Thursday, July 18, 2013

Bonus Room Summer Update

Hi everyone!

Just a quick update on the Bonus Room and the temperature deltas up there.  It's still close to "in spec" for the summer, however everything on the second floor is hot hot hot!  If you crank the HVAC cooling to 72 on the first floor you get to roughly 76 on the second floor and 78-81 in the bonus room.  The ceiling fan makes it comfortable up there and is a must get for this room.  I honestly think their "conditioning" of the unfinished basement space and no blower to force air up the center stack of the house in the one zone configuration are the two main reasons for the discrepancy.  Not really sure where to go with this, since everything is barely within specs but still not happy with the situation.

We got our topcoat done a while back, like everything else they just showed up unannounced and did their work.  Too bad they didn't cover the whole width of the driveway and now the topcoat is cracking on the back curve.

I also re-did all of the mulch beds with proper mulch since the scattered "natural wood" they gave us for our winter close showed more dirt and weeds than cover.

Settling is coming in full force, we have the one bedroom where we can't close the door because of frame settlement.  Master bedroom second door and the back patio door are also suffering settlement issues.  Drywall is cracking in interesting ways, they better plan for a week to fix it all at the 10 month.

Other than that, still like the location, and we're still working on getting everything how we want it.

4 comments:

  1. We have a bonus bedroom over a 2 car garage vs. 3 in your house and I wonder if that makes a difference with the heat issue since your room is larger. The garage is also 100% insulated, maybe more, and that's exactly because of the issues you had reported in your build, there isn't a crack without insulation..

    In the HVAC design paperwork for the house, it calls for two vents in a bonus room over a 2 car garage, and 3 vents if over a 3 car garage. They only added one but with larger flow. I requested to have the 2nd one added, but they assured that they layout had been customized for the region by a computer program. I reported that this is a variation from the design and that we would require it to be corrected if there is a noticeable difference in heat/cold. They agreed but we'll see how that will work out.

    I completely agree with getting the ceiling fan rough in, but unfortunately we did not add one and electrical is done.. We will get one in there. Thanks for keeping us updated on your experience, and for sharing your garage/bonus room photo while we build ours!

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  2. We have a bonus bedroom over a 2 car garage vs. 3 in your house and I wonder if that makes a difference with the heat issue since your room is larger. The garage is also 100% insulated, maybe more, and that's exactly because of the issues you had reported in your build, there isn't a crack without insulation..

    In the HVAC design paperwork for the house, it calls for two vents in a bonus room over a 2 car garage, and 3 vents if over a 3 car garage. They only added one but with larger flow. I requested to have the 2nd one added, but they assured that they layout had been customized for the region by a computer program. I reported that this is a variation from the design and that we would require it to be corrected if there is a noticeable difference in heat/cold. They agreed but we'll see how that will work out.

    I completely agree with getting the ceiling fan rough in, but unfortunately we did not add one and electrical is done.. We will get one in there. Thanks for keeping us updated on your experience, and for sharing your garage/bonus room photo while we build ours!

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    Replies
    1. After this latest adjustment the summer balancing is much better (just happened Friday afternoon). The big thing for the winter is that since the vents are on the ceiling, and heat of course rises, it creates a temperature variation between the ceiling (at almost 10 feet in that bonus room) and the floor. The ceiling fan helps circulate that hot air and gets it blown down to the lower part of the room. With your extra insulation I'm interested to see how you make out.

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  3. Brian, I get so mad when so many issues start popping up and you have to wait nearly a year to get them fixed...so many homes in our community have waited nearly 6-8 months to get their 10mon inspect. completed!

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