I am now in the process of planning the building of my own home. What are your thoughts or desires for new homes. Windows, propane fireplace, HVAC, etc. Thanks, Mark
I am now in the process of planning the building of my own home. What are your thoughts or desires for new homes. Windows, propane fireplace, HVAC, etc. Thanks, Mark
Windows....Low E argon.
Fireplace... Direct vent NatGas or propane, but only the kind that exhausts to the outside.
HVAC...Geothermal if you can.
RaT,
I recognize your handle but don't know where you live... Can you give us a general idea since climate may dictate some of these.
Brian
I live in the Foothills of Northern California near Auburn. I'm at about 1000' elevation. Electricity is a fortune here so I am leaning towards gas heat and a wood burning maybe propane fireplace. The house plan has a main floor of 1200' and has a basement as well as a second floor. Both the second floor and basement will be unconditioned for now as it gets us into the 1200 sq ft limit of a second home or guest house that we have size restrictions on. The main house can be any size we want, but frankly, I could live in 1200 sq ft easily. My wife wants bigger, but the place we want to build on is currently occupied by our mobile home. If it was simply a matter of moving it for the duration of building a main house, we would, it's just a whole lot more complicated then that. Thats why I decided we would build a guest house or secondary home and then take the time to figure out a main house should that come to fruition. I have that unfortunate feeling of always second guessing myself on homes. I've built plenty for others, but now faced with doing my own, the variables really become staggering. It seems there are always new ideas poping up out there. I need to learn the techniques of waterproofing a basement as out here, there are very few basements.
I have a few thoughts but also have a couple more questions.
Can you tell me more about your seasons? How hot in the summer, how cold in the winter? Do you want/need air conditioning?
Some thoughts (but they may change based on your temps):
Sorry it's so long... (actually, I have more but stopping for a bit).
If I interpret your post correctly, this "may" be an interim home if you build your "main" house. If this is so, you may want to consider a heating system that is attractive to the next owner/renter/guest or whatever of this house. I love to heat with wood but it's not for everyone.
If you do go with wood, do you want an actual fireplace or an airtight fireplace or just a wood burning furnace? An open-air fireplace is very inefficient... The others are efficient. Do you want an esthetic piece or just heat?
If just heat, I'd recommend getting a wood burning furnace that would go in the basement. Less mess in the living area and you could heat the basement as well (see more about this below). Another advantage of a furnace type is that many are made to run dual fuel sources. Around here, many use a fuel oil/wood combination. If the furnace goes to kick on but no wood inside, it'll switch itself over to oil.
For your basement:
(I live in the north so this may not be 100% appropriate for your conditions).
During all seasons, the basement will obviously be cooler than the main floor.
In the winter:
If the basement gets cold, so do your floors. It can get uncomfortable, especially on any tiled floor surface on the main floor.
If your ground freezes, it'll want to push against the basement wall. Keeping the basement 60 or higher will keep the ground freeze away from the basement wall.
In the summer:
The basement will be damper (and colder) than the main floor. You'll need to get this moisture out. Dehumidifiers work but aren't very friendly to the electric bill. What I do is run the fan on the furnace (forced air). With ducts in the basement to draw this air out, it'll circulate with the rest of the house. It'll pull the cool (although damper) air out of the basement. It'll dry the basement and cool the rest of the house. If you are running air conditioning (heat pump or A/C unit), they're inherently a dehumidifier as well.
For waterproofing the basement:
There's several ways to do this depending on how wet the ground is that you'll be building on.
If you're in pretty wet ground, you should run tile under the basement floor and either pump away using a sump pump or depending on terrain (hilly), you may be able to just have the tiles lead away from the house.
For the walls (again, several ways to do it), but an effective solution is to seal the exterior of the block or concrete with a sealer from the top (ground level) all the way down. Do not seal both the inside and outside as this will retain moisture in the wall itself. After the wall is sealed, put a French drain around the perimeter. 4" pipe with holes in the bottom (again run to either a sump pump or away from the foundation) and fill with gravel. Many only bring the gravel up 1/2 way up the foundation wall, but I prefer to bring almost to the top. My reasoning is that it's a better buffer against winter freezing.
As a basement side note, consider an exterior door... Depending on its future use (work shop, rec. area...) getting stuff in and out will be a lot easier than coming through the house.
Brian
Rat
we live on the Ma/CTstate lines and right on 1100 MSL. We have a unique situation in that we are 78 air miles from the ocean.. So we get a lot of weather changes compared to most others, We get more snow, more rain when it comes and much colder weather regardless of winter-summer. Around here, they use tar and 2" styrofoam to coat the outside cellar walls, Lately, there is a new system that is identical to snow and ice roof barrier,, It is placed on the walls with it's own adhesion.. In either case, people now are styrofoaming the outside walls for a cushion and some "R" insulating factor. Drainage depends on the lot. Some have to use tile and drainage, others use perforated pipe surrounded by stone and the pipe leading away from foundation at the lowest level..
This morning I woke up with nothing to do.
It is now afternoon and I have over half of it done
Thanks Brian and Larry. Here where I'm at we rarely get below 32 degrees. Summers can on occasion hit 100 to 104 degrees so airconditioning is a needed. We are quite dry in the summer. The duel fuel heating sounds interesting. We are about 100 miles from the Pacific Ocean, we get breezes in the summer from the ocean almost every evening that are very pleasant. A whole house fan works very well here. I'm not sure if this house will be interim or not so I do want to build it with us in mind but as mentioned for resale as well. Basements are definitely a mystery to me but since I'm on a slope, it seems to work well and it will be daylighted with some double doors. I will be using ICF walls, the basement thickness will depend on the engineering backfill requirement as they will get about 9' of material pushed up to them. I look forward to getting ideas especially from folks back East where after building some homes in Maine, learned the differences in your construction practices
RaT,
Have you considered radiant heat? It might be something to think about.
If you are considering burning wood, don't forget to look at the outdoor wood burning furnaces.
They are a bit pricey but would easily provide you with heat and also help reduce your domestic hot water costs.
We have one of these, we really love it:
http://www.hardyheater.com/
Since these can provide heat to multiple buildings, you could put one in now a bit oversize in case you want to heat your main house later from the same heat source.
Try to get connected to PG&E for Gas, Just got some propane it was $2.23 in Penryn
carl
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