Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT The Garage at The Place in The Valley (Garage Condo 45x23x20)

Having the Vdub parked there does make the place look huge. Nice selfie too.

What a cool place you have! Cant wait til you start building it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow, I had never heard of this sort of development, way cool!

GREG: congrats on closing and becoming a new owner of a very cool looking space. also saw that you will get to remodel YOUR UNIT like you want to and not need some special handicap stuff.

i like that you are using the clubhouse with your daughter and probably have the place all to yourself at least until more units sell.

how many units total and how many are already sold?

GOOD LUCK with the remodeling and hope you like the place and the neighbors you end up with too.

How are things? I was out that way Sunday for football at iTap, and thought about y'all. I drove by, but things looked pretty dead. Hope the County is starting to help ya out.

John

Things are not that great. No resolution on the bathrooms. I'm also getting worried that the HVAC is not sized correct. It did fine most of the fall but it ran for four hours last night just trying to keep it at 58. It was below 30 but what happens when the high is single digit?!?!?

Also, after asking to get our electric bill changed over to us multiple times, we still haven't heard when that is going to happen....

The only good news has been getting insurance was simple. We just called State Farm and they set us up immediately. They asked us for some documentation on what we had spent so far and adjusted some but it was painless compared to everything else.

Some insulation on the ceiling would be on my high priority list.

You definitely need some insulation batting on the ceiling.

I hope the bathroom resolves soon. It would be nice to get things constructed so you can start using the shop!

There is insulation above the deck. The space will be tough to heat when the t -Stat is at 5' and the heat is up at the ceiling. Maybe some fans to circulate the warm air back down?

Bummed to hear the County has not resolved the bathroom planning. Do you have neighbors yet? Having two cold units surrounding you is probably not helping you keep things warm. You had planned on fans if memory serves, so that will help with keeping things warm top to bottom.

Sooo... A little more has come to light. My neighbor apparently left his door open all night (or potentially multiple nights). I'm not positive if it was just the second night I was having issues or both nights. Apparently, he came by to fix his thermostat (that was wired wrong) and forgot to shut his main 12'x18' garage door. Apparently, his unit got down in the 30s inside his unit. I'm not even positive that he was running any heat in his unit at all prior to the day he left the door open. The unit on the other side of my unit has not been sold and also was not heated at all. Here are some plots of the two days in question.




In addition to the heat issues, you'll also see a spike in temperature in the late afternoon each day. The thermostat is positioned just right that the sun shines through in the afternoon to hit directly on the thermostat. I don't think this happened in the summer with the higher sun and more northern sunset. The picture below is from a couple hours ahead of the sun hitting the thermostat but you get the idea.



I did a couple things to help fix things:

1. I set the thermostat down to 50 right away to at least stop the bleeding. The heat has not run again (not even once) even when it got down to 30 degrees the Friday after Thanksgiving. I'm not ready to call success yet and need to put the temperature back up to test things. Absolute temp outside is important but the relative delta inside to outside is also important.

2. Ecobee has remote sensors, so I put one on the back wall. I also set up a custom "comfort setting" call AwayAvoidSun that only uses the sensor on the back wall. I run the thermostat on the Away setting all day/night averaging the two sensors and then run the AwayAvoidSun setting with just the sensor on the back wall from 1pm to 5pm. So far, that looks like it is fixing the temperature spike but I haven't had a really sunny day yet to make sure.

3. I contacted the builders/HVAC contractors and asked them to check my settings. The HVAC installers put in the heat pump and backup electrical resistence heater with a generic thermostat and a later installer set up the Ecobee. Right now, the Ecobee turns off the heat pump when the external temp gets below 35 degees and it is the resistive heating alone after that. The heat pump is notionally a 3.5 ton unit but heat pumps very in output based on the external temperature. It puts out over 50 MBh at 65F, 40 MBh at 40F, and only 31 MBh at 35. The resistance heater is a 15kW heater that is equivalent to about 51 MBh. I want the HVAC folks to let me know if the system should be working in series with the 35 cutoff, if the cutoff should be different, or if the two should be working in parallel at lower temperatures. It appears that the heat pump can actually produce heat with a COP over 1 (more heat the energy expended) all the way down to -5F. Mind you it only produce 12 MBh at -5F at a COP of 1.45. Still, addting 12MBH to the 51MBH is still additional heat capability and as I understand it - with resistive heating anything with a COP over 1 is more efficient. (Again - no expert here.) I just don't know if the system can handle being used in parallel.

4. It appears this has all gotten the attention of the builders who have realized that the unsold units need to be heated or else the sprinkler systems could freeze. They are currently running electric and installing furnaces in the unsold units. If the unsold unit next to me is at least kept at 40 degrees all winter that should at least help.

