If you could build your house all over again…

[HeavyDuty]

… what would you have added this time?

I’m coming up with a list of nice to have features for the new home being started. Things like outlets in the front eaves for holiday lights, a second water line and shutoff for the master bath toilet - things like that. Little details.

What things do you wish you had, or ended up adding later?

[Crusader8207]

We built our home 2 years ago. Our house is a "modern farmhouse" with big porches front and back. When we built, I did have the outlets in the eaves for holiday lights with switches in the garage. Things I did that I am happy we did was the expandable foam insulation. we live in Oklahoma and the swing in temperatures is pretty wide. The foam insulation keeps the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter and is very economical. We had a whole house (22K) Generac Generator installed. I can't tell you how many times we have power outages and neighbors will call to come over since we're the only ones on the block who have power. We went with a gas fireplace, and wish we had gone with a wood burner. May have a wood burner retro fitted. I wish I had more electrical outlets outside as well as water spigots. Would also think big and if you ever have a desire for a pool or hot tub, have the electric ran at the build. We put a pool in after the fact and had to spend an additional $3000 to have the electric ran. Above our garage is a game room. We opted to not put a bathroom up there, wish we did. We had a media closet put in for all of our media equipment as well as having a surround sound system put in in our great room. It's nice to have music piped in when having friends over and if we want to watch a movie, we have a theater like experience. Oklahoma is known for tornadoes. Under the staircase, we had a safe room installed. If someone comes in, it looks like a closet door, but when you open it, it is a room that can hold 8 people in the event of a tornado. Also, tankless water heater... biggest regret of not doing.

[oakdalecurtis]

I designed my dream house 15 years ago. Couple of suggestions:
1. Install solar tubes to bring light into any closets, bathrooms or other areas that don’t have significant windows.
2. Seal off the underside of your eves to eliminate spider webs and clean up the outside look. If you plan on putting up Xmas lights ever, put a few switched plugs under the eves.
3. Tankless water heaters, use lp or gas to heat if can.
4 . Wood floors, not carpet or tile (except bathrooms)
5. 6 inch walls.
6. Double roof insulation depth.
7. Built in Pellet stove in main area, super efficient.
8. Solar panels if can, asphalt shingle install areas.
9. Tile roof everywhere else
10. More outside water faucets and electrical outlets than you think you’ll need.

[ECK]

My wife and I were owner/builder when we built our current house in 2005. We built it for re-sale thinking our jobs may take us elsewhere at some point, so went bigger than two of us need (4 bed, 2 1/2 bath) bc nobody with kids would be interested in a 2 bed/2 bath house.

If/when this housing boom subsides -AND- we figure out where we want to live (since retired Jan 2021) I might consider building another house. So this topic has been on my mind for a while.

A few features I want the next place to have:
-Smaller. Screw the resale, scale it to what two people with hobbies need. So roughly 1,600 sq ft house max, but big a$$ shop with at least 12’ tall doors.
-3’0” wide interior doors or at least 2’10”. 2’8” blows for moving furniture and (gun safes).
-Single story instead of 2. But vaulted ceiling with clear story windows for light. A partial basement would be nice.
-Extra blocking in the framing in the bathroom walls to install grab handles (I’m thinking ahead to the future).
-Less windows. Current house has 54 windows and 8 skylights (I know bc I installed most of them).
-Solar panels on roof and to be self-sufficient during power outages.
-Native vegetation for 90% of the property. I spend way too much time mowing April-Sept.

A guy can dream…

[TQP]

Back a while we bought 25 acres of rural property with the aim of building the house we would die in. Some of the things on my list:

-Low/no maintenance exterior: metal roof, 40 year exterior walls ( I'm not sure what I was looking at at the time)
-Passive solar, extremely well insulated, partially earth sheltered ( the property in question allowed for this)
-First floor utility/mechanical room, ideally accessible off of the garage via a larger than normal door (maybe even a roll up) to allow for easy access/replacement of furnace, water heater, pressure tank, etc.
-Fire sprinklers (Specifically because it was rural)
-Fully wheelchair accessible (to include a ramp, rather than stairs, to the second floor)
-Empty runs for future wiring ( ethernet, fiber optic, ???) to every room



More to the point, I promised my wife that we'd move, once I was settled in my 2nd career/retirement job. That process looks to be starting around a year from now. What I'm thinking currently:
-1 floor plan, as accessible as possible
-I'm no longer interested in building anything, being 55, I would rather spend the year or so in an acceptable new place, than building the 'perfect' place.
-Location is a bigger consideration than the house itself, beyond the 1 floor accessible criteria


Edited to add, after reading more replies:
-Plan for future needs and run the plumbing and electrical when you build (pool, hot tub, etc.)
-It's way cheaper to wire for a whole house generator when you build than to retrofit it.

