The Home Ownership Thread

[brokencycle]

Anyone have any experience with any products from Plyboo, Resawn Timber Co, or Wonderwall Studios? Our second floor is going to have angled ceilings, and we're thinking about making those wood. If anyone has used it or at least seriously considered it, did you get pricing? It seems that just like stone, the pricing isn't easily found.

http://www.plyboo.com/featured-product?panel=linear-line-panel-style-ll1
https://wonderwallstudios.com/collection/
http://resawntimberco.com/interior-wall-and-ceiling-cladding/

 

[Gibonius]

Plyboo will send you a pretty sweet (free) sample book if you request one. Full page sample cutouts of all their products.

I was looking into their stuff for a few projects, although I never got to the point of asking about pricing. They certainly look nice, at least on the small scale.

 

[brokencycle]

Plyboo will send you a pretty sweet (free) sample book if you request one. Full page sample cutouts of all their products.

I was looking into their stuff for a few projects, although I never got to the point of asking about pricing. They certainly look nice, at least on the small scale.

I went to a local distributor of their products and the others I listed. They have some flooring pricing on their website, so I would imagine wall products would be less (though I'm sure the reveal collections are more). Our master bedroom angled ceiling runs the long side of the room, so my only concern about the reveal collection is it being too busy or overpowering.

They had another cool company called Barkhouse which sells various bark wall treatments, but I think it is a very specific taste which would hurt resale, and I'm not sure it would go with our house anyway (but the birch products in particular looked cool).

I really hate this process of obscuring prices from consumers. It makes the decision making process difficult and inefficient.

 

[brokencycle]

Has anyone done active dampers/zone controlling in their house? I know there was some discussion awhile back. The HVAC guy just said it would be about $2k extra to add the functionality to our renovation. That seems high as everything is unfinished, so they're going to be running the new duct work anyway.

He said it requires zone dampers, zone board bypass, and zone thermostats. I didn't get line items for each one, but quick googling says dampers are <$100, an ecobee is ~$100, and a zone control panel is ~$200. So he's saying it is ~$1500 in labor, I guess.

I guess I'm not going with that plan because it likely won't ever pay for itself.

 

[Krish the Fish]

We close on our new house on Monday at 5 PM (while I'm out of town. The house is in my fiancée's name so it doesn't particularly matter) and I'm already thinking about what to do to it. We agreed to let it be without any major renovations for the first year, but I'm contemplating replacing the thermostats with a smart thermostat system that will coordinate the 3 HVAC systems in the house (the ductless mini-split in the second bedroom is on its own) along with seeing how the in-wall speakers are connected to Sonos, as the previous owner indicated, and maybe adding a few more Sonos speakers along with the 2 Play 3s and the Play 1 we have in our condo currently.

I think the flooring on the first floor and kitchen are probably going to be our year 2 renovations, and we've agreed to see how the second floor flows before we take anything up there down to studs to redo the floor plan. Some time this year we're going to have our architect and interior designer in to take a look at the house and build us some models for the future.

I'm excited. I've got my new smoker coming for the backyard, I finally get a space in the garage (our current condo has a 1 car garage and my fiancée's X5 has it reserved; new house has 2 car garage out back with a driveway that will fit 4 more along with street parking in front of the house), we have a pool, I have a finished cigar room above the garage, and it's roughly 3x the size of our current place without including the unfinished basement for storage, which we don't have now.

 

[jbarwick]

Sounds like you have it right about living in the space before making any big changes.

 

[brokencycle]

Has anyone done active dampers/zone controlling in their house? I know there was some discussion awhile back. The HVAC guy just said it would be about $2k extra to add the functionality to our renovation. That seems high as everything is unfinished, so they're going to be running the new duct work anyway.

He said it requires zone dampers, zone board bypass, and zone thermostats. I didn't get line items for each one, but quick googling says dampers are <$100, an ecobee is ~$100, and a zone control panel is ~$200. So he's saying it is ~$1500 in labor, I guess.

I guess I'm not going with that plan because it likely won't ever pay for itself.

Talked to my brother who does HVAC, and he agrees it sounds steep.

 

[Numbernine]

You got a brother who's a tinknocker and you askin' us ****?Get outa'here

 

[jcman311]

I might be mistaken, but he might not have the best relationship with his bro.

 

[brokencycle]

I might be mistaken, but he might not have the best relationship with his bro.

That's correct.

 

[Numbernine]

Well thats understandable. Those guys are always stacking their ductwork all over the job so no one else can get around and generally being a pain **********.As far as bcs' question goes I got no idea what he's even talking about

 

[brokencycle]

Well thats understandable. Those guys are always stacking their ductwork all over the job so no one else can get around and generally being a pain **********.As far as bcs' question goes I got no idea what he's even talking about

You can create a multi-zone system by using electronically controlled dampers. Essentially each zone has a thermostat, and if the zones differ in temperature, the system will close dampers to prevent heating and cooling of spaces that don't need it.

 

[Van Veen]

FWIW, this is what we have in the house I'm renting. So far I've been surprised by the electric bill. (Next month's will be the true test.)

We have it programmed so the upstairs is cold at night and downstairs is warm and vice versa.

 

[brokencycle]

FWIW, this is what we have in the house I'm renting. So far I've been surprised by the electric bill. (Next month's will be the true test.)

We have it programmed so the upstairs is cold at night and downstairs is warm and vice versa.

Surprised in a good way or bad?

 

[Van Veen]

Good. This house is almost triple the square footage of my old apartment and in a much warmer climate, but the electric bill is only 1/3 higher than last July.

I'm sure there are other factors (old apartment had higher ceilings and was above an empty storefront), but I was expecting electric costs to double.

As unaesthetic as they are, I'm sure the ceiling fans help, too.