The Home Improvement Thread - Page 345 - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

Fuzz · 06-09-2025, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barnes

Like mentioned, the switch turns on the furnace fan, exhaust fans, and air intake to exchange air.

Nowadays, you have an HRV because with the setup you have, in the winter you exhaust warm air and bring in cold air when you flick the switch or your furnace is heating. The HRV has a heat exchanger to not waste the warm air and allows you to set the interval to exchange air without having to flip a switch. You probably missed out on an HRV by a year or so. When we built about 8 years ago, HRVs were standard.

That's the annoying bit right now! Would be nice to run it in the summer nights and not have it transfer that heat to the cool air it brings in.

That being said, it's been much nicer this summer with the HRV, probably keeps it a couple degrees cooler because of the scheduling. And no more mould!

Titan2 · 06-09-2025, 02:21 PM

My house is closer to 25 years old and has a ventilation fan switch. Our AC is only piped to the top floor and it seems like the vent fan moves the air around a bit better but I have not done a test per se.

I note that it does turn on the furnace fan but not the exhaust fans. Is that due to its age maybe?

PaperBagger'14 · 06-09-2025, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoubleF

In my first year in my townhouse with no AC (NE facing), using air movers, the furnace fan on 24/7/exhaust fans on and windows open in evening etc. for hours before sleeping, house would still be sweltering hot until like 2-3 AM when the temps finally dipped into the low 20s.

At least for what was in my old townhouse unit, it didn't move enough air to be considered a poor mans AC. I wish it had been good enough as a poor man's AC, but I had no choice but to install by next summer AC to avoid peaks of 30C+ temps in the town house during the summer. It's not like it was going to replace a heat pump or HRV for air movement/exchange.

Fuzz made a good follow up post, you really need to see a strong difference between outside temps and inside temps. If it’s 25 outside and 28 on your top floor then yeah it won’t be noticeable at all, and even when you do have a 10 degree difference it’s still not overly effective.

We have a house cleaner who comes by once a month and she accidentally flipped the ventilation switch while cleaning in January and I’ll promise you my house was damn cold when I got home. Like probably ~12 inside

CroFlames · 06-10-2025, 08:56 AM

The green was such a perfect choice. It looks amazing bud.

Fuzz · 06-10-2025, 09:14 AM

Imagine he'd followed the blue people group? He'd be so sad he'd have to tear it down in a year.

Lubicon · 06-10-2025, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CroFlames

The green was such a perfect choice. It looks amazing bud.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Imagine he'd followed the blue people group? He'd be so sad he'd have to tear it down in a year.

I have to admit the green does look good (I was in camp blue). But I still maintain blue would have been good too.

Shazam · 06-10-2025, 01:15 PM

Should have gone beige.

CorsiHockeyLeague · 06-10-2025, 01:34 PM

Just going to post a quick update because the siding guys finished the wood accent panels for the front on the feature window. I think it worked out pretty nicely.

Titan2 · 06-10-2025, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CroFlames

The green was such a perfect choice. It looks amazing bud.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Imagine he'd followed the blue people group? He'd be so sad he'd have to tear it down in a year.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lubicon

I have to admit the green does look good (I was in camp blue). But I still maintain blue would have been good too.

Ok. So maybe it looks ... ok.

#teamblueballsforever!!

I-Hate-Hulse · 06-10-2025, 08:03 PM

Is that the septic tank below the deck? I assume there's some backfilling of that and the concrete deck piers still to be done?

CorsiHockeyLeague · 06-10-2025, 08:05 PM

Yep, the septic tank will be covered. Not the concrete posts though.

DoubleF · 06-11-2025, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

Fuzz made a good follow up post, you really need to see a strong difference between outside temps and inside temps. If it’s 25 outside and 28 on your top floor then yeah it won’t be noticeable at all, and even when you do have a 10 degree difference it’s still not overly effective.

We have a house cleaner who comes by once a month and she accidentally flipped the ventilation switch while cleaning in January and I’ll promise you my house was damn cold when I got home. Like probably ~12 inside

I meant that the ventilation van alone/furnace fans alone wouldn't be good enough for AC. HRV might be though.

