 60 or maybe even lower an hour or so before you go to bed and run your fan then too. Then close the window and go to bed. That combo might do it.
posted by purple_bird at 9:33 AM on November 19
posted by purple_bird at 9:33 AM on November 19
If your windows are double hung AND if your blinds can be lowered from the top, you can open your windows from the top down instead of the bottom up. That will allow convection to pull the hottest air out of your bedroom and will keep the streetlight from shining in your eyes. You'll still get a trapezoid-shaped bright spot on the ceiling*, but simply having it not shine directly into your eyes may be enough to let you sleep. But note if your bedroom is the warmest place in the house, by opening your window you'll probably also make all the other rooms cooler and may make the heat come on to keep the rest of the house warm enough for everybody else, which may defeat the purpose.
If you don't have double hung windows and the right kind of blinds, open the windows from the bottom and sleep with an eye mask. Or trade bedrooms with the person who has the other end of the house, whose room is probably naturally cooler than yours (especially if they're sleeping in a converted sleeping porch, which my experience of rowhouses in DC tells me is probably inadequately insulated and thus 5-10° F cooler in winter than the rest of the house).
* FWIW DC's own guidelines for streetlights say they're supposed to minimize "light trespass" and you can file a 311 ticket to try to get them to add the right kind of deflector so the light doesn't shine directly into your windows. OTOH the relevant department (DDOT) gives approximately zero fucks about this guideline and they closed two of my tickets without changing anything (and I suspect they never even did the on-site inspection they claimed). The only thing that made any difference for us was when they replaced the standard sodium bulb with an LED that has built-in deflectors limiting the amount of light above the fixture, but that upgrade is happening on its own schedule regardless of any neighborhood requests. I don't think you can speed it along, but I guess anything is possible.
posted by fedward at 9:50 AM on November 19
If you don't have double hung windows and the right kind of blinds, open the windows from the bottom and sleep with an eye mask. Or trade bedrooms with the person who has the other end of the house, whose room is probably naturally cooler than yours (especially if they're sleeping in a converted sleeping porch, which my experience of rowhouses in DC tells me is probably inadequately insulated and thus 5-10° F cooler in winter than the rest of the house).
* FWIW DC's own guidelines for streetlights say they're supposed to minimize "light trespass" and you can file a 311 ticket to try to get them to add the right kind of deflector so the light doesn't shine directly into your windows. OTOH the relevant department (DDOT) gives approximately zero fucks about this guideline and they closed two of my tickets without changing anything (and I suspect they never even did the on-site inspection they claimed). The only thing that made any difference for us was when they replaced the standard sodium bulb with an LED that has built-in deflectors limiting the amount of light above the fixture, but that upgrade is happening on its own schedule regardless of any neighborhood requests. I don't think you can speed it along, but I guess anything is possible.
posted by fedward at 9:50 AM on November 19
Yes, I would just turn down the heat at night. If your room is on the smaller side, and the room with the thermostat is a larger room/room with more windows or simply a room that is more open to the rest of the house, the temperature of that room will drop more at night, so the heat will run more to compensate. I've run into that plenty in the past.
I would also just leave the window open at night, as previously suggested.
posted by litera scripta manet at 7:12 PM on November 19
I would also just leave the window open at night, as previously suggested.
posted by litera scripta manet at 7:12 PM on November 19
You could run your window air conditioner on cool mode. It will use more power to cool than just to blow, but it should be very efficient compared to summer since you're using it to pump heat from a warm space out into cold air (that is, the direction the heat already wants to go). If you have a means of tracking your power usage I would at least try it.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 8:59 PM on November 19
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 8:59 PM on November 19
Do you keep your bedroom door closed when you sleep? That + your body temperature will raise the temperature of your room.
posted by Stoof at 7:14 AM on November 20
posted by Stoof at 7:14 AM on November 20
But another Reddit thread had a lot of people saying it didn’t really do that much.
Here is the thing about fans most people don't realize: if you are using the fan to try to move air in or out of a room, there must be a corresponding outlet or inlet. This is why if you have a bathroom fan, you must have a gap under the bathroom door, or some other way to replace the air that the outlet fan is trying to move out. In the case of this particular Vornado window fan, we have it in a room with a skylight that opens, and it does a pretty good job of cooling that room off overnight because there is a way to push the warm air out as the cool air comes in. It's not a big, blasting fan though- I can only feel the breeze about 4-5 feet away from it. It is far better for cooling the center of our house than just an open skylight though. I'm not sure the Vornado keeps much light out (ours is in the dining room), but it's possible that it would be less light than the fan you have currently. `
For this window fan to bring cool air into your room you'll need a way for the existing air to move out: whether a gap under your door (not great, but ok), another open window, an open transom, or some sort of vent. If that's not possible, the dual window fan you have, if one fan can be set to intake, and one to output, is going to be superior. You might want to try the eye mask others have suggested.
Also if you're trying to cool a room you want the ceiling fan pointing down. Otherwise the fan blades circulating the air pull cool air up, warm it, and push that warmed air down the sides of the room.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:31 PM on November 20
Here is the thing about fans most people don't realize: if you are using the fan to try to move air in or out of a room, there must be a corresponding outlet or inlet. This is why if you have a bathroom fan, you must have a gap under the bathroom door, or some other way to replace the air that the outlet fan is trying to move out. In the case of this particular Vornado window fan, we have it in a room with a skylight that opens, and it does a pretty good job of cooling that room off overnight because there is a way to push the warm air out as the cool air comes in. It's not a big, blasting fan though- I can only feel the breeze about 4-5 feet away from it. It is far better for cooling the center of our house than just an open skylight though. I'm not sure the Vornado keeps much light out (ours is in the dining room), but it's possible that it would be less light than the fan you have currently. `
For this window fan to bring cool air into your room you'll need a way for the existing air to move out: whether a gap under your door (not great, but ok), another open window, an open transom, or some sort of vent. If that's not possible, the dual window fan you have, if one fan can be set to intake, and one to output, is going to be superior. You might want to try the eye mask others have suggested.
Also if you're trying to cool a room you want the ceiling fan pointing down. Otherwise the fan blades circulating the air pull cool air up, warm it, and push that warmed air down the sides of the room.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:31 PM on November 20
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