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Thread: New Home Construction Ideas

  1. #31
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    @Darth_Uno.

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  2. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by UNM1136 View Post
    @Darth_Uno.

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    Not sure how I missed this.

    Energy efficiency - depends how crazy you want to go. Due to modern energy codes, even a basic build is far better than what you got in 1992. I would definitely recommend low-e windows and a blown-in or spider/foam insulation package, vs standard batt. HVAC components can quickly get you into the realm of diminishing returns. Suggest you consult a local installer for recommendations. Personally, I have geothermal and I love it - it's also a mich higher upfront cost.

    Security - if you don't want to have burglar bars on every window, everything else is moot. Make sure deadbolts are installed correctly, and if you desire avoid sliding patio doors (get swing doors, with deadbolts). But the best deadbolt installation in the world won't stop someone from smashing a window and stepping in. For layout, that's up to you. Split bedroom plans are very popular, but I built mine with all the bedrooms on one end. There is a hallway "tunnel of death" if you want to try to come that way. Conversely, it's that much harder for me to get out, unless I just bail out the bedroom window. Personally, I feel that you have to live in the home every single day, while the chances of home invasion are slim. So go with whichever you feel is a bigger issue to you (and your spouse).

    Tankless water heater - I do recommend those if more than 2 people live in the home. We recently had a thread on those. I'm too lazy to find it.

    LED lighting - consult with your electrician. LED is very affordable now. Bulbs in the home are easily changed. If your area is like ours, most garages and basements are wired for the bare minimum of porcelain lights. Strongly recommend wiring for and installing LED shop lights. Absolutely worth it.

    ADA compatibility - whole home ADA compliance/wheelchair accessibility is not extremely common, as planning a whole home around that does cost a bit more. However, it's still much cheaper to do it now than later. And you won't hate having wider hallways and doorways, and zero-entry doorways.

  3. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Uno View Post
    Not sure how I missed this.

    Thanks and a couple of more questions

    Energy efficiency - depends how crazy you want to go. Due to modern energy codes, even a basic build is far better than what you got in 1992. I would definitely recommend low-e windows and a blown-in or spider/foam insulation package, vs standard batt. HVAC components can quickly get you into the realm of diminishing returns. Suggest you consult a local installer for recommendations. Personally, I have geothermal and I love it - it's also a mich higher upfront cost.

    Spider foam in wall and attic?? Your thoughts on blown loose vs. arts in attic? I am of the opinion you can’t do to much insulation but many say there is a diminishing return????

    Security - if you don't want to have burglar bars on every window, everything else is moot. Make sure deadbolts are installed correctly, and if you desire avoid sliding patio doors (get swing doors, with deadbolts). But the best deadbolt installation in the world won't stop someone from smashing a window and stepping in. For layout, that's up to you. Split bedroom plans are very popular, but I built mine with all the bedrooms on one end. There is a hallway "tunnel of death" if you want to try to come that way. Conversely, it's that much harder for me to get out, unless I just bail out the bedroom window. Personally, I feel that you have to live in the home every single day, while the chances of home invasion are slim. So go with whichever you feel is a bigger issue to you (and your spouse).

    I am not doing bars but will harden as much as possible.

    Tankless water heater - I do recommend those if more than 2 people live in the home. We recently had a thread on those. I'm too lazy to find it.

    How about 2 people and a well. I am thinking of going that route. I have seen mix d results on a well.

    LED lighting - consult with your electrician. LED is very affordable now. Bulbs in the home are easily changed. If your area is like ours, most garages and basements are wired for the bare minimum of porcelain lights. Strongly recommend wiring for and installing LED shop lights. Absolutely worth it.

    I will do LED everywhere possible but don’t understand why wording would be different?

    ADA compatibility - whole home ADA compliance/wheelchair accessibility is not extremely common, as planning a whole home around that does cost a bit more. However, it's still much cheaper to do it now than later. And you won't hate having wider hallways and doorways, and zero-entry doorways.
    I will do as much ADA as possible the zero threshold I am still researching.

  4. #34
    Frequent DG Adventurer fatdog's Avatar
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    Had to do this myself in 2008 after our house burned, there are a lot of new products since I did it, but my lessons leared:

    Energy efficiency windows, doors, and appliances, I think all of those are very worthy investments. The dual pane windows we ended up with were not terribly expensive.

    Tankless water heater, two thumbs down from me, there is a thread around here some place, I ended up shutting mine down within a year and going back to conventional. If you are on a well or a rural water system like us where interuptions happen and there is a good chance to get air in your pipes from time to time, you are doomed, it will burn out at some point. And make sure all your water plumbing is the PEX stuff...end of bursts pipes from freezing...

