Thoughts on our house plans, please?

[dmccarty]

We open the windows as often as we can. If the humidity is under 60-65% and the temperature is under 82-85, our house is comfortable though those upper humidity/temperature numbers are pushing "comfortable." Right now, we have had the house opened up for getting close to a month. I actually closed the windows last night because the house was getting too cold. If the outside temperatures are cool enough we will leave the windows open at night to cool down the house. This works well as long as the night gets cool enough. Last night before 10:00pm, the temp was in the mid 60's with the humidity being a bit higher. We have not had a problem with mold. Mold requires two things to grow, food and moisture. If one of those is gone, mold cannot grow. Our house does not stay with high humidity for long so we don't have mold problems.

Pollen can be a problem. Some spring days we close up the house because of pollen. We are not allergic to pollen but pollen can really dust up the house. Pollen problems for us is related to rain. If it rains frequently, the pollen is not so bad, but if the rain is infrequent it can get nasty.

Not every day is high humidity or high pollen. Even during the summer we have low humidity days. Not often but it happens.

One of the house's we looked at was supposedly energy efficient. The houses were built from 6x6 PT timbers for external and internal walls. The houses had an internal envelope that allowed air to move from the lower to upper levels in the house. This was a real good design except for humidity. The house might be "cool" but the humidity would be unbearable in the South. The house was not designed to use AC. I talked to people who had built the houses and then ended up putting in AC after a few years of high humidity. We did not build the houses because they made no money sense because of the required 2-3 levels and the envelope walls. The house may have been cheap energy wise but it was very expensive to build. The other problem with this house model was that they were using PT wood that was CCA and they owners were going to have problems selling a house that was full of exposed CCA wood.

Later,
Dan

 

[schweizer]

I wouldn't want PT timbers throughout my house either. I use them a lot in building the barn, but there they are directly against the ground. Almost everything in our home was very low off-gassing material or non-toxic, except for the hardwood floor coating which stunk up the house for days, if not weeks.

My point was, if a home is more efficient you'll use less energy, even if in the South you still need A/C. You may have to install an A/C unit just to deal with the humidity. I just think the OP should consider designing his home to be quite energy efficient.

We lived in Chapel Hill, NC for a year when I was in training. I didn't deal with the humidity very well....

 

[Obed]

Like others mentioned, I'm not saying my house is/will be better than yours. I'm just giving you ideas that you may not have thought of.
Here are a few links to my floor plans and website. Our master bath and walk-in-closet have changed a little since these plans, but you'll get the idea. Somewhere around 2700-2800 ft2. Since I built this house before coming to TBN I don't have a thread to point you to like Obed does!

Marcus

3D rendering/Cover Page (pdf)

Main Floor (pdf)

2nd Floor (pdf)

Mossy Hollow Website

Marus,
Your place looks incredible. Nice website. I just got a peak of it but I plan to look at the whole thing. Thanks for posting!
Obed

 

[Mike68]

Looks like a very nice design. I haven't had a chance to read all of the posts, just the first two pages. So far it seems like you have a lot of good ideas. Some things to consider with the structural elements. Like many posters have already stated. Plan ahead.

I completely agree on making the entire house handicap accessible.

I would swap the kitchen and dining room so that it does not become a path to the kitchen unless it is not a formal dining room the that should be OK

When wiring put in plenty of circuits. Also plan for a generator hookup even if you don't think you want one. Run conduit for low voltage stuff like phone, internet, TV. Simple runs down from the attic or up from the basement can save a lot of hassel in the future. Don't count on everything being wireless. Copper still has its advantages and will always be faster. Who knows where fiber may be in 10 or 20 years. May not be in the street but could be used for streaming HD video throughout the house from a central place. Just be sure to cap the open end of the unused conduit in the attic and basement to keep mice out of the walls.

Basement: Spend the extra money and go deeper with your foundation than the normal 8 foot. By the time plumbing, beams, duct and floor are installed there tends to be little room for a decent ceiling. Consider 9 or 10 foot walls in the basement so that you can have a finished ceiling height at least 8 foot or more. That makes the space usable for a workout room (lifting barbells over you head), billards room (not putting blue marks on teh ceiling), media room (space for the projector and screen), etc.
Also consider using a steel I Beam for support. Properly sized it will eliminate a lot of support columns and really open up the space and make it more usable.

