This paper introduces a collection of scaling methods for generating $2N$-point DCT-II approximations based on $N$-point low-complexity transformations. Such scaling is based on the Hou recursive matrix factorization of the exact $2N$-point DCT-II matrix. Encompassing the widely employed Jridi-Alfalou-Meher scaling method, the proposed techniques are shown to produce DCT-II approximations that outperform the transforms resulting from the JAM scaling method according to total error energy and mean squared error. Orthogonality conditions are derived and an extensive error analysis based on statistical simulation demonstrates the good performance of the introduced scaling methods. A hardware implementation is also provided demonstrating the competitiveness of the proposed methods when compared to the JAM scaling method.