It appears that the decking is expanding without sufficient room for expansion. Have you asked your builder to visit the site and remedy the situation?

As a follow up question, would it be reasonable to expect a licensed contractor with licensed crews who are familiar with working in this area to be aware of all the issues raised above by Sophie Wheeler?

As the homeowner I did do basic research about what I wanted and we were open to discussion on what was possible. We went with the advice of our contractor when raising the ceiling and selecting insulation etc.

As I mentioned, we are now looking at adding a ridge vent to the roof. We would have done that in the beginning if the contractor had suggested or advised that it be done. Or any other appropriate measures.

Attached are pics of what the room originally looked like and what the original open area above looked like.

Thank you.

Yes, a licensed and insured contractor should know the construction minimum requirements. He should also apply for the building permit that was required. And he should meet the inspector on site for whatever inspections were required. It's pretty elementary that you want to keep hot attic air and air conditioned home air away from each other.

I'm sorry you are having such troubles, but I wanted to add that I love the look - especially for a beach house. Can't tell for sure from the glare, but it looks like those sliders lead to a deck which overlooks the ocean? What a way to wake up! Hope you get this fixed quickly so you can go back to enjoying the view and sounds.

Thank you, freeoscar. Yes, we have a balcony overlooking the ocean. Here's a shot of our view. It was probably the biggest reason we elected to remodel the upstairs into our master suite. We face the sunrise each day.

I feel relaxed just looking at the photo...

You are in what is labeled as Zone 3 here in NC for purposes of the NC Energy Code. The requirement for insulation in your area is R30 for ceilings, R13 for walls and R19 for flooring. One should be able to achieve R30 insulation with 2x10 rafters.

You may want to talk with an energy specialist before you jump to any action. I would be leery of putting in ridge vents if you still have active gable vents. The general consensus among specialists we have talked with is that having both pretty much negates the effectiveness of either. With ridge vents, you want to have sufficient soffit ventilation to allow convection to occur to draw air in the soffit vents and up out of the ridge vent. If the gable vents are still there, then the soffit vents basically don't work. If someone can help you devise a plan to have the soffit vents and the ridge vent (closing off any gable vents that might still exist) then I would go for that.

Thank you, Brickwood Builders. Can you please explain more of what you mean by an "energy specialist"? We've spoken with an insulation installer, a roofer, and I am going to have an HVAC person review as well. I really appreciate everyone's helpful advice. We are really at a loss as to whose advice to take to get the best results.

We don't want to keep guessing and "trying out" different solutions - hurricane season is fast approaching! We would like construction to be finally completed.

Sandi, you have a lovely view. I am envious as I sit in Greensboro in 90+ degrees looking at a brick wall and a computer! Where are you located on the coast?

Can I ask first if the contractor pulled permits for the project and if inspections were done? Do you have that information? If he/she did not, then I would recommend a different path to get a resolution.

We have companies in our area that specialize in energy related inspections, particularly insulation. Many times they are separate companies and sometimes they may be connected with HVAC companies. Some are contractors that happen to also be heavily into "green building" and they provide inspections as well. You may also want to talk with your local permit/inspections department and see if they have someone that can come out and advise you or send you in the direction of someone that would be considered a specialist in your area. (If you suspect a permit was not obtained, then you definitely want to start with your permit/inspections department.)

Good luck. It is always so disheartening to see the results go so wrong.

Have your utility company recommend an Energy Rater. They may even provide ether service themselves.

Adding ridge vents won't help the problem. You have outside (attic) air in contact with the wood. The insulation batts are not air tight. There is still air penetrating. Seems like the best thing would have been to have drywall installed and then the wood ceiling over that. Where the wood has the appropriate installation gaps on the ends to allow for expansion/contraction even in conditioned air.

There is no way an experienced contractor mudded that drywall.

If all else is ok it can be as simple as not acclimating wood to house. Was this kiln dried wood? Also what kind of gap was left? If there is no room for wood to contract depending on its condition when installed it will buckle.

The problem is NOT insulation or lack thereof. Whenever solid wood is going to be used for flooring or paneling it should be brought into the space where it will be installed to acclimate. It should be unpacked and sit there for a minimum of 3 days (a week is better) before installation. Wood expands and contracts with humidity and temperature, so ideally it should acclimate in the same climate controlled space where it is to be installed. Read about it at this SITE, HERE, and HERE. Your wood was probably very dry and has now expanded due to your higher coastal humidity.

The entire project does NOT have to be redone. Take down the ceiling area that is buckling. Trim off enough from the boards on either edge to alleviate the problem, then put all the pieces back up. So says my carpenter husband. It's a simple fix.

My house was built in 1981. It has the same upstairs ceiling/attic construction as yours. I have never had a problem with "ceiling rain." Don't believe the sky-is-falling advice.