[RevolverRob]

… what would you have added this time?

I’m coming up with a list of nice to have features for the new home being started. Things like outlets in the front eaves for holiday lights, a second water line and shutoff for the master bath toilet - things like that. Little details.

What things do you wish you had, or ended up adding later?

I'd never build a house these days without at least two if not three zones of A/C and at least two hot water heaters, one for the bathrooms and one for the kitchen/laundry. You want enough A/C to freeze your ass out. You can get away with heat pumps, pellet stove will be overkill except for ~3 days a year.

More important for you at this stage, you should consider having a storm room installed. Where you are going some of the worst tornadoes occur in the country. When it's being framed is the best time to select an interior closet and have it reinforced as a storm room. You won't be able to dig down far without reaching the water table. So you'll need to opt for an above ground. It's truly the perfect time to get it in there, especially if you can before the subfloor is put down. If you select a pre-fabbed unit and have it installed now, it can double as your gun 'room' (closet, but bigger than a safe). Something kind of like this is an 'easy button' https://www.lonestarsaferooms.com/ -

I'd opt from the get go to have gas lines brought in and pre-setup for a natural gas generator. I've seen that area have power outages measured in weeks before.

[Joe in PNG]

At least as many bathrooms as bedrooms.

[Lester Polfus]

We didn't build our house, but I do have a list. For context, we live in the Pacific Northwest, in the middle of a wooded property near a national forest.


A large covered porch big enough for the kid to run around and play on during the wet season.
A mudroom, with lots of coat hooks, and storage for gloves and hats. preferably with a floor that would allow things to drip dry and with outlets and space for boot and glove driers. Storing this stuff on the porch isn't a good idea, as you might find a bushy tailed wood rat curled up in your expensive ass LL Bean boots. And you'll get funny looks from the UPS guy when he walks up as your are bashing the rat's head in with a piece of firewood.
Wood storage and some sort of pass through to minimize the amount of wood debris you drop on the floor as you bring firewood in the house.
Wired for a generator and whole house surge protector.
One or two locations in the house where you can turn on all the exterior lights with a single switch. at least one switch would be in our upstairs room that is our strongpoint.
More food storage. like enough to store a whole year of dry goods, because thats what we are up to. we've bought some decent cabinets and such, but honestly what i would like to have is a room I can walk in with some steel shelving.

[Duelist]

Adequate countertops and cabinetry in the kitchen. More and more countertop appliances these days, but our older home has limited countertop space, and what I wouldn’t give to have more space to put the stupid things away when they aren’t actually in use. Used to be, you’d have a toaster and maybe a slow cooker or something. Now I’ve got an insta pot, and several crock pots, and she wants a mixer, and so on.

More places to put crap away so I could actually use the countertops more for prep and so forth would be amazing, or just straight up more countertop space.

[0ddl0t]

1) I'll make sure my next house can stay reasonably warm/cool without electricity/HVAC. This house does pretty well except the fire-safe vestigial eaves allow rain to enter open windows if there is even the slightest breeze.

2) I'd also make my garage at least large enough to park two full size trucks inside, leave all their doors open, & still have room to walk by each and futz at a work bench.

3) I wouldn't have the kitchen so far from the garage (so I wouldn't have to lug groceries as far).

4) I'd take a closer look at the layout around the doorways to make sure they don't open into useable space. I hate getting thwacked by an opening door when brushing my teeth or moving the laundry into the dryer.

[David S.]

High quality insulation and insulating windows. I don't care how much more you pay upfront, it'll pay for itself in energy costs and noise suppression.

A room that is legitimately safe for dry practice.

[EricP]

A pantry.

[Oldherkpilot]

A hot water spigot next to the cold spigot outside. I finally ran one because washing the mud off the dang dogs with cold water in November is bad ju-ju for arthritic hands.

