Tips on building a house

[Brian]

We're close to the last home we will ever own. We sold our house late last year, bought 5 acres and are going to have a home built. I'm building the barn, and we'll have the horses right with us. My wife will be in heaven. I will have a lot of land to take care of.

We did the basic design ourselves, then iterated with an architect who had some very good suggestions and tweaks, including a few that would ensure the roof will work. We'll hopefully break ground in Feb. sometime, weather permitting.

We're trying to think of little things that will make a big difference. Things like:
- Put a power and cat6 outlet in the floor underneath the desk in the den.
- Run cat6 everywhere. Including to TV in great room. Pre-pull HDMI from TV to where components will be located
- Centrally located hub for communication, internet, etc.
- Think about outlet placement in bathrooms (wife is righthanded. Take that into account for curling iron and hair dryer usage)
- USB ports in power outlets in strategic locations.
- Timer switches for all fart fans.
- A charging drawer in the kitchen. (Drawer with a power strip in the back. Phones, ipads go in for out-of-sight charging)
- Plenty of outlets in the garage
- Run sprinkler pipe and wires before driveway is poured.
- Have plumber stub out connections for sprinklers.
- Run a few extra circuits for outside (beyond what is planned), cover them and bury for later possible use.

Anything else you're glad you have, or wish you had done?

[chrisrenrut]

- Timer switches for all fart fans.

I have so many questions around this, I don't know where to start.

[Homer Crimson]

I have so many questions around this, I don't know where to start.

It's actually one of the best parts of his plan.

15 years ago, I gutted, seismically retrofitted, and wired our 1890's Queen Anne myself. Moved some walls, learned a hell of a lot in the 2 years it took. Passed every inspection the first time, briefly toyed with becoming an electrician. If I had to do it over, I'd run large conduit through every room practical, for any future wiring/comm/data needs. It's probably overkill and won't get used, but a future owner will thank you.

I'm assuming you will hire a general contractor, or are you acting as your own general and managing subs for each job? Your plan sounds good, but the best advice I have is to check every contractor's references and make sure to follow up with their most recent customers. I had a contractor who had good references and had been in business for 20+ years. Turned out he was financially cratering and my recent remodel was a life preserver for him. He was using my money to pay off his last job's subs (sadly this is really common), and started shorting his subs on our job. Luckily, we met the criteria for lien relief, and the state contractor fund paid off our subs and we have no liens and the job got finished. You can never be too careful, get everything in writing (YOU MUST HAVE A CONTRACT) and hammer out how overruns and job changes will be handled and lay out the schedule for payments as work progresses; examine materials costs closely. Do it in specific stages not something like half now, half later. Insist on lien releases from each sub as they get paid, if your contractor balks at this something is seriously wrong.

Sounds like a great project- try not to lose your mind.

[Rocker Ute]

We're close to the last home we will ever own. We sold our house late last year, bought 5 acres and are going to have a home built. I'm building the barn, and we'll have the horses right with us. My wife will be in heaven. I will have a lot of land to take care of.

We did the basic design ourselves, then iterated with an architect who had some very good suggestions and tweaks, including a few that would ensure the roof will work. We'll hopefully break ground in Feb. sometime, weather permitting.

We're trying to think of little things that will make a big difference. Things like:
- Put a power and cat6 outlet in the floor underneath the desk in the den.
- Run cat6 everywhere. Including to TV in great room. Pre-pull HDMI from TV to where components will be located
- Centrally located hub for communication, internet, etc.
- Think about outlet placement in bathrooms (wife is righthanded. Take that into account for curling iron and hair dryer usage)
- USB ports in power outlets in strategic locations.
- Timer switches for all fart fans.
- A charging drawer in the kitchen. (Drawer with a power strip in the back. Phones, ipads go in for out-of-sight charging)
- Plenty of outlets in the garage
- Run sprinkler pipe and wires before driveway is poured.
- Have plumber stub out connections for sprinklers.
- Run a few extra circuits for outside (beyond what is planned), cover them and bury for later possible use.

Anything else you're glad you have, or wish you had done?

