[billethkid]

Originally Posted by Topspinmo

I find my house very well insulated. But, depends on how big or open your house is IMO. IMO you should set the thermostat during the cold weather and leave it. IMO if you let the house temp. get to low and turn the heat on it just takes long time to bring the house up to steady comfortable temp. So IMO savings may not be that much.

This is very true. As the temperature differential between indoors and outdoors gets larger....lowering the thermostat merely changes the the set point the system will continue to run/cycle to achieve.

Also regarding the efficiency of a heat pump. The lower the outside temperature gets below the low 30s the less efficient it becomes. A heat pump collects heat from the exterior surrounding ambient environment. The lower the temperature the less heat the longer the unit needs to run. So on those less tha 30 degree mornings it matters little what your choice of indoor temperature, the unit is going to run a long long time to satisfy the setpoint....whether 62 (or lower) or 72 (or higher)!!!!
It can helpful to have a heat pump on the side of the house where the sun comes up. And there is a case for it being on the side where the sun goes down....depending when you are home the most!

[graciegirl]

Every year at this time we have pretty much the same conversations on this forum. We are amazed at how well this house holds heat and stays cool. We have built many homes and this one is the most comfortable when it comes to temperature...no cold or hot spots. I love that it is all on one floor. We had lots of windows in our house in Cincinnati and our heat and cooling bill was awful.

Here we have a set of sliders and a set of French doors and only six other windows in the living part of the house, two in the garage. The garage gets hot and cold but there are no salt stains on the floor.

Gary, do you hear me defending your buildings?

[tuccillo]

If you have a heatpump, moving the setpoint up and down can be expensive because a couple of degree difference between the setpoint and actual temperature can trigger the auxiliary heat, which uses electrical resistance strips to create heat to supplement the compressor. This is an expensive situation. You are better off using the compressor only, which moves heat as opposed to creating it. The "leverage" is roughly 3 to 1. In other words, it takes 1/3 the power to run the compressor to move a unit of heat than to power the auxiliary heating strips to create a unit of heat. You want the system to maintain a fixed temperature in your house using only the compressor. Leaving the setpoint alone is the way to accomplish this.

Originally Posted by Topspinmo

I find my house very well insulated. But, depends on how big or open your house is IMO. IMO you should set the thermostat during the cold weather and leave it. IMO if you let the house temp. get to low and turn the heat on it just takes long time to bring the house up to steady comfortable temp. So IMO savings may not be that much.

[tuccillo]

The temperature variation in our house with the heat on is about 3 degrees. This is not bad for a 1-zone system. The front bedroom has a lot of windows and 3 outside walls. There is a limit to what you can expect with the heat not running very often and a centrally located thermostat. Our previous home with 4 zones was uniform within the accuracy of the thermostats - probably less than 1/2 degree.

Originally Posted by graciegirl

Every year at this time we have pretty much the same conversations on this forum. We are amazed at how well this house holds heat and stays cool. We have built many homes and this one is the most comfortable when it comes to temperature...no cold or hot spots. I love that it is all on one floor. We had 57 windows in our house in Cincinnati and our heat and cooling bill was awful.

Here we have a set of sliders and a set of French doors and only six other windows in the living part of the house, two in the garage. The garage gets hot and cold but there are no salt stains on the floor.

Gary, do you hear me defending your buildings?

[cquick]

I agree with the previous poster, it works the same in my house. I must have the same type of layout.

[borjo]

Another thing that may cause better insulation is the type vinyl used. At construction we were given a choice of insulated or non-insulated vinyl. We chose the insulated. I can't remember the difference in R-factor. If your vinyl pushes in easily it's probably uninsulated. Ours has a bit of resistance from the added foam backing.

[Bavarian]

Most of my points already made. Air source heat pump does not warm house as much as a geothermal heatpump or an oil heater.
I think the metal frame windows are also a problem, transfers cold in Winter and heat in Summer.

We were not offered an upgrade option of wood frame windows, vinal coated on outside, so no maintenance. We would have taken them. But I think the builders can't let you have too many choices or it will reduce volume discounts.

First house I bought was air source heat pump and always cold, next house we spent the money and got geothermal, warm as toast. But we had clay soil, good heat and cold retention. Still have the MD house up for sale.

[Shimpy]

Originally Posted by Bonanza

[B
I think the vinyl siding houses may have better insulation in the walls, but I am not sure.
.[/B]

I think you're right. This is the first house I've lived in that wasn't CBS since living almost all my life in Florida. Once the inside of our house gets cold it stays that way for a long time even though the outside temps are quite warm. It doesn't take much to keep it from getting cold though. I also have found that if you have carpeting which most people are pulling up and replacing with tile, adds warmth to the house over cold tile floors. Think about it, as the ground gets cold so does the slab that your house is built on. If you cover the concrete with ceramic tile it only transfers the cold to your homes interior. But, if you cover that slab with foam padding and carpeting it insulates that cold slab from your homes interior , making the heat work less and the electric bill smaller.

