Question about homes with vaulted ceilings

[HIU8]

DH and I are very seriously considering putting our house up for sale. However, we have also been looking at homes to see if there really is anything out there that we would be willing to move in to (in our price range it was disappointing to us what we have been seeing in the school districts we want to move to). Suddenly, some better quality homes with more of what we want have come on the market. Now, we cannot buy unless we sell, but at least we know there is hope for us finding something we actually want. We are looking at one this weekend with a vaulted ceiling (contemporary style). DH doesn't like a vaulted ceiling b/c he says the home is hard to heat and cool and our utility costs would go up. I have heard mixed things--some that vaulted ceiling homes are more expensive to heat and some that say they are not any more expensive if you have a decent system in your home. Opinions? Anyone with this type of a home that can give their insight?

[sunshine873]

I haven't noticed it to be a problem, but I would definitely recommend a ceiling fan. Ours is almost always going.

[katerinasmom]

We have a vaulted ceiling only in our bedroom. It is beautiful but it is also the only room in the house that does not retain either the heat or cooling for very long. It heats up well enough and cools down well enough but it cools almost immediately after the heat stops pumping and heats up as soon as the central air goes off.

[wencit]

We have vaulted ceilings, and since this is the first home I ever purchased, I don't have anything to compare it to. However, I don't think our energy bills are astronomically high. Personally, I think the heating/cooling thing has more to do with the location of the room than the vaulted ceilings themselves. Rooms upstairs will be warmer, and rooms downstairs will naturally be cooler. Another thing to consider is that newer homes (contemporary styles with vaulted ceilings) generally have better and more efficient heating/cooling systems than older homes.

[Sweetum]

We have vaulted ceilings in our living room - while it looks nice, it's cold in there most of the time and takes a really long time to get heated up. On the other hand, it's nice in summer since it's cool.

[egoldber]

Your DH is right. We have a vaulted family room and I hate it. It looks cool, but I hate it.

We have two heating/cooling systems and it only helps marginally.

[Globetrotter]

Ours is hard to heat or cool... definitely a power sucker!

[ChunkyNicksChunkyMom]

Our six year old home has a double height living room (hate) with separate heating and cooling systems for each floor. The heating bills are OUTRAGEOUS (think $600- Ohio winters) and the air is about 1/2 that. And this is for a 3400 square foot home, so not huge, huge. I also had a nasty heating/cooling bill surprise at the last condo I owned. I would ask to see actual bills to make an educated assessment, sure wish I had!

[crazydiamond]

A bit complicated to answer. Generally yes - more money and harder to keep comfortable than other spaces but it depends on how it was built.

We are about to constructed an addition on our home, and it will include a "mini" vaulted ceiling over the new family room and master bedroom. However it will have a super insulated ceiling and walls, fire place and ceiling fans. It will also have a zoned damper seperately controlling the HVAC to those spaces.

So you might find a home with a vaulted ceiling... that was done right.

[s7714]

I think a lot depends on the layout of the house and how your heating/cooling system is set up. In general I'd say it's harder to consistently cool or heat a room with a vaulted ceiling, but if you have ceiling fans it can help a lot.

When our house was being built we asked about putting in ceiling fans in our vaulted formal living/dining area (ceilings are a little over 18 feet up) but were told it wouldn't be necessary by a clueless sales girl. Now we really wish we had them put in from the beginning because the room acts like a big funnel that pipes all the warm air up to the second story (which makes the second story get too warm in the winter and harder to cool in the summer). Our neighbors have a central vaulted living room like us, but they have two thermostats in their house--one for upstairs and one for downstairs--so they haven't noticed any of the issues we've had.

[Octobermommy]

I have not noticed much of an increase at all. The only rooms with vaulted ceilings are the living room and 1 bedroom. My electric bill is a lot less than my neighbors that don't have vaulted ceilings.

[Globetrotter]

Our ceilings go the roof level of our two story. I think that is worse (efficiency-wise). I've also seen minor vaulted ceilings, which I imagine wouldn't be as bad.

[dcmom2b3]

I think a lot depends on the layout of the house and how your heating/cooling system is set up. In general I'd say it's harder to consistently cool or heat a room with a vaulted ceiling, but if you have ceiling fans it can help a lot.

When our house was being built we asked about putting in ceiling fans in our vaulted formal living/dining area (ceilings are a little over 18 feet up) but were told it wouldn't be necessary by a clueless sales girl. Now we really wish we had them put in from the beginning because the room acts like a big funnel that pipes all the warm air up to the second story (which makes the second story get too warm in the winter and harder to cool in the summer). Our neighbors have a central vaulted living room like us, but they have two thermostats in their house--one for upstairs and one for downstairs--so they haven't noticed any of the issues we've had.

