Cincinnati Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Ranch vs. 2 story
My husband and I are debating b/t a ranch and a 2 story right now. He has always favored ranch's and insists that it will make our heating/cooling bills down. It makes sense but does anyone know if it is really thay much of a price difference?
Re: Ranch vs. 2 story
We have a 1 story house (with a basement) and I will say that now that we have a LO I am SO glad that we chose this house vs. a 2 story house...I will also say that as for heating/cooling things I would guess it would make at least somewhat of a difference b/c its less square footage to heat/cool whether its a sizeable difference is debateable---What are some of the other pros/cons you have between the ranch and the 2 story?
It all depends on how big the square footage of the house is, how good the insulation is, venting/ductwork, etc. My first house was a cape cod which isn't far off from a ranch and my bills were pretty decent to heat/cool the place. The average gas/electric bill cost that I got from Duke for that place was more than I ended up paying the majority of the time.
That being said, my current house is a really old, and extremely large 2 story. Its old as heck, had no insulation what so ever (we just had it installed about 2 months ago), and has very old ductwork/venting so it costs quite a bit to heat/cool. Since we had the insulation done its been better. When I was making an offer I checked the average bill for the previous owner and they were a little less than we end up spending but I think they were on even billing so it balanced out what they were paying more. HTH!
I think it has to do alot with insulation. We have a 2 story and used to have a bi-level, which are both supposed to be hard to heat/cool. Our 2 story is twice the size of our bi-level, but only $30 more/month. The bi-level was older and didn't have good insulation.
We have friends with a new ranch up the street from us and their Duke bill is the same as ours. I don't know if we have a higher efficiency furnace or what, but we pay the same and they have less square footage.
If I did it over again I would stick with the 2-story, but put the master bedroom on the first floor.
Your DH is right. Our second floor (where the bedrooms are) is always too warm to sleep comfortably during the summer. To make the temperature bearable, we have to crank down the a/c, thus freezing out the main level and the basement. It's such a waste. I wish we had a separate thermostat for the upstairs and downstairs--that would be the way to go.
ETA: I should add that all three levels are vented, so by the time the air gets from the basement up to the second floor, there isn't much force left. If only your main floor and second floor are vented, it won't be as bad as our situation.
Have you tried closing off the vents at all? Not sure how much it helps, but is worth a try at least.