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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2983 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 29, 2025

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Homeowners of The Motte -- what would you differently if you could do it all over again?

I plan on building a house in the next 12 months on a lot about an hour away from the Gulf of Mexico America. It's going to be a two-story 5BR house with porches on the front and the back, built in a traditional Southern style.

I'm a bit overwhelmed as I don't even know what I don't know about building, and I want to avoid making costly mistakes that I'll have to pay to renovate later (or worse, be unable to fix at all). Happy to hear both from people who built and people who bought.

Things I'd want when building my home;

Storm shutters you can lock from inside. You'll have to deal with both Hurricanes and severe weather. Thank me later. They can also act as a way to block out direct sunlight and cut down on heat reaching your interiors.

Propane generator wired into your electrical system.

Extensive foam insulation to save on cooling and heating.

If you want any sound-deadening put into interior walls, think about it now.

Personal preference, but I'd be installing wainscoting on the interior walls to help with potential issues with flooding(you have checked the flood maps before hand, right?), and they look neat.

Be very critical when picking your kitchen sink and outlet. Make sure you pick one with minimal back-splash, or just say 'fuck it' and get one that looks more apt in an industrial kitchen. (A friend of mine has a family that did catering and they did this. It's wonderful.)

Consider putting up wood/plywood on walls that may have drainage and/or seweage pipes for easy, later access as needed, rather than having to rip down sheetrock.

Damn, this is gold. Thank you.

How does wainscoting help reduce flood damage? We're not in a flood zone, but along the Gulf Coast you can never truly be sure.

Why minimal backsplash for the kitchen sink? How does that relate to selecting the outlet and sink? We cook a lot at home, almost every day, so we're planning on shelling out for a nice kitchen.

Did you build or buy? Did any of these items add significantly to cost?

The problem with sheetrock(which 99.99% of new homes built nowadays use) when exposed to water is that it creeps. Even if you get a small amount of water in your home, you're probably going to have to rip out atleast 2 feet, if not more.

When I install wainscoting, what I'll do is put in water-resistant plywood, then ontop I'll use 1/8th plywood stained/painted the color I want, with the appropriate baseboard/edging that I chose. All screwed in. This does multi-duty - it looks nice, I can swap out the 1/8th plywood/trim later if I want to change the color up, and if I need quick access for whatever reason to the wall interior behind it, said access is fairly painless - just unscrew and do your work.

As a plus, you now don't have to worry about anything running into said wall and making dents in the sheetrock(it's solid wood), and you can screw in hooks/hangers/shelving as needed, should you choose to do so. And installing the sheetrock on the remaining 4 feet of wall is now piss-easy - you just put the sheetrock ontop of the plywood and screw it in.

From the sound of things, you probably won't have to worry about the above installation, hiring others to do the work, but this is just my experience doing all the above myself.

Why minimal backsplash for the kitchen sink?

This is just my particular pet-peeve with the kitchen my father had installed in the family house - it's just small enough that when using it to clean dishes, water back-splashes everywhere, including behind the facet, making cleanup a pain. I'm not sure if there's a way around it in terms of sink/faucet combo, but when I finally get around to building my own kitchen, I fully intend to find out.

Build or buy

Generator system should be around... 16,000 or so? for propane, which I would suggest, given you'll be in the South. Foam installation - trust me, it's worth it. Just make sure you get someone you can trust to install it. Never priced shutters - that's just a wishlist item of mine that I've wanted to have on-hand SEVERAL times in the past.

The wainscoting above I did all myself when it was done, so I couldn't tell you off-hand what it would cost. Most builders nowadays would proably look at you funny if you request it, or do a 'faux' wainscot that's just pure looks/appearance. Any future home I build I plan on doing the interior myself, so I don't consider it to be something weird to do.

If you want any sound-deadening put into interior walls, think about it now.

IRC appendix BG (Sound Transmission)

The Architectural Graphic Standards have a really nice multi-page table listing a bunch of different interior-wall cross sections, including their sound transmission class.

I own a 100-year old house myself, but my friend who has built new strongly recommends installing central vacuum lines during construction.

I lived in a house that had these once when I was a kid. It was pretty cool, you just plugged a tube into the wall and could instantly vacuum. But as an adult I'm wondering how on earth you'd clean and maintain such a system. I imagine I'd have to pay the manufacturer to clean, and after 10 years they may no longer be in business. I hate the idea of "dead tech" being embedded in my house, outdated gadgets look ugly and silly. I'll have to research how it works.

