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Endie posted:I took the roof off my house 18 months ago and added a second storey. What it drove home is how incredibly easy new build is compared with renovation. Everything upstairs is a dawdle. Everything downstairs is a pain. The only tricky bit of the new build was joining century-old brick build to new timber frame at the wall plate. What I did with my last house is take detailed pictures of every wall in the house so I can see exactly where plumbing, vents, wires, etc. are all located. I’ll be doing that again. I haven’t made much progress on this yet as I am waiting on the lumber company to spec out my beam options. We’re looking at a double metal beam with smaller floor joists (least desirable and most expensive), single metal beam with tall floor trusses (the obstacle here being the central beam too close to the basement stairs), and a new option being an engineered wood beam that would be integrated with the floor trusses. The third option sounds the most promising but some math and engineering is involved and I’m just waiting to see what that looks like. I’ll post specs when I get them.
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Feb 13, 2019 00:11
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I've never heard of floor trusses until I was watching this home build series (more like a commercial) on youtube and my mind was blown. I don't know the cons of them, but the idea is really cool in terms of hiding your utilities.
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Feb 13, 2019 20:47
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Modus Man posted:What I did with my last house is take detailed pictures of every wall in the house so I can see exactly where plumbing, vents, wires, etc. are all located. I’ll be doing that again. Absolutely this: I have extremely dull folders of photos that show the measurements to every single stud and dwang in the upstairs walls, which makes fixing shelves and the like a dawdle.
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Feb 17, 2019 17:48
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dreesemonkey posted:I've never heard of floor trusses until I was watching this home build series (more like a commercial) on youtube and my mind was blown. They are more expensive than an engineered I-joist which are already more expensive than dimensional lumber floor joists. In order to run all of your duct work through them they have to be designed specifically for your application, which just takes a lot more plannning. One thing I have learned is that nobody wants to give out any information when it comes to anything structural. I talked to the building department, specifically the guy that approves building permits, and he confirmed that I have to have the dimensions of all beams called out on the blueprints. However, due to liabilities, the lumber companies nor the truss and beam engineering companies will give me the dimensions of the beams that I need. I know that over the garage doors triple 2X12's will suffice, same for all windows and doors, but what I am not sure about is the 16' span between the dining room and the kitchen. That beam will be holding the weight of the trusses that land there so it will need to be substantial. My guess would be triple 1-3/4" x 12" engineered LVL beams but its possible that it might have to have 5/8" metal plates sandwiched between the LVL beams. I don't know why company that makes the damned things cant tell me what size I need. Everyone tells me that's the architect/structural engineer's job, but I don't have one of those. I've reached out to a couple more companies to see if they might be able to help me and I am currently waiting to hear back from them this week.
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Mar 12, 2019 13:04
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We got back a couple of lumber bids and foundation concrete bids and we need to scale back a little bit. Lumber bids were ~60k (all lumber including floor trusses and roof trusses) and foundations were ~50k (footings and walls). I would like to reduce the square footage from 3,400 to under 3,000 and simplify the basement wall across the front of the house. One thing that will not be changing is the dining room because it's a design we both want, even though it adds a premium to the foundation cost. I've been drawing this up with Punch! Home Architect software, and have it just a hair under 3,000 square feet. I feel like this layout is more efficient but it could just be that I've been staring at it for hours on end. The bedrooms are smaller, and I was a able to eliminate a hallway, and everything else is just a tiny bit smaller. The bathroom layouts were just tossed in quickly and will be revisited. This layout will also enable us to use a single i-beam down the center of the house eliminating one beam, 5 posts and 5 post pads. I downsized the garage to just an over-sized 2 car with storage room. What do you all think? Please let me know if it looks like I made anything worse and if you see somewhere I could make improvements. I tried to put some of the advice received earlier in this thread into practice. link to huge => https://i.imgur.com/R111wjr.jpg 
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Apr 12, 2019 15:19
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I like this. As my wife and I have been sketching out home layouts as well, a few things stood out to me: Wouldn't it be more useful to have the opposing bifold doors in the hallway closet that meet in the middle instead of an odd small section of wall there dividing the closet? Would it potentially save you some money to extend the den wall north and make the mud room slightly smaller to shift the pantry and bathroom south and bring these walls in line with the north side of the hallway?  Any plans for a deck or patio on the rear of the house? It would be nice to have sliding glass doors from the master bedroom or what appears to be the living room open area out onto the rear deck instead of just windows. Just my personal tastes mostly, but otherwise I like the layout and think it looks great!
