kerbear18 wrote:
Also....a VERY IMPORTANT WORD OF ADVICE! The Rear Lane Towns as well as the Village Townhomes are a slab-on-grade for the main floor. This means your tiles or carpet are directly on concrete that is directly on the earth. I'm not sure if Mattamy changed their construction practices....but in my home and a few people I know in older Rear Lanes....the main floor is FREEEEEEEZING. And when I say cold I MEAN COLD! It might be worth it to ask if you can pay to have a subfloor installed over the concrete to decrease some of this cold. It will make that main floor den/office space more usable and most likely lessen your heating costs in the winter.
Many of Mattamy's 3 story homes violate the Ontario Building Code and Tarion rules with regard to inadequate heat. The early ones are the worst and poorly located first floor air-returns contributed to this mess. As I post this right now,,, I can guarantee that there are a number of village towns in Milton with frozen first floor water pipes.
IMO the Hi Velocity and Air Max heating systems also are inadequate and because most of them are incredibly loud people can't really leave the heating system blower on all the time yet this helps move the air around in the home and therefore improving comfort.
But, IMO it's crazy to build any home on a concrete slab without in-floor heat. Add attic insulation shortages and insulation blowing around in attics with the rest of these problems and the result is a cool first floor or worse.
Here is the good news. A few years ago Mattamy started putting electric space heaters on the first floor. This helps but who wants to use expensive electric heat in a so-called "energystar" home.
There is more good news. Mattamy has started to use a better heating system that is doing a better job without you feeling like you are living in a wind tunnel. I was just at a three story main street town on Tight Court and the house was comfortable, but that's not to say they are going to use them in your homes.