Yep a deep 3 car wouldn't be any to big by the time you put your toys in the 3rd stall.
Building New Home
- Thread starter LakeCyd
- Start date
Yep a deep 3 car wouldn't be any to big by the time you put your toys in the 3rd stall.
In floor heating, HVAC zoning system, drain in the garage.
Take lots of photos during the building process and make a visit at least once a week to check on their work. Also see if they will let you have copies of construction drawings. If not, then take photos of the drawings they leave on site during construction or take them with you one night after their work hours and make copies.
Take lots of photos during the building process and make a visit at least once a week to check on their work. Also see if they will let you have copies of construction drawings. If not, then take photos of the drawings they leave on site during construction or take them with you one night after their work hours and make copies.
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Keep your square footage down, but your natural light up. If you're interested in healthy, use Faswall for exterior walls and SIPs for top ceiling (lowers mold and serves as a heat sink). If you want to lower your costs, keep your roof simple (standard truss design). I'm big on on-suites for all bedrooms and a full bathroom near the utility/garage entrance (but then again, I live on 32 acres in the middle of nowhere so dirt finds me). If you're even close to this century's thinking, use low DC current everywhere you can. Full AC outlets are a joke considering that over 90% of our usage is DC. LEDs are awesome, but 'transformers' everywhere are very unhealthy. Pre-fab as much as you can (makes for higher quality and quicker assembly). Guage your use (eg 1/3 of your life in the bedroom, 2 hours a day in the kitchen, 2 hours a day entertaining, maybe 8 hours a day in a home office) and design accordingly. Definitely radiant heating. Now having it, I'd never want to live anywhere else without it. And, I know this won't be a popular piece of advice, build in your internet (ie Cat wiring everywhere) including as much POE as possible. I have a central home server which serves all my entertainment remotely. Oh, and don't forget the kitchen sink
Built two. Best thing you can do is insulate the master bedroom walls. No noise in........................and no noise out.
Built a house a few years ago and there were things I didn’t do because I was trying to keep the cost down, but now realize I should have spent the money to have what I wanted and most of the items would have added less than $5000 to the cost of the build.
Agree with having a spigot in the garage and a zoned HVAC system; southern exposure for winter benefit; add windows to your garage doors for extra daylight; agree with paying attention to light switches and outlets. Consider adding extra lighting and outlets in your garage. Consider extra canned lighting around your homes exterior. If you like spending time outdoors in the warmer months, consider a front porch in your design and/or a poured patio. We have a ranch home with a nice sized deck, but then added a poured patio off the deck. Use both all the time and both work great when entertaining. Regret not working a front porch into my design.
If you like a nice lawn, consider an irrigation system. Don’t miss dragging around hoses. Tankless water heater.
Agree with having a spigot in the garage and a zoned HVAC system; southern exposure for winter benefit; add windows to your garage doors for extra daylight; agree with paying attention to light switches and outlets. Consider adding extra lighting and outlets in your garage. Consider extra canned lighting around your homes exterior. If you like spending time outdoors in the warmer months, consider a front porch in your design and/or a poured patio. We have a ranch home with a nice sized deck, but then added a poured patio off the deck. Use both all the time and both work great when entertaining. Regret not working a front porch into my design.
If you like a nice lawn, consider an irrigation system. Don’t miss dragging around hoses. Tankless water heater.
Agree 100%. I priced additional foundation walls and concrete flat work to suspend the garage slab and create a garage underneath the garage with an overhead door on the backside of the house (walk out) but I think the costs are going to be too much to stomach.
curious what others think of the tankless water heater. I have thought about it but don't know if the technology and reliability is there yet? The only time I showered with a tankless waterheater at a cabin in Wyoming it seemed liked the water temperature fluctuated the whole time. At the moment I'm pricing a 90 gallon electric water heater (which is what we have in our current home). No natural gas in the neighborhood, we will have an underground LP tank.
does anyone have a whole home audio system? Our current home has a Russound System with wall mounted controls and we love it. But now days it seems that everything has gone to the smart speakers. Our whole home receiver has a chromecast audio so it is sort of "smart" but i do like the built in speakers vs a bunch of book shelf systems everywhere. Curious if others have any insight.
We have one and us had been great. No "running out" or variability problems, but I assume a smaller house than you're planning (3/4 bedrooms, 2 bath, split level, in town, on gas) so assume sizing will be important. Good luck!
If the laundry room is on a different floor from the bedrooms, consider installing a laundry chute.
100% agree check in frequently. A lot of times you might catch something (like outlet locations or switch locations that need relocated or added) in a walk through that weren't as obvious when just looking at the drawing. Even if adding, it's much easier to do it before drywall goes up than down the road.
Guess I've never heard of contractors not allowing Owner to have copies of the drawings. Everything in the drawings should be in the build so definitely make sure they didn't leave anything out (not always intentional, but does happen and I'd be suspicious if they aren't wanting you to see the build documents).
Just happened to me few months ago under the excuse that it’s proprietary info and they can’t let me have it. I understand their reasoning but they are being too strict. They would leave all of the drawings at the house unattended during the build anyways.