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Apr 12, 2019 15:48
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The mud room is huge. What are you putting in there? Like a big freezer, full size fridge? Or is it just going to be big open space? Seems like a lot of space for a mud room with no other shared purpose...
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Apr 12, 2019 17:15
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Scrapez posted:The mud room is huge. What are you putting in there? Like a big freezer, full size fridge? Or is it just going to be big open space? Seems like a lot of space for a mud room with no other shared purpose... I know the laundry is near the bedrooms, but the mudroom would be a great place for a washer and dryer since it presumably will be tiled and possibly have a floor drain in the event that the washer connection goes. Also, the window abutting the wall in bedroom 1 looks wonky.
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Apr 12, 2019 17:56
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I know you don't think you need it, but put a closet in that "office." You can then sell the house later as having one more bedroom and raise the price.
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Apr 12, 2019 18:28
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Riller posted:I like this. As my wife and I have been sketching out home layouts as well, a few things stood out to me: The closet doors are not finalized, they would be sized according to the opening, and perhaps changed into regular hinged doors like the coat closet is. The mudroom being only about 8 feet wide I wouldn’t want to extend down further into it, and I’d like to keep that room in the living area for walking around the furniture along the den wall, if that makes any sense. The plan is to have a deck off the back of the dining room and a sliding door in there. And thank you. Scrapez posted:The mud room is huge. What are you putting in there? Like a big freezer, full size fridge? Or is it just going to be big open space? Seems like a lot of space for a mud room with no other shared purpose... Mudroom will house all shoes, boots, coats, backpacks, at least a bench on one wall, coat racks and shelves on others. All the cat stuff goes in the mudroom too. It does seem big but with how much crap we throw in our mudroom I want to be able to organize it without it getting crowded. tetrapyloctomy posted:I know the laundry is near the bedrooms, but the mudroom would be a great place for a washer and dryer since it presumably will be tiled and possibly have a floor drain in the event that the washer connection goes. We like having the laundry by the bedrooms, I know we are alone in this but we are used to it. A laundry tub in the mudroom might not be a terrible idea though. Those windows are definitely in the wrong spot, thanks. beep-beep car is go posted:I know you don't think you need it, but put a closet in that "office." You can then sell the house later as having one more bedroom and raise the price. For now that 6’ wide spot in the office is going to house a computer desk, while the 11x11 area will house a guest bed, mainly for grandparents who like to visit from out of town. It would be really easy to turn that spot into a closet in the future if it’s needed. I appreciate all the input from everyone. I don’t want it to seem like I’m ignoring any advice when I try to explain our reasons for doing something a little unorthodox.
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Apr 12, 2019 23:02
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Modus Man posted:They are more expensive than an engineered I-joist which are already more expensive than dimensional lumber floor joists. In order to run all of your duct work through them they have to be designed specifically for your application, which just takes a lot more plannning. Have you checked your local codes to see if you need a PE to sign off on your drawings? Where I live for new construction the plans need to be signed off by one before they'll be accepted. If so then you won't really be able to get away with not having an engineer involved at all (and you probably would want one to turns your plans into real ones). Even if your area doesn't require that, I would be very surprised if a supplier would give engineering advice for your stuff. Any place that would be willing to do so would also be charging you engineering fees. It isn't that the company doesn't know the characteristics of their products, they just won't take on the liability of telling you how to actually engineer that space. It might be a little frustrating, but honestly would you want to trust a supply shop with that decision? Best to just spend some money on an engineer.
