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Our living room has a cathedral ceiling with a ceiling fan. It's on the west side of the house, where there are two LARGE windows. I thought it'd be a good idea to close the venetian blinds and drapes, and turn on the ceiling fan to cool the room down.

BIG mistake! The air near the high ceiling is terribly hot, and the fan just blows the hotter air down into our living room!

The other areas of the house, that don't have this sort of ceiling, are just fine, much cooler than the living room.

I've bought some reflective material for the windows facing west, but they're still hot to the touch.

To explain the window setup:
These are LARGE windows, two of them taking up the entire width of the house. On the outside, there's a window in the middle, with two smaller windows. These have screens and can be opened. On the inside, there's a similar setup, with the large window and the smaller ones that open--minus the screens, of course.

The walls, oddly enough, remain cool to the touch.

Can someone explain why the living room is such a problem? What would be the best solution, to stop the hot air from being created, and rising to the ceiling?

Irish I'm going to take a stab at this but mostly it's just some suggestions. First and foremost..hot air rises..it's just thermo-dynamics. Simple and easy to comprehend..eh? Now, it rises until it can't escape and then it builds up and heats the room. I realize that the ceiling is a cathedral type... and there isn't much "attic" room... but is there a way to exhaust the heat? I'm assuming there is some form of ridge-vent on the roof above the ceiling..can you add in ventilation via ports/ducts to allow the hot air to exit the room in the ceiling? Perhaps a few louvered panels up near the peak of the room to allow the heat to rise and exit the room? Even a few well placed 6in. air conditioning dampners/diffusers might do the trick. These are just small circles of metal that normally transport cool air. In your case, they'd allow an exit area for hot air to the roof. In the winter-time turn the dampners/diffusers closed..to trap in the warm air in the ceiling. Even floor registor grates would work. Installed in the ceiling..open them up in summer to allow the heat to rise and escape....in winter close them to hold in the heat. Just my idle thoughts my friend. Audie..the Oldfart...

During sunny winter days, you have to love all that heat! Especially with natural gas prices expected to surge 25% this next heating season. So what's bad now, will be a blessing later.

As for your current delima, oldfarts suggestions sound good. You don't have any attic space so much of the heat is probably coming from the roof itself. Adding a vent would help alleviate some of that heat.

Mark

That is one of the reasons I love our opening Skylight. Greg

Problem is, the skylight area inside the house seems to trap the heat just below the skylight itself, in the square area.♠
I have the same issue, wildirish. living room, cathedral ceilings, hot air trapped. also anywhere else in the house, master br, 3 feet of it between the closet and the main br. if we added registrar's in the ceiling, wouldn't that create more hot air coming in as well? i could see it being beneficial in the upper walls of the living room, so the house stays 'balanced' with the heat exchange.

Ours is an opening skylight, it opens about 6" to vent the hot air out. Greg

Mark wrote:During sunny winter days, you have to love all that heat! Especially with natural gas prices expected to surge 25% this next heating season. So what's bad now, will be a blessing later.

We're getting an electric furnace installed before winter. Right now, we have a gas furnace and water heater, and they cost a fortune to operate. We used to live in Arizona, where electric rates are higher, and our electric water heater didn't cost much to operate. Mind you, winters in AZ can be pretty cold (lows can hit freezing or below), when the heater is in the garage, and not insulated.

Right now, we only run our furnace briefly, in early mornings when it's chilly outside--just enough to warm the house. And that's not even every day; maybe once a week, tops. That, and our water heater, are costing us $200+ per month to run...no way can we afford this in the winter.

That's not our only consideration, though...the danger of having gas utilities, plus the awful smell when the furnace is running, are why we've had enough of gas.

Getting back to the original point, though...the windows might let in sunlight, but they'll also let in a lot of cold. I put that stretchy plastic window insulating film on them this past winter, because they were just letting in too much coldness.

Honestly, if I had the $$, I'd just board the damned things up and replace them with one normal-sized window in the middle of the wall.

tnt17 wrote:Problem is, the skylight area inside the house seems to trap the heat just below the skylight itself, in the square area.♠

We live in an area where severe thunderstorms (with hail) are common. Skylight + baseball sized ice meteors = big repairs.

tnt17 wrote:I have the same issue, wildirish. living room, cathedral ceilings, hot air trapped. also anywhere else in the house, master br, 3 feet of it between the closet and the main br.