    LED lighting, Yes, it was not on the market in the way it is now in terms of products and I have chosen to retrofit a lot of our halogen and undercounter stuff with the LED products...worthy

    high efficiency dual fuel heat and AC. if I had it to do over, I would have gone with oil filled radiator electric perimeter heaters and only used the heatpump as our backup or supplimental heating. We don't have bad (like Midwest or NE) winters and the forced air heat is not efficient or clean. If it were not required to go so deep, or if I had a lake on the property I would really love to have a water sourced or geo sourced heat pump. A friend has one and it is miraculously efficient. Not having a water source like a lake, to get the necessary efficiency for a geo based unit I was going to have to dig deeper than was practical in our area. It is worth looking into for the long term savings.

    Smart home features/ security system. I have done the powerline carrier based smart home stuff, retrofitted it to our old house that burned, and it is very meh to me. We hardly used it. A $10 light timer works just as well for us. However I don't regret hardwiring our security system and camera system after the framing phase of construction. I know the wireless stuff works but I figure I already have enough of an RF dense environment with everything else we bring into the place. I like the hardwired option still.

    other stuff I got creative for our electrician in terms of light switching options and it took some extra work but the switches for our external lights are where I want them and controlled from multiple places, I know the home automation stuff can accomplish some of the same.

    I had our electrician do EMT type conduit for line voltage stuff. Living in the country we are forever plagued with rodents and I suspect them eating through wires caused our house fire. It added about $3-4K to the house but I felt it was worth it.

    We spent and extra $8K to get a whole house fire sprinkler installed. Obviously that was a hangover from our mindset from the fire, but we live in a rural area served by a volunteer fire department many miles away. If I don't get a fire out myself, quickly, the whole place is going up, no illusions about that and once is enough for me. The insurance discount is significant and it paid for itself in about 10 years in terms of insurance savings.

    We built on a slab this time. More expensive but in my view a crawl space is just some place where only bad things happen.

    Being in a high tornado frequency area, we chose to build an interior reinforced area/room/closet with poured 12" walls and a cap. Then drywalled over it so you don't really notice what it is or that it is there. It is also my gun safe with an industrial steel door and combination locks, but will stand up well as our tornado shelter. That cost a lot but was no more expensive in the end than a basement would have been or an external tornado shelter outside.

    All showers bathrooms are handicap/ADA furnished and shower is a roll in design for the future. Single story.

  5. #35
    Member JDD's Avatar
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    Bumping this thread, since my big Corona purchase was a pretty interesting chunk of land (6ish acres, river on two sides, 30 feet of elevation change) in the Northeast that I plan to build a house on eventually - and I can now occupy my spare time thinking about what I can do with it.

    I am 100% sold on quite a few of the things mentioned in this thread, particularly because this may be a retirement house for my wife and I, or in the nearer term, perhaps a place for my parents to move if aging considerations were to force one or the other out of their current home (it's not likely, but the house I grew up in is not really retrofittable). In the nearer term, we will probably look at renting out whatever we build until we actually need it.

    I plan to use ICFs, Geothermal heat (open column well), and a solar/battery system; and many/all of the ADA recommendations mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

    Most of the questions I have right now are dealing with the planning phase. The land cost about 100k, and most of the finished properties in the neighborhood are between 150k and 250k (for 3-5br houses on small lots). I am not highly motivated to create a white elephant that I can never sell; but the local environment puts an upper bound on the amount of cash that I can sanely dump into building a 3br house - probably 300ish into the improvements at most. We have been saving for awhile, and while LT capital gains will take a big chunk of that, we can pay out of pocket for whatever we put on the land.

    Has anyone worked with an actual architect for design of a non-super rich person house? There are a few in the state, but they seem to specialize in 3rd+ vacation homes overlooking the coast for old money types, built with granite masonry and hand hewn old growth timber framing. A regular off-the-shelf set of plans is probably not going to work with the site, but I am not sure how much flexibility I should expect out of a draftsman/general contractor. Your perspective on where to start would be greatly appreciated @Darth_Uno. I think I know who I will use for GC, provided they are experienced with ICFs or have a good sub that specializes in them; and since we have no time pressure I am willing to wait for however long it takes for a spot to open up in their build schedule (they are hands down the best in my town, but they build a limited number of custom homes every year). I don't however, want to call them until I get a bit more of a handle on how the workflow goes.

    What I am thinking right now:

    Build exactly what I want regarding the lot layout, grading/drainage, and structure (basement, walls, windows, insulation, roof, and utilities/HVAC system, septic) since these are the components that are most expensive and hard to adjust later. De-prioritize interior finishes, appliances, and cabinetry, since if we rent the place, they will probably live a very hard life and need to be replaced anyway (its a college town, so the pool of renters is... special).

    Anything that I am just way out in left field on? Things that I should be thinking about but I am not?

  6. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by JDD View Post
    Bumping this thread, since my big Corona purchase was a pretty interesting chunk of land (6ish acres, river on two sides, 30 feet of elevation change) in the Northeast that I plan to build a house on eventually - and I can now occupy my spare time thinking about what I can do with it.

