Seeking opinions on house-garage-shop building.

[JohnDeere4300]

3. Basements are common in Colorado; but I'm less enamored with them as I get older, and wondering if we should go slab on grade. The downside of that is loss of storage space, resale value and tornado shelter. The upside is simpler construction and no stairs as this would be a single level building. The building site is essentially flat.
Thanks for the opinions!

Like some others have said... My vote is a Basement also.

When my Father-in-law built his new brick house he planned for a "basement/garage" before he even got started on the house.

The land where he built his house with a basement/garage is level ground, and this is how he done it.

He started with a slab and then laid blocks on 3 & sides and went up with the blocks 10ft. high, and then started building the house.

After he had the walls & floor built on the house, then he had dirt hauled in to fill in the (3 sides) and he covered up the blocks & had the dozer to slope the dirt....From the road you really can't tell that his house has a basement/garage, and it's not much of a slope (it still looks level)...You have to be standing in his driveway to notice that the land was filled in.

On the end where he didn't lay blocks all the way across, he put a garage door & a door to walk into the basement....He keeps his truck inside, ATVs, has a place for all his tools, a pool-table, laundry room and firewood.... and still has plenty of room...He use to keep his boat in there and then built another garage for that.

He also has a large wood stove in the basement, he ran the exhaust pipe into the chimney that is for the fireplace upstairs, and ran another pipe that gets heat from the stove(no sparks) into the duct-work of his house, and during the winter he can heat his basement & upstairs with that wood stove, and the heat from downstairs will make the hardwood floors fill warm....And during the summer it stays cool in there.

After the house was done then he built a elevator and when they go to the store, they can pull inside the basement/garage and put everything in the elevator & send it upstairs.... Its really nice for rainy days.

His oldest son is a superintendent & a electrician in the coalmines in Wheeling, WV and he can't figure out how my FIL built the elevator.... It runs on electric & lifts up & down using a cable & a big air-compressor.

When i built my home in 2001,i wished i had done mine the same way his is.... I have a two car garage built on the end of my home, and a couple years ago i had a company give me a rough estimate on lifting my home & garage and doing the block work, and it was thirty to forty thousand dollars.... and i plan to have it done maybe next year, the thing i didn't like was that we had to move everything out, and move into another house while the work was being done.

I vote for a basement because you have as much room downstairs as you do in the living area.

 

[newbury]

<snip>

I know, a lot of space all around.

Space is required for old farts.
Make sure to make EVERYTHING wheelchair plus accessible.
ADA Accessibility Guidelines

I'm going to try and go for 4 foot doors.
My wife had a stroke recently (mostly recovered now, thank you) and I lost many hours of sleep trying to figure out how I was either going to fix our house for accessibility or sell and buy one that was.
Plus then you can drive a BX 24 inside

 

[CurlyDave]

As long as we are talking about ADA stuff, I will chime in a feature I put in at the building stage.

In most states, an attached garage must be 18" lower than the house so gas fumes don't permeate into the house.

When we build our house, we put wheelchair ramps inside the garage. I have seen many houses, where this little detail wasn't though of, and they end up with an outside ramp, usually leading up to the front door. Not only does this look like he11, it exposed the passenger to the weather.

Make your attached garage just a little bit bigger and the ramp will be out of sight and out of the weather.

 

[mjncad]

Space is required for old farts.
Make sure to make EVERYTHING wheelchair plus accessible.
ADA Accessibility Guidelines

I'm going to try and go for 4 foot doors.
My wife had a stroke recently (mostly recovered now, thank you) and I lost many hours of sleep trying to figure out how I was either going to fix our house for accessibility or sell and buy one that was.
Plus then you can drive a BX 24 inside

Since the house floor plan design is basically the same as our current house; but correcting the builder's mistakes and allowing for ADA is what ballooned the square footage. Since my wife and I want this to be our last house ever that when we leave it, it will be in an urn or a box.

All passage doors are planned to be a minimum of 3' wide. The basement steps would be 4' wide and straight. I set aside space off the kitchen for an elevator if the need arose; but it would be used as closet/pantry space.

I also did the same thing in the garage, allow room to fully open car doors, allow room for walker and wheelchair access.

I'm glad to hear your wife is on the mend.

As my 89-year old mother and I like to say, "Getting old sucks."

