Building a forever home. Do's and don'ts

[derrick454@]

Don’t forget to wire in two EV ports!! Lol

Probably be a law where I live even though they will not be practical for my rural lifestyle (meaning a Tesla)


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[Grumman]

I think I posted earlier but I’m building our forever home now. Already made some changes based on ideas in this thread so thanks all for contributing.

More suggestions are to take a bunch of pictures all through the build. And nobody cares about your forever home quality more than you. Be present and take lots of pics and question what doesn’t look right.


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[WV Mountaineer]

Totally not being argumentative, but in this building market quality subs are few and far between. I live in a rural vacation community and its an issue here as well. Quality costs money, even guys that used to have a reputation for quality have fallen into the trap lately. I think its a function of houses costing 25-30% more year over year and trying to win bids.
Like I said, not trying to be argumentative, but I'd never buy a spec house, and I'd probably have to be my own general this day and age.

Things work differently in different areas. But, the general contracting I do sees me do a lot of the work myself. There are few subs in this area. There are good contractors but, they refuse to let anyone make a dollar off them. So, the paper theology of a general contractors with a good list of subs is a pipe dream here.

 

[riversidejeep]

I think I posted earlier but I’m building our forever home now. Already made some changes based on ideas in this thread so thanks all for contributing.

More suggestions are to take a bunch of pictures all through the build. And nobody cares about your forever home quality more than you. Be present and take lots of pics and question what doesn’t look right.


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It's nice to take pictures of all walls before insulation / drywall, comes time to fix something or hang something you know where the plumbing / electrical / studding is. Its just remembering where the pictures are when their needed.

 

[Pony Soldier]

In my design and build I made sketches of water and power and how they connected and where. (As builts). In my early work I did not and am regretting it. Build diagrams and make copies. You won't need them until you can't remember.

 

[FF1EMT13]

Build in a walk in safe in your basement or hidden area of a first floor, entirely encased in concrete with a safe door

 

[widnert]

Just completed our barndo this past summer. Happy to share from our experiences if you have any specific questions. The responses up to now have covered virtually everything I would state but, wanted to mention one big thing with a barndo. Spray foam is the latest, greatest thing but, your walls need to breathe and potentially, have an exterior steel panel replaced. Spray foam hinders both of those plus, is more expensive than fiberglass for the same R-value. We saved $20k by just using fiberglass in the walls and attic and don't regret it. Checked the air-flow up the walls and in the attic several times already and we're looking good in our place. Can't burn the woodstove too much even on the coldest days, it gets too warm inside.

 

[highside74]

Didn't read all 5 pages but things we did and wouldn't do again with kids.

-Wide halls
-Wide doors
-9ft ceilings
-Bigger garage
-Storage above garage
-Gas/electric Heat pump (if power goes out -we can run our gas furnace because you are only powering the fan system with the generator.
-Heated master bathroom floor
-Hot water hose bib by the garage/driveway (this is probably my favorite add and worth every penny)
-On demand hot water with recirculation
-Larger pantry than you think is good enough
-More outlets in garage than what the minimum code requires.
-Pre-wired for cat6 even of you think you will -be using mostly wifi
-Quality vinyl plank floor instead of Hardwood (especially with dogs) yes it's not as fancy as special hardwoods but our rustic floor look was $7ish installed psf and the same look in real wood was more like $17-$20 psf and the LVP holds up amazing

Wouldnt do again

our upstairs is a large open loft with kids rooms on each end. When friends are over, there is no quiet place in the house.

Don't over think as much as possible. A lot of the things that kept me up at night were not a big deal in the long run (for the most part)

 

[Kurts86]

The biggest thing with my next built house will be checking progress daily to avoid sloppy hidden worksmanship that my builder built house has hidden away. Most every warranty issue or failure I’ve had was the result of subpar installation work that lead to premature failure.

I live in a currently booming area and decent builders and subcontractors are like unicorns. Ideally you build a house in the middle of a recession/housing slow down so you can get quality subcontractors in less than a year.

For anything that uses water or generates water (water heater, hvac units, washer, refrigerator) put them on the first floor on concrete with a drain right there. They will inevitably leak so keep them low and not on wood whenever possible. When I worked in forensic engineering 50% of our insurance company workload was house water damage investigations.

I will do smaller composite decks from here on out. I’m sick of power washing and staining decks big wood decks every few years.