    I am 100% sold on quite a few of the things mentioned in this thread, particularly because this may be a retirement house for my wife and I, or in the nearer term, perhaps a place for my parents to move if aging considerations were to force one or the other out of their current home (it's not likely, but the house I grew up in is not really retrofittable). In the nearer term, we will probably look at renting out whatever we build until we actually need it.

    I plan to use ICFs, Geothermal heat (open column well), and a solar/battery system; and many/all of the ADA recommendations mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

    Most of the questions I have right now are dealing with the planning phase. The land cost about 100k, and most of the finished properties in the neighborhood are between 150k and 250k (for 3-5br houses on small lots). I am not highly motivated to create a white elephant that I can never sell; but the local environment puts an upper bound on the amount of cash that I can sanely dump into building a 3br house - probably 300ish into the improvements at most. We have been saving for awhile, and while LT capital gains will take a big chunk of that, we can pay out of pocket for whatever we put on the land.

    Has anyone worked with an actual architect for design of a non-super rich person house? There are a few in the state, but they seem to specialize in 3rd+ vacation homes overlooking the coast for old money types, built with granite masonry and hand hewn old growth timber framing. A regular off-the-shelf set of plans is probably not going to work with the site, but I am not sure how much flexibility I should expect out of a draftsman/general contractor. Your perspective on where to start would be greatly appreciated @Darth_Uno. I think I know who I will use for GC, provided they are experienced with ICFs or have a good sub that specializes in them; and since we have no time pressure I am willing to wait for however long it takes for a spot to open up in their build schedule (they are hands down the best in my town, but they build a limited number of custom homes every year). I don't however, want to call them until I get a bit more of a handle on how the workflow goes.

    What I am thinking right now:

    Build exactly what I want regarding the lot layout, grading/drainage, and structure (basement, walls, windows, insulation, roof, and utilities/HVAC system, septic) since these are the components that are most expensive and hard to adjust later. De-prioritize interior finishes, appliances, and cabinetry, since if we rent the place, they will probably live a very hard life and need to be replaced anyway (its a college town, so the pool of renters is... special).

    Anything that I am just way out in left field on? Things that I should be thinking about but I am not?
    In our state, the gap between owner/designers and architects is filled by people that do home design. It is legally allowed and it seems that the architects really don't raise a stink about it up here. I work with a couple that are really excellent and get what the average builder needs without the expense of a full blown architect. If you're fairly educated on your needs and current construction methods, it may be a good route to go. I'm not sure if that is available/legal in your state.

  7. #37
    Member JDD's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AKDoug View Post
    In our state, the gap between owner/designers and architects is filled by people that do home design. It is legally allowed and it seems that the architects really don't raise a stink about it up here. I work with a couple that are really excellent and get what the average builder needs without the expense of a full blown architect. If you're fairly educated on your needs and current construction methods, it may be a good route to go. I'm not sure if that is available/legal in your state.
    Thanks for the pointer, at first glance it does not look like they exist in a meaningful way in my state, but I can call around some friends who may know more. I suppose an architect is not the end of the world if it comes to it - it just moves our timeline to the right. (and I get to sign up for another tour of lucrative crappyness)

  8. #38
    Gucci gear, Walmart skill Darth_Uno's Avatar
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    Most mid-size guys, such as myself, have in-house drafters (which is also me) that can modify their own plans easily enough. But not all are set up to make brand new plans. Most aren’t, or just won’t.

    One of my biggest issues when quoting plans from outside sources (your architect) is sticker shock. He or she will just draw whatever you tell them to. And no, in my experience architects don't really know what anything costs.

    Then my potential customers are blown away when they tell me their budget is $x and I tell them the plan they gave me is substantially more to build it as shown - often to the point that short of stripping it down to bare-bones entry level finishes (which nobody wants) there's really no way to get it down to your price, and you've basically wasted your time and money on this print.

    So assuming he’s willing to consult, you’d probably want to bounce ideas/cost off your GC as you design with an architect.

  9. #39
    Member JDD's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darth_Uno View Post
    Most mid-size guys, such as myself, have in-house drafters (which is also me) that can modify their own plans easily enough. But not all are set up to make brand new plans. Most aren’t, or just won’t.

    One of my biggest issues when quoting plans from outside sources (your architect) is sticker shock. He or she will just draw whatever you tell them to. And no, in my experience architects don't really know what anything costs.

    Then my potential customers are blown away when they tell me their budget is $x and I tell them the plan they gave me is substantially more to build it as shown - often to the point that short of stripping it down to bare-bones entry level finishes (which nobody wants) there's really no way to get it down to your price, and you've basically wasted your time and money on this print.

    So assuming he’s willing to consult, you’d probably want to bounce ideas/cost off your GC as you design with an architect.
    Thank you, that's exactly the kind of feeback was looking for, most appreciated!

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