When you’re at home, you ideally want each room to be a similar temperature for adequate comfort. However, you might notice your bedroom tends to get hotter than the rest of the home, which can be highly frustrating.
Your bedroom can be hotter than the rest of the house for many reasons, including too much sunlight during the hottest periods, blocked vents, broken heating/cooling systems, extra heat sources in the bedroom, and a broken thermostat.
Since many things can cause a bedroom to remain hotter than the rest of the house, it’s essential to consider all possibilities and fixes. This article will discuss everything in more detail, so keep reading to gain all the information you need.
1. Your Bedroom Gets a Lot of Sun
One natural source of heat is the sun, which can quickly heat a room if there is a big enough window or multiple windows facing it. Consider whether or not your bedroom window is facing the sun for most of the day to determine if this could cause excessive heat.
South-facing rooms get the most sun throughout the day, which is excellent during winter when you want to keep warm. Unfortunately, it can be annoying when trying to remain cool during the summer.
Your bedroom could be getting more heat and light from the sun throughout the day if it happens to be south-facing. Rooms with east-facing windows can be warmer in the morning, while those with west-facing windows are hotter in the afternoon.
What You Can Do
One of the best things you can do in this instance is close your curtains or blinds during the day if the sun makes the bedroom too hot. That way, the sunlight will be blocked entirely, allowing your bedroom to remain cooler. You can buy special blackout curtains specifically made to block out the sun.
Investing in a fan is also a good idea to keep your room a little cooler. For the best results, place ice in front of the fan so that the air becomes cooler.
If you want the rest of the home to be as warm as your bedroom (for example, in the winter), let the other rooms receive unobstructed light from the sun by pulling the curtains to the side.
2. There Is a Blocked Air Vent in Your Bedroom
When an air vent gets blocked, it prevents cool air from entering the room. So, if you have a blocked air vent in your room, it will be warmer than everywhere else in the home. Depending on the location of the air vent in your room, some furniture may also block the cool air.
What You Can Do
Check to make sure the vents are all working correctly. If you suspect it’s an issue you can’t fix alone, it’s always best to get help from a professional. Additionally, ensure nothing is positioned right in front of a vent because that can block cool air from getting through.
A professional can examine the system to diagnose the problem as quickly as possible.
3. There’s a Problem With Your Heating/Cooling System
There are different ways people heat their homes. Examples of things used include the following:
- Furnaces
- Boilers
- Heat pumps
Problems with heat circulation in a central heating system can result in one room being hotter than the others. Heat can come from gas, electricity, or wood sources. If there’s a problem with your heating, the solution may depend on the sources used.
Your room may also not be getting enough cool air if there’s an issue with the cooling system installed within your home.
What You Can Do
Consider calling an HVAC technician to assist you with diagnosing any problems with heating/cooling systems, as they are highly complex infrastructures that sometimes need replacements or repairs.
A professional will be able to diagnose the problem and lead you to the best solution so that you can get all the rooms in your house to the same temperature again.
4. There Are Extra Heat Sources in Your Bedroom
There might be additional heat sources in your bedroom, which can increase the temperature significantly. For example, modern computers can output a lot of heat. The more powerful they are, the more likely they emit large amounts of heat.
If you use your computer in your bedroom for intensive activities like photo editing or gaming, your computer may be part of the problem. Graphics cards and CPUs can get hot relatively quickly when working at maximum capacity, and it’s not unheard of for this to affect a room’s temperature.
For example, AMD GPUs can reach as hot as 230 °F, which is sure to heat up a room that already doesn’t have much ventilation. The smaller the room, the easier it is to get hot from a powerful PC.
With remote working becoming more common in recent years, consider whether you or anyone else uses a computer to work in the bedroom. If two people use computers in the bedroom, that’s another way for the temperature to rise relatively quickly.
What You Can Do
Consider improving the ventilation in your room if you think the heat from a computer is causing the issue. Doing something as simple as keeping the window open can help improve the situation.
You should also open the computer now and then to clean out any dust, especially on the fans. That can help improve the cooling in your PC, meaning the bedroom can remain cooler.
Another thing to try is to move the computer to a different room in the house, especially a larger one with better ventilation if possible. If you’re sure a computer is not the cause of the high bedroom temperature, consider the other possibilities in the article.
5. Windows Are Being Kept Open
If it’s summer, leaving your bedroom window open during the hottest periods of the day will make the room warmer than the other rooms in your house.
The opposite is true in the winter, open windows around the home may let cold air in. Even one open window can affect the temperature of much of the house, especially if it’s particularly cold outside.
What You Can Do
Examine all the windows in the home to ensure everything is properly closed in winter and you want the rest of the house to be warmer. Even if you only find one window open, that could be the leading cause of the issue. Once you’ve closed all windows, wait a while to see if the temperature in the rest of the house becomes even.