[rob_s]

Ost of mine would be generational or situational or geographical. For example…

If I was buying THIS HOUSE over again… I wouldn’t. At the time the kids were 4 and 7.. maybe 5 and 8… and at those ages through now I wish we’d lived in a more “suburban” neighborhood with neighbors or similar socio-economic status (or better) in close proximity along with things to go do with said neighbors (restaurants, parks, farmers markets, kids’ sports, adults’ sports, etc). We are sub-rural and it’s made us far too insular and makes socializing or going out into more of a chore than I’d like. In hindsight, I’m far more urban-ce trip than I think even I had realized.

I’d also have gone two story with kids at that age. Master, guest room, and office downstairs, two kids’ rooms, a bath, and loft/playroom/homework station upstairs. Ideally that would mean we could have just a living room downstairs and not need a living and family room. Particularly at their ages now and in the near future (they are currently 10 and 13) having a kidland would be nice.

Three car garage, 25 feet deep by at least 40 feet wide, since there’s no basements in Florida and everyone uses the garage for storage. I have a workshop now, which I wouldn’t have if we lived “in town” but we spend so much time driving into town for activities that I never get to use it. Or, not as much as I’d like. So the “workshop” is largely “warehouse” and we’d need to replicate that somehow.

Proximity to a real airport. We travel a lot (also a detriment to the workshop time) and again 45 min to the closest airport (which always requires a layover) or an hour+ to the nearest airport with direct flights to anywhere. I’d prefer to be 30 min or less to a real airport. Or travel less.

Provisions for lots of power of building new. Put in the largest panel the utility service can support, even if you’re only using half of it today. The whole world is going electric and the pre I’m For a 600amp panel today vs changing it and all the feeders later is peanuts.

On the subject of power, built in generator. If on City gas, then feed from that. If not, bury a propane tank (buy, don’t rent).

Since you have gas (either city or tank), gas fed insta hots (don’t use electric insta hots), gas stove, gas water heater, gas clothes dryer… and rough in the patio for gas grill.

Speaking of patio, minimum 12ft X 20 foot under cover, preferably with cover as part of the main house roof, not just jutting out abortion. And not freestanding away from the house. 15x30 would be better so you have room for outdoor kitchen, dining, and living. 15x40 even better still. We have a 16x60 tiki hut and (a) it’s a little too big and (b) it’s freestanding which means grilling isn’t as convenient.

As others have mentioned, more hose bibs than you think you need, more exterior outlets than you think you need, and more flood-lights than you think you need. Hose bibs should be fed off irrigation well, with maybe one off City water.

[HeavyDuty]

Great ideas, people! A lot are already contemplated in the home, and others are on my list. But some are ones I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.

[okie john]

All of the above plus solid-core interior doors, especially on the bathrooms.


Okie John

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I didn't build this house and my ideas are pretty minor but I'll tell you one thing I did do, one thing I would do, if I were about to do renos, and the main thing I'd be thinking about differently if I had a blank canvas.

The thing I did do is so small it's barely worth mentioning. But I had to screw around with the heat ducts a bit when we moved in because they weren't all connected correctly and by some crazy fluke, when I was a teenager I worked with a guy who'd built air ducts for a living and I remember him talking about the noise they made when done wrong and I noticed it and it seemed like an easy fix, relatively speaking, so I fixed it.

Anyway, I put a heat register in the room we use as a mud room. There's no thermostat in there and there are pretty big windows so it's not efficient to heat and in the winter probably doesn't go much above 60 Gesundheit or whatever, and in a sense that heat is wasted, because the doors to it are always closed. But I put the register under where we hang all our wet clothes when we come in. Now our boots and coats are always dry from the intermitted warm air blowing on them, and the tiny amount of extra NG that is getting used now that that room is bleeding off a little bit of heat from the main ducts isn't noticeable on the bill at all. Totally worth the $86 worth of ducting and extra $1/month or whatever it is, you really can't tell the difference on the bill. Maybe everyone else in the world has a heated mud room, but the one I had growing up was just a concrete-floored basement door area, so if you wanted your outside stuff dried off, you had to bring it somewhere inside and find a place to hang it where heat was getting to it. So forced air dry, super minor but big thumbs up from me.



The one thing I would do, if I were putting in work (possible) and spending money (ha - I'm Canadian) would be to run the plumbing for exterior hose connections through the basement, with inside shutoffs above each wall penetration, so that in the winter, I could go into the basement, turn off the shutoffs, go outside, open the taps to drain, and go back inside and not think about it again until spring.