 

[highside74]

I second the no wood decks anymore. Our wrap around porch and patio is concrete. No wood maintenance just leaf blower and pressure washing as needed.

 

[MattB]

It's nice to take pictures of all walls before insulation / drywall, comes time to fix something or hang something you know where the plumbing / electrical / studding is. Its just remembering where the pictures are when their needed.

Also for outdoor irrigation and sub-grade drains.

 

[riversidejeep]

I second the no wood decks anymore. Our wrap around porch and patio is concrete. No wood maintenance just leaf blower and pressure washing as needed.

Come on now man!, I made a nice living for 30 years replacing rotten decks, siding because of decks. If everyone had concrete I wouldn't be retired!

 

[Pony Soldier]

I live in a log house so I probably don't fit but we have 4 ft eves on the roof and they protect the walls. We only get 25-30 inches of moisture per year. My only deck has a roof over it to protect it from snow slides off the roof and storm weather. I find no incentive to be out on the lawn in the summer and rarely exceeds 82 degrees. In the winter, I'm more likely to be on a piece of machinery and I don't have a cab.

My roof is a box beam construction with 8 inch beams on 4 ft centers to adjust to snow load. When the snow comes off the metal roof it is far enough away to not stack against the walls.

These considerations fit my high elevation climate but likely wouldn't fit the climate in the south or on the coasts. Many of the decisions have to match where you are located.

 

[Phaseolus]

I live in a log house so I probably don't fit but we have 4 ft eves on the roof and they protect the walls. We only get 25-30 inches of moisture per year. My only deck has a roof over it to protect it from snow slides off the roof and storm weather. I find no incentive to be out on the lawn in the summer and rarely exceeds 82 degrees. In the winter, I'm more likely to be on a piece of machinery and I don't have a cab.

My roof is a box beam construction with 8 inch beams on 4 ft centers to adjust to snow load. When the snow comes off the metal roof it is far enough away to not stack against the walls.

These considerations fit my high elevation climate but likely wouldn't fit the climate in the south or on the coasts. Many of the decisions have to match where you are located.

I’d kill to ’only’ get 25-30” of precip in a year

 

[MallardSX2]

We went with a slab. I am go glad we did. Our pipes don't freeze, in the summer the house stays nice and cool and I don't have a basement full of shit that I will never use....

I will NEVER have a house with a basement again.

I hate dealing with stairs. We went with everything on 1 level and to be honest, my wife didnt like the idea until she was in here living it. She likes everything on 1 level now.

3 bdr
2.5 baths
TALL ceilings in EVERY room.
HUGE kictchen.
Butlers Pantry.

 

[westernarcher]

Very good contribution here. Thank you

 

[Kimber7man]

We went bigger than our previous home, built for entertaining and boys having friends over.
No crawl space here, we went with full concrete basement. Plenty of room in mechanical room and storage now.
Main floor master bedroom
Main floor mud/utility room with washer/dryer right inside off garage door, with boot bench.
Plus washer/dryer upstairs for boys to do their own laundry
Steam shower - better for us than a oversized tub
heated floors in master bath
Cat 6 to all TVs, much better/faster than using wifi.
Hard wired wifi access points
floor drains under each vehicle in heated garage
hot water in garage
two 50A circuits to 4 car garage for future EVs
natural gas generator to 200A panel
covered concrete outdoor patio with wood fireplace on same level as main floor
4' wide interior stairs from garage down to basement to get to mechanical room
Elevator from garage to all floors, no worries about stairs as we age.

 

[eddielasvegas]

I can't believe I did not list this as my #1 "Do" in my previous post, but your forever home should NOT have stairs. Period. A small step up but absolutely no stairs. Many of us do not think about this in our 30's or 40's, but it's a strong consideration IMHO.

Most of us will make it until our 80's or 90's (called a nonagenarian if any are interested; the only reason I know this is my Mom turned 90 last year) and a huge percentage of us will have mobility issues and stairs are so limiting in so many ways and also downright dangerous in worst case scenario as we get older.


Eddie

 

[widnert]

In my design and build I made sketches of water and power and how they connected and where. (As builts). In my early work I did not and am regretting it. Build diagrams and make copies. You won't need them until you can't remember.

Pictures as you go - lots and lots of pictures. This has really helped us now that the walls are covered.

 

[beachbunny]

im in fairfax,va right now, i would never think of building anything here!
what a pain in de azz