Really? I noticed that, where we have the lower ceiling (and actual attic space), the rooms stay very cool...even those that face the south and get hit with sunlight all day. Do you have cathedral ceilings all over your MH?

oldfart wrote:Irish I'm going to take a stab at this but mostly it's just some suggestions. First and foremost..hot air rises..it's just thermo-dynamics. Simple and easy to comprehend..eh?

That part I understand.

oldfart wrote:I realize that the ceiling is a cathedral type... and there isn't much "attic" room... but is there a way to exhaust the heat? I'm assuming there is some form of ridge-vent on the roof above the ceiling..can you add in ventilation via ports/ducts to allow the hot air to exit the room in the ceiling?

I'm not sure...I'm in a small town, where I can't even get someone in the nearest city to come out here and take care of the weeds which the previous owners let override our back yard. Personally, I couldn't do it because I'm a fortyish woman with fibromyalgia, and my mom is a seventyish woman with back problems. I'm not sure a handyman would even know where to start...we're dealing with (ahem) nice, well-meaning, but not necessarily talented rednecks.

oldfart wrote:In the winter-time turn the dampners/diffusers closed..to trap in the warm air in the ceiling. Even floor registor grates would work. Installed in the ceiling..open them up in summer to allow the heat to rise and escape....in winter close them to hold in the heat.

Again, neither Mom nor I would be able to reach vents clear up there, so I'm not sure how we'd go about closing them.

Anybody have any suggestions, how we could adapt this idea to accomodate a couple of physically limited folks? Also, there are wooden beams in the ceiling, and I don't know if this would interfere with the placement of such vents. Any suggestions would be appreciated, while I search for somebody in town who might be able to do this project....

WildIrish wrote:

tnt17 wrote:

tnt17 wrote:I have the same issue, wildirish. living room, cathedral ceilings, hot air trapped. also anywhere else in the house, master br, 3 feet of it between the closet and the main br.

Really? I noticed that, where we have the lower ceiling (and actual attic space), the rooms stay very cool...even those that face the south and get hit with sunlight all day. Do you have cathedral ceilings all over your MH?

Just the living room. Bedrooms stay pretty much ok (4 other br total) but overall between the non cathedral ceiling room's like the den and area between/over the hallway leading to the master br (on left) and master closet (on right) separated by a door and 3 walls, the heat really gets trapped. This other area is like a 3 ft wide by 12 ft long section. I noticed the other day when changing the lightbulb's to cfl's how warm it was within 2 feet of the ceiling, and no cathedral there.

We have cathedral ceilings throughout our home. The problem with them is that there just isn't enough room for insulation and air flow. Add anything stuck in them, like an electrical box for a light fixture, it worsens the situation.
I am having my roof redone in the next couple of weeks. It is being stripped to the trusses. Then I am adding a 2x4, on edge, to the top of each truss, resheathing (5/8 OSB), Grace ice and water sheild the whole thing, then an architectural shingle. This will increase my ceiling cavity by 3 1/2" for future insulation (Roxul to about R38). Pictures will come.

Jim

It sounds like you should try flipping the reverse switch on your ceiling fan. When it's blowing hot air down it's on the winter setting.

I always grew up being told 'down' for summer and 'up' for winter. Personally, turning them off for good in the summer has helped cool it down from 80 or so down to 76-77. In fact it's 88 outside now, and 77 inside. Four hours ago it was 94 outside and 80 inside.

Yes, it's DOWN for summer, UP for winter. It's all a matter of slight breeze or wind chill though. DOWN you feel it, UP you don't.

Your problem seems to be large poorly insulated windows.
To fix that you either need to increase the conditioned air to the room (probably difficult and costly), or decrease the heat gained through the windows (much easier).

Your best bet will be to either put solar screens to block the sun but keep the view, or have some shade awnings put over the windows to stop the sun altogether.

Well Wildirish I'm afraid I haven't helped much. Sorry I can't do more. The main problem seems to be solar-heat entering the home with no way to exit. In the wintertime this is a plus...in summer it is a curse. In order to reduce my cooling costs in summer I open as many windows as the weather will permit at night and close them up as the sun begins it's climb above the horizon. I only wish I had more to offer. Lost in my thoughts...YMHS...Audie..the Oldfart....