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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2704 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 10, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I guess your calculations are just for fun?

Yes. (I've already hired a contractor to build a house, nominally for five occupants but actually for only two.)

What kind of living situation are you envisioning where such high density is required, but you are able to get what look like relatively modest building costs?

I don't see why a person can't build a small house in a cheap area. It's what I'm doing.

The HVAC costs also look suspect for meeting current ASHRAE guidelines for 7 occupants.

More specifically: In the per-assembly section, the book says that, for a 1200-ft2 house in year 2019, a cooling system costs 5.8 k$, while a heating/cooling system costs 11.6 k$. The number given is per ft2, not per occupant.

Square footage also need to be allocated for mechanicals if you assume you are occupying the basement and/or attic.

If you look at the designs, I have provided a laundry/utility room for the furnace (in addition to the washer, dryer, and circuit-breaker box).

Is the idea two parents and five kids? A decent number of municipalities wouldn't even allow seven non-related people to occupy a single-family residence. I know people do it, but asking three kids to share a 10′×10′ room is a lot by modern American standards.

These designs are compliant with the 2024 International Property Maintenance Code, which prescribes minimum bedroom area of 70 ft2 for one occupant or 50 ft2 per occupant for multiple occupants. They exceed the IPMC's requirements for dining/living-room area.

I do think sketching floor plans is quite fun.

Where did you end up for final square footage? Closer to 1050 ft2 based on removing 120+ a bit ft2 from your smallest seven person design, closer to 1200 ft2 like your seven person design / scaled larger design, 1500 ft2 like the PGH 2 persion target, or 1875 like the PGH 4+ person target, even smaller since it's actually for only two?

I'm very much in favor of building the design of house you want with the best quality materials you can afford, even at the tradeoff of square footage. Provided, that is, resale does not have to be a consideration. Unfortunately, square footage is the most dominant factor in sale price. For most of the housing market , price and price/ft2 seem to be the dominant considerations.

If you've actually signed for a custom built, you probably know better than me, but I always though custom would be a 20-30% premium over a spec-built house, which would be a 10-20% premium over a tract house, which would be a 20-30% premium over a prefab. I'd be interested to know what the final premium is over just dropping a same bed/bath cheap trailer on your lot ends up being. I would rather live in a small custom than a trailer, but I assume most people living in small homes in cheap areas are doing it because it's cheap, rather than aesthetic preference.

I did see the utility rooms in your plans. It's pretty generous for a washer drier, but I imagine pretty tight if you also need to fit an air handler, return, ERV, and 80 gallon hot water heater. You could make everyone take cold showers or pay the premium for an instantaneous hot water heather though I guess.

The square footage based HVAC calculation probably assumes average bedrooms/people per square foot. If you are following IRC you would at least need it to be based off of bedrooms. I'm pretty sure that table is based off of ASHRAE 62.2 though, and they just assumed 2 people in the master and 1 in each other bedrooms. I think ASHRAE probably prefers HVAC techs to use their (person + ft2) calculation if you actually intend to occupy at very high densities. I don't particularly mind a small space, but small and stuffy sounds very unpleasant.

Where did you end up for final square footage?

If you're referring to the design that I'm actually having built, I went with the third drawing in this image.

  • 744 ft2: Most efficient, but has the kitchen in an L-shaped position that IMO is awkward in juxtaposition with the highly linear dining/living room

  • 793 ft2: Less efficient, but looks better; unfortunately can't fit into my lot's 35-foot-wide buildable area without rotation

  • 873 ft2: Final choice; originally drawn by the contractor's drafter, redrawn by me here

  • 857 ft2: A less ugly design, centered on a corridor rather than on a dining/living room, presented for comparison purposes

I always thought custom would be a 20–30-% premium over a spec-built house, which would be a 10–20-% premium over a tract house, which would be a 20–30-% premium over a prefab.

RSMeans says similar things. For a 1000-ft2 one-story house, the 2019 numbers are:

  • Economy: 124.3 $/ft2

  • Average: 144.55 $/ft2 (+16 % vs. economy)

  • Custom: 198.65 $/ft2 (+37 % vs. average, +60 % vs. economy)

  • Luxury: 233.9 $/ft2 (+17 % vs. custom, +88 % vs. economy)

I signed a contract to build my 873-ft2 design for 221 k$ (253 $/ft2) including driveway and fence. Due to a miscommunication, the contractor also offered a price of 193 k$ (221 $/ft2) not including driveway and fence. This probably is a waste of money in comparison to just buying a manufactured house (or perhaps obtaining a modular implementation of the 857-ft2 design), but I wanted to splurge on implementing my own design, since I'll be living in it for 50 years.

I did see the utility rooms in your plans. It's pretty generous for a washer/dryer, but I imagine pretty tight if you also need to fit an air handler, return, ERV, and 80-gallon hot-water heater.