But maybe it was just my previous place. Even with AC, the temps only dropped around 1.5-2.5C per hour and maybe 1C per hour at best with the exhaust fans, but only if it was colder outside than inside.

So if it was 28C outside/inside, AC would take 2-3 hours to hit a comfy temp of around 23C. Fans? No chance during the day, and it'd maybe drop 1C per hour to get to maybe around 21-24C by around 2-3AM depending if we could catch a breeze. It was awful when the thermostat was still mid 20s and outside was high/low teens and we just couldn't vent/swap for fresh air fast enough to bring temps down from sauna to comfortable.

Titan2 · 06-11-2025, 03:48 PM

Maybe not relevant to everyone but we had an AC clean and service this year and the performance is noticeably better. In the same scenario as FF talks about it brings the temp down within 30 minutes. I do have a ceiling fan going as well.

Also the guy said that it is easier for the system to keep the temp cold than to try to drop the temp a lot, say at the end of the day, which I used to do. I found this keeps the whole house consistenly comfortable since I started doing this.

Sliver · 06-11-2025, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Titan2

Maybe not relevant to everyone but we had an AC clean and service this year and the performance is noticeably better. In the same scenario as FF talks about it brings the temp down within 30 minutes. I do have a ceiling fan going as well.

Also the guy said that it is easier for the system to keep the temp cold than to try to drop the temp a lot, say at the end of the day, which I used to do. I found this keeps the whole house consistenly comfortable since I started doing this.

What temp do you keep it at?

DoubleF · 06-12-2025, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Titan2

Maybe not relevant to everyone but we had an AC clean and service this year and the performance is noticeably better. In the same scenario as FF talks about it brings the temp down within 30 minutes. I do have a ceiling fan going as well.

Also the guy said that it is easier for the system to keep the temp cold than to try to drop the temp a lot, say at the end of the day, which I used to do. I found this keeps the whole house consistenly comfortable since I started doing this.

Yep. Keeping a consistent temp and circulating the air is better than trying to rapid drop the temps from a sweltering temperature. IIRC, if you have a humidifier that can coordinate with AC, you can feel colder at the same temps if the humidity is higher.

I need to find an opportunity to pull a bundle of wires from the thermostats to the utility room though. I can't do much with just the two wires and those c wire power adapters are pure garbage.

Titan2 · 06-12-2025, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sliver

What temp do you keep it at?

21.5 or 22

Shazam · 06-12-2025, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Titan2

21.5 or 22

lol my parents in California keep it at 26C. Last time I visited in summer I couldn't handle that heat, I turned it down to 22C, my mom was literally shivering lol. And then their elec bill came, it was $600, I was banned from coming at that time of year ever since.

Sliver · 06-12-2025, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Titan2

21.5 or 22

Yeah I roll 22 in the day, or just 22.5 if I'm not going to be around for much of the day because my family won't notice the difference.

I drop it to 21 or sometimes 20.5 (as a special treat) after the sun goes down.

Sliver · 06-12-2025, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shazam

lol my parents in California keep it at 26C. Last time I visited in summer I couldn't handle that heat, I turned it down to 22C, my mom was literally shivering lol. And then their elec bill came, it was $600, I was banned from coming at that time of year ever since.

Dude, I busted my daughter for having an oil heater on in her room on Monday. I'm blasting the AC and she's blasting the heat. Like wtf.

THEN - after I thought I explained to her how ridiculous that was - she popped her window open on Tuesday with me standing right there to "let some heat in". I'm like, 'that's barely better...put on a fricken sweater'.

topfiverecords · 06-12-2025, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sliver

Dude, I busted my daughter for having an oil heater on in her room on Monday. I'm blasting the AC and she's blasting the heat. Like wtf.

THEN - after I thought I explained to her how ridiculous that was - she popped her window open on Tuesday with me standing right there to "let some heat in". I'm like, 'that's barely better...put on a fricken sweater'.

Perhaps she could have a use for one of these.