I'm not sure all is fixed but it is a start. I want the builders to get the units next to mine heated and then I'm going to turn the heat up some to see if I can get it to maintain 68 degrees in the winter if I want. I do not expect to keep it that warm all the time but I would like to be able to go down there in the winter and use the balcony space for a party or social event.

It's all Greek to me. .

Joys of condo ownership. Hope they start selling unit. Activity will bring some life to the property.

Following

I was out your way tonight. Things looked pretty quiet, though the TV was on in the club house. How have things been coming Greg?

Sorry to hear about all your troubles. I was at the open house back in Sept and was given the impression that the development was much further along. They made it sound like I could move in and start construction immediately on interior improvements. For the amount they are asking per sq ft, I would have expected more interior finish that just rough in plumbing and electrical. Now that I think back, I only recall seeing one unit that had been sold that had anything done inside, and that was a floor coating.

It's a neat concept and hope it all works out for you.

So....... Any updates?

@ jay8s & djones1a

No real updates. The heat issues seam to have settled out. Still not positive that I can hope to keep it at 68-70 degrees in the winter but at 50 degrees it doesn't really run unless it gets down into the teens or lower.

The architect supposedly submitted for a code change that will allow for non-compliance of ADA in the individual units. I'm waiting to hear the results of that filing. For now, I'm just using the space to store a couple cars for the winter. It may be spring before there is any new progress.

@ SteveL

I think in September it was possible that everyone thought everything with the ADA issues was going to work out. I know in August, I was ready to finish out the unit. I know there is a least one unit that has progress being made with a balcony going in. Their original plan happened to work with an ADA compliant bathroom so they just kept going.

The developers have officially thrown in the towel. The county rejected the code change and was refusing to even talk to them about the rejection. As a result, the ruling is that each unit is treated as its own commercial property. Bathrooms have to be on the ground floor and ADA compliant. (Only if you have an ADA compliant bathroom on the ground floor can you put a bathroom of any type on a mezzanine).

I'm giving up (or giving in) as well. I'm going to keep the mezzanine but just not have a bathroom at all. It is not much of a walk to the clubhouse and I refuse to give up a parking space on the ground floor for a bathroom. I'm going to put in a small bar on the mezzanine instead of the bathroom. I sent some notional plans to my architect today and we are going to meet Friday.

***** that it came to this but at least I can start moving forward again!!!!

@ Greg_STL

Will you allow to leave the sewer pipe as a rough in, should you sell down the road.

Unfortunate. Extremely unfortunate. Just another crazy example of government run amok. St. Louis County? They are one of the worst. It's not even my fight, and it really irks me that you have to alter your plans and expectations just for the sake of the county's interpretation of the abysmal ADA regulations. If this 'developer' tries one of these again, at least know they know what questions to ask going in. Their approach on this project borders on malfeasance. Best wishes going forward.

I supposed you could always install a sink that looks like a urinal.

I'm not sure if they were holding off for a resolution or the weather is just too good to pass up. It is going to be high 60s this weekend so they are having a public event. The owners email had another 4-5 new names on it too. It looks like fwd progress is starting to pick up again.

@TomcoPDR, MacTexas

The bar will be wet with a sink and probably a dishwasher. I'll have a utility sink on the ground floor too. I will still have a sewer hook up and water service. The tankless hot water heater may have to change size since there will be no bathroom with a shower.

Keep a foot stool by the sink. That way the guys, at least, will be able to pee without having to run to the clubhouse in the rain.

Hadn't checked in for awhile. Sorry to hear about the ADA craziness, and HVAC issues. It's a really cool concept that these guys have come up with. Stinks that the county is not allowing owners to build out units to the full potential. I am sure your place will still be awesome. Looking forward to more updates of your journey.

Since the County is classifying each space as a separate commercial space, are there other potential issues besides the requirement of an ADA compliant bathroom on the ground floor? What about potential EPA issues for floor drains not having oil traps or proper ventilation for exhaust or chemical fumes?

It's a real shame that you and others have spent a small fortune for a space and won't be able to finish it out as planned.

Funny you should say that. We had a big hub bub about having to put in ventilators and we were not allowed floor drains without an oil separator ( so no floor drains).

So the Winter Warm Up today was a bit out of control. I guess everyone in STL decided to come visit the Place. The gate officially opened at noon and I think it was completely filled by 12:15. The road leading to the The Place became the the show as it was the only place to park. People kept coming and going all day. I tried to take some pictures but it was very hectic and difficult to get clean shots so I just resorted to taking cell phone pics.

Early Arrivers:


The show outside the show:




Some nice vehicles showed:






A couple of the units that did not get caught in the permitting fiasco had garage doors open to peek inside.

