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OK I found some stuff from the EIA, average energy consumption in New England is 112 million BTUs in heating per year, that's 32,823 kilowatt hours, or 2700kWh a month. Yikes. I figure you'll spend less in southern Ohio though.
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Nov 23, 2014 11:19
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Yeah, the U.S. really doesn't get the whole energy efficiency thing.
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Nov 23, 2014 15:44
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His Divine Shadow posted:OK I found some stuff from the EIA, average energy consumption in New England is 112 million BTUs in heating per year, that's 32,823 kilowatt hours, or 2700kWh a month. Yikes. I figure you'll spend less in southern Ohio though. You can't directly convert gas heating to electric heating like that though. Gas furnaces are typically 78-90% efficient, whereas electric heating is either ~100% efficient (if it's resistance) or 200-300% efficient if it's a heatpump (although heatpumps are going to be less efficient in New England than somewhere with more mild cold). 112m BTUs and 32823 kwh have the same energy content, but a home using 112m BTUs would not use 32823 kwh if it switched system.
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Nov 23, 2014 16:08
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I look at it this way. You can either have a power plant use fossil fuels to make heat, use that to make steam, use that to turn a turbine, which makes electricity, which goes over miles of wire, which goes into my furnace, which is then used to make more heat... Or I can have my furnace use fossil fuels to make heat. Either way a gas furnace is about 1/3 the operating cost as an electric furnace.
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Nov 24, 2014 05:01
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I thought this thread was about someone actually building their own home with their own hands. Nonetheless, very nice home and I am absolutely amazed at the price. For 330k (including land right?) you built what would cost 1million here in Darwin, Australia.
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Nov 24, 2014 07:50
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Suspicious Lump posted:I thought this thread was about someone actually building their own home with their own hands. Nonetheless, very nice home and I am absolutely amazed at the price. For 330k (including land right?) you built what would cost 1million here in Darwin, Australia. After seeing everything that goes into building a house, I don't think I would ever want to handle the whole project myself, let alone do the work. That price includes the land. We're closing on it today!
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Nov 24, 2014 14:57
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Suspicious Lump posted:I thought this thread was about someone actually building their own home with their own hands. Yeah, I clicked for the same. In any case, nice tract house?
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Nov 24, 2014 18:21
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I can't be the only one who came to see if it was going to be another Groverhaus
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Nov 24, 2014 20:29
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keykey posted:Yeah, I clicked for the same. In any case, nice tract house? I dunno if I would call a subdivision with more than 50 possible completely different floor plans and over 200 different home designs tract housing, but thanks.
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Nov 25, 2014 02:46
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Dietrich posted:I dunno if I would call a subdivision with more than 50 possible completely different floor plans and over 200 different home designs tract housing, but thanks. To be fair, there's a lot more to architectural variety than simply varying the floor plan and picking which standardized exterior features you want. It's not exactly bland tract housing but it's very similar at the core. I guess a simple way to say it is that some people differentiate between "building a house" (for which you hire a builder to execute your design) and "buying a house from a builder" who allows you to customize certain aspects of their preexisting product. I make that distinction because my parents sort of did both. At their old house, they built a two-story bank-barn garage and workshop pretty much themselves, from their own plans and with acquired materials. Later on they moved into a house "custom built" from a contractor similar to what you did. They're totally different experiences.
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Nov 26, 2014 18:04
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His Divine Shadow posted:Never seen that kind of constructution here, seems to be the opposite of the way we build walls. I assume your drywall has some moisture-proof coating? I wouldn't think it would make for a durable sheathing otherwise. The air gap you mention is (in combination with the faade) called a rainscreen here, I believe. I don't think it's been adopted very widely, yet. A vapor barrier on the inside can be problematic in warm, humid climates; in the summer, air conditioning can bring the interior below the dew point for the outside air, and then you can get condensation on your vapor barrier. We do commonly use an interior vapor barrier in very cold climates, though. His Divine Shadow posted:OK I found some stuff from the EIA, average energy consumption in New England is 112 million BTUs in heating per year, that's 32,823 kilowatt hours, or 2700kWh a month. Yikes. I figure you'll spend less in southern Ohio though. That average also includes a lot of older, poorly built (or just poorly maintained), under insulated homes. I live in southern Wisconsin, which from what I can tell has pretty similar winter conditions compared to your area in Finland. My home is fairly well built, with fairly well above average insulation, about twice the living area yours has, and last winter I used roughly 80 million BTUs.