That may also be standard everywhere now, but this house was originally built in 1908 and apparently we have learned some things since then.



The main general thing I'd be thinking about if I had a blank canvas would be passive solar with thermal mass, and the unusual triple-purpose items you could create.

For example, depending on your exposure, a kitchen island could be placed such that the low angle winter sun hits it, but the summer sun does not...and if the sun-facing side is a pigmented, eight inch thick concrete wall, it can be both beautiful, and a thermal mass to retain solar heat and radiate it back overnight. I happen to like concrete as a building medium and maybe not everyone shares my tastes, but then, maybe some of those people would appreciate stone, and the same effect is possible.

I wouldn't go crazy with it, necessarily; not every room needs a Stonehenge. But it's a nice bonus to soak up the sun's free heat, without screwing around with PV cells and turning it into electricity.

Anyway, the thing that I have always thought about with passive solar via thermal mass - and I admit this is kind of nutty, but probably in a way that p-f will not reject utterly...

You're placing stone or reinforced concrete structures in your house. With a bit of planning, I bet I could put them places that were good passive solar collectors... AND made good defensive positions. You'd know they were cover. Nobody else would. As long as you know all the locations of cover positions in your house, you could work them to your advantage if you had to.

Again I realize that's a bit crazy but if I were building to take advantage of passive solar anyway, you bet I'd be thinking through shapes and placements that, if for whatever crazy reason in my homogeneous snow globe village of relatively even wealth distribution I get home invaded, make good defensive shooting positions that basically separate the area my wife and kid are in, from the entry points that someone doing a wrong-address drug rip* would be coming in.



*drug rips are probably 99% of home invasions in this province; they're usually working with good enough intel to hit the right house, but not always. When they hit the wrong house, that's about the only in-home random-victim violent crime that happens here, and consequently it's almost the only way I could imagine being at risk and it's remote as hell, but I'd still build that way if I were starting from scratch.

[Darth_Uno]

I tell my customers you can't have too much:

outlets
concrete
countertop space
toilets


You also can't have too many closets. In fact you're probably best served with moderate size dwelling areas and more storage. I've seen and built homes where they just had to have big living rooms and bedrooms and the closets were an afterthought. Not a great design IMO.

Diminishing returns: you do get what you pay for with higher efficiency HVAC components and insulation upgrades, but you can reach a point where you're spending quite a bit and not getting as much bang for your buck. You'd have to talk to an installer in your climate to determine where exactly that point may be.

[RevolverRob]

Was thinking about the garage this morning. Are you planning to do an exterior shop down the road or will it strictly be the attached garage? Since you're an auto tinkerer from time to time - I'm thinking an attached garage, this would change for a shop.

Electricity: You want - at least - three outlets on each wall of the garage, with at least one of those being a GFCI.

On the ceiling have outlets placed every 6-10 feet along the length of the rafters - have these run to a switch by the man door and a switch by the garage door. This will allow you to run plug and dropped LED lights that are much less expensive than dedicated 'garage lighting'.

If possible, spec an alcove for placing a large toolbox/workbench, so it doesn't eat up floor space. Make sure that alcove has two outlets (both GFCI) and a plug above for lighting. Oh and don't forget the alcove for the mini fridge. Beer/Soda/Water should always be on hand.

You want 220v somewhere in the garage, in case you decide at some point you want a big welder. Ideally, the garage will be on a separate panel from the house, but if not, you want each wall to be on a separate circuit with 30-40amps.

___

Climate Control: Talk to them about installing a wall pass through either around the door or through the exterior side wall. Imagine a 4" piece of PVC with cleanout caps on the end. You can use this for a variety of things. Passing extension cords through, passing air hoses through. Or far, far, more importantly, to pass a water hose through for running a dehumidifier or to attach the hot air hose vent from a portable A/C unit.

Of course foam insulation in the walls and an insulated garage door. If possible, I'd forego any attic storage space and have the ceiling in the garage as high as possible and insulated. You can use hangers to raise and lower gear to fill in that space. Or more importantly, the extra height can get you space for a two post lift.