But as an adult I'm wondering how on earth you'd clean and maintain such a system.

It is self-cleaning.

While it is inevitable that some dirt settles at seldom-used outlets (especially those at lower points in the plumbing run), that problem tends to solve itself as soon as you connect a hose to that port by consequence of what the system does. And since when you're vacuuming an entire floor you'll use (almost) every port at least once, the remediation for ports seldom-used is "connect the vacuum line and run the system briefly".

Additionally, the hose opening tends to be a smaller diameter than the vacuum lines. So if you suck up something absurd, like a plastic bag, if it'll fit through the hose, it'll fit through the lines just fine. It would be wise to leave a couple of access ports, though.

The only real fail points are:

  • the central unit itself (generally quite reliable, it's just a nicer Shop-Vac- solution: replace unit if it burns out somehow, hookup is standard)
  • the hose between the vacuum head and wall (generally, electrical outlets are installed right next to the vacuum ports so you can run the vacuum's power head; the cord for that is embedded in the hose and will degrade with use- solution: replace hose, they're all standard)
  • the access ports (just a sufficiently-airtight door with 2 low-voltage electrical contacts, both properties can degrade over time; when you connect the hose, the circuit is bridged by the metal and the vacuum starts up- solution: replace door)

The central units are generic and easy to get, cost only a little more than a nice portable unit, and the sweepers generally conform to one of only a couple standard types. The rest is just plastic tubes and wall ports. Biggest advantage is that the central unit can exhaust to outside, so heavy filtration is not needed to reduce fine particles and dust, and the power of even a low end central unit can't be matched by any kind of portable vacuum cleaner. The central unit typically has a collection bin you can remove and empty, like a shop-vac.

Given your description, I'm guessing this is a semi-rural to rural area. Double check your utilities connections- if this is in Texas, there may be a difference between oncor(electrical grid monopoly) or a utility coop, depending on where you are. For a house that size I'm guessing 100 amp service and two air conditioners? Also, if water comes from a well- do you have a filter already budgeted for? And what's your plan for backup power in the event that a storm knocks out power to the pump(and btw- pumps are already expensive and you more or less get what you pay for. Get a long lasting, quality one.). You're close enough to the gulf that hurricanes are a realistic concern; do you have a plan for them?

Will you be having a conventional built house or a prefab(much cheaper)? Do you plan on a pier and beam(better foundation but you need pest mitigation strategies) or slab?

I highly recommend, given the climate- screen in one or both of the porches. This is near tropical America and you're going to want something to keep bugs out.

Luckily it's in an existing neighborhood in a residential area at the center of small town, so I don't expect to have much trouble with utilities.

I need to do more research on what I'd need for hurricanes, as I'm only planning on adding storm shutters and a generator. I assume your recommendations about the pump only apply to houses that rely exclusively on well water?

We're looking at a conventional build. I was thinking of building on a slab for insulation and because the idea of a crawlspace in the deep south horrifies me. Also termites. We're not in a flood zone (officially), but I want to double check the soil to make sure it's suitable for a slab. I should probably ask my future neighbors about this as well.

We label turn off valves. For us, this has been sharpie on walls, but I would go for a nice label option in a home I built. When the house is flooding a nice label with an arrow pointing to a handle you last looked at when you moved in 5 years ago is a good thing.

When we do repairs we add turn off valves if possible. I would rather turn off the water to one room than turn it off for the whole house, if possible.

When I was a kid my parents tried to build but there was weird neighborhood approval of plans required and they eventually gave up and sold the land. Hopefully you don't run into anything like that.

If you're not modifying existing plans, the architect should go through all that with you. Some architects are hacks, but those ones don't generally do custom builds. Assuming you want an architecturally correct Southern style and not some ersatz version, an architect excited to dive into the details of the exterior will be more than competent to guide you away from making the kinds of mistakes that end up in builder designed houses.

Not a hoomer, but some thoughts:

  1. Get Your House Right is a really good resource for basic design questions (proportions, moldings, layouts, etc). You might also see if Brent Hull has any videos on southern style houses.

  2. Lever handles are much better than doorknobs IMO. I fairly often need to open a door with stuff in my hands and it's way easier to do it if the door opens with a lever handle.

