chad_m, The humidity comes from the snowy cars coming in and melting off day after day, night after night. It's one of the issues besides operating cost of a tight, heated garage. The humidity plus road salt equals bad news for your vehicles. I have the tubes in the floor and have not yet hooked up the heat source for mine and this is one of the concerns I have. There are some humidifiers that work at lower temps, but some just keep a window cracked. This'll make the green police shudder of course. So you have the cost to heat it, then dehumidify it. In my case gas is free so the heat angle doesn't bother me one bit, but I don't want to rust out my cars so I'll probably bite the bullet on humidification. My garage has a future apartment above it so keeping the garage at 50 degrees would help keep the apartment floor warm. I had a master bedroom and closet over an unheated garage at the last house and the floor temp difference was noticeable.

Chibimimi and Southern Canuck: The house will keep the timber frame, wall strip sheathing, flooring, rafters, strip sheathing on the roof above the rafters, the ceiling joists, and strip sheathing on the joists. The siding is ALL going to be donated (at least what doesn't need abatement (50%) - it is coated in many layers of lead paint that is cracking) and needs to be removed to place the exterior insulation. The gingerbread will stay. The returns will go. The trim will be similar. The porch trim will be similar. The windows will be as close to their current layout as possible, but the windows currently upstairs do not meet current egress requirements, so that is why I am enlarging the gable window. The plan that shows the door entering directly into the kitchen is the current house (as it sits now/before renovation). Not what it will be after - see the other layouts for clarification - hope you can actually read them now (I am new to this forum, and am trying to get you the info the best I can....) Yes foundation walls and floors, crawl spaces, and dirt basements really do or can account for up to 30-40% of heat loss. They are the largest window in your home. Especially if they are uninsulated, and air infiltration is not managed. Just because you highly insulate you ceilings doesn't mean you don't have heat loss through the ground. Yes heat rises, we ALL know that, but what many don't understand is how heat follows a cold gradient also. For instance when you lay directly on the ground you must insulate yourself from the earth nearly all year round or you will have either moisture problems or hypothermia problems. The earth absorbs your body heat, just like it absorbs the heat from your house. - check out Green Building Advisor or the Building Science Corporation for further documentation and in depth analysis of this phenomenon. If you get your hands on a thorough whole house wall/energy (BTU) calculator, you will see just how much energy is really lost through the foundation walls and floor. OR you will see just how much you will save, by insulating your basement walls and floors............you need to manage moisture, vapor and air though too or can create a massive petri dish inside your home. Those aren't architect drawings - they are mine..... Earthen or bermed homes use the earth as a consistant energy mass, that regulates temperature - the ground is an insulator, but also a heating or cooling mass - which is why geothermal heat/cooling works. It is true documented science that many are confused by. My hope is to keep the essence of the original home, maintain it's look, but tweak it just a bit to fit the needs of my family, while striking a fine balance between making equitable, sustainable, healthy design upgrades. I will have a Venmar ERV to do my air exchange (ERV because the geothermal provides cooling too, and the ERV can help with moisture too). The fireplace will also have outside air exchange.

I watched your video on Montreal. Very informative. This year I had to raise my retail cost to my customers for the first time in 5 years : R22 from 110 up to 150. 410a and blends : from 55 up to 75/ lb. I was lucky to get 25lb jugs of 410a at 89 out the door by emptying my checking account on Dec.23,2020. Thank you HU-741671485, When I make videos of this nature I spend alot of time researching the subject. Those from a far will chastise political bend, but these political figures are the whole reason behind the changes. So trying to make something without political bend is easy for those who wish to keep their heads buried in the sand. Some of these places have Trigger laws that will simply follow California's lead if they don't come up with a back bone of their own. If you're a jellyfish I guess you got bigger fish to worry about than a spine. If what they were proposing was actually fixing it I may have a different opinion but I often take the side of the under dog for various reasons... or the opposing view to provide clarity. You don't get clarity by just choosing to not talk about politics because it's about politics. At the end of the day you choose what you can choose. One day soon --- many of those choices a home owner has now is likely going away. Unless a company sells alot of refrigerant gas it doesn't really pay to stock up on it. If you're not fixing refrigerant leaks that stops you from selling the refrigerant that you just stocked up on so this method is becoming obsolete. The days of gas n go to the extent I believe you may be apart of is going away. The other side of this for you is that when you're forced to raise prices even minorly the likely whole reason your customers use you is that they can't find cheaper solution elsewhere. It's a double edge sword. I know the home warranty companies often find themselves in these kinds of situations due to what the home warranty company will pay for. ( I don't do home warranties for that reason there's other reasons too, but this is a big one.) If you're a big HVAC company with 30 techs or more with 30 trucks or more on the road? That may be close to a pallet of refrigerant right there with a drum on each truck. So ordering by the pallet for some is a more logical way to buy it than for some 1 man operation like myself. It doesn't pay me to buy it like that. I haven't gotten into buying all these wild hair varieties as you put it. Because I knew a day was coming in which their day in the sun would end. I still to this day find R22 machines and most of the time it's a replace to R410a as currently that is the best choice moving forward. In a few years R410a (it's 2022 now) choices will become more clouded. Buying refrigerant by the pallet may become more of a challenge if the recycleable drum becomes law. These things are being floated right now to do away with single use / non-refill refrigerant drums. They want to be able to track all the drums rumbling around in the back of your service truck / van. Enter even more higher prices, because then you have to take the drums back (probably evactuated if I had to guess) to exchange for a new refrigerant drum. If / when this takes effect --- well I doubt there will be any who say it was a good idea. Stay tuned... the video segments are only getting started. I've developed a page on my website to keep all this info nice and tidy.

TL;DR can I paint something like the Cloplay Coachman garage door which is made from "4-layer construction (composite overlay-steel insulation-steel)". What else aesthetically is lost going to a "cheaper" door. I have a rental property that I need to replace the garage door on. It's a 1920's bungalow in Northern California, with detached garage. The house was my own house before I got married, and I am attached to how it aesthetically looks (and remains to look). The garage door is prominent in the curb appeal of the house because it sits to the side of the house (not in the back like you see with most 1920's detached garages). It's constructed with multiple layers of wood. I looked about 8 months ago and got quotes from $4-6K for similar replacements. I'm now looking at Home Depot's website. Just as an example is a Cloplay Coachman 9x7 for around $1800 (I know that doesn't include installation). It says this is made from " 4-layer construction (composite overlay-steel insulation-steel). https://www.homedepot.com/p/Clopay-Coachman-Collection-9-ft-x-7-ft-18-4-R-Value-Intellicore-Insulated-Solid-White-Garage-Door-CXU13-SW-TOP11/204598554 One thing that is most important to me is that I can paint the door, so I'm not stuck with this big ugly white door at the front of the lot. Is that possible with that door? I know I'm not going to stain the door, so I don't need it to be stain-grade finished. What will I lose with going with this or a similar door vs going back to something closer to my original? Is it difficult for the paint to adhere to this surface? I know I can think of one thing already - well, maybe not so if I chose something like the Clopay Coachman which doesn't have windows. My current door is probably 5 or 6 inches deep. So there's some real character depth with the windows. If I switched to one of these Cloplay doors that did have windows, the door is only 2 inches thick so I'm sure I'd get a much shallower look to it.