__

Extras: Which brings up the last point pre-installing the spacers and bolts for a two-post lift and if necessary pouring slightly thicker concrete in this area for that purpose. If you do this, put the lift on the opposite side of the garage from the toolbox. This may seem counter-intuitive at first, but trust me, you don't want to walk around the lift/lifted car to get to your toolbox all the time. Instead stepping away from it and over to your box is better. Plus you can stand across the room and drink a beer and admire your handy work. Or pull back and ponder at the ongoing work at hand.

[randyho]

and loft/playroom/homework station upstairs...

Really like this idea if you have kids. "Here's where we work," even if its in the home.

[randyho]

You want 220v somewhere in the garage, in case you decide at some point you want a big welder.

Or a tesla. I'm running 220 to the end of my garage in anticipation of selling. I'll be welding but buyer probably won't.

[jeep45238]

Make it so the driveway doesn't start to curve immediately as you leave the garage (end of culdesac, storm drains on both sides of drive).

It's a two story with the garage taking up 1/2 of the lower level - I would flip the orientation so the garage is under the kitchen/dining/living room and not the bed rooms.

I'd buy my neighbor's lot and house and straddle the property line with my current house :)

[PNWTO]

We have a very true-to-form colonial style home, so lots of right angles and narrower hallways. No real complaints since my wife and I love the style and embrace it but we are planning on adding a large porch.

Interior-wise, I wish it had a space that could be easily used as a home office or study, as I endeavor to never work in an office again. But right now I’m just using a guest bedroom, which isn’t totally inconvenient but definitely cumbersome to myself and family at times.

[HeavyDuty]

Keep it coming, people - some of these we can’t control, but some we can (for a price.)

[Darth_Uno]

Was thinking about the garage this morning. Are you planning to do an exterior shop down the road or will it strictly be the attached garage? Since you're an auto tinkerer from time to time - I'm thinking an attached garage, this would change for a shop.



Yes, I should also add that you can never have too much space in the garage. We also suggest a minimum 24' deep garage, that gets you a couple extra feet on both ends of a crew cab truck. My garage at home is 40x24 and I wish it was bigger. Hell my garage at the shop is 72x40 and I wish that was bigger.

[Flamingo]

We are empty nesters now, so if I was getting a new house I would go with a smaller house and a larger outbuilding/garage. I would also do gas for for the stove and water heater. I wish we had more closets and a pantry in our kitchen.

One thing we have that I really like is a Rais wood stove. The one (http://www.raisstoves.com/stoves/rais-pina-wood-stove/) we have can pivot 360 degrees... but it is also in the center of our living space.

I added a large porch and covered deck area to our place and it has made the outdoor space much more usable (important in rainy WA state). We also got rid of our carpeted areas and went with LVP flooring. It works best for us with pets.

[Eric_L]

Drainage, manage the outdoor water runoff so it does not collect around the house. If on a concrete slab, avoid plumbing on outside walls. (Freeze issues). Natural gas can fail (supply or pipeline, I don’t remember), it has during some cold winters. Propane- you own it and it is on property. Have a way to heat the place if electricity fails.
If you have snow, consider a garage drain and sloping floor. Snow and ice fall off the vehicle and can leave quite a lot of water.

[Borderland]

My wife could design the house. I'll design the garage/shop/aux. living quarters. That way if there's anything missing I'd have an alibi. ;)

I know a guy who built a beautiful 2 story log home near Prineville OR. He first built his garage/shop/aux. living quarters. Him and his wife lived there for 2 years while they built their log house. He's happy, she's happy.

I'd have a wood stove in the shop. For the house I would have electric base board heat with diesel generator back up. Eliminate the duct work and furnace. I had forced air gas in my last house and hated it. Dried the air out like you wouldn't believe.

[Welder]

I'd have a wood stove in the shop. For the house I would have electric base board heat with diesel generator back up. Eliminate the duct work and furnace. I had forced air gas in my last house and hated it.

I agree with you on the shop wood stove -- that's what I did when I bought my property. One day I might add a heat pump to it, probably the day before I plumb a bathroom out there. Wood stoves are great for intermittent heat needs.

I assume your area must have fairly mild winters if you're suggesting electric baseboard heat. Years ago my all-electric heat pump at the house failed, which meant that I ran on the emergency electric heat and air handler alone for most of the winter until I'd saved the money up to replace the system. My winter electric bills are normally about $100 higher than my summer ones, but when the heat pump went out and I went to what was basically an electric baseboard heat, my bills were $300 higher per month. Not a fan of baseboard in this climate unless you're in a tiny apartment.