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Nov 26, 2014 19:32
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LogisticEarth posted:To be fair, there's a lot more to architectural variety than simply varying the floor plan and picking which standardized exterior features you want. It's not exactly bland tract housing but it's very similar at the core. Yeah, I'm aware that we did not have nearly the flexibility of people who hire their own architect and construction crews or do their work themselves, but tract housing is on the complete opposite side from that. There are only a couple of floor plans which all fit in the exact same foot print and really all you are deciding on is colors and materials. We were somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.
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Nov 27, 2014 17:59
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Claverjoe posted:Yeah, the U.S. really doesn't get the whole energy efficiency thing. This isn't true at all, it's not the 90s anymore dude. Suspicious Lump posted:I thought this thread was about someone actually building their own home with their own hands. Nonetheless, very nice home and I am absolutely amazed at the price. For 330k (including land right?) you built what would cost 1million here in Darwin, Australia. The price isn't surprising at all, it's all about the land cost which in this case was basically pennies. And posters who think this is a tract house must have never seen a real tract house sub-division.
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Nov 28, 2014 08:43
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tsa posted:This isn't true at all, it's not the 90s anymore dude. We really haven't budged much with efficiency recently. http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/de...20%28RECS%29-b3
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Dec 1, 2014 07:22
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tsa posted:And posters who think this is a tract house must have never seen a real tract house sub-division. https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8656082,-105.0669002,312m/data=!3m1!1e3 There is a ohe-story, a two-story, and a one-and-a-half-story model. They all fit the same footprint (i.e. the two story house is precisely twice the square footage of the one-story house, because it is the one story house with a second one story house sitting atop it). This particular sub-divison was built more than 30 years ago, so there are a ton of customizations - extended garages, shutters, siding, additions, etc, so some of them look vaguely different now... but when I think "tract-home"... this is what I think of.
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Dec 1, 2014 08:43
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Floorplan, please.
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Dec 1, 2014 09:28
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peanut posted:Floorplan, please. You'll have to piece them together a bit.  We got the alternate kitchen, the wall fireplace, the family foyer, and the study in lieu of the living room, because gently caress having to a room that we'll never use. The garage is also a side entry and we have a 6' bumpout and a front porch which is not on this.  We got the Deluxe Garden Bath and no loft, and added an extra window to bedroom #2. Actually the entire front wall is incorrect for this level because the elevation we went with for the front facade added some extra room to bedroom #3 and the owner's retreat. We got the optional doors in both bathrooms.  We got the Laundry/Hobby room Option #2 instead of the loft.  We got the full bath rough in, a walkout, and an extra window in the basement. Dietrich fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 13:12
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What's the difference between a living room and a family room? What the hell is an "owner's retreat" ?? Some locked door that only the deed can open? What's the sitting room for? It's like a giant bedroom sized lobby to the main bathroom which is only accessible off the "retreat" ? I've only been out of architecture for a few years and I have no idea what a lot of these terms mean. The rooms are all so absolutely massive too, I've never seen a house quite like this. I assume the owner's retreat is just an weird marketing way of saying master bedroom and the sitting room is just a huge addition to the master bedroom to make it, along with the bathroom, about as big as an entire home on its own? The sitting room could be a bedroom, the walk in closet a bathroom, and the bathroom a kitchen and the retreat a living room and bam you've got quite a spacious home right there. I guess there's some serious regional things going on here in terms of space planning but these plans just seem nuts to me, in both the size of rooms and layout. If only the outer walls of this house came across my desk and someone said "finish it" I'd assume it was a 4-unit apartment building or maybe 2 huge luxury townhouses or something. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 17:01
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Woah, it didn't sink in before but yeah, that master suite is about the size of my entire apartment (in an old house) that I share with my wife. For reference I'm not in some European urban core, but in a small town suburb of Philly. Part of the reason we soured on home buying was that the smaller homes we saw were poorly laid out for the small space, and the larger homes were just as poorly laid out (with a corresponding increase in wasted space) but so much more expensive. Our relatively small apartment lifestyle has lead to us becoming pseudo minimalists and there wasn't much out there for us. OP, did you start out seeking out such large spaces, or was that something you feel the market/builders pushed you towards?
