How to Improve Your Comfort in PA’s Split Level Homes
Split level homes are very common across Pittsburgh’s suburbs. Instead of clear first and second stories, split-level homes have staggered floors connected by small, transitional staircases. They have a unique architectural style, but their layout can make it challenging to heat or cool a home evenly.
If you live in one of these homes and often feel uncomfortable, solutions are available. Here, we’ll discuss the specific challenges split level homes face, why they occur, and how a mini-split heat pump from MW Mechanical can help you solve some of these problems.
Cooling and Heating Challenges in Split Level Homes
At MW Mechanical, we see Pittsburgh split level homes suffer the same problems, over and over again. These include:
- Inconsistent Temperatures: You may notice different areas of the home have different temperatures, even though you have central air.
- Noticeable Temperature Changes: You might be able to immediately feel the temperature differences when you walk up or down the stairs.
- Weak Climate Control in Certain Areas: Some areas of your home may feel like they don’t receive any air from your heating or cooling system.
- Hot Upstairs, Cold Downstairs in the Summer: Heat feels like it gets trapped on the upper floors in the summer, while the lower floors are disproportionately cooler.
- Cold Upstairs in the Winter: Heat may seem like it never lasts in your upstairs living areas and bedrooms.
Why These Problems Happen
The physical layout of split level homes often causes these comfort challenges. The architecture creates distinct zones that a central furnace system struggles to heat and cool evenly. With one central thermostat, the temperature might feel correct when you’re in the room with the thermostat, but it’s often unbalanced in other areas of the home.
In most homes, the first and second stories are stacked directly on top of each other. So in the winter, heat naturally rises, creating a comfortable upstairs. But in a split level home, the upper floors are sometimes directly above an unconditioned garage, so they don’t experience rising heat. Additionally, lower floors may be partially below ground level, so in the summer they feel significantly colder than the rest of the home.
On top of these challenges, the short, transitional staircases let air seep from one area of the home to another, worsening temperature differences. These staircases are also not wide enough to allow conditioned air from the HVAC system to distribute itself to disconnected areas.
Mini-Split Heat Pumps: The Best HVAC System for Split Level Homes
The most practical way to solve split level heating and cooling challenges is with a mini-split. Unlike other HVAC systems that rely on a central thermostat and forced air grates to distribute air throughout the home, mini-split heat pumps deliver it directly to each room.
When you have a mini-split for a split level house, the main heat pump is installed outside. Refrigerant lines run through the exterior, right to individual air handlers mounted on the walls of the living space. This helps overcome your comfort challenges in the following ways:
- Multiple Comfort Zones: Instead of relying on central air to heat and cool the entire home, mini-splits create separate, smaller zones that can be individually heated and cooled.
- Individual Temperature Control: Each air handler has its own thermostat. You can adjust the temperature in one room to match the rest of the home, creating more balanced and consistent temperatures.
- Custom Configurations: Mini-splits are ideal when one area of the home doesn’t heat or cool as well as others. You can add a single mini-split to an upstairs bedroom for supplemental air conditioning, or to the lower floors for supplemental heat.
How MW Mechanical Can Help Your Pittsburgh Home
As Pittsburgh’s hometown HVAC company, MW Mechanical understands the unique comfort challenges homeowners in the Alle-Kiski Valley face. Our local, family-owned company is driven by building science and uses industry-leading diagnostic tools to find the root cause of comfort problems in split level homes.
We are Pittsburgh’s trusted heat pump experts and as a Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer, proudly install their high-quality products. Through white-glove customer service and technical excellence, we can install a custom mini-split system that solves inconsistent temperatures, hot upstairs bedrooms, and weak climate control.