If you have the opposite problem (i.e., it’s summer and your room is too warm), keep your window closed during the hottest time of day (usually from around midday from 1 to 5 PM). You can open the windows at night when the air is cooler.
You should eventually notice your bedroom’s temperature matching the temperature of the rest of the home.
6. You Have Newer Windows in Your Bedroom
Old windows are typically single-glazed and have little insulation, meaning they’re more likely to let air come in and escape. Therefore, a room will be too cold in winter and too hot in summer.
If it’s winter and you’ve recently had a new window(s) installed in the bedroom but no other rooms in the home, it’s possible that the older windows in the house aren’t as well insulated. This results in a slight difference in temperatures between different rooms.
Most modern windows are double-glazed low-E and much more energy efficient than older ones.
What You Can Do
If your resources permit, you can upgrade the windows in the rest of the house. Investing in modern, double-glazed, and insulated windows is an excellent way to maintain temperatures within the house, but the high cost can hold some people back.
These modern windows can help you cut back on heating or cooling costs in the long run.
7. Broken Thermostat
If you’re assuming the temperature in your bedroom is hotter than the rest of the house due to the reading on the thermostat (but you can’t notice a difference when comparing the rooms), there might be a problem with the thermostat.
Consider the possibility that it’s giving an incorrect temperature reading, especially if your bedroom feels like it’s the same temperature as the other rooms in the home.
Another issue is that your room might be hotter than what the thermostat says. In both of these cases, there’s likely a problem with the temperature sensor.
What You Can Do
Determine whether or not the problem is coming from the thermostat before trying to fix anything. If you’re sure the thermostat is giving incorrect readings, check the manufacturer’s instructions on what to do next. In most cases, the problem will lie with the sensor, so you may need to repair or replace it.
Since different thermostats are made differently, following the correct instructions is essential. Most manuals can be found online by searching for the appliance’s model number. Call a professional for assistance if you’re unsure and don’t want to cause further damage.
8. It’s Hotter on the Higher Floors
While cold air remains low, hot air rises, meaning the upper levels of a home are often slightly warmer than the lower levels. If your bedroom is the only room on the upper floor and all the other rooms are below, it could just be due to the fact that the heat is rising.
What You Can Do
The rising heat is a natural occurrence, so there’s not much you can do to change it. If the rooms downstairs are too cold, consider upping the temperature to see if it makes a difference.
You can try other things, like adjusting the dampers if possible. It’s also recommended to reduce the flow of warm air through the vents upstairs during winter and ensure they are fully open downstairs. In doing this, more warm air can circulate downstairs, which can help balance the home’s temperature.
9. You Have a Small Bedroom
The smaller the room, the easier it is to get hot. This means that if you have a small bedroom it will heat up much quicker than other, bigger rooms. This is a pretty basic but common reason.
The easiest solution is to move your bedroom to a bigger room, possibly downstairs. You could also tear down a wall and connect your bedroom to a neighboring room, but that’s a more demanding project.
Do you want to check out information on average bedroom sizes? Take a look at this article.
10. You Live in an Old Home
Another reason your bedroom is warmer than the rest of the house could be that you live in an old home that doesn’t have the best insulation. If the insulation in many rooms is minimal (or absent altogether), this could be an issue.
Not only are older homes more likely to have insufficient insulation, but they’re also more likely to have:
- Older windows
- Older front doors, which may let drafts in downstairs during the winter
- Insufficient heating/cooling systems
Therefore, the way your old home was built might be why your bedroom is hotter than the rest of the rooms in the house.
What You Can Do
Unfortunately, it can be costly to fix issues relating to an old house. The only thing that can truly solve this problem is to get renovations. Things like installing new insulation and getting a new front door that doesn’t let any drafts in can help solve the problem.
Modern homes are even being built with floor insulation, so it’s worth considering these options.
A Few Tips for Keeping a Hot Bedroom Cool
In addition to using some fixes mentioned in this article, it’s also good to try some of the tricks below for keeping a bedroom cool:
- Use multiple fans. Position various fans at different angles so that each part of the room gets air. Open the windows to let cool air in when the sun goes down, allowing the fans to blow this cool air around your room.
- Invest in blackout window coverage. If you’ve got light curtains, it might be worth investing in blackout ones to keep the sunlight and heat out.
- Avoid using things that generate a lot of heat. An example of a high heat-generating appliance would be a powerful gaming computer. If you have no choice, use plenty of fans and improve your room’s ventilation while using a hot PC.
In Closing
There isn’t one specific reason your bedroom is hotter than the rest of your house, so you’ll need to consider the possible causes mentioned in this article. After reading, you should have a better idea of what the issue is so that you can take the next steps to solve it.
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