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Dec 1, 2014 17:35
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A "living room" is a nice, formal room where you entertain guests, while a "family room" is a casual room where you hang out and watch tv or play video games or whatever. You are correct that "owner's retreat" is marketing speak for 'ridiculous master suite'. The sitting room probably mostly gets used as a dressing area, with a vanity for makeup, or as a private quiet area to escape from the rest of your family for activities or socializing with close friends. None of those rooms are massive by American standards. The master suite as a whole is quite big, the living room is maybe above average but not particularly large, and every other room is a bit smaller than average. edit: a ~3,000 sqf 4 bed, 3.5 bath house is pretty much perfectly average for new construction. Zhentar fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 18:00
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Baronjutter posted:What's the difference between a living room and a family room? What the hell is an "owner's retreat" ?? Some locked door that only the deed can open? What's the sitting room for? It's like a giant bedroom sized lobby to the main bathroom which is only accessible off the "retreat" ? I've only been out of architecture for a few years and I have no idea what a lot of these terms mean. The rooms are all so absolutely massive too, I've never seen a house quite like this. The difference between a family room and a living room is that the living room is typically a formal entertaining space with a coffee table, a couch, and a couple of chairs that you'll never use, while a family room is a casual entertaining space with a coffee table, couch and a couple of chairs that you'll use every day. "Owner's Retreat" is just marketing speak for huge-rear end master bedroom. The sitting room is the only part of the house that we didn't really want/need at this time, but it should be handy when/if we have kid #3 and we can use that as a nursery for the first couple of months. Until then we put the treadmill and some free-weights in there so my wife can get swole without leaving the bedroom and waking up the kids. Sometime in the future we'll finish the basement and add another 800 square feet of living space and a third full bath. It'll have a workout room in the back, a playroom in the front (which will be converted into a bar/lounge when the kids get older), and storage in the utility area. When that happens we'll repurpose the sitting room, right now my wife is thinking she'd like it to be a vanity/dressing area with a nice comfortable chair to read in. LogisticEarth posted:Woah, it didn't sink in before but yeah, that master suite is about the size of my entire apartment (in an old house) that I share with my wife. For reference I'm not in some European urban core, but in a small town suburb of Philly. The plan for this house is to live here for the next 30 years. We wanted something pretty huge to make sure that in 15 years when we've got three teenagers in the house there'd be enough room for everything. There are plenty of plans that we looked at that had tons of wasted space- two story foyers and family rooms, 300 square foot "bonus rooms" and the like. What drew us to this plan is that (with the exception of the sitting room) every room had a clear purpose for us and was large enough to fit that purpose for the foreseeable future.
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Dec 1, 2014 18:15
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Never knock having more space than you think you'll need. When it was just me and my wife, everyone thought I was crazy for buying a 2400sqft house with 5 bedrooms. Now that my sister and niece live with us, everyone thinks I'm crazy for letting them live with us. I sure showed them. 
KillHour fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 18:29
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KillHour posted:Never knock having more space than you think you'll need. When it was just me and my wife, everyone thought I was crazy for buying a 2400sqft house with 5 bedrooms. Now that my sister and niece live with us, everyone thinks I'm crazy for letting them live with us. I sure showed them. Ha, yeah if you're sharing space with multiple families it can make sense. But then again I know both my parents (both of which have two siblings) had aunts, uncles, and grandparents living with them in like 1600 sq ft. 3 bedroom, one bath homes. They got by. I grew up in a 1300 sq ft, 3 bed, one bath house. Now when I go visit parents in their current house (which is similar to the OP's minus the giant master suite and stuff), we all end up in different rooms. It feels a lot less...communal is the word I guess? They also have 30-40 years of accumulated junk and have had no incentive to get rid of a lot of it. At $80-100 per square foot, going for a 1600 sq ft house versus a 3000 sq ft house saves $110-140k. That's a huge amount of opportunity cost, before you even talk about furnishing or heating. It's all personal preferences of course, and a poorly designed small house can be pretty bad. At the same time I wish more new designs had multi-use space rather than a "room for every activity" mentality. LogisticEarth fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 18:57
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It will be that way as more and more upper middle class get pushed into the cities by gentrification driving minorities into the suburbs. In 20 years, the OP's subdivision will be all converted into duplexes and quads.
