Home design tips and advice
- Thread starter Pirwin21
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kebo
Elite Member
- Joined
- May 16, 2006
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- Location
- Lexington, SC
- Tractor
- 2001 John Deere 790 4x4, bar tires
Another thing I remembered was the little doorway just for firewood, that is IF you plan on having a fireplace. That's a neat little trick to getting firewood into the wood box without have to carry it across the carpet or hardwood floors. There was a thread on this very subject not too long ago so you might try and see if you can search for it. Lot of good info and some pics in that thread.
buckeyefarmer
Epic Contributor
If you have a basement, make the walls 9 or 10' high, not the standard 8 ft., that extra headroom is great. Cost me less than $1K more, and I can put an 8' ceiling under my ductwork and beams.
Exterior 2x6 walls, that's one I regret not doing.
Plan elevation with gravity drain for basement bathroom.
Two electrical panels up front. It's amazing how fast you run out of breaker spaces.
If septic tank, oversize it. I oversized mine to allow one more bedroom, cost of the tank was $50 more.
Ceiling fans in all rooms.
Plan all furniture locations and plan outlets accordingly. Go with extra outlets than the minimum required.
Wide stairs, I put 4' wide to my upstairs to make it easy to carry furniture up.
3' doors inside, as others have said.
Exterior 2x6 walls, that's one I regret not doing.
Plan elevation with gravity drain for basement bathroom.
Two electrical panels up front. It's amazing how fast you run out of breaker spaces.
If septic tank, oversize it. I oversized mine to allow one more bedroom, cost of the tank was $50 more.
Ceiling fans in all rooms.
Plan all furniture locations and plan outlets accordingly. Go with extra outlets than the minimum required.
Wide stairs, I put 4' wide to my upstairs to make it easy to carry furniture up.
3' doors inside, as others have said.
NSBound
Platinum Member
The National Building Code in Canada just changed to now require 2X8 exterior walls......
dave1949
Super Star Member
The National Building Code in Canada just changed to now require 2X8 exterior walls......
Yikes! My south walls are 2x8 studs, mostly for roof weight bearing between and to carry the headers above my windows. One thing we ran into, a 2x8 framed wall can be a booger to true up! They are stiff. Leaned the FEL bucket on it a couple places to push it into straight and true position while putting on the second top plate. I guess the moral is, select your plates very carefully. You do end up with nice wide window sills.
Dave.
AlbertaDan
Bronze Member
Just last year we gave up the idea of building ober buying, but before hand I had the features i wanted picked out. Some of these are
1) Insulated conctrete walls for noise proofing and insulating quality. The research i did told me that the insulated concrete walls are nearly double the insulation rating and virtually noise proof (no traffic noise at all)
2) a goe thermal heat pump. This depends on where you live. My house is the extreme eastern tip of the continent and so doesn't have extreme cold. But you do need room for this to work efficiently.
3) as someone mentioned a built in vaccuum. If you do put one in don't forget the "automatic dustpan" in the kitchen. It is a flap in the toe kick of the cupboards that hide a built in vaccuun outlet. Your wife will love you for it.
4) with the geo-thermal heat pump look at "sidearm heaters" for your water heater. It helps to pre-heat the water before it goes into your water heater.
5) In floor heat. With the floor at 68F your heat bills will be lower because the heat will be lower than forced air at 70F. Its also cleaner(less dust blowing around)
6) i looked into meatl roofs. Soem have up to a 100yr warranty but you pay for it. Many of the cheaper ones still have 50yr. as opposed to shingles with a max life of 30yr.
7) if you do go with a 2 storey house look into placing 2 closets above each other. As one poster put it you don't know what the future holds. with 2 closets lined up you can use them as an elevatro if the need arises later.
8) look into 4pplex outlets by the bed. By the time you have clock radio, a reading lamp, telephone with call display the single outlet won't be enough
9) a 3-way swith near the bed. this way in winter when you are warm and comfortable you won't have to get out of the bed to turn off the lights.
10) If you a have a ceiling light in your bedroom put in 2 switches.Or at least get the electrician to run 3-wire. If you ever want to put in a ceiling fan you can leave the fan on but the lighths off
11) run power to your patio. You may want a radio or other electronic devces out there for entertaining in the summer
12) you may want to build a "toy shed" later on so leave room for expansion in everything you do. Leave lots extra room in your panel. Put in a wire "chase" to run future wires for your future shed.