[Borderland]

I agree with you on the shop wood stove -- that's what I did when I bought my property. One day I might add a heat pump to it, probably the day before I plumb a bathroom out there. Wood stoves are great for intermittent heat needs.

I assume your area must have fairly mild winters if you're suggesting electric baseboard heat. Years ago my all-electric heat pump at the house failed, which meant that I ran on the emergency electric heat and air handler alone for most of the winter until I'd saved the money up to replace the system. My winter electric bills are normally about $100 higher than my summer ones, but when the heat pump went out and I went to what was basically an electric baseboard heat, my bills were $300 higher per month. Not a fan of baseboard in this climate unless you're in a tiny apartment.

Yep, pretty mild winters here. Hardly ever freezes. In wall or base board heaters work pretty well. My neighbor just gutted an old cabin and rehabbed the interior. He installed a wood stove and baseboard heaters. Mostly his heaters keeps him around 65° a good part of the year. If he wants it warmer in the winter he uses his wood stove. I know he ran the numbers because he never spends any money he doesn't have to. Drives a Prius. ;)

We have in wall electric but never use it. Mostly propane because my wife likes the flames. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If I ran it down we're probably spending way more than we should for heat. But then we're old and really don't GAS anymore. When do we eat?

[Welder]

I'm getting ready to put an addition on my house. We're going with 36" doors for ease of moving furniture in and out, and going with 42" hallways vs the 38" ones the company suggested. Even wider would be great, but space is at a premium. We have a mechanical room in the plans because as a person who works on badly designed stuff all the time, I hate to make somebody crawl up in an attic to install or service an air handler.

Going with propane for the water heater....the original owner only had the stove and a vent-free fireplace on propane. Silly. Also going with propane backup on the second heat pump. I asked the owner of a commercial plumbing supply store about tankless whole-house water heaters, and he hemmed and hawwed back and forth pretty noncommitally of which was better -- I finally asked him what he'd put in his own house, and he said a conventional propane water heater. He said he'd seen failures of the various tankless sensors and that there was some maintenance involved with a tankless heater to keep the heating grid clean. Also that the ones they sold didn't really come on until 0.5 gpm flow, so if you're just wanting a trickle of hot water...well, that's not really possible. Also, apparently the recovery rate of propane water heaters is much better than electric, which is a big deal for a house with 4 females in it.

The major failure of the house as it stands is that it lacks storage. Like, it doesn't have *any.* Bedroom closets are it. So the various addition sections all have lots of storage built in, as well as an upstairs living room for the kids so they have their own hangout area. We designed their rooms so that they're not over us -- should keep it quieter and more sane for us at night when their friends are over.

Speaking of storage, this house doesn't have a pantry. The bathroom is inset into one bay of the garage as it sits now, and I think we're going to carry that inset all the way across, shortening the garage but allowing us to move the bathroom all the way to the end, use the current bathroom as the pantry, and add a laundry room as well. The garage will then allow us to only park midsize cars in it, no more pickups in the long bay. But I have 2 shops to park the work vehicles in and we're trying not to affect the house's footprint because of the way it sits on the lot.


If all goes as planned, I also decided to have a gun room which will be accessible through either the new master closet or through the new office, but it doesn't have any doors directly into the living room area. These three rooms are going right onto the end of the house, which is currently the master bedroom and the living room. I want the gun room to kind of fly under the radar for most people. I currently have the safe in the bedroom, but my fiance doesn't like that, so we're compromising this way. And also, there should be enough room to get the reloading stuff set up in that room as well. I'm thinking of adding some steel doors or gates behind the conventional ones in that room....I'll make them myself, and we'll maybe turn it into a low-key safe room as well. Biggest obstacle to that is that I currently have a window in the plans for it, and I want to keep it there. I don't want to look at a wall anymore while I pull the handle on my 650.

The main question for me is cost -- I still don't have a quote on what all of this is going to cost, and who knows if some of the plans will have to change to accomodate a reasonable budget.

[Borderland]

I'm getting ready to put an addition on my house. We're going with 36" doors for ease of moving furniture in and out, and going with 42" hallways vs the 38" ones the company suggested. Even wider would be great, but space is at a premium. We have a mechanical room in the plans because as a person who works on badly designed stuff all the time, I hate to make somebody crawl up in an attic to install or service an air handler.