[herbaru]

Originally Posted by tuccillo

The condensate on the metal window frames is not something to be overly concerned about. This will happen whenever we have a large temperature drop (like we just did). The metal frames conduct heat efficiently and cool and the air inside the house still has a relatively high dewpoint so moisture condenses on the cool metal frames. In a day or so, normal air exchange between the inside and outside of the house will bring the inside dewpoint down and the condensation will stop.

I wish this was true. Our windows are covered with plantation shutters and they have condensation every cold night. We are into our second winter in our just over a year old home. The windows hit by the sun dry up but the ones not hit till late in the day do not dry. Today I noticed mold forming!

[tuccillo]

It is 43 outside now and our window frames are cold but there is no condensate. The dewpoint is low enough now for condensate not to form. The other night, we had a fair amount of condensate but the dewpoint in the house was higher. Condensate only forms when the metal frames have cooled to the dewpoint (which is a measure of the absolute amount of moisture in the air). Lack of adequate ventilation in a house can result in higher dewpoints as moisture can accumulate from showers, cooking, breathing etc. Most homes have enough ventilation that moisture content in the air will adjust to the what is in the outside air relatively quickly. The problems is worse when it has been relatively warm outside and all of a sudden we have a big temperature drop - the air inside the house will have a relatively high amount of moisture and it will then condense on the cold frames.

Originally Posted by herbaru

I wish this was true. Our windows are covered with plantation shutters and they have condensation every cold night. We are into our second winter in our just over a year old home. The windows hit by the sun dry up but the ones not hit till late in the day do not dry. Today I noticed mold forming!

[Chi-Town]

High ceilings where the vents are is not a good combination in a lot of the homes when it comes to heating. But we moved to Florida to enjoy air conditioning.

[graciegirl]

Originally Posted by Chi-Town

High ceilings where the vents are is not a good combination in a lot of the homes when it comes to heating. But we moved to Florida to enjoy air conditioning.

YES WE DID TOO.

AND if it doesn't get warm pretty soon I am calling the sales office to get our money back.

[GeoGeo]

I think alot has to do with the individuals living in the house and not necessarily the construction of the house. In our case, we have the thermostat set at 78 in the summer and 75 in the winter. I wear a cardigan all year long and watch TV with a blanket. DH seems okay with these temps. He has more insulation than I do.

[NavyNJ]

Originally Posted by Bonanza

Unfortunately, the houses here in TV are only of average construction. They have the minimum insulation in the walls and ceiling and you will not find any batting in any of the walls or ceiling with the exception of the garage/house wall. Ideally, we should have R-30 batting in the ceiling. All of the homes have blown-in insulation which eventually settles over time and is displaced because of winds. They blow it in because it is cheap and fast.

In the CBS houses (concrete block & stucco) since we have no exterior walls with studs (except the garage interior wall), the insulation they provide is is bare bones -- R-3 with a minimal air space between the block and foil covered insulation. In a decently built house in Florida, we should have at least R-11. I think the vinyl siding houses may have better insulation in the walls, but I am not sure.

Another thing they skimp on is the roof overhang. It is much too narrow for Florida houses and offers almost no protection from the sun. I guess you can tell from the tone of the above paragraphs that our windows are just okay. Nothing to write home about there either.

We are currently having granite countertops installed in our kitchen. After the existing countertops were removed we were shocked to see that the wallboard behind the cabinets was never taped! You have to wonder what other short cuts they take during construction.

Bonanza: You make a lot of good points, and not all that surprising for large development, non-custom built homes. And that's true pretty much anywhere in the country you want to compare. Also, just as another data point, in our recently purchased CBS Designer Home, the construction specs we received at closing indicate that R-30 Batt & Blown insulation was used in all Living Area ceilings, and a combo of R-5/R-11 was used in the walls. R-5 rigid foam in exterior walls, and R-11 Batt in the Garage/Home common walls. Not moved down yet, so no actual experience over this winter. Will be interesting to see how next winter turns out. With my luck, it'll end up being a "100 Year" warm winter, and we'll have the AC on the whole time!! LoL Happy 2015!!

[NavyNJ]

Originally Posted by Lyle Gant

Frame homes in the Villages have R11 in the walls and R30 in the ceiling. Block homes have R5 in the walls and R30 in the ceiling. Exceptions... In the day when you could make modifications to homes AKA Designers, option for siding insulation and block insulation injection into the block cavity upped the insulation R values considerably. ( Worked at Munns for a while as a CAD tech )

Lyle: Those certainly would have been nice options to have! Would have probably opted to do that for sure!