We've actually been slowly switching out light switches for those motion detector ones... they've become quite good and you can sit seemingly still in a room and they'll stay on. At risk of sounding a lot like my father, my wife and kids have a hard time turning off lights, particularly in storage rooms or other places you don't commonly go or can't easily see if a light is on (pantry, garage, under stair storage etc - nothing warms my heart like finding a light on underneath the stairs that has probably been that way for two weeks). It has gone from those rooms to others and we've really liked them.

The best part also is just not having to hit a switch when your hands are full or whatever.

[Mormon Red Death]

We're close to the last home we will ever own. We sold our house late last year, bought 5 acres and are going to have a home built. I'm building the barn, and we'll have the horses right with us. My wife will be in heaven. I will have a lot of land to take care of.

We did the basic design ourselves, then iterated with an architect who had some very good suggestions and tweaks, including a few that would ensure the roof will work. We'll hopefully break ground in Feb. sometime, weather permitting.

We're trying to think of little things that will make a big difference. Things like:
- Put a power and cat6 outlet in the floor underneath the desk in the den.
- Run cat6 everywhere. Including to TV in great room. Pre-pull HDMI from TV to where components will be located
- Centrally located hub for communication, internet, etc.
- Think about outlet placement in bathrooms (wife is righthanded. Take that into account for curling iron and hair dryer usage)
- USB ports in power outlets in strategic locations.
- Timer switches for all fart fans.
- A charging drawer in the kitchen. (Drawer with a power strip in the back. Phones, ipads go in for out-of-sight charging)
- Plenty of outlets in the garage
- Run sprinkler pipe and wires before driveway is poured.
- Have plumber stub out connections for sprinklers.
- Run a few extra circuits for outside (beyond what is planned), cover them and bury for later possible use.

Anything else you're glad you have, or wish you had done?

Dark wood tile (tile that looks and feels like Wood). You will thank me when the dishwasher explodes and your dont have to replace the hardwood in your kitchen. Oh and lots of outlets with usb ports along with plugs.

[Mormon Red Death]

We've actually been slowly switching out light switches for those motion detector ones... they've become quite good and you can sit seemingly still in a room and they'll stay on. At risk of sounding a lot like my father, my wife and kids have a hard time turning off lights, particularly in storage rooms or other places you don't commonly go or can't easily see if a light is on (pantry, garage, under stair storage etc - nothing warms my heart like finding a light on underneath the stairs that has probably been that way for two weeks). It has gone from those rooms to others and we've really liked them.

The best part also is just not having to hit a switch when your hands are full or whatever.

I am going to have to do this in my basement. If the kids leave the damn lights on again I am going to have a coronary.

[Brian]

thanks for the suggestions, keep em coming!
we're using a contractor that has a really good reputation in the area. And he keeps very busy.
I like the motion sensors.
Kitchen will have tile, no wood.

[GarthUte]

Central vacuum system.

[Homer Crimson]

Hey did some checking as all the talk about USB ports everywhere got me wondering about next gen. If it's not too much $$$, I'd bag the cat5 and go with USB 3.0 cable, and if you really want to stay ahead of the tech curve, put some Thunderbolt optical cable in, at least anywhere that's likely to be home to your computer. If you're only using the usb ports as chargers, fine, but I'm picturing a data/entertainment/server hub hard-wired to rooms likely to contain networked devices. (But I'm a geek that prefers wired connections to wireless whenever I can implement it. That's the biggest reason I recommend large, empty conduit in convenient places that makes it easy to run wiring/cable through walls later; gives you a little breathing room future-proof-wise.

[Mormon Red Death]

Central vacuum system.

Or at least a hole in your kitchen base boards to sweep into.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2

[GarthUte]

Or at least a hole in your kitchen base boards to sweep into.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2

That's even more cost efficient.

[hostile]

Sounds fun Brian. My wife would be jealous of the barn/horses. Our house is in a more residential, suburban area so this may not apply to you. I wish we had a better/more efficient egress for garbage/recycling and a place to put garbage cans that is out of sight and doesn't interfere in the garage. We had an AV guy do the wiring and it works great. The fartfan timers work great as well. I wanted to be able to get to the back burners on the range without hitting my head on the fan. I also wanted a shower to stand up in and not have to lean over to get my hair wet.

[Brian]

Or at least a hole in your kitchen base boards to sweep into.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2

when we moved, we discovered that my daughter was just sweeping everything under the fridge.