Going with propane for the water heater....the original owner only had the stove and a vent-free fireplace on propane. Silly. Also going with propane backup on the second heat pump. I asked the owner of a commercial plumbing supply store about tankless whole-house water heaters, and he hemmed and hawwed back and forth pretty noncommitally of which was better -- I finally asked him what he'd put in his own house, and he said a conventional propane water heater. He said he'd seen failures of the various tankless sensors and that there was some maintenance involved with a tankless heater to keep the heating grid clean. Also that the ones they sold didn't really come on until 0.5 gpm flow, so if you're just wanting a trickle of hot water...well, that's not really possible. Also, apparently the recovery rate of propane water heaters is much better than electric, which is a big deal for a house with 4 females in it.

The major failure of the house as it stands is that it lacks storage. Like, it doesn't have *any.* Bedroom closets are it. So the various addition sections all have lots of storage built in, as well as an upstairs living room for the kids so they have their own hangout area. We designed their rooms so that they're not over us -- should keep it quieter and more sane for us at night when their friends are over.

Speaking of storage, this house doesn't have a pantry. The bathroom is inset into one bay of the garage as it sits now, and I think we're going to carry that inset all the way across, shortening the garage but allowing us to move the bathroom all the way to the end, use the current bathroom as the pantry, and add a laundry room as well. The garage will then allow us to only park midsize cars in it, no more pickups in the long bay. But I have 2 shops to park the work vehicles in and we're trying not to affect the house's footprint because of the way it sits on the lot.


If all goes as planned, I also decided to have a gun room which will be accessible through either the new master closet or through the new office, but it doesn't have any doors directly into the living room area. These three rooms are going right onto the end of the house, which is currently the master bedroom and the living room. I want the gun room to kind of fly under the radar for most people. I currently have the safe in the bedroom, but my fiance doesn't like that, so we're compromising this way. And also, there should be enough room to get the reloading stuff set up in that room as well. I'm thinking of adding some steel doors or gates behind the conventional ones in that room....I'll make them myself, and we'll maybe turn it into a low-key safe room as well. Biggest obstacle to that is that I currently have a window in the plans for it, and I want to keep it there. I don't want to look at a wall anymore while I pull the handle on my 650.

The main question for me is cost -- I still don't have a quote on what all of this is going to cost, and who knows if some of the plans will have to change to accomodate a reasonable budget.

Propane is good. Just buy your tanks instead of renting them. Our House was designed by a Romanian architect. We have lots of pantry space. Romanians must like to cook. That's a perception, not a fact.

[Joe in PNG]

A personal belief of mine is that a house should follow the features of houses built in that area before HVAC was a thing- modified for modern climate tech of course.

So, if I was designing a house for Florida, I'd want high ceilings, high roofs, lots of porches, good cross ventilation, lots of windows- but shaded with overhangs, and so on.

Not that this has been an issue- I can't afford to build a house anyway.

[Borderland]

A personal belief of mine is that a house should follow the features of houses built in that area before HVAC was a thing- modified for modern climate tech of course.

So, if I was designing a house for Florida, I'd want high ceilings, high roofs, lots of porches, good cross ventilation, lots of windows- but shaded with overhangs, and so on.

Not that this has been an issue- I can't afford to build a house anyway.

New construction is running about $475/SF here. We looked at some new construction last year. Just can't believe it.

Mostly it's a severe housing shortage in the area. Lots of things driving that and it won't change anytime soon.

[OlongJohnson]

I love the idea of a machinery room. Just walk in and do what needs to be done.

Water heaters don't belong in the attic. My first house, the home inspector when we bought said the water heater was on its last legs and needed to be replaced. We ignored it for about four years, until it started leaking. It was outside the house, on the driveway slab, and the water was no biggie. We kept using it for a few weeks until we had time to go get a new one at Home Depot and swapped it out ourselves. I know a guy here in Houston who had his water heater in the attic leak while he was out of town and it wrecked the house. Had to remodel the whole thing.

