Check Your Vents During Your Final Walk-Thru

Sooooo, I'm back again with just a small concern. Most of you guys have read about final walk-thru's of houses and what to look for. I'll be honest, in all the excitement, it is easy to overlook some things. After all, you just want to move in your house that you have been watching anxiously being put together. Beware however, especially with change of season to check AC Vents and Registers. That is one thing that we overlooked on our walk-thru the house, mainly because the company that installed our HVAC unit, did some half-ass'd duct work. They installed a boot that was too shallow for two of our registers, one in the Master Bath and one in the mudroom. With the register fully open, it would not fit over the opening the way it was meant to. It would sit off the ground about a 1/4-1/2 inch. However, if you closed the register vent, it would sit in it perfectly. We called AirTron to come out and either give us new registers or to fix the duct work so it is not so shallow, allowing the register to sit perfectly and open. The technician came out and even he was brain boggled as to why it was installed in that fashion and that it should never have been done that way. We didnt initially catch it because the vents were closed, so word to the wise: CHECK EVERY VENT REGISTER as soon as possible before the final walk-thru, that they are open and the workmanship is good.

Below are some pics of what it looks like in our Master Bath when the vent is open and a pic of the shallow boot duct work. Now you could probably live with just closing the slats, but why would someone want too? It affects overall airflow and efficieny. You're making a big investment and paying for the house for 30 years. It should be perfect, right?

This is how it looks when the register is open

Shallow boot sloping. (It should be at least an inch deeper on left to allow open register and sit perfectly on top)

Another picture of register when slat is open.


 

30 Day Post-Settlement

Just when you thought I was gone, I decided to make an appearance :) ...Wow, time sure has flown by. I can't believe we've been in for almost 6 weeks now. Last Friday we had our 30 Day Post Settlement inspection and repairs. This went very fast to be honest. We really didn't have anything major to repair. Just some painting and some odds and ends. We don't have significant settlement cracks or and so far just a few nail pops in the basement ceiling only. We will wait til the 10 month mark to take car of those.

Some of the things we wanted addressed:

• Front door was hard to close and required us to push or pull hard to latch and seal
• Shower door sticks and doesn't close with ease at the top corner
• Painting the marked up walls
• Moving towel rack in Master Bath from above toilet to the side wall below window
• Shower needs to be re-grouted above shower head to fill small hole
• Carpet 
• AC Airflow
• Vent Registers/boots
• Yard

The painter showed up and touched up all the blue tape spots that we marked and filled any holes we put in the walls from moving (yes, it happens). It did not take long at all. Less than an hour. You will be surprised how much you see and find at the last minute while they paint and have them touch up.

We did have to call AirTron and have a tech come out to adjust our dampers and help us mark them to more evenly distribute the air in the house. It was always hot as balls upstairs in teh bedrooms and had us using fans at night. I don't know why they set the dampers the way they do or that there is no manual that shows how how to get more air pushed up stairs to cool it off and be at least with a degree or so difference vs. sweating your ass off. Well it's fixed now and in the winter you just have to reverse the dampers accordingly.  Another issue was is the way they installed the boots by the vent registers. In our house, there are 2 registers that will need attention. Since we have 1 year warranty and service, Air Tron will need to either replace with new vents or boots. When the vents are fully open, it sticks up off the floor about 1/2-3/4 inches. Why they installed the boots that way is beyond me... Taking the short cut is going to cost them more if they need to fix it. I'll try to take a picture later what I'm talking about and post it below.

We still need to have the carpet guy come out because the seam came up in the dining room/foyer area. It will need to be glued down or something. That will happen next Monday hopefully  I love my berber carpet, but you can definitely see the seams in spots.

The grass is coming along slowly. Some parts of the yard barely have grass, and some parts washed out in the few storms we had. They will be coming out in October to reseed for us, so we are just taking it easy on our water bill and wait til the cooler weather arrives.


Lastly, I must shamefully admit that we still have packed boxes that we haven't touched. It's nothing major or anything we need right this minute, so it can wait a while longer. In the mean time, we will just watch others stalk their newly constructed homes in the neighborhood the same way we did ours. I have to say, some days I do miss the excitement of seeing my house go up.