Our Home In The Woods!

[rustyshakelford]

Did some figuring and talked to some metal roof guys. After talking to them the price was high but the installer recommend I either go all metal or all shingles. I applauded his honesty by knowing full well an all metal roof was outside of the price range. So, final verdict is no metal. He recommended a shingle roof would look great as it was.

Secondly, the framers killed any chance of having a huge attic or possible upstairs down the road. We have 4000 sq ft up there and the way they did the roof bracing has left me with very little usable space. So...maybe this will be a project for a later date. However, we are having a large opening in the garage made. I will install a small winch and build a create that can hold the Christmas tree or other boxes to lift up there.

Here's some pics

Brett

 

[brin]

If you really think you will want the upstairs space....now is the least expensive time to do it...Stop them now and have the attic re-framed to suit you...A family building a house not far from us just had their framing crew redo 60 % of the framing...they did while the husband was out of town...and when he saw it ...they decided it was unacceptable and had them change it....After everything is closed in....options are few...:2cents:

 

[rustyshakelford]

If you really think you will want the upstairs space....now is the least expensive time to do it...Stop them now and have the attic re-framed to suit you...A family building a house not far from us just had their framing crew redo 60 % of the framing...they did while the husband was out of town...and when he saw it ...they decided it was unacceptable and had them change it....After everything is closed in....options are few...:2cents:

Your 100% right but since we are facing time constraints and don't necessarily want to spend another couple thousand on this. We have plenty of room downstairs and with the money saved will only go to my shop I'll start when we close. Any other tips or tricks?

Brett

 

[roadhunter]

Started getting walls up today. Builder said it will be more than two but hopefully less than three weeks of framing!

Brett

Hopefully they added some more studs where the door/window openings are to properly support the beam above.

 

[Country Geek]

They are moving right along. These were from this weekend. We are going out there tomorrow to see the progress.

My experience having a house built is that during the framing stage, progress seems to really go fast, because you can see visible progress every day as the house takes shape before your eyes. It gets you excited that the project will go quicker than expected. But once the house is dried in, progress will seem to slow to a snail's pace. All those interior systems and work takes longer and doesn't show as much visible progress. I think that's mainly because the framing contractor is one company shaping your whole house, but going forward you'll be dealing with different subcontractors for everything. There will be many days when nothing gets done because of scheduling or subcontractor issues, and some can't work together because of the nature of their jobs (i.e., during drywall and painting no one else can be there working).

 

[brin]

Your 100% right but since we are facing time constraints and don't necessarily want to spend another couple thousand on this. We have plenty of room downstairs and with the money saved will only go to my shop I'll start when we close. Any other tips or tricks?

Brett

We built our house 9 yrs. ago....Here are few ideas we did and some we wish we had....I had a chase pipe ..just a PVC 2 inch pile run from the bonus room upstairs to the basement...just for future running wires....Also you might want to bury a pvc pipe under your road or any sidewalk for wires you may want to install later...for outside lights , gates etc....Watch the electrician really good and the plumber too....We made the mistake of listening to our HVAC salesman and let them install all overhead vents..instead of in the floor....for some reason they wanted the until in the attic and not the basement...we would have been much warmer in the winter with heat vents in the floor...no problem in the summer with the AC....If you are able to stretch and get metal roofing I sure would...you would never have to replace it....Imagine in 20 yrs. with your peaks and valleys what it will cost for a new roof...just sayin' Sure wish I would have installed metal...That's all I can think of now....Good Luck...the house is looking great...

 

[fordmantpw]

Looking great! Going to follow your build as ours progresses as well!

 

[Country Geek]

We built our house 9 yrs. ago....Here are few ideas we did and some we wish we had....I had a chase pipe ..just a PVC 2 inch pile run from the bonus room upstairs to the basement...just for future running wires....Also you might want to bury a pvc pipe under your road or any sidewalk for wires you may want to install later...for outside lights , gates etc....

Excellent ideas!

We made the mistake of listening to our HVAC salesman and let them install all overhead vents..instead of in the floor....for some reason they wanted the until in the attic and not the basement...we would have been much warmer in the winter with heat vents in the floor...no problem in the summer with the AC...

That's an interesting perspective because I have the opposite belief. I hate HVAC vents in the floor, it's a curse to homeowners. Stuff gets in them and they really restrict where you can put furniture, for starters.

I had an "opportunity" to have some major repair work done on my house thanks to water damage caused by a poor pex pipe installation. While they were at it I had as much HVAC venting and ducting redone as was practical to get vents off the floor. Got about half of them moved off the floor and either in the ceilings or on the wall just below the ceilings. I have not noticed a decrease in heating efficiency. A ceiling fan blowing down seems to do a fine job of making that work.

 

[Scooter78]

Before you have the house insulated take pictures of everything. They will be a life saver down the road. If you want to hang something you will know where studs are. If you have plumbing issue you will know how the pipes are run. Trust me you will forget over time. Make sure wiring for garage door sensors are installed in a box not just left hanging for drywall contractor to pull through. This will make replacing sensors much easier. Also put blocking where you garage door buttons go this way they will attach to something solid.

 

[EddieWalker]

I hate HVAC units in attics and found that when building my parents house, some refused to put it anywhere else. In my experience, you need to be able to inspect the unit every month just to know if there are any issues, plus pour bleach down the drain line and change the filter. If it's in the attic, it rarely gets checked until there is a leak in the ceiling under it. Framing is rarely added to support the weight and they usually place the unit where it's easy for them, and not supported by a wall or additional joists. Worse of all is that it's impossible to get to one in the attic and not disturb the insulation.

As for the bracing to support the roof, more is better and opening up areas in an attic requires trusses or beams, which means more money!!! For an attic and roof system to work properly, it should be left alone and not modified at any time. I make a lot of money fixing others modifications, and getting a house back to where it was before. If your framers know what they are doing, every board is there for a reason!!!

Why do you want space in your attic? If you are thinking of storage, will it be above the insulation or are you foaming the rafters and insulation the entire building? People tend to think of an attic as a great place to put stuff, but don't understand that they are adding a lot of weight on top of some 2x6 joists that are just strong enough to hold the sheetrock up on the ceiling and the insulation in place. You would never use 2x6's for floor joists with spans from wall to wall, yet they think that thousands of pounds of "stuff" is just fine up there.

And the worse place is over the garage, where the spans are the greatest. The bigger the span, the weaker it is in the middle of that span. If you are wanting that for a storage area, you need to let the framers know and spend the money to have to install the beams to support the weight of what you want up there. What will you attach the lift to? I'm hoping you are not thinking the rafters. There needs to be a beam that is supported by posts that go down to concrete for a concentrated load.

It's all doable, you just have to let those doing the building and calculating the design what it is you want to do, and then pay for what it takes to make that happen.

Eddie