KillHour fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 19:28
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LogisticEarth posted:Ha, yeah if you're sharing space with multiple families it can make sense. But then again I know both my parents (both of which have two siblings) had aunts, uncles, and grandparents living with them in like 1600 sq ft. 3 bedroom, one bath homes. They got by. I grew up in a 1300 sq ft, 3 bed, one bath house. Now when I go visit parents in their current house (which is similar to the OP's minus the giant master suite and stuff), we all end up in different rooms. It feels a lot less...communal is the word I guess? They also have 30-40 years of accumulated junk and have had no incentive to get rid of a lot of it. We lived in a poorly designed 1500 sq ft house prior to moving in here. It was terrible.
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Dec 1, 2014 20:22
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I had a rich friend growing up whose parents had this big mansion on a hill overlooking the city. Amazing spot but the bedrooms were all tiny, the layout was crazy, and I swear 75% of the floor space was hallway or foyer. It managed to be huge but in terms of everyday living everyone was cramped for space. Also double sinks seem to be a thing now, I don't quite get them but I've been seeing double sinks on plans more and more, mostly only in suburbia though. Weird having a totally separate "living room" and "family room". Now that I think of it I had that growing up. We had a formal living room and a formal dining room that would get used maybe 1-2 times a year, so much wasted loving floor space but it was a weird class issue and you could pry those rooms out of their cold dead hands. Like only proles have a single living room that they actually use? I don't get it. I admit I don't see a lot of house plans, mostly only multi-family. But I do notice a divide in design based on demographics. Old people want a ton of individual rooms with doors, even if they have to be really tiny. You need your dining room with a door, the kitchen should be sealed off, the living room should have a door. 1 use 1 room. Everything else of course has a much more open plan where your kitchen, dining, and living room just sort of merge into one big space that you do all your living in. Even then that space is like maybe 20x12 or something (including the kitchen) while a condo for olds will have some ridiculously cramped 8x10 galley kitchen and 9x9 dining room and 10x12 living room or something. Also because you have so many separate rooms you need hallways, so condos/apartments for old people have so much space wasted for hallway. But apparently it's required because when someone over 60 sees a big living space they can't compute what single use the room is for and their brains over-load. Do I eat here or watch TV here?? Do I entertain guests here or cook here? They can't do it, smoke comes out of their ears.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:02
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I'm not really big on the double sinks either - I'd rather have more counter-top space, but we went with undermount sinks to kinda alleviate the lost space from having a second water hole.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:12
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My wife insists that two sinks are non-negotiable. It is a bit convenient when you're both getting ready at the same time, although I don't really see why it's a big deal. I don't much care for cluttered counters either, though, so no big loss on the counter space. (Tip: I wired a strip of half a dozen outlets inside one of my cabinets, saved a ton of counter space taken up by various chargers)
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Dec 1, 2014 23:18
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Interesting thread, and very jealous. A house/lot like that would be close to $3,000,000 in my area. Maybe $1,000,000 in the distant burbs.
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Dec 2, 2014 21:41
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Reverse Centaur posted:Interesting thread, and very jealous. A house/lot like that would be close to $3,000,000 in my area. Maybe $1,000,000 in the distant burbs. Yeah I looked up houses with similar square feets and they were all in the million plus range. Could go under a million if you go to the distant burbs.
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Dec 2, 2014 23:44
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Nice looking house, but do you ever get really depressed when you think like "this is my life. this is it. i'm probably gonna die here."?
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Dec 3, 2014 00:16
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Kleen_TheRowdyDog posted:Nice looking house, but do you ever get really depressed when you think like "this is my life. this is it. i'm probably gonna die here."? Not really, because I'm generally too busy to think.
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Dec 3, 2014 00:45
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Claverjoe posted:Yeah, the U.S. really doesn't get the whole energy efficiency thing. .... The only thing that bothers me about this and other new homes is they don't go with 2x6 exterior walls anymore. That bumps the R value way up, and was common practice in the 80's when energy efficiency was a Real Big Deal. It doesn't add that much to total cost. Nice home, OP, except I hate dark cabinets.
