What is the room that has grown the most in custom home?

Q:

What is the room that has grown the most in custom home?

A:

The answer might surprise you, the room that has growth the most in custom homes is the MECHANICAL ROOM.

Thanks right the biggest growth in rooms for custom homes is the mechanical room. To a contractor it’s the brains of the house, it’s the place where you can go and learn more about the house with one look then the rest of the house combined.

Mechanical rooms have grown so much because homes have become so complicated in the last decade. There are more systems in custom homes now that are run from the mechanical room than ever before.

The size of your mechanical room will depend on certain factors, they are as follows;

• Do you live in the city or the country? Country homes need larger mechanical rooms as there heating systems take up a lot more room.

• Is your home a smart home? A smart home has technology built into it that allows the home to be controlled by computers or smart phones.

• The overall size of your home. The larger the home the larger the mechanical room because everything that runs the home has to be larger.

• Do you only require one mechanical room? In larger homes sometimes it’s easier to have two small mechanical rooms; it is more efficient for the heating systems.

• Certain heating systems require more room. Homes with combination heating systems (forced air and in-floor) require more room as it’s basically double the components that have to fit in the room.

• Wall space. A lot of things that are installed in custom homes are hung on a wall, things like electrical, alarm and media all require wall space to attached too.

With more options for homeowners to put in their homes like automation of lights and blinds or the extensive way that people are filtering their water requires space in a mechanical room. The best mechanical rooms have space around them so that they can be easily maintained and repaired in the future. Room around equipment also allows the complete replacement of the equipment when the time comes for it to be.

As custom homes continue to grow in size so does their basements, as basements grow in size this has allowed builders to take advantage of this extra space for the use of the mechanical systems. Basically the larger the home is the larger the mechanical room will be required.

When you are designing that custom home for yourself keep in mind that you will need to leave space in the basement for your mechanical room, so don’t get carried away with planning out your
basement.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

Avoid Common Mistakes When Doing A Renovation

Avoid Common Mistakes

How professional remodelers avoid some of the most common construction mistakes.

Most homeowners judge a quality remodeling project by the obvious: a design that’s a joy to live in, a streetscape that wows passers-by, great natural lighting, and lots of storage. The list goes on.
But some less obvious details have as great an impact on the homeowners’ satisfaction over time. While the homeowners have little control over these details, a professional remodeler with a sustainable business will make sure they get done right.

The possibilities for bad work are too many to list. A few examples should make the point.
Poor moisture control

Mistakes here can potentially raise the chance of mold, mildew, and rot. Steve Easley, a California-based building consultant who investigates moisture problems, sees the same errors again and again.

Three common ones:

• Horizontal valleys. Such valleys include where a roof slopes into a chimney or wall. The detailing here needs to be close to perfect to keep water out.

• Lack of overhangs. In a Canadian study, 80 percent of examined homes with moisture in the walls had no roof overhang, making it easy for water to flow down the siding and into the wall.

• Improper housewrap. When water gets behind the siding, flashing and housewrap should direct it back out before it can get into the structure. Mistakes here are rampant. Take the example of a piece of flashing that laps over the one above it. Anyone with a basic grasp of gravity will understand that if water dripping down the wall hits this intersection, it will flow into the structure rather than out. Shockingly, building science experts say that it’s one of the most common errors they see in the field.

Under-performing mechanicals

Modern heating and cooling equipment is very efficient, but efficiency doesn’t guarantee comfort. Equipment must be well sized and ducts properly sealed. Sadly, these aren’t always properly done.
Some HVAC contractors still use rule-of-thumb calculations to size furnaces and air conditioners. That may have worked for old, drafty structures but with today’s tighter homes the result is often oversized equipment that costs more to buy and operate, and leaves the home less comfortable than it could be. Smart remodelers work with HVAC companies that carefully calculate the home’s heating load and precisely matches the system to that load.

Another rampant problem is leaky ductwork. If the leak is outside the main living area, such as in a basement, living and sleeping spaces won’t get the air they need. There will be resulting comfort issues, and the equipment will have to run longer to satisfy the thermostat. If ducts run through a totally unconditioned space—for example, a hot attic in summer—leaks will create a slight vacuum that pulls unwanted outside air into the house through leaks in the floors, walls, and ceilings.

Sloppy insulation

When insulation is installed without enough attention to detail, the home can end up with hot and cold spots and uncomfortable drafts.

John Tooley, a nationally known building science consultant and energy expert, says that the most common problem areas he sees are attic kneewalls and vaulted ceilings. In the former the insulation usually gets installed without backing and so falls away from the wall; in the latter it’s stuffed into the ceiling cavity, leaving heat-sucking voids. “Insulation has to touch the surface of the drywall to do its job,” he points out. “That’s obviously not happening in a lot of cases.”

The thread running through these situations is that the remodeler lacked a quality system and process to make sure insulation was installed right, mechanicals properly sized, ducts sealed, and the home protected against moisture. And if those tasks escaped scrutiny, chances are others did as well.

Warm Regards,

Doug Abbott
Village Builders

This is an excerpt from a newsletter that is distributed to all former, current and future clients of Village Builders Inc.  If you would like to receive this newsletter feel free to email me at www.robabbott@villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc