5 ms·

I don't think so -- you _are_ paying to condition that part of your house, sure, but it becomes just another part of the overall envelope and acts like a buffer

I don't think so -- you _are_ paying to condition that part of your house, sure, but it becomes just another part of the overall envelope and acts like a buffer between the weather and the actually livable parts of your home. Anecdotally, in my home in the summer months, when unconditioned the attic is 50 degrees on a summer day it literally radiates heat down through the ceiling on the floor below into the rooms there. The attic acts like a heat battery -- long after the sun goes down the attic is radiating heat into the upper floors of my house. Not sure why it retains heat so well it's got louvres and vents ...

duped 3y ago
When you have ductwork in the attic your heating/cooling efficiency is hurt by the amount of heat lost through the roof and out into the environment. When the ductwork is all in interior walls, there's no efficiency lost because those losses go into the rooms the system was trying to heat/cool already. Where I live, we have extreme ranges of temperature (both hot and cold) and almost all ductwork is on the interior for this reason. You'd be spending a fortune in the winter heating an attic when it's getting lost to -17C air temps outside... It sounds like your attic needs more insulation.