Home Improvement Today?

Can you make it part of the house?
Or a massive screened in porch?

 

its right off my rear kitchen/dining slider so since its been nice and cool lately i have had the slider open and the front door open and the cool air blows right in and its been nice. But summer out here is a bitch and it was hotter than the devils dick all summer. So im hoping the fan and window coverings helps in there. If not i can close the windows up and leave the slider open and let the air come into the space while were using it.

Essentially right now its a screened in rear porch.

 

I’m the type of person where I don’t like gigantic wastes of space. And youll never see me in a 3 season room.

I’d probably take the sides down and leave it as a covered porch so I could do an awesome outdoor kitchen with a seating area.
And if I had money falling out my ass fireplace on one wall that doubles as a pizza oven.

Just brainstorming here ;D

 

that was also an idea of mine. But i can also see myself sitting in there on a sunday morning watching football (i plan to mount a tv on the wall of the house) with the bro's drinking some beers out of the weather but cooler. So im not sure what to do, thats why were doing low cost stuff right now to see what we think

 

We had one at the old house, but it was a screen porch that we used as a 3 season room (because it was 12X14) and it was awesome. All the bonuses of being outside, but no bugs. I used to grill out there, we'd eat dinner out there, I had patio furniture out there and I'd very frequently go out there after dark or to read a book during the summer, or smoke a cigar and drink a bourbon during a thunderstorm. Wish we had one at this house, honestly.

 

Thats a good idea. Live in the space and see how you use it before throwing down money.

I think its funny the different perspectives. I see a covered porch as a 4 season room. I’m like “great! A covered porch! Now I can smoke and grill for football and not have to chip out a walkway out of the ice and snow for me to get to my grill! And my bros and I can hang out before the game!”
I’m a Packer fan.

You guys in Cali are like “no no dude I can’t take the walls off, we gotta watch football in here” XD

Although you are in N Cali so it probably actually does get cold.

 

The only part of CA that is “California” is Southern California.

The rest of us (vast majority of the state) actually have seasons.

 

A while back I was talking to someone on here about smart thermostats. I know some of you are goobers just like I am when it comes to numbers so wanted to share some info. We have had the Ecobee 4 thermostat 6 months. The amount of data you can pull online is almost troubling. Data points every 5 minutes of run times, temps, humidity, and about 20 other things within that 5 minute window....and you can download it to an excel spreadsheet. After 4 months I changed our programmable settings to where settings change based on when mine and my wifes phones leave and arrive at home. Just that setting alone has saved 49 HOURS of run time per month over the last two. That is factoring in the average highs and lows.

 

I love my smart thermostat. You can easily see the difference from when we’re home to away. I have mine automatically change to away when we arm our alarm and home when we disarm. It’s already saved me a ton of money.

 

I don’t have central HVAC or a thermostat to use it.

Saves a grip. Love it.

 

Like someone else said, the smartest thing to do before implementing a Big Idea is live in the house for at least a year, through the seasons, and through lots of everyday life.

Because it is actually going to become a nursery for your triplets.

 

damn, I keep mine on 82 when away and 78 when home, what do you got yours cranked up to in ECO mode

 

What is everyone setting their thermostates to away vs home?

I keep mine the same all the time. I dont want to run into the issue where I keep it 80 when at work but 76 when home because then my A/C is just busting ass to get it from 80 to 76 and wasting more energy than just leaving it.

Do these things measure gas and electricity consumption to find the perfect mix?

 

68/78 its 76 when im home

 

Day and night time set backs have saved me a bunch of money. The less time you have to maintain a large temp difference between indoors and outdoors the better.

But I also completely turn off my furnace starting about mid May and it doesn’t get turned on again until right about now lol

In the Winter I let the temp drop to 64 at night, bumps to 68 in the morning, drops to 62 while I’m gone for work, then to 70 when I get home until I go to bed.

 

we freeze often, typically winters are wet with nasty wind and 34* at the coldest. Summers are also 115* and stale stagnant air.

I was more thinking of keeping the walls for the winter because the rain comes down sideways it seems.

 

I have mine set to where it cools the house off as outside temps lower.

Except for during the day, I don't want my house going up to 90 degrees.

but by the time I'm home the temps have dropped enough it's not hard at all on my A/C

I then put it in Eco Mode before going to bed.

 

Sleep is 68 Home is 72 Away is 76

I think the general rule of thumb is a greater than 6 degree change is where you lose efficiency so anything under is still going to save you money. With my data I could actually tell my homes heat loss/gain rate based on run times so i could dial that in perfect if I want.