Possibly, but I assumed the use of forced air in these designs just for simplicity, to align with the book's default assumptions. If I were actually having these houses built, I would use ductless heat-pump HVAC rather than forced air, freeing up a lot of space.

I don't particularly mind a small space, but small and stuffy sounds very unpleasant.

Not mentioned in the book's per-square-foot numbers is default window area. I generally would put 4-foot-wide windows everywhere (2 feet tall in bathrooms, 3 feet tall in kitchen, 4 feet tall elsewhere), which would more than suffice for the IPMC's light/ventilation requirements.

I'm not sure how to tell you this, and I'm not an architect, but I don't see how the layout you're under contract for makes sense. My admittedly amateur eye sees several problems that suggest to me that there's a reason you don't see house layouts like this:

  • Starting with the front door, it's path is in conflict with the door to the utility room, since the utility room door swings outwards.

  • The reason it swings outwards is because the layout of the utility room doesn't make sense. There isn't enough depth to store the washer and dryer without them sticking out into the entry path from the door. And assuming you're putting the water heater, furnace, and panel box in here, plus possibly a stationary tub, the room isn't long enough to put them far enough back to keep them out of the immediate ingress path.

  • The living room-as-central-hall concept will reduce the usable space by half. My house was built in 1945 and the upstairs hallway is 36" wide, and it's narrow; newer homes have 48" hallways. I'd say three feet is the minimum clearance you'll need around the doors to have adequate movement without it being cramped. Since you have doors on both sides of the room, nearly half of the total width needs to be kept clear for ingress and egress through the area.

  • The upshot of the above is that there will be very little room for furniture. The couch will have to be practically in the middle of the room. I think I see how you have a plan to mount the TV on the wall between two doors. With this TV location, you'll have to get a very small "apartment sofa" dead center in the room, and you might have room for a small end table or another chair on the wall next to the door. And that's it. That also means that the highest traffic area of the house will be directly between the couch and the television.

  • Another issue with having a central hall is that the private areas of the house are exposed to the living area. If you're entertaining people will be looking in bedrooms, and will be going to the bathroom with nothing but an inch and a half of birch between them and the party.

  • Why the double doors in the bathrooms? They have conflicting swing paths and seem unnecessary. Make the master bath en suite and the spare open up to the house.

  • What do you need two bathrooms for? And two large bathrooms at that; a typical size for a full bath in a small house is 8' × 5'. I don't know why you'd build a house with an 800 ft² footprint and waste space on two bathrooms.

  • Why no basement? I know they're more expensive, but if I understand correctly you're in the Philly/NJ area, which isn't exactly the South. Here in Pittsburgh the frost line is at 36" and while I imagine it's less over there, it couldn't be that much less. Building on a slab means sinking a footer at 36" and then building up frost walls, which is still ultimately less expensive but doesn't usually make sense considering that a basement gives you a lot of extra space. Slabs are also more difficult to heat. The only time people build on slabs around here is if there's some special consideration like they're building on an old industrial site, there are mine subsidence issues, or they're in the mountains where there's shallow bedrock. The only house I saw that was build on a slab for no reason had a lot of other puzzling decisions made by the guy who built it, who I knew and was surprised he'd build a house like that.

  • Not as big a deal, but the lack of a rear door seems concerning.

If you want to look at efficient houses, look at a typical ranch or split-entry layout. They're all practically mirror images but when they were building tract houses in the '50s and 60's the builders wanted to maximize usable space while still making the house livable.

The front door's path is in conflict with the door to the utility room, since the utility room door swings outwards.

I fail to see how that is a problem. I do not expect that people will be using both doors simultaneously very often.

The layout of the utility room doesn't make sense. There isn't enough depth to store the washer and dryer without them sticking out into the entry path from the door. And, assuming you're putting the water heater, furnace, and panel box in here, plus possibly a stationary tub, the room isn't long enough to put them far enough back to keep them out of the immediate ingress path.

The washer and dryer are all the way on the left side, facing toward the door. There is no furnace, since heating and cooling are provided by a ductless heat-pump system (one of the versions that still works at low temperatures). See this image, drawn by the contractor's drafter before I remembered to have the direction of the laundry/utility room's door reversed.

The living-room-as-central-hall concept will reduce the usable space by half. My house was built in 1945 and the upstairs hallway is 36′ wide, and it's narrow; newer homes have 48″ hallways. I'd say three feet is the minimum clearance you'll need around the doors to have adequate movement without it being cramped. Since you have doors on both sides of the room, nearly half of the total width needs to be kept clear for ingress and egress through the area.

The upshot of the above is that there will be very little room for furniture. The couch will have to be practically in the middle of the room. I think I see how you have a plan to mount the TV on the wall between two doors. With this TV location, you'll have to get a very small "apartment sofa" dead center in the room, and you might have room for a small end table or another chair on the wall next to the door. And that's it. That also means that the highest traffic area of the house will be directly between the couch and the television.