1) Insulated conctrete walls for noise proofing and insulating quality. The research i did told me that the insulated concrete walls are nearly double the insulation rating and virtually noise proof (no traffic noise at all)
2) a goe thermal heat pump. This depends on where you live. My house is the extreme eastern tip of the continent and so doesn't have extreme cold. But you do need room for this to work efficiently.
3) as someone mentioned a built in vaccuum. If you do put one in don't forget the "automatic dustpan" in the kitchen. It is a flap in the toe kick of the cupboards that hide a built in vaccuun outlet. Your wife will love you for it.
4) with the geo-thermal heat pump look at "sidearm heaters" for your water heater. It helps to pre-heat the water before it goes into your water heater.
5) In floor heat. With the floor at 68F your heat bills will be lower because the heat will be lower than forced air at 70F. Its also cleaner(less dust blowing around)
6) i looked into meatl roofs. Soem have up to a 100yr warranty but you pay for it. Many of the cheaper ones still have 50yr. as opposed to shingles with a max life of 30yr.
7) if you do go with a 2 storey house look into placing 2 closets above each other. As one poster put it you don't know what the future holds. with 2 closets lined up you can use them as an elevatro if the need arises later.
8) look into 4pplex outlets by the bed. By the time you have clock radio, a reading lamp, telephone with call display the single outlet won't be enough
9) a 3-way swith near the bed. this way in winter when you are warm and comfortable you won't have to get out of the bed to turn off the lights.
10) If you a have a ceiling light in your bedroom put in 2 switches.Or at least get the electrician to run 3-wire. If you ever want to put in a ceiling fan you can leave the fan on but the lighths off
11) run power to your patio. You may want a radio or other electronic devces out there for entertaining in the summer
12) you may want to build a "toy shed" later on so leave room for expansion in everything you do. Leave lots extra room in your panel. Put in a wire "chase" to run future wires for your future shed.
Samandothers
Gold Member
Great thread. We too want to build one more house to retire in. We have spent a great deal of time surfin the net for plans to get close to what we want. We did some things in our current home that worked out well.
We did the conduit with string for future use running from basement to attic in several places and have used some of them.
Did septic tank below basement level and rough plumbed for basement bath. Years later finished part of the basement for a teenager and made use of the rough plumbed basement bath.
When you build do a video or as built drawings to help you know where wires and other 'behind' the wall stuff is located.
Our lot slopped to the front. Make sure you get a good person or do a good job with water proofing you basement if you have one. We lalso have a porch, garage and a bit of crawl space between the outside front of the house and the basement wall. To date we have not had any issues with moisture in the basement.
We did the conduit with string for future use running from basement to attic in several places and have used some of them.
Did septic tank below basement level and rough plumbed for basement bath. Years later finished part of the basement for a teenager and made use of the rough plumbed basement bath.
When you build do a video or as built drawings to help you know where wires and other 'behind' the wall stuff is located.
Our lot slopped to the front. Make sure you get a good person or do a good job with water proofing you basement if you have one. We lalso have a porch, garage and a bit of crawl space between the outside front of the house and the basement wall. To date we have not had any issues with moisture in the basement.
miramadar
Gold Member
If you go with a thick wall like this, be prepared to pay a nice sum for your doors and windows. We're using 2x6 walls and there's an additional millage fee for anything over 2x4. Those extra wide jambs are always "special order" and there's a special price for them too!
dave1949
Super Star Member
If you go with a thick wall like this, be prepared to pay a nice sum for your doors and windows. We're using 2x6 walls and there's an additional millage fee for anything over 2x4. Those extra wide jambs are always "special order" and there's a special price for them too!
The alternative is make your own jamb extensions - which isn't fun, but also not expensive.
Dave.
NSBound
Platinum Member
If you go with a thick wall like this, be prepared to pay a nice sum for your doors and windows. We're using 2x6 walls and there's an additional millage fee for anything over 2x4. Those extra wide jambs are always "special order" and there's a special price for them too!
I suspect though if every house built by every builder (In Canada at least) requires 2X8 walls, the cost of other related stuff will also go down as they get used to the new requirement in volume.