:yeahthat:

There are lots of variables, but layout and system design matters a lot, IME. I'd consider whether/how the vaulted space can be closed off. We have a 4 story TH with a totally open floorplan (the only interior doors are to bedrooms or bathrooms). There are double height ceilings in the kitchen that basically make the first two floors one for heating and cooling purposes.

Even though we have 2 HVAC systems, the open floorplan hurts us. In summer, the upstairs system has to run full blast to cool upstairs, b/c much of the cool air goes downstairs. The opposite happens in winter.

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that the two thermostats are located in places where the air temp is likely to be extreme, and not reflective of the HVAC systems' efforts. For example, the upstairs thermostat is in the hallway outside the bedrooms. But the hallway has no vents, so if BR doors are closed (like they should be), the warm or cold air never gets back to register with the thermostat, so the system super- heats/cools the bedrooms.

Enough about my HVAC woes. I'd ask to look at a year's worth of bills to see what you're potentially getting into.

[egoldber]

There are double height ceilings in the kitchen that basically make the first two floors one for heating and cooling purposes.

Even though we have 2 HVAC systems, the open floorplan hurts us. In summer, the upstairs system has to run full blast to cool upstairs, b/c much of the cool air goes downstairs. The opposite happens in winter.

This is similar to what we have. Our open family room includes the entire upstairs. Also almost all the windows in our house face southwest, so we get full afternoon sun, making it wretchedly hot in summer. Our AC literally does not stop running in the summer and even then the upstairs AC unit has a hard time keeping the upstairs below 80.

Maybe if only one room is vaulted it isn't too bad.

[HIU8]

Thanks for the insight everyone. We will keep all of this in mind when we go to see this house over the weekend.

[ThreeofUs]

We had a vaulted ceiling in our entry and our living room, and they really did eat energy as pp's have described. Pretty, though, and we were living in Santa Barbara, so it wasn't that bad.

[jent]

This isn't what you asked, but another thing that has always bugged me about vaulted ceilings is that they can amplify noise. My parents' house has a LR with vaulted ceiling, and the staircase/upstairs hallway is open to said LR. I've noticed that people's voices in the LR echo loudly up the stairwell and into the bedrooms-- not so great if the adults are staying up talking while the kids are trying to sleep!

[khm]

It just depends, and it's probably hard to tell by sight. :) Call the utility company and they can give you the past year average. At least, they do in all the states I've lived in.

We formerly lived in an area with fairly mild winters. That 2-story house had only a vaulted entry, the living areas were all normal. That house was pretty bad for heat rising upstairs. In the winter, the downstairs was FREEZING.

Our current house is in a MUCH colder climate zone. It has a 2 story front entry that leads into the 2 story living room. It is WAY WAY better temperature wise and $ wise than our former house. Better insulation, better vent placement, better windows - I do not know! Yes, the 2nd story is slightly different than the 1st floor, but it isn't bad at all. Especially given the huge vaulted area!

We did take advantage of the energy tax credit and had a reflective layer installed over our attic insulation. It is supposed to help primarily in the summer, with cold weather benefits as well.

[gatorsmom]

We have a vaulted ceiling only in our bedroom. It is beautiful but it is also the only room in the house that does not retain either the heat or cooling for very long. It heats up well enough and cools down well enough but it cools almost immediately after the heat stops pumping and heats up as soon as the central air goes off.

:yeahthat: We have the same problem in our master bedroom.

[Globetrotter]

This isn't what you asked, but another thing that has always bugged me about vaulted ceilings is that they can amplify noise. My parents' house has a LR with vaulted ceiling, and the staircase/upstairs hallway is open to said LR. I've noticed that people's voices in the LR echo loudly up the stairwell and into the bedrooms-- not so great if the adults are staying up talking while the kids are trying to sleep!

yes, so true! An open floor plan looks nice, but IMO it doesn't allow much room for privacy. If we're watching TV or entertaining downstairs, the sound easily carries to the bedrooms.

[s7714]

This isn't what you asked, but another thing that has always bugged me about vaulted ceilings is that they can amplify noise. My parents' house has a LR with vaulted ceiling, and the staircase/upstairs hallway is open to said LR. I've noticed that people's voices in the LR echo loudly up the stairwell and into the bedrooms-- not so great if the adults are staying up talking while the kids are trying to sleep!

Yep, ITA. In fact we're strongly considering having our vaulted room split into two levels for this very reason! A friend of mine did the same thing in their house a while back.

[DebbieJ]

Utilities DEFINITELY cost more. AND the sound carries upstairs like mad.