[Brian]

Sounds fun Brian. My wife would be jealous of the barn/horses. Our house is in a more residential, suburban area so this may not apply to you. I wish we had a better/more efficient egress for garbage/recycling and a place to put garbage cans that is out of sight and doesn't interfere in the garage. We had an AV guy do the wiring and it works great. The fartfan timers work great as well. I wanted to be able to get to the back burners on the range without hitting my head on the fan. I also wanted a shower to stand up in and not have to lean over to get my hair wet.

Yes, the garbage can thing is a good point, and not one we have considered yet. They will not be in the garage, as that real estate is too precious. Already had to give up the 3 car garage due to cost tradeoffs.

I'm not nearly as tall as you, so no issue with the fan height (c:

[wally]

Re: cat6 and 110 outlets under den desk: house the receptacles in a recessed waterproof cover. you will likely never close the cover but if you ever need to protect the receptacles for whatever reason, you will be happy that it is there.

If you have 4 acres and a long and/or steep driveway, you might consider a radiant heating pex array to melt snow and ice off the drive (if applicaple). It is a fairly pricey luxury, but since you are never moving, your older self will thank you for it.

Look into metal roofing. It is pricy but you will never have to re-shingle before you die. Probably.

I like Homer Crimsons idea about conduit. Your electrician will most likely just run romex stapled here and there to each location, but having beefy conduit makes life so much easier for when you need to install that new fixture down the road some time. Same goes for the cat6. But if you run cat6 close to the electrical, you might consider separate conduit or sheilded cable if there is potential for interference. Also if you have your electrician do the com cabling as well, make sure he knows not to wire up the cat6 in series like a phone cable, not that I would know anything about that .

[LA Ute]

Re: cat6 and 110 outlets under den desk: house the receptacles in a recessed waterproof cover. you will likely never close the cover but if you ever need to protect the receptacles for whatever reason, you will be happy that it is there.

If you have 4 acres and a long and/or steep driveway, you might consider a radiant heating pex array to melt snow and ice off the drive (if applicaple). It is a fairly pricey luxury, but since you are never moving, your older self will thank you for it.

Look into metal roofing. It is pricy but you will never have to re-shingle before you die. Probably.

I like Homer Crimsons idea about conduit. Your electrician will most likely just run romex stapled here and there to each location, but having beefy conduit makes life so much easier for when you need to install that new fixture down the road some time. Same goes for the cat6. But if you run cat6 close to the electrical, you might consider separate conduit or sheilded cable if there is potential for interference. Also if you have your electrician do the com cabling as well, make sure he knows not to wire up the cat6 in series like a phone cable, not that I would know anything about that .

I am beginning to reconsider my prior negative views about the usefulness of hanging out with engineers.

[jrj84105]

Sure way to get laughed off a sports-centric message board, but the laundry room always gets short-changed.

A spacious, well-designed laundry room with cable is like a man cave except that your wife doesn't mind you spending time there (provided you can get at least one load done and iron a few shirts in the course of a football game), your kids and dogs don't want to be there toppling over or playing tug of war with whatever you just folded, the dryer is like a white noise machine canceling out whatever chaos they're causing elsewhere, you can use "laundry" as excuse for being in your boxers and a T-shirt at 3PM, and it smells like fresh linen instead of stale farts.

[Rocker Ute]

...it smells like fresh linen...

This is why we've installed a washer and dryer in every room in our house.

[wally]

I am beginning to reconsider my prior negative views about the usefulness of hanging out with engineers.

Still not very useful. I am lazy and will only boss you around about this stuff rather than lift a finger to accomplish it.

[GarthUte]

Sure way to get laughed off a sports-centric message board, but the laundry room always gets short-changed.

A spacious, well-designed laundry room with cable is like a man cave except that your wife doesn't mind you spending time there (provided you can get at least one load done and iron a few shirts in the course of a football game), your kids and dogs don't want to be there toppling over or playing tug of war with whatever you just folded, the dryer is like a white noise machine canceling out whatever chaos they're causing elsewhere, you can use "laundry" as excuse for being in your boxers and a T-shirt at 3PM, and it smells like fresh linen instead of stale farts.

This is genius; absolute, unadulterated genius.