We just moved into a 1902 victorian 4-square that has a recently finished attic (it was done in 2007) that has our master bedroom suite in it. There are 2 registers in the entire attic (which covers the footprint of the whole house and only has knee walls for maybe 10 feet along one wall, and "ankle walls" for about 5 feet - the rest is walled off "finished" storage) and 2 ceiling fans. We knew that the heat would be pretty bad up there in the summer, but we didn't think it would be this bad!

I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions to beef up the AC action in our attic - we've put the AC on fairly low, but our thermostat is on the first floor, so our attic pretty much never gets cooled. I'm not sure if it matters that there's no air return on that floor (or the 2nd floor for that matter, it's at the bottom of the stairs on the 1st floor).

We purchased a window ac unit as a temporary solution, but obviously we need to consider some better more permanent options. Our central AC unit is a good 14 years old or so, and it obviously wasn't updated to accommodate the increase in square footage when the previous owners finished the attic.

I'm wondering if we should look into an attic exhaust fan to get some of the hot air out, or if we need to get a completely separate thermostat and AC for our attic and make it zoned. I've also heard of duct booster fans, but that also seems more of a temporary solution.

Energy efficiency is important to us, and we'd like to keep costs within reason, but we're willing to invest in this since it's our main sleeping area, and we're kind of sick of the basement!

Any help or suggestions is much appreciated! (and I'm sure there will be more posts in the future, this is only the BEGINNING of the many things we need to work on!)