Going to build a southern oriented house

[Drewintoledo]

Been thinking about this for years. I sold my house and should be building this year or I might wait until spring.
im in Ohio climate zone 5. Going to superinsulate the walls to R30 with R80 in the attic.
triple pane windows, raised heel truss, etc.
has anyone framed 24” on center and found the structure to feel weaker than if framing on 16” OC?
it seems that the thermal conductance of all the wall studs when added together makes a pretty significant energy penalty.
Anyway, here is my ramble...

 

[big bubba]

if 24" center, i'd consider 2x6 wall studs, better R value too

 

[old and tired]

We build one several years ago... Watching your video now.. have plenty of comments coming soon.

Friends also built at the same time, using fancy European windows. I don't think that made much improvement. To use the sun's rays to heat the house, you need cheaper (low R value). We used high R value on East and West. The front windows have a porch so no need to worry about R value.

Having a garage on the west side is good idea - we (without much thought) put our dinning room and living room on that side... it's our best view after all. The problem is we get setting sunlight blasting into our living area.

Likewise, every morning (bedrooms on east side), we get blasted with morning sun. I'm an early riser so no problem, wife, not so much....

 

[Drewintoledo]

if 24" center, i'd consider 2x6 wall studs, better R value too

Yes, most definitely using 2x6 to achieve a higher R value. Thank you for your reply

 

[Drewintoledo]

We build one several years ago... Watching your video now.. have plenty of comments coming soon.

Friends also built at the same time, using fancy European windows. I don't think that made much improvement. To use the sun's rays to heat the house, you need cheaper (low R value). We used high R value on East and West. The front windows have a porch so no need to worry about R value.

Having a garage on the west side is good idea - we (without much thought) put our dinning room and living room on that side... it's our best view after all. The problem is we get setting sunlight blasting into our living area.

Likewise, every morning (bedrooms on east side), we get blasted with morning sun. I'm an early riser so no problem, wife, not so much....

Yes sir, all windows are around u.16 except the glazing on the south which have a u value of u.18 and SHGC of around .45 if I recall. You got it, as SHGc goes up, so does U value (and R value drops)
I am considering external window shading to control sun or overheating. That is my biggest fear but do believe that I can get crafty to mitigate any issues but would rather not have it an afterthought.
Going into this, I already know that I’ll never see the return on my windows I’m doing it for a challenge and future generations.

 

[old and tired]

I'm impressed that we don't have to worry at all with over heating since we never get sunlight into the house except from the west side during the heat of the summer. We have very small over hang on the south side 12" I think - If you were to make them 18" you'll be fine, as long as you are truly facing south.

One thing I wish I did more of, was insulation of interior walls for sound proofing. We had some but wish I did every wall.

Covered porch on the east side is great...

For the second bathroom, I would do a walk in shower instead of another tub. Are you thinking about being able to get to the toilet via a wheel chair? Extra time thinking about a little bit of handicap access now will pay off later...

I have to find my old blog - We did a modular house.

 

[old and tired]

Looking for my friends blog, too... his lay out except for the garage is very similar to yours. They built a vacation house... whereas we built a retirement house in the mountains. I wanted our bedrooms far away from the kitchen and living room - so you can get away from the "party" area. It also lets people sleep in during the morning time.

Our house is a long rectangle. Plan was to install plenty of solar panels on the south facing roof (low pitch roof). We have since long scraped the plans to retire up there... way too isolated to live full time up there. It's great to get away but we have 40 years of friends down in the city.

For your plan, I would put the diner table in the middle of the room. Expand the kitchen, so it has more light / windows. We put in 2x, 25" sinks, one in the window and the other looking into house on the island. Dishwasher between the two sinks. Great for Thanksgiving dinner cleanup...

Our other must have was a large mudroom and access to the shower...

 

[Drewintoledo]

I'm impressed that we don't have to worry at all with over heating since we never get sunlight into the house except from the west side during the heat of the summer. We have very small over hang on the south side 12" I think - If you were to make them 18" you'll be fine, as long as you are truly facing south.

One thing I wish I did more of, was insulation of interior walls for sound proofing. We had some but wish I did every wall.

Covered porch on the east side is great...

For the second bathroom, I would do a walk in shower instead of another tub. Are you thinking about being able to get to the toilet via a wheel chair? Extra time thinking about a little bit of handicap access now will pay off later...

I have to find my old blog - We did a modular house.

Good info. It looks like you're around 35° latitude so the sun will be higher at your location. I'm around 45° here so I'll need some longer overhangs. I'm starting with 18". Since I'm pointing to the south I should get lots of nice warm sun rays penetrating the house, but I still worry about it being too bright so I do plan to use darker interior finishes to help counter that bright light.

I'm trying to keep my design as efficient as possible but I did design this as an age-in-place home. I plan to shave the joists in the master bath to I don't have a shower curb. I'm in my early 50's and hope that I'll never need a wheelchair but I am designing widths appropriately regardless.

Something I didn't comment on (that video is 2 years old) is the fact that I decided to replace the door in the master with an egress window. I'm also deleting the east and west facing windows near the south. It will incur a visual penalty but I just don't think I need that many windows.

When I started planning this I thought I would begin building within 2 or 3 years of inception. Here it is, 7 years later and no house yet. I did manage to acquire some land and put up a nice polebarn which I'm staying in now but since we're operating off rain water and it freezes up here I just signed for an apartment and will live there over winter. It's coming along but it's a very slow process. Of course, covid, lumber prices and employee vacancies put a delay on this project recently but lumber prices have dropped. Prices probably won't ever be where they were pre-covid but it's just something I have to deal with.

Let me know if you find your blog. I'm interested in reading it.

 

[Doughknob]

I'd not arrange east-west. The north sides never gets sun. I find mold, mildew, lichens, moss, on the ground especially on the north side of my buildings.

 

[old and tired]

Almost couldn't find the blog. One thing nice about modular is once the house is set on the property, you can lock the doors. The house itself is pretty cheaply built, I figured I would replace / fix what I thought was sub-standard. House was $124k; finishing, pouring a basement, hardi-plank siding, porches, and hooking everything else up was $76k.

This link should get you to the beginning (blog goes backwards in time):

F l a m i n g o - F a r m - H i l l s v i l l e, V a

Documenting the building of our modular house... we designed our own layout and will have Nationwide modular build it in their factory, transport it and set it up on our land. We have a builder that will put in the basement, finish the inside, build decks and porches. Planning to follow up after...

ffhill.blogspot.com