 

[gordyy]

I go for the wheelchair ramp also
BUT I have a bad knee its been replace lots of problems with the new knee
The knee was an easy fix when it was damaged but workers compensation said it was good then (long story)
now its been replace then rebuilt am walking now using a brace
Make sure you put steps in also
I have a very hard time walking down a slope even a gentle one
long short steps are best LOL
but for sure use a new style hadicap stool you will love it
showerstalls a min of 4 ft (5 is better) you may need to sit sometime or need help showering (course even if you don't showering with a friend is always better than alone)
well as long as its the right friend
And I know my new house is going to have a walkout basement and garage ( Our local code requires a fire door between the house and garage and any spark generating apperatus 18" off the floor in the garage
but then why put anything other than floor heat in the basement even if your using a heatpump you can hook up floor heat and if your climate requires heat more than 4 months a year you will love it

 

[CurlyDave]

I set aside space off the kitchen for an elevator if the need arose; but it would be used as closet/pantry space.

I spent months looking into this issue. In addition to space (and you need a lot more than you might think), when you pour the floor, put in an elevator pit. Residential elevators come in standard sizes, and almost all need a pit 12" or more deep at the lowest floor.

Pick a brand, and get their instructions for the pit and for framing. That way you can do it right at the beginning and not have to do anything over when you need the elevator. The problems that lead to needing an elevator tend to deplete one's financial reserves, so you want putting it in to be minimally painful.

We deliberately did not choose Otis, despite their reputation. Most of their business is based on big commercial elevators, not residential units. They weren't really that interested. Pick someone who specializes in residential elevators.

 

[mjncad]

I set aside space off the kitchen for an elevator if the need arose; but it would be used as closet/pantry space.

I spent months looking into this issue. In addition to space (and you need a lot more than you might think), when you pour the floor, put in an elevator pit. Residential elevators come in standard sizes, and almost all need a pit 12" or more deep at the lowest floor.

Pick a brand, and get their instructions for the pit and for framing. That way you can do it right at the beginning and not have to do anything over when you need the elevator. The problems that lead to needing an elevator tend to deplete one's financial reserves, so you want putting it in to be minimally painful.

We deliberately did not choose Otis, despite their reputation. Most of their business is based on big commercial elevators, not residential units. They weren't really that interested. Pick someone who specializes in residential elevators.

We think alike concerning this issue. I have a number of links for residential elevators and I downloaded their tear sheets to get an idea of pit and framing requirements. I'd get a hydraulic lift where the mechanicals are in a room next to the elevator shaft in the basement. Some manufacturers offer attic mounted mechanicals. No thank you as that makes it a maintenance headache.

Fortunately the rough opening sizes seem fairly standardized amongst the manufacturers.

 

[cisco]

I acquired my retirement property 8 years ago, very rough (downed trees from a hurricane a decade earlier, poorly drained swampy areas), but it was mostly very high ground on the coast (20 feet above mean high water), so I went for it. Got tractor with the appropriate implements, had electrical service and well put in, dug a pond to eradicate the swampy area, and so on. It took about 2/3s of my weekends for 4 years just to get the place cleared, ornamental and fruit trees planted, a large garden tilled in with ample topsoil, then fenced.........seemed like forever. Anyhow. at 4 years I faced what you may have now, a place I'd like to spend more time, not having to drive back into town for 20 miles each evening after a long day of physical labor, and somewhere to secure my tractor and tools. So, I drew up plans for a 30X40' garage on a slab with reinforced cinderblock walls (concrete poured into blocks, and rebar from foundation to top), a metal roof and a bathroom (I hadn't one on my property - and it was kind of a sore point with my wife, who frequently worked all day with me). Then, the muse struck. Why not add a second story (same foundation, same roof, and so on), and so my builder gave me an estimate for the plans I drew up - basically bolting a stick built second story (2X6" walls, hardiplank, hurricane straps everywhere) to the concrete. Now I've a very comfortable living area above the garage. It'll become my guest house, and a place from which I can watch my eventual house being built 1-2 years hence.
If you're going for a house in a few years, as finances recover, putting in a single wide trailer, travel trailer, or whatever now, so you can spend time where you want, "your place", and also putting in a permanent garage makes a lot of sense - but there's only 1 way you're going to get a "twofer" - a garage/guest house