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Dec 3, 2014 03:28
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Kleen_TheRowdyDog posted:Nice looking house, but do you ever get really depressed when you think like "this is my life. this is it. i'm probably gonna die here."? Not the OP, but I think that, but that fills me with content and happiness.
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Dec 3, 2014 07:07
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Mr. Mambold posted:.... The only thing that bothers me about this and other new homes is they don't go with 2x6 exterior walls anymore. That bumps the R value way up, and was common practice in the 80's when energy efficiency was a Real Big Deal. It doesn't add that much to total cost. "Way up" is from R-10 to R-13.7, not really that much of an improvement, though it is at least a bit better. Good news is the 2012 IECC requires that (or R-5 sheathing) in zones 3 and up. I am surprised (and disappointed) to learn code minimum insulation is enough to meet Energy Star certification, though...
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Dec 3, 2014 17:41
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Insulated concrete forms or gently caress off.
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Dec 3, 2014 17:53
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My entire apartment would fit in the master suite with room to spare.  What I always wonder about these enormous suburban houses: how do you clean all that space? Especially with young children - do you have a cleaning service or something?
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Dec 3, 2014 18:18
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Aradekasta posted:My entire apartment would fit in the master suite with room to spare. We find that having enough space to give everything a clear place makes it easier to keep things organized, and easier to get the kids to help. Although this tactic works fine by just having less stuff, too.
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Dec 3, 2014 18:31
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LogisticEarth posted:Like 99% of new construction homes in the US with "shutters" have fake vinyl panels that are just nailed onto the side of the house for looks. Most newer homes, even "custom" homes end up following pretty standard architectural styles. Sort of a shame to see the same beige "colonial" homes wherever you go. I hate fake shutters, though namely the ones that don't match the size of the window, like those super wide windows that have tiny little fake shutters nailed to each side. The ones here look almost proportionately correct (on the single-width windows at least) and look okay. However, what I really don't get is the arched window panes in the front fitted with rectangular windows. I live in an old neighborhood (built up between 1890 and the 1920s), so when you see a rectangular window in an arched pane, it's a replacement - the original windows were built to fit the arch (original arched windows are gorgeous and it's a shame it's too expensive/difficult for most people to properly replace them these days). So I get it in old houses with replacement windows, but why would the architect bother with arched panes in a new house when you know you aren't going to be making arched windows? Architectural nitpick, but as soon as I notice stuff like that, I can't unsee it ever. However, the interior details came out way more nicely than I expected (and I love dark cabinets/stonework in kitchens). I remember touring some model tract homes with my dad (we were in the process of rebuilding our family house, so my dad was extra curious about construction and wanted to check out this new development in the area for kicks). Interior was bland as gently caress - beige carpet, white walls, white kitchen, beige tiles, no trim, etc. This was in the mid-90s when everything was white and beige, though, with white kitchens. These were all pre-built homes, so I guess it was bland on purpose as to not put off potential buyers with details and actual color. I also didn't realize that in these sorts of quasi-planned new developments they took care of everything for you down to bathroom hardware and carpeting. I figured they'd build you up a house and then leave you to do what you will with finishing the interior spaces. Also, like others have said, I was expecting a house-building tale more along the lines of independently building a house without the aid of a preordained, pre-approved architectural plan and ready-to-go contractors and suppliers. My dad's in commercial real estate development and sometimes dabbles in architecture and house building - he built two of our houses and a few for other people (one of the latter resulted in lawsuits and ruined friendships - building a house can really bring out the absolute worst in people), so I've seen several big house projects from start to finish. It's an insane, expensive, stressful, and difficult process, especially with larger and more complex houses. Building a house like it's IRL Hearthfire seems much more pleasant, honestly, and it's still interesting to see how this sort of process works.
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Dec 3, 2014 18:44
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Thanks. We went with a strategy of getting a house that didn't have quite as grand a front or footprint as some of the more expensive houses, but with just as large of an interior space and minimal wasted room, so we could spend more money on interior upgrades. After my last house, I didn't want to move in and immediately start wishing I had gotten granite counter tops or nicer carpet. This house has pretty much all the upgrades we wanted and the only major projects that we'll have to undertake are landscaping and finishing the basement- which is pretty much always the case with new homes.
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Dec 4, 2014 00:09
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