Thursday, February 21, 2013

House Rebalanced, Bonus Room Fix Attempt 2 Inbound

So a bit of informational backstory as to all of the different parties involved in our Bonus Room cold issue.  Ryan Homes is the builder.  They had an engineer design the HVAC system based on the design of the house, which as part of that design has certain expected CFM values per vent to make it work as designed.  This is then installed by the HVAC subcontractor upon build (Sobieski in our instance), and verified by a third party Energy Star inspection company (PEG Environmental).  As part of our service request, since this is a continuing issue Ryan wanted to bring out PEG to inspect everything again before having the HVAC contractor try some more dark magic to fix the problem.

Fast forward to yesterday when the fine folks at PEG Environmental (actually an independent subcontractor hired by them, who in turn was hired by Ryan) came out and did a re-balancing of our vents in the house.  Most of them checked out AOK and some had a few tweaks.  I then showed my wonderful makeshift two sensor thermometer in the Bonus room reading 6 degrees colder than the thermostat at about 4-5ft and a whopping 14 degrees colder at the floor.  The PEG guy had an idea about why it was cold, and set up a blower test. 

The blower test actually creates a negative air pressure inside of your house, which makes it easy to feel where the drafts are entering your home.  Thankfully he offered to do this, because it showed that the cold air was blowing in along the bottom of the walls under the baseboard.  Since those walls are kneewalls, and there is space behind them to allow the airflow for the roof to work correctly this makes sense.  The kneewalls itself were insulated but there was no sealant for the interface between the kneewall and the floor.  The HVAC system was fighting a losing battle between the hot air it was pushing into the room from the top vs. the cold air drafting in from three sides on the floor. 

The gentleman then reported back to my service rep at Ryan what he found, and they're going to try and foam seal along that frame, which involves pulling up the carpet and removing the baseboard to get in there.  Hopefully this will alleviate the problem, and I'll be sure to add another follow up when its completed.

9 comments:

  1. That's good they found the problem... hopefully they can fix it without too much disturbance.

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  2. Hi Brian. We are building a Victoria falls Elevation D with a bonus bedroom and side entry garage. Your house was the only house I found that has the same configuration (except for elevation). I would like to know if your issues with HVAC in the bonus room have been resolved and how, as we are concerned we might run into the same issue. Thanks for your help.

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    1. If you have two zone you should be fine. One zone is problems. Ceiling fan rough in is a must.

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  3. Hi Brian, I will be building VF elev E, and wanted to know if the HVAC issue was finally solved.

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    1. If you have the two zone setup you should be okay, one zone you need a ceiling fan rough in in there to make it reasonable.

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  4. I don't understand...can you elaborate.
    what is a two zone setup?
    what happen with the temperature problem being too cold in the bonus room?
    what do ceiling fan rough ins have to do with the cold temp problem?

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    1. One zone = one heating / cooling system for the entire house. Two zone = one heating / cooling system for the basement / 1st floor and one heating / cooling system for the second floor. The air handler for the second zone actually sits on a platform in the attic. That platform gets built regardless of zones, so if you need it there's a spot for storage up there.

      The too cold in the bonus room was alleviated with some resealing of the walls between those half walls that get built and the outside frame. It mitigated the draft we were getting which was causing any warm air into the space to leak out.

      The ceiling fan helps fix the other problem in the winter because the vents are on the ceiling. Heat naturally rises, so although warm air was blowing out of those vents, it was trapped up in that high ceiling (at almost 10 feet), and not getting down to the lower half of the space. By running the ceiling fan in a winter or "heat" mode, it helps circulate that warm air down to the lower half of the space.

      Hope this helps!

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  5. Do you have two zones, and was it an upgrade? If so, how much did it cost?

    Resealing between walls sounds like a big job. Did they have to open up the walls and re-install sheet rock and repaint?

    Vents on the ceiling? I never saw that in ryan homes. They are usually on the floor. Is that with a one zone or two zone? I did add ceiling fans in all rooms though.

    Thanks for the follow-up.....great to have fellow homeowners sharing experiences. My first ryan experience was pretty good.....no structural issues in 5 years. Now looking to upgrade.

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    1. Nope, I have one zone. They adjust insulation and HVAC systems based on your EPA Climate Zone. My neighborhood is about 20 miles north of the change line between two of these EPA Climate Zones. We got thicker insulation but got the one zone. If we lived further south we would have gotten thin Tyvek style house wrap and a two zone system. On the spec order sheet it shows up as a $0 charge between the two.

      The resealing involved pulling the trim from around the base of the wall and adding a foam sealant. Then they replaced the base trim. No carpet pulled, no drywall tossed.

      Since the design can handle both, I believe they're on the top for the second floor to make it the same regardless of the one zone vs. two zone setup.

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