  3. Think seriously about room ventilation. The house should be set up so that you can get cross-breezes going.

  4. Make sure you put in a skookum kitchen hood that's sized appropriately for your cooktop. I've lived my life in places with underpowered or non-existent hoods and it sucks.

  5. Try to avoid making the garage a major part of your house's facade. May not be possible depending on your lot, unfortunately - but it looks much better if you can make it happen.

  6. Put some thought into sealing your garage to keep insects out.

  7. If you end up with a small bathroom, consider installing a pocket door. I have a bathroom right now where the room door and the shower door open into each others' space and it sucks.

  8. Two sinks in the master bath is a must.

Thanks, these tips all make a lot of sense. After living in houses both with and without, I strongly suspect two sinks in the master bath correlates strongly with lower divorce rates.

I am very glad that the person who built the house I own:

  • Installed a metal roof
  • Planned ahead for water flow, and intentionally designed the landscaping around it.

A big house like that might be hard to cool in the summer. I don't have any specific suggestions -- we can't afford a full house air conditioner, so we're all in the main room with the window unit in during summer afternoons, and use open windows and fans at night.

I was hoping you'd reply as IIRC you have three or four children too. I responded here regarding house size. What do you think? I was thinking we might also just make the rooms smaller in general so that there are the same number of rooms but less enclosed space to cool and clean.

Water flow is definitely important for us where we will live as mild flooding can happen even just with a bad afternoon squall.

Specific random things, because most things are going to be covered by smarter guys than me:

  1. Plan one entrance to the house with no steps. Almost nobody does it, because it's difficult to handle the architecture/landscaping to make a ramp look good, but you totally can if you plan it from the start. Elderly people fall on steps all the time, and often hurt themselves. Also convenient for heavy stuff in general. If you plan for it now, you'll have it forever; if you have to rerig it later it will look bad, especially if it's at a time when you yourself are older/less capable.

  2. Anywhere water comes into your house will eventually leak. Plan for that now.

  3. That's a big house, think about how you're going to use the rooms. A lot of people end up with a big house with four rooms that are all variations on "couch and we watch TV in here;" or they all started as bedrooms and got adapted.

  4. Think of the repair guy. Don't put anything in a place where it will be difficult to extract when (not if, when) it needs to be serviced or replaced. Make it easy to reach the air handler, the water heater, the septic system, etc.

  5. Take pictures of the inside of all the walls before you close them up. Write notes and measurements. Store them in multiple places, hard copies, in the home, for the future.

Re. 2, how do you recommend planning for it? Do you have an example?

Re. 3, we have four kids and may have more. Our thinking is:

  • 1 master bedroom
  • 1 home office (wife and I are WFH)
  • 1 older boys' room
  • 1 older girls' room
  • 1 younger kids' room
  • Guest bedroom somewhere, maybe? The design we're looking at is 3,300 sqft. Do you think it would be possible to get away with less house? I'd actually prefer not to have to clean, cool, and maintain a huge house.

Re. 2, how do you recommend planning for it? Do you have an example?

Primarily by placing mechanicals (well pump, expansion tanks, water heater, air handlers, the first drain the septic system will back up into) in places where when they do leak, they won't destroy anything. Waterproof flooring, floor drains, leak protection, don't stack all your valuables and important paperwork right next to it, etc.

Do you think it would be possible to get away with less house? I'd actually prefer not to have to clean, cool, and maintain a huge house.

I've always been a fan, if not always a practitioner, of segmenting the house in ways that let you heat and clean selectively. I just have a ranch house, but the basement is on its own mini-split system, and as such we can keep it at a different temperature than the rest of the house, saving money. We also don't need to keep it as clean as it is primarily used as a hosting space other than the workout room. There's a lot of clever solutions to this. Though anyway, I'd imagine with five kids you shouldn't have problems getting chores done for cleaning the house.

Re. flooding, that makes sense, thanks.

Re. segmenting the house, after living in a place with poor insulation, I can definitely see the value. That house was at least designed so that you could essentially separately heat and cool different floors. They did this by adding a sliding door on the staircase landing. It sounds like I might need to work with an architect to accomplish this though.

The design we're looking at is 3,300 ft2. Do you think it would be possible to get away with less house?