I agree that 48 inches is a good width for a corridor. (My (mother's) current house has a 30-inch corridor, and it's quite annoying.) In corridor-based designs, I use 48-inch corridors. However, this is a dining/living room, not a corridor. There are two different 36-inch paths around the central tables for people to use.

The television mount is intended to be a mount that can pivot to face any direction.

Also, I never use the dining/living room in my (mother's) current house, so I don't care much about it.

Another issue with having a central hall is that the private areas of the house are exposed to the living area. If you're entertaining, people will be looking in bedrooms, and will be going to the bathroom with nothing but an inch and a half of birch between them and the party.

All four of the doors between the dining/living room and the bedroom+bathroom suites will be steel "exterior" doors with weather stripping, not flimsy "interior" doors that easily transmit noise and smell.

Also, I don't expect to be entertaining many people.

Why the double doors in the bathrooms?

The intent is to make either one of the bedroom+bathroom suites a suitable master suite, rather than locking in only one of them as the master.

What do you need two bathrooms for?

In my (mother's) current house, I generally have been slightly annoyed at having to share a bathroom with her. Also, having two bathrooms makes renting out one bedroom easier if it becomes necessary for financial reasons.

And two large bathrooms at that; a typical size for a full bath in a small house is 8′ × 5′.

ICC A117.1 prescribes several different levels of accessibility. Generally, under an "aging in place" perspective, I am seeking to make this house compliant with "type B"—not so extreme as "accessible" or "type A", but not so minimal as "type C". I have determined that 10′×5′ (or a little less than 10′, depending on how close the doors are to the perpendicular walls) is the minimum size of a bathroom compliant with ICC A117.1 "type B" (able to accommodate a 30″×48″ wheelchair clearance, but not including the extravagant 5-foot-diameter circular turning space required under "accessible" and "type A").

Why no basement? I know they're more expensive, but if I understand correctly you're in the Philly/NJ area, which isn't exactly the South. Here in Pittsburgh the frost line is at 36″, and, while I imagine it's less over there, it couldn't be that much less. Building on a slab means sinking a footer at 36″ and then building up frost walls, which is still ultimately less expensive but doesn't usually make sense considering that a basement gives you a lot of extra space.

Prior to hiring the contractor, I hired an architect for initial feasibility checking. According to him, adding a basement would increase the cost of one of my designs by 40 percent (for a 988-ft2 design, from 133 k$ to 188 k$, not including the contractor's overhead and profit). I don't think that's a reasonable use of my limited funds. (This was long before I became aware of the 2019 RSMeans book. Now that I have the RSMeans book, which estimates a cost differential of only 10 percent for an unfinished basement or 24 percent for a finished basement, I feel a bit more skeptical of the architect's calculation. Still, he's the expert. I haven't asked the contractor about it, and I don't see much reason to now that I've signed a contract for a no-basement build.)

The slab will have R-10 foam-board insulation underneath it. (I argued to the contractor that the IRC mandates R-20 insulation under a slab floor in zone 5A (cool humid). But the contractor disagrees with my interpretation and thinks that R-20 under-slab insulation would be prone to compression over time.)

The lack of a rear door seems concerning.

The IRC mandates that in every bedroom at least one window be big enough and low enough that a person can clamber through it easily, so I don't see much need for a back door.

I had an apartment with almost the same layout as your build. Very functional and reasonably comfortable for two. Of course we only had windows on one side, unlike your build. We did host another couple for a total of four for a while, and it was fine. Probably could have squeezed another person in if needed. I wouldn't want to live that way long term, but seems very reasonable for two for now, hosting up to five.

Given current construction prices and the size of your build, you either got a great deal or live in the middle of nowhere or both. If you really are staying for a while, I think the splurge is worth it. We can't all build a Monticello, but there's something to be said for living in a house of your own design.

Opening a window is a good option for ventilation as long as the weather is good and there's not too much outdoor pollution. Unfortunately the number of places that have good weather most of the year, don't have wildfire smoke or car exhaust outside, and are affordable is pretty small. For a house that small though, you probably are fine with just exhaust fans and some makeup air to a small air handler. The extra energy cost over an ERV/HRV is probably pretty small given the small square footage.

Given current construction prices and the size of your build, you either got a great deal or live in the middle of nowhere or both.

The 2019 RSMeans book indicates that the cost multiplier of my new house's location is 0.92. (Some states have locations as low as 0.74.)

For a house that small, you probably are fine with just exhaust fans and some makeup air to a small air handler.

It's an interesting idea. I see that, according to the Architectural Graphic Standards for Residential Design: "Most new residences are too tightly constructed to provide adequate leakage ventilation. Therefore, manual and mechanical ventilation are recommended."

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