[/url]

The unsold units were being used to pack cars in...


All in all a fun day. I'll leave you all with a security camera selfie...

You had a great day for it.

So awesome. I would love to build a place like that around here. I think it would do really well.

Looks like a great turn out. Wish I could have made it by.

Greg_STL said:

A couple of the units that did not get caught in the permitting fiasco had garage doors open to peek inside.

[/url]

Click to expand...

Do you know the layout of what's behind the 3 doors?

TomcoPDR said:

Do you know the layout of what's behind the 3 doors?

Click to expand...

I do not know what is in all three. I believe one is an ADA compliant bathroom. Mind you this is a 60' deep unit that is at least twice as wide as my unit. The unit had already planned for a ground floor bathroom. The incremental penalty on these larger units is much less.

Has the subject been brought up about what they were selling and your expectations? It seems that they went along with your plans until things went sideways. Did this change diminish the value of your unit? Now that you are in a "commercial" unit does that effect how it is insured?

Not trying to pry and feel free not to answer but this type of facility is gaining popularity and it would be helpful for the next guy to know what questions to ask of the developer. I was approached last week about a metal building for a similar but smaller development and I brought up some of the problems you encountered, things he had not considered. He is now going back to the planning department.

Wow,a lot of cars.I was going to go there myself,but got to working in the yard and forgot all about it.Maybe next time,keep us posted.

Lots of pictures of the Winter Warm Up on Facebook. I grabbed this one that showed the build up of another unit. This one is actually my back wall neighbor that is directly across from the clubhouse. No bathroom so no holdups - he planned to just walk to the club house from the beginning. He has two lifts in place with the height of the mezzanine set so the cars at full lift look like they are sitting on the mezzanine. With this setup, he can walk all the way around all four cars on both lifts. He also plans on a third level above the lifts for a poker table / hang out space.



Here is a video that someone put together from the event:

<video link>

There was a drone video that I saw that was nice but has been taken down. My guess is that someone figured out they shouldn't have been advertising that they flew a drone within 500 yards of an active runway. It think the new rules are you can't do it within 5 miles without talking to the tower first.

HVAC Issues Resolved

It may be early to call winter over but the temps have been in the 60s and 70s over the last week. Our electric bill for January was under $30. I think the heat issues were resolved due to:

1. Setting the heat at 50 deg F.
2. Setting the heat pump to run down to 0 deg F and run in parrallel with the resistance heating if a quick recovery was needed.
3. Turning off the auto home/away on the ecobee. We'd stop to swap cars and it would trigger a 2-3 hour spike of trying to recover to being home when we were gone in 15 minutes.
4. Heating the other units. I wasn't sure what they did until I went to the winter warm up. I snapped the photo below during the event. For every two to three unsold units, they dropped an electric furnace on the ground with a short duct on the top. They ran the thermostat up to ceiling level. Mine is around 4-5 feet off the ground. So when they said they set it to 55 degrees that was as measured 20' off the ground. I'm sure mine at 50 degrees at 4-5 feet was actually warmer than 55 at the ceiling. At least their method kept the sprinklers from freezing.



I still plan on putting in a large ceiling fan to run at low speeds over the winter to keep the air mixed. I also am looking at a small electric fireplace up on the balcony that could be used for some local heating over the cold months. I have to do something with all that extra space now that I do not have a bathroom. I am also sure that having fully built out units next door will make a big difference too.

I also set up an Amcrest 720p tilt/pan wi-fi camera over the weekend. I didn't have a good view of my door from any of the external complex cameras and I kept worrying that I left my lights on or my door open. The camera was super easy to get going to view live video. I struggled some with getting the sd card formatted to the correct format so that I could store pictures and videos on the card. I have it set up now to send a warning to my iPhone ap with any detected motion and take a quick video and picture of the motion event. I figured I'd do both picture and video in case I was on cellular and didn't want to pull up the higher bandwidth video.

Daytime and night vision image captures are shown below:





I have updated my plans for a bathroom-less mezzanine with the architect. There will be a bar where the old bathroom was with a beverage fridge and dishwasher. Where the old bar cabinets were located, there is now going to be an electric fireplace.

He wants me to pick out the cabinets for the bar before we set up bidding for a new contractor. My architect also suggested it was a good time to break from the builders of the main complex and use a new subcontractor for unit build out. I agreed that with everything that happened till now it was probably a good time to part ways. I have a meeting tomorrow with a kitchen and bath vendor to layout the bar. If all goes as planned, we should be ready to go get new bids early next week.

I'll post plans (at least the mezzanine section) after they get updated with the final bar cabinet layout.

Way cool on the Camera. I'm headed to google and youtube now to check it out