I can fit your stated requirements into 1301 ft2. Use your imagination!

I can fit your stated requirements into 1301 ft2. Use your imagination!

Congratulations, you just invented the double-wide trailer!

lol, well, we could all technically live, Gilded Age style, in a single room, but I don't want that, so I suppose I have more requirements than just minimizing enclosed space. I'd want a garage, a living room, a space for a dinner table, and ideally a porch. I'm also trying to do a 2 floor build because I want to minimize the footprint on my lot.

But point taken. After this thread I think I need to hire an architect.

We could all technically live, Gilded Age–style, in a single room, but I don't want that. I'd want a living room and a space for a dinner table.

Clarification: That big central room is a combination living/dining room, as permitted under IPMC § 404.5.2. (I was just too lazy to label it.) A width of 7 feet may seem small, but under IRC § R312.2 it is permissible, and Architectural Graphic Standards for Residential Construction fig. 2.24 indicates that it is sufficient for a dining table to fit, as long as everybody sits on the same side. (If I'd had the book in front of me when I made the drawing, I would have made the living/dining room 8 feet wide, so that people could face each other across the dining table. With that mild augmentation, the area rises to 1347 ft2 + 94.5 in2.)

I'm also trying to do a 2-floor build.

Note that the IRC's prescriptive design assumes that the second floor will contain only bedrooms and implicitly bathrooms. (Compare table R403.1(1) note b with table R301.5.) If you ignore that assumption, you may have to pay extra for an engineer's services, since the architect will not be able to just copy-and-paste from the IRC's tables.

Here's a design that meets your new criteria. (I'm assuming a detached garage, and not bothering to draw it.) (Whoops—swap the office and the kitchen.)

After this thread I think I need to hire an architect.

Come up with your own original design first, before letting an architect mess stuff up. Doodling random floor plans is fun!

Also, I think you should go straight to a homebuilder (which will have an in-house architect), not to an architect. I tried hiring several architects, and did manage to get one to help me pick a lot, but they generally didn't seem very interested in me. Presumably they have bigger fish to fry, such as designing larger commercial, industrial, and apartment buildings.

Plan one entrance to the house with no steps.

Specifically, in accordance with ICC A117.1 § 1104.2 and ch. 4.

That's a big house. Think about how you're going to use the rooms.

Architectural Graphic Standards for Residential Construction pp. 40 and 46–48 have some nice diagrams of bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, home theaters, and home offices, including typical furniture dimensions and clearances.

Take pictures of the inside of all the walls before you close them up. Write notes and measurements.

Or just keep a copy of the construction/as-built plans!

Or just keep a copy of the construction/as-built plans!

Redundancy is key! Don't keep just a single copy, and don't keep it in a digital format that might be difficult to access later. Don't count on others to keep them.

Because the house will be up for thirty or fifty years when you have a problem you need to deal with.

I would really want to have rooms wired, with conduit and pull strings in the event that I needed to pull something which wasn't already there. It's a complete pain in the dick to wire things after the fact, and I have often wished that I had wires for networking, for speaker connections, etc.

Ah yeah, good call. I am 100% sure I'll get Ethernet everywhere but I hadn't thought about installing conduit just in case.

Just to emphasize: conduit and pull strings. You want both, because even with conduit it's easier to use the string than to run a fish tape.

We're still at the very beginning, so my answers aren't very interesting, but:

  1. Working off a loan, but we also have enough investment money that we could make more aggressive payments if needed.
  2. We've picked a plan off of a builder's site that we liked. We're not really "dream house" people, we're pretty practical. We've actually like most rentals we've lived in that were just cookie cutter designs. The only times we were unhappy was when we lived in a place with poorly sealed windows overlooking a street (lots of traffic noise) and when we lived in a house with poor insulation in a place where the temps varied between 15F and 95F over the year. That said, I'm still thinking about getting an architect and doing a custom build.
  3. A few years ago, I picked out a great lot in the heart of a small, fast-growing middle class town on the outskirts of a larger city. The neighborhood is perfect and everything is walkable. Tradeoff is that we have to build now.
  4. It will probably end up being 4-5 years.
  5. TBD, but it doesn't seem like there's much in that area.
  6. I have family in the area, and I was very careful to avoid flood zones and flood zones adjacent properties.

We've picked a plan off of a builder's site that we liked.