In Belton/Temple, you'll be somewhat out of the humidity compared to Houston, but it's still definitely an issue up there. Indoor air quality is almost the most important thing about a house in this climate. You don't just want it cold, you need the humidity managed effectively. If the humidity is well managed, the house is comfortable at warmer temperatures. If it's not well managed, you WILL have mold problems. That means AC units sized correctly for the requirements, not just big ones to make it really cold inside. For the dehumidification to work, the evaporator coils have to condense the moisture out of the passing air until the vapor turns into water and runs off down into the drain. The longer it's running, the more of that will happen. A system that runs for a short time doesn't saturate the coils, and the water that condenses onto the coils gets evaporated back off during the equilibration post-run after the pump shuts off. An oversized system that gets the house cool in a really short time will not dehumidify the air. There will be mold on the evaporator coils, in the ducts, on the back of the registers, and everywhere else it can start.

Don't let them install a system in which you can't access both sides of the evaporator coils for cleaning. It's OK if you have to undo some threaded fasteners and maybe even cut and replace some sealant rather than just foam gaskets, but you need to be able to get in there without tearing up stuff that's not meant to be torn up.

Multi-zone systems basically come down to multiple independent systems. This works against you, because the higher SEER rated systems are all larger-capacity systems. If you go for multiple systems, you'll end up with either oversized systems or smaller systems that can't be purchased with the higher SEER ratings.

Most modern digital thermostats are designed to work well in the desert, keeping the temp in the house within a degree or so. If it turns on when it says 76 degrees and turns off when it says 76 degrees, that's going to be a short cycle and not control humidity. Insist on thermostats that have some hysteresis (usually adjustable) so you can have the temperature swing several degrees for a longer run. Make sure the fan speed isn't too high. If the airspeed across the coils is too high, that tends to strip the condensed water back off the coils into the airstream rather than letting it run off into the drain.

Strongly consider a supplemental whole-house dehumidifier integrated into the system. During spring and fall months, the relative humidity tends to be high because the dew point is roughly the same as it is in summer, but the AC demands are much lower because the outdoor temps are not as hot. The whole house dehumidifier lets you maintain your desired RH in the house without freezing yourself out with the AC.

I prefer a single-story house because all the AC ducting and registers can be accessible in the attic. My house is a two story house, and when I had to replace the AC ducts, it meant cutting holes in walls and ceilings to be able to run the ducts down to the first floor. It massively increased the cost of the job.

I like a roof slope that I can be comfortable getting up and walking around on, without feeling like I should be tied in with ropes. Another reason to go single story. Maintaining gutters, etc. is another factor, especially as you age.

You want stuff in the attic to be well organized and laid out for access to all areas. A typical contractor will just run a wire or a pipe from here to there as straight as possible. The result after several of them have had their way can resemble the movie trope of a ballet through all the trip wires. It sucks.

My ideal system would include managed ventilation with the outside air. There are exchanger systems for that purpose, that are designed to bring the incoming outside air closer to the temperature of the inside air. But I haven't seen one that addresses filtration of the outside air. The key to making a ventilation system work in this climate is filtration. There are months of the year where the live oaks turn everything yellow with pollen, and getting that into any duct work will make it the Black Lagoon in short order. You need HEPA or near-HEPA filtration of incoming air at the building envelope, with easy access to change the filter regularly.

Good luck finding a contractor who will actually do all that and get it right. I've been told by multiple contractors in Houston that the only thing anyone will bid is the lowest cost that meets code, because that's who gets the job. Like your medical care, you need to be actively involved in the management.

Bathroom fans should be ducted outside the building envelope, not just into a non-climate-controlled attic. You will need to manage bugs (spiders and mud wasps) that will be attracted to the exits one way or another. There should be a bathroom fan adjacent to every shower to get the steam out of the house. I believe code only requires a window in each bathroom, and that's B.S.

Hard flooring, not carpet.

Water hammer arrestors on everything, and make sure they're threaded for easy replacement. The service life isn't that many years.

Along those lines, any key water valves should be on threaded or otherwise serviceable fittings and the pipes arranged so that the valves can reasonably easily be replaced. It's nice to have a valve swap be a few minutes DIY rather than having a plumber come cut out a whole chunk of the system and rebuild it with soldered joints. Repeatedly... because valves get old and need to be replaced.

Foam insulation under a roof can be a real problem if there is ever a water leak, because you can't find the source of the leak without chiseling a bunch of the foam off. I wouldn't settle for blow-in fiberglass insulation. It makes the entire attic into a hazmat area requiring a bunny suit if you're going to do more than minimal stuff up there. Rolled batts will cost more to have installed, but they can be pulled up to work on something that needs to be worked on and then replaced easily.