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Apr 12, 2019 23:46
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The south side of the property where I intended to put the driveway is a soggy mess as of the middle of June, so now the driveway will be coming in on the north side of the property. Seems like a simple solution but this means we will be coming in right next to the neighbors driveway and the front of his garage faces south. Nothing that strategically planting a few trees won’t solve in a few years. We’re changing the garage to be facing the road now and moved a few other things around, and we’re close to having the final drawing completed. Should be done in a few days, and I can finally apply for the building permit. When we get the drawings back I’ll post them up.
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Jun 13, 2019 17:02
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One thing I noticed: are you sure you want the pantry door swinging inwards rather than outwards? Seems like you're sacrificing some storage space.
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Jun 17, 2019 11:57
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It has been a while since I updated this thread, but I just picked up my building permit, finally. Let's see where we are at in this journey. I'm not sure what stings more, how much I have spent so far without even building anything, or how long it's taking me to push this along. As for my original questions about insulating basement walls, I have decided to use a company called Superior Walls that make pre-cast insulated wall panels for foundations. They are built in a factory using steel, high pressure concrete, and insulation for a total R-value of 12. Then they are trucked to your job site and using a crane they are set into place and glued and bolted together. Right now they are cheaper than poured concrete walls and they go up in a few hours and are ready to build on right then. The typical problems associated with these wall systems come from poor installation and back-filling. I am leaving it to the pros to install the walls and have hired a guy who has been working with these foundation systems successfully for many years to handle the site prep, as it is very specific and essential to a successful install. I'll post the final floor-plan soon. I believe I have taken quite a few of the suggestions from this thread and applied them to the plans, so I appreciate the feedback from everyone.
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Oct 2, 2019 01:05
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Raldikuk posted:Have you checked your local codes to see if you need a PE to sign off on your drawings? Where I live for new construction the plans need to be signed off by one before they'll be accepted. If so then you won't really be able to get away with not having an engineer involved at all (and you probably would want one to turns your plans into real ones). Even if your area doesn't require that, I would be very surprised if a supplier would give engineering advice for your stuff. Any place that would be willing to do so would also be charging you engineering fees. It isn't that the company doesn't know the characteristics of their products, they just won't take on the liability of telling you how to actually engineer that space. It might be a little frustrating, but honestly would you want to trust a supply shop with that decision? Best to just spend some money on an engineer. I do not have to have an engineer sign off on the plans as a whole, but I did have to have an engineer calculate the steel i-beams that will be holding up the house. I was going to use a 10" beam but the engineer said 8" is more than enough. But at least I got his stamp of approval on it now and will save a few dollars on steel (those dollars go to the engineer instead)
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Oct 2, 2019 01:09
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dreesemonkey posted:I've never heard of floor trusses until I was watching this home build series (more like a commercial) on youtube and my mind was blown. They're not as stiff as I-Beams and they can also sometimes be installed upside down if your builder is a moron.
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Oct 2, 2019 01:56
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I have Opinions but broadly I like it a lot. I'd like to go through it all and make notes when I have some time as there's a few things that really only occurred to me *after* I'd gutted and rebuilt the inside of my house.
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Oct 4, 2019 19:41
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 I’m still figuring out a way get my final floor plan uploaded, it’s a pdf and I don’t get any time at the computer to figure out how to convert it for uploading. For now, here’s a small section on silt fence installation. Installed 600ft of it. We used a single row plow on the back of a tractor and it worked well. Unfortunately the silt fence they sell at Home Depot is poo poo and it falls apart fast. I’m going to have to add backing boards to keep the fabric attached and fix a bunch of broken posts by cutting 8’ 2x2’s in half. $0.35/foot to buy the stuff and I could have had really high quality stuff installed for $1.25/foot. Next time I’ll just hire this out. Next up, dig a hole!
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Oct 26, 2019 12:46
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I would just use print screen or windows snip tool to convert whatever PDF images you have into easily postable images. From windows snip you can just ctrl+v onto imgur for an auto upload and then right click copy image address and paste it here.
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Oct 26, 2019 22:31
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