Note that architectural plans are copyrighted, so if you want to use that plan you have to also use that builder, unless the same plan has been licensed by multiple builders from a separate architect.

Not the same person, but:

(1) I'm paying mostly cash, since I have it and I generally dislike the idea of taking out gigantic loans just to have the bank second-guess everything. Of the 220-k$ price tag, I already have 110 k$ of investments, and my brother has agreed to lend 40 k$ to me. While construction is ongoing, I expect to make up the remaining 70 k$ with my salary and (if absolutely necessary) a 35-k$ unsecured loan and my two 10-k$ credit cards.

(2) I drew up a rough design on my own, and then hired an architect to double-check the suitability of a few lots that I found on Zillow. The builder's in-house architect then made some small changes.

(3) I like insulation and heat pumps, and dislike closets and non-flat roofs.

(4) I bought the lot in February. I expect to get a construction schedule in the next week or two.

(5) The permit process has not yet started, but I don't expect much hassle. This lot does not have any environmental entanglements (such as a floodplain), and I certainly don't need any variances.

(6) (not applicable in Pennsylvania)

Re. 2, how did you draw up your own plans?

My rough designs generally were drawn on paper, in GIMP (at 1.5 in or 6 in (3.8 cm or 15.2 cm) per pixel), in QCAD, or (for full 3D) in OpenSCAD.

On building or remodelling, what I will say is that one of the absolute most visible parts of the work is the drywall/trim finishing. Most GCs sub this out, and most subs are horrible. Since this is close to the final stage of construction, it is hard to have the patience to make them do it right, but it is what you will notice every day even if the rest of the work is great. If a remodel, the drywall stage is an absolute nightmare due to the obscene amount of dust that low quality contractors create. I recommend stressing to GC that professional drywall finishers are a must.

Does this add a significant amount of cost?

I had bad drywall subs, so I am not sure. Theoretically, a high quality drywall crew would work faster (so not a big cost increase) and cleaner, but drywall is considered shitty entry level work so it is very hard to find a high quality crew.

But basically what happens is that the painters blame the trim (who blame the drywall) or drywall people who blame the framing (which cannot be redone), counting on you and GC to just run out of patience. GCs dont think drywall is real work, so they sub it out without much quality control. Also, at this stage the GC is counting money and will probably try to get some margin by cheaping out on drywall. Results are probably a lot better with new construction than remodel.

Good to know, thanks. It sounds like I'll just need to keep an extra close eye on the GC towards the end.

I don't even know what I don't know about building

You may want to buy a copy of the Architectural Graphic Standards for Residential Construction. It's a bit pricey, but absolutely comprehensive in terms of design.

Highly relevant is the International Residential Code. This link leads to the 2024 version. Your jurisdiction probably uses an older version, but you may still want to tell your builder to obey parts of the newest version. In particular, ch. 11 (Energy Efficiency) has undergone major changes recently, such as §§ N1102.1.3 (Insulation and Fenestration Criteria: R-Value Alternative) and N1108.1 (Additional Efficiency Requirements). Appendices NE (Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure) and NG (Energy Efficiency Stretch Code) may also be of interest to you.

International Property Maintenance Code § 404.5 (Overcrowding) also has some handy guidelines for design, and ICC A117.1 (Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities) ch. 11 (Dwelling Units and Sleeping Units) has information on the different levels of accessibility that you may want to meet in order to facilitate "aging in place".

t. in the process of getting a two-bedroom custom house built for 220 k$

Since this is the stupid question thread -- what should I hope to learn from those books? They appear to be reference books about regulations. Should I study them so I can keep my GC honest or double check his work?

What should I hope to learn from those books? They appear to be reference books about regulations.

The Architectural Graphic Standards include a lot of helpful guidelines and drawings in addition to regurgitation of (an old version of) the mandatory codes.

Reading the Architectural Graphic Standards and the codes enables you to draw up on your own a rough design on which the builder's architect has only to put minor finishing touches, rather than describing what you want to the builder's architect and having him draw up from scratch a design that probably will require a bunch of iteration.

Ah, okay! That's really useful, then. Lazy question, but how did you draw your designs? I'm pretty miserable with pencil and paper, and I imagine there are a million software tools for this sort of thing. Any in particular you liked?

Edit: I see you've already answered this here.

How did you draw your designs?

See response here.

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