My son-in-law asked me to look a the insulation in his house (lived there about 2 yrs) complaining that the 2nd floor was cold during the winter. House is a small cape, steep roof, with a knee wall under the front roof. Went into the crawl area behind the knee wall to look at the insulation and saw that insulation was lined under the roof and behind the knee wall. Knee wall insulation was Kraft paper towards the crawl area.
In my opinion the underneath of the roof did not need to be insulated and the knee wall insulation shld be turned around. Also, to get heat to the second floor , flex insulated ducts were used. They were run up the outside wall into the crawl area thru the space between the roof and knee wall (about 3 1/2″) then attached to a vent in the bedroom ceiling.
So here is the question. Should the flex ducts be terminated thru the wall to the floor level instead of the ceiling? Wouldn’t this make the room more comfortable? One factor is that the heating ductwork is used for ac in the summer. So by moving the ducts to the floor level will this negatively affect the efficiency of the ac when ts being used? I go by the theory that heat should come out the floor and cool out of the ceiling Which one should prioritize when two different systems use the same ducts?
Hope I am clear in my details? a little diagram is attached