Sandi, some advice if you don't mind. Don't click the like button just because a post says something you wanted to read.

mindshift is simply wrong, believe it or not, his magical castle doesn't have unicorns and physics still exists at his house. Anytime you have a cool surface in a warm space, you are going to get condensation so long as there is any humidity. Whether or not that becomes a problem is a different story altogether.

Having water setting on a surface isn't a problem in and of itself, however, the absorption of and reaction to water of the material it is setting on is a problem. Even something as simple as sealing wood can protect the wood for years, although I doubt that would be sufficient especially on a horizontal surface. This is not to say every house without a vapor barrier will be a problem, but they are all potential problems.

Wood certainly reacts to humidity in rooms, but you have wood exposed to two different relative humidites. This causes the wood to expand and contract at rates different than the home. Put in insulation, a vapor barrier (as appropriate), drywall and acclimate the wood. If for no other reason than doing it over repeatedly is going to cost a lot more than doing it right this time.

The wood was acclimated for nearly a week, so a post saying your wood should be acclimated for three days is obviously incorrect.

ETA: I simplified this for understanding so if someone comes in here talking about the solute effect requirement for condensation rather than absorption on hygroscopic materials I might just scream. The end result is the same...A buckled ceiling.

My reply wasn't going to be as nice as bry's in response to mindset's advice. So I hit the delete button so I wouldn't get banned. You can see there's lack of vapor barrier.

Ive seen plenty of water damage in ceilings due to improper construction methods. And they were not from roof leaks.

Actually I did write and post a response to mindshift that wasn't nice so I deleted it.

Mindshift, seems to think that because her husband is a carpenter she knows what she's talking about. My husband is a lawyer but I don't pretend to know the law like he does.

And she didn't even both to read your comment above hers because she wrote this:

It should be unpacked and sit there for a minimum of 3 days (a week is better) before installation

She wrote it right after you wrote this:

The wood was kiln dried and arrived at our home dry and ready to install. It did also sit in the room for nearly a week before being installed.

Are you all feeling superior now? Comments posted while I was writing mine, including the one Sandi wrote. I got my information from the three sites in the links I gave. The 3 days seemed a bit short to me and my husband said he would wait at least a week. I responded as I did because some people were telling Sandi to rip it all out and start over. I maintain the situation is not a disaster. But, hey, it's not your house and your money.

Are you all feeling superior now? Comments posted while I was writing mine, including the one Sandi wrote.

Actually, I have a habit of calling out anyone when I know what I know.

As of this posting, the time you posted at is one hour difference then when Sandi posted about letting it acclimate for a week. So I know you didn't post at the same time. So you were commenting on the acclimation, without reading all the responses.

Also the advice of The entire project does NOT have to be redone. Take down the ceiling
area that is buckling. Trim off enough from the boards on either edge to
alleviate the problem, then put all the pieces back up. So says my
carpenter husband. It's a simple fix. This in itself is horrible advice. This is tongue and groove, you may want to look up exactly what that is.

To enlighten you, if you cut some off the tongue or groove. You would have to router each piece. This would be a total waste of time! If all you wanted to do is alleviate the buckling and not solve the problem. You would pull it down, reinstall, and have to trim down the last pieces installed. Just imagine if you "Take down the ceiling
area that is buckling." Since it's tongue and groove it would be extremely difficult just to pull that area down. Then you may come up short when attempting to meet the area's not buckling. I'll mention about having to face nail when attempting to work a piece in, but I doubt you'd understand any of it.

You may also want to read upon insulation/vapor barriers etc. There are very few areas in this country where the vapor barrier actually goes on the opposite side of the conditioned building envelope. However, no place in this country calls for vapor barrier in some areas of a ceiling, and none towards the peak of the structure. You would have to have minimal knowledge to understand this, and look at the pictures provided, plus an understanding of what you're viewing.

Are you all feeling superior now? [...] I got my information from the three sites in the links I gave. The 3 days seemed a bit short to me and my husband said he would wait at least a week.

I apologize if I was a bit rude but your post had an air of authority. You didn't qualify your advice by saying "according to these websites," or "my husband says" so someone could reasonably overvalue your post because it seemed so authoritative. Additionally, the OP "liked" your post, so I thought it necessary to point out the problem with your post. Again, I am truly sorry about the tone.

There may be cheap fixes out there. You really need to pull the entire horizontal part down with the top board of both sloped walls. While it is down you should take a look at the sloped areas to see how they look. If they look fine, leaving them is an option, they may never be a problem. Put up drywall and possibly a vapor retarder or barrier and then reinstall the ceiling after reacclimating (you might want to invest $30 in a moisture meter to double check the boards before reinstalling them).

If you are careful and take your time getting boards down you might be able to do it without loosing even one board. It will be a pain and you will probably have to remove the spline from one long board but it is workable. If you have access to more boards I wouldn't bother trying to save every board. It is quite possible to make this a labor intensive but inexpensive band-aid.

I can't guarantee it will work, but there is a solid chance it will, if you start getting into real money to fix it, then fix it right.