Windows. Taller windows = better ventilation. Before airconditioning the big old house had long windows with full screens. You would be suprised how much ventilation you can get by opening the top and bottom of each window (hot air out the top, cool in the bottom).

Ventilation. Pay very close attention to supply/return ducts and where they will run. More zones is better. The house I lived in with my parents had just two return air locations. One on the first floor and one of the second, in the hallways. With bedroom doors closed there was no way to get proper airlflow. Some rooms were freezing while others were too hot. Also consider an energy recover unit in the system. It provides lots of fresh air while capturing the heat or cold from the exhausted air.

Be sure to not skimp on the bones of the house. Countertops can be replaced, fixtures added, flooring replaced. You can't make the basement deeper, easily run wiring or lengthen windows once a house has been built.

The house we are in now needs some work. Many of the rooms are outdated or the owner used cheep materials. What attracted us to the house was the fact that it had good structure. Deep basement, big rooms, good flow, and lots of potential.

 

[KRBrouwer]

A couple of other things:
Eddie, saying that the second floor is more expensive than building on the first floor seems to go against conventional wisdom. For instance, based on what my banker friend tells me, right now they're appraising out new construction loans similar to what were planning at $100/sf first floor, $80 second floor, and $40 *finished basement. *

Noted on the door swings, I've tried to watch that but will look again.*

The overall kitchen layout is up in the air.*

We were thinking some sort of solid surface for the walk-in shower.*

All of the first floor doorways and halls are at least 36" and 48" respectively.*

I would put the dining room in the area where the family room is, move the kitchen to where the dining room is, and the family room to where the kitchen is located currently. Have the kitchen and family room as open as possible. The sunroom off the kitchen room would be nice for eating breakfast if it faces the correct direction. We have a similar layout and it works great. I don't think that the kitchen is too small, we entertain quite a bit, and everyone usually winds up in the kitchen, the size may even be too small. I would also have more windows in the kitchen. You might consider having one set of stairs up to the second floor, but have access to a common landing (about half way up) from two areas. This might give you the effect you are looking for and save on space. We have something like that, and it has worked very well for us.

One other item that I would consider is having walk in showers with no doors. If you make everything tile, and position the shower heads correctly, cleaning is minimal, and you have no door to worry about. For the out side, if it goes with the style, I would consider metal roofing, there are many new styles and colors, and it lasts a lot longer, and you can still get a tax rebate.

Good Luck!

Ken

 

[dmccarty]

I wouldn't want PT timbers throughout my house either. I use them a lot in building the barn, but there they are directly against the ground. Almost everything in our home was very low off-gassing material or non-toxic, except for the hardwood floor coating which stunk up the house for days, if not weeks.

My point was, if a home is more efficient you'll use less energy, even if in the South you still need A/C. You may have to install an A/C unit just to deal with the humidity. I just think the OP should consider designing his home to be quite energy efficient.

We lived in Chapel Hill, NC for a year when I was in training. I didn't deal with the humidity very well....

I agree.

The use of the PT wood in the house did not bother us. We liked the looks of the houses. While we do not intend to ever move, the house will have to be sold at some point. That PT wood is certain to be a problem. But the idea that the energy efficient design models we looked were going to deal with NC humidity was ludicrous. :laughing: I am glad that we looked at these houses because that is how we found our builder! :thumbsup: I had all but ruled out building one of these houses but figured it would be good to see one of the houses and talk to the designer. We spent about 15-30 minutes talking to the model designer at a house being built. Then we spent a couple of hours talking to the builder. :laughing: When we where leaving, the wifey and I looked at each other and said that we just found our builder.

The owners of the house were doctors at UNC Hospital. I talked to them after they had been living in the house for awhile and they had to go back and put in AC to deal with the humidity. I have grown up in the south living in houses with no AC. It is not pleasant. No way in heck would I build a house without AC down here.

The OP's really should look at energy efficiency. It is really cheap to build efficient houses. I brought up the PT house models because they were VERY expensive to build for very little return. One of our design requirements is that all of the living spaces we would use were on one level. To solve the requirement with the PT models required a 6,500 sf house. That dog don't hunt. We have a conventionally built house that looks "normal" but it is efficient. It could be more efficient but we wanted windows so we could see OUT. Those windows were expensive to install and they cost us money in the summer. Winter we heat with wood so it is not much of an issue. From an energy efficiency view some of the windows are iffy which gets back to my point in earlier posts that building is a compromise.

