I put Gaco roof coating on my Tucson house last June and figured it would peel off by August like every other DIY fix I try. But after a 115 degree week my AC ran half as much and the coating still looks new. Anyone else had luck with this stuff or did I just get lucky with the prep work?
I fought my contractor for weeks about going with traditional fiberglass in my Tucson place. Kept saying spray foam was overhyped and overpriced for our dry climate. After 6 months my July cooling bill was $87 compared to $220 last summer at my old house with the same square footage. Has anyone else here changed their mind on a desert home product after seeing the actual numbers?
Met this guy at a job site last August. 110 degrees outside. He's installing a new AC unit but leaving the old single-pane windows. I asked about insulation and he laughed. Said we're in Arizona not Alaska. Six months later that house is struggling to stay cool in spring. The owner called me to fix the design. Now I'm pulling out drywall to add foam. That one dude cost them $4,000 extra. Has anyone else run into builders here who think the desert means you don't need basic energy stuff?
My neighbor Dave said I was making a huge mess because I wasn't wetting the gypsum before sanding. Tried it on a patch job last Saturday and the difference was night and day. Barely any haze on my windows. No idea why I didn't think of that sooner. Anyone else have a trick that seems obvious now?
I was helping my neighbor Frank swap out his old swamp cooler last summer in Mesa. He kept insisting on using that cheap foam padding for the water distribution instead of the proper media pads. Three weeks later he called me because water was pouring down his interior wall. Does anyone actually check the incline on their cooler pad frame before sealing it up?
I track precipitation at my place near Tucson and crossed 12 inches last week. That's way above the 8 inch average for this area. My exterior plaster started showing these thin cracks along the south wall and I'm wondering if it's from the extra moisture or just normal settling. The old timers here say adobe needs dry cycles but this year was anything but dry. Anyone else dealing with unexpected weather shifts throwing off their desert home plans?
My neighbor Bob stopped by while I was mixing stucco for the back wall of my house in Tucson. He said I should just plaster over the old stuff instead of chipping it all off like I planned. Told me he patched his own place 12 years ago and it still looks solid. Now I'm wondering if I'm overcomplicating this whole job. Has anyone else just layered new stucco over old?
For the longest time I kept painting my interior walls white like every other desert house I saw. Finally realized after repainting my living room near Tucson for the third time that the dust just shows up worse on light colors. My neighbor Patty used a warm terracotta from Sherwin-Williams and her place looks clean for weeks while mine looked dirty after two days. Has anyone else gotten better results going darker with their wall colors out here?
Everyone says use spray foam for desert homes but I wrapped my south wall in 2-inch foil-backed bubble wrap three summers ago and my AC runs half as much. The reflectivity beats R-value in dry heat. Anyone else experiment with radiant barriers over traditional stuff?
I was out in Phoenix last August trying to keep my house under 80 degrees during a 115 day. My electric bill hit $380 and I was losing it. Then a friend who does energy audits came over and pointed out my attic insulation was basically useless because I had it crammed against the roof deck instead of the attic floor. He said all that heat was just baking into my living space through the ceiling. I had no clue I was supposed to leave an air gap and use radiant barriers in this climate. Now I'm ripping it all out and starting over next weekend. Has anyone dealt with retrofitting a 1980s tract home for desert heat or am I the only one who missed this?
The swamp cooler needs monthly cleaning but it keeps my Tucson house comfortable when it's 110 out, has anyone else found the maintenance tradeoff worth it long term?
Honestly, I spent 6 months trying to clean the scale out of my swamp cooler pads with vinegar and commercial descalers, but it kept clogging up every 3 weeks in the summer. Finally broke down and replaced the whole pump and pads last Tuesday, and it took less than 2 hours total. Has anyone else dealt with this nonsense where simple fixes just don't cut it out here?
Ran into this old mason at a hardware store Saturday. He said light colors might look cooler but dark ones actually hold up better against the sun's UV rays out here. Anyone else hear the same thing about desert exteriors?
I spent last summer fixing a 60 year old adobe wall in Tucson that was basically crumbling from monsoon moisture. A neighbor swore by it for keeping cool, but I had to resurface half the thing. Has anyone else had better luck with something like compressed earth blocks?
Been doing stucco repairs on my Tucson house for two years and every patch would crack within a month. Last week I watched a guy from the next town over do a patch and he barely misted it. Anyone else had a simple fix like this take way too long to figure out?
A contractor walked by my job last week, watched me sand a patch, and asked if I was trying to polish the wall, so now I'm wondering how many other little things I've been messing up for that long.
I tried to patch a crack in my stucco wall out in Phoenix last month and it kept drying too fast and crumbling. After the first weekend wasted I realized the sun was hitting it directly for 6 hours a day. I had to build a temporary shade tarp setup and mist the patch every 20 minutes to get it to cure right. Has anyone else run into this with exterior repairs in the desert heat?
Walking into a 95 degree house at 8pm after work was brutal. The pump just seized up, no warning. Had to drive to two different hardware stores before I found a replacement. Anyone else keep a backup pump on hand for summer?
Guy who's been doing this since the 70s told me to mist my stucco three times a day for a week instead of the usual two. Said rapid evaporation in the desert makes it crack if you cut corners. Has anyone else tried that in July temps?
Used to just hose down the pads on my swamp cooler twice a summer, thinking that was enough. Then last July in Tucson my house hit 85 degrees inside and the cooler just couldn't keep up. Took the panels off and found the pads were caked solid with mineral deposits and dust from the construction down the street. Spent a whole Saturday pulling the old pads out and replacing them with new Aspen pads from Ace Hardware. Now I swap them every spring before it gets hot and actually scrub the water reservoir with a brush. Anyone else find out the hard way that cooler maintenance matters more than you think?
I stopped by Ace Hardware on Speedway last week looking for exterior paint. The guy there showed me a display of colors specially made for desert homes, like light tans and whites that reflect heat. He said dark colors can make your walls crack in the summer sun here. I ended up picking a shade called "Desert Sand" and it's already keeping my place cooler. Has anyone else tried these special paint lines for their desert house?
I was out in my backyard in Tucson last week, just checking the wall after that big storm. I tapped the adobe near the bottom to see if it was dry, and a whole chunk just fell out like a cookie. Turns out the moisture got trapped behind the plaster and turned the mud bricks back into literal mud. Now I've got a 3-foot section that's basically hollow on the inside. I patched it with some quick-dry mortar I had lying around, but I know that's not a real fix. Anyone dealt with this in their own place? What did you use to rebuild the core?
I put in this fancy spray foam insulation that was supposed to be perfect for the heat out here in Phoenix. After 8 months, my energy bill dropped maybe $12 total. The installer told me it would cut cooling costs by 30 percent. I should have just gone with regular fiberglass batts and saved my money. Has anyone else tried those reflective roof coatings instead? I'm thinking about going that route now.
I was at a supply yard in Tucson last month grabbing some sand mix, and this older guy named Hector saw me loading up. He asked what I was sealing my grout with, and I gave him my usual brand. He just laughed and said, 'If you want it to last 10 years in this heat, seal it three times and wait a full day between coats.' I told him I always did one coat and called it good. He showed me a job he did in 2015 where the grout still looked brand new. Now I'm trying his method on my current bathroom reno. Has anyone else been told to double or triple seal out here in the desert?