I do think one has to be careful with building "energy efficient" homes. The PT homes were a complete waste of money. They were designed to be very energy efficient and even with the AC/humidity issue, I think they were very well designed to lower energy costs. The problem was that to have a low energy use house, the owners had to spend quite a bit more money to build the house. There was no way they recouped the money spent on the house from energy savings. The owners could have built using conventional techniques and materials and accomplished the same design points with far less time, money and because of the PT wood, resale risk.

We built our house with 2x6 walls with rigid insulation to get to a R25. Woo Hoo! It is arguable that a 2x6 wall is a good investment in our area. It is even more arguable that it make energy efficient sense to build a 2x6 wall and then poke great big holes in the wall to put doors and windows. Which is what we did. :laughing: Every major room in the house has at least one window that is 8'x6' or 8'x5'. Those are great big holes for energy loss and building a 2x6 high R value wall is questionable in our case. But we did it anyway. :laughing: I figured what the heck, it is not costing that much more, and we can always use good blinds to cover the window, which we have done in some rooms. The real reason we used the 2x6 walls was strength. We live in the woods and while we cleared the trees from around the house some might be able to hit the house. I don't think the trunk would hit but a top might. I figured the extra strength in the 2x6 walls would be a bit of insurance. Like insurance, I hope to never use it. :laughing:

Joeseph Listiburek's builders books are a great resource on design details that should be followed. The company he works with/for is a great source of information for building the house right, both to prevent problems, but also energy efficiency.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

...

One other item that I would consider is having walk in showers with no doors. If you make everything tile, and position the shower heads correctly, cleaning is minimal, and you have no door to worry about. For the out side, if it goes with the style, I would consider metal roofing, there are many new styles and colors, and it lasts a lot longer, and you can still get a tax rebate.

Good Luck!

Ken

Good advice.

Our master bath shower has no door or curtain. We put in two shower heads, one at the end of the shower which does point to the opening and one shower head that points across the shower. Water does spray out from time to time but it is far less than we got with plastic shower curtains or not quite close shower doors. The shower floor is also at the same level as the bathroom floor. There is no lip or ridge between the shower floor and the bathroom floor. We have a finished concrete floor so a bit of water on the floor is a who cares but that seldom happens.

Not having to deal with a shower door or curtain is very nice.

Later,
Dan

 

[boner58]

Me and my wife had decided to build a house on our 72 acres about 2 and half years ago. We spent many many hours using a home design software and searching through many many magazines and websites looking a house plans we went through countless designs, and toured many many homes but they all seemed to have "wasted" space or ended up way to big. I see that you are from Rolla, I am just 80 miles south of you. We decided to go to the Home builders show in Springfield, Mo. and that was the best idea either one of us had ever had. We met an architect really liked what he had to say about home designs. We ended up using him to design our house, took us about 1 month and 1000 dollars. I will tell you even looking hind side this was the best money we ever spent. This was the first house we ever built and my wife tells me the last. Our house is a total of 3800sq ft including the basement. We wanted all the main items on one floor so when we did get to old to climb stairs we wouldn't have to, and we can just close the basement off. We have 1900 sq ft on the top level and honestly that is plenty up there, it is me, the wife, and 3 kids. Finishing off the downstairs was something I wanted to wait for and finish later as time allowed, but my wife "convinced" me that finishing all at the same time would be better and she was right, all the dust and noise would be done at one time and the time I would have to spend doing it, and the money it cost to finish all at once was only 10K more. We made every doorway possible 3 foot wide for wheel chairs if something ever happened. We also made our basement 9 foot tall so you never feel like you are in a basement. Our main level has the master suite, 2 other bedrooms, kitchen and dining rooms, laundry, bathroom, and a modest size living room. Our downstairs consists of 2 bedrooms, bath room, huge family room and storage. I was able to do some of the work myself like insulation, electrical and finish work but our total cost per foot was only 53 dollars.

Another point is that the straighter the roof line is the cheaper it will be to build, also look at more of a hip roof than a gable. I know this seems to be a drawn out comment but just putting my 2 cents in. If you want I can find the architect and give you their info, I also may be able to draw out my basic plans

 

[Tororider]

Boner58,
Any chance you have a picture of your floor plan? That sounds very similar to what I want to build.

 

[boner58]

I will see if I can get a picture of it
the blue prints I have a way to big to just scan