I think I'm building a house!
 

So im not very good with these long winded posts but this just might be one.

Well im close to having my house ready to sell. if all goes well i will have it on the market this time next year. if it all works out i should come away with 50k in my pocket! so this leads up to me not wanting a house in the city anymore and the want for more land?!

so I've started this thread to get some ideas and hopefully share some things that I've found as far as insulation and better building techniques.

so ill start with some basics of the plan.

the house will be located in the Cincinnati Ohio area.
will be post frame style building with a full walk out basement
should be 1600-1700 sqft 3 bed 3 bath one bath in basement other two on main floor.
open floor plan nothing special but a good solid house..
28'x60ish' house.

the basement:
8-10" thick poured concrete walls with proper footing for the area.
4-5" pad for the floor
8' ceilings (im 6'5" and tired of hitting my head in the basement)
two layers of rigid r10 insulation around the walls of foundation with a sealer of some sort on before the insulation.
Should I insulate under the slab? I'm not planning on radiant floor in the basement.

main floor:
2" spray foam on the whole exterior wall with the rest of the cavity being batts of insulation or blown-in should be about a 7" cavity. that should lead to about r27 on the walls.
windows will be triple pain or what ever the latest and greatest windows are.
i will be running floor trusses. they will span the 28' side of the house with no support beam in the middle! clicky

ceiling/attic:
same 2" spray foam with the rest of the r50 being made up with spray in insulation.

general info:
Geo thermal for heat and AC
desuperheater for heating water
large whole house fan (i love mine in my current house)
basic house with open floor plan possibly some vaulted ceilings.
metal roof and siding (something like this
https://milligansganderhillfarm.file...ouse.jpg?w=640)

interesting video i found on foundation insulating (long but informative)
https://youtu.be/kwn0Vjw_ji0

Just looking for thoughts and opinions

We havent decided on a floor plan just yet but we are narrowing it down.
I will post up a few of the final ones when we get closer to that.
Ive started drawing the house in solid works and i will share that as it progresses

let me know what you think

Ha i almost forgot the most important part. Im planning on being my own general contractor. Ive been rounding up people that i know in various trades.
I currently have:
Metal siding and roof at cost from an old friend of mine.
I know two hvac people that are more than willing to help.
i have 2 electricians one family and one from work.
i have access to a backhoe and a trakhoe.

i just need to find a plumber and some one who does concrete.
the rest of the house will be done by myself and with the help of friends and family

That is very exciting!

I would definitely insulate under the slab. It won't cost much more and the passive house standard does call for it.

Another area that passive house is super critical on is air sealing. Thats arguably more important than the amount of insulation in areas. This should be key. Since the house will be sealed up so well, you'll also be needing an HRV or ERV.

Please keep us updated with how things go and share the design work too!

Have you considered going with SIPs? My dad is using SIPs for his addition and they are incredibly easy to deal with.

I haven't but I imagine they are rather pricey? I didn't see any average $ per sqft? I'm trying to do this on the cheap so that's why I'm going to diy as much as possible. Care to share any details on his project?

Sure. I don't know exactly how much they cost, but my dad got them from thermasteel corp. He has the 7 1/2 inch panels, equating to an R-35. They are a bit cumber-sum, but my dad did a majority of the work himself (though I am sure my mom helped some too). The roof panels next too the house were a pain, but I believe a new construction would be much easier. Heck, if you do this in the summer, you could probably hire a local 14-16 year old boy(s) for cheap!

Please note, these pictures were taken about 3 months ago (you can see there aren't any leaves on the trees yet).

The addition is on a concrete platform (foam and concrete floor) approx 12" in the air.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j1...rown/SIPs3.jpg


A bad interior shot, but you can see how the window framing is already built into the panels.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j1...rown/SIPs1.jpg

Vaulted ceilings, approx 20' peak.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j1...rown/SIPs2.jpg

Thanks for sharing. I will look into it. So I found out that the county I live in offers a free pre build/planning meeting. You can meet with engineers and architects and till then what your plans are and they will help you get started on the right path. Ill be doing that later this year

Fordguy64

New home plans. Nice. With a walk out basement, very nice. Using steel on the exterior great idea.

You will save a lot of money doing a lot of work yourself and I would humbly suggest to spend money you save wisely on better building materials. Have a look at the building block ICF. This is a Leggo type foam block that is stacked and concrete and steel re-enforcement rods are placed inside. Insulation and structure in one go. These start on the footings and rise as a foundation and house walls.

The basement floor absolutely insulate. As a walkout basement you may use this as a living space. Again I would humbly suggest consider at-least running the plastic tube for in-floor. The tubing is inexpensive and goes in rather quickly But! more over if you or the next owner ever find the lower level too cool to be comfortable and think a warm floor would be the answer-not having the option to connect some heat to tubes that have been installed as a fore-thought would be heart-breaking.

Have you thought of solar heating?? We save a lot of money with the sun providing space heating.

Randen

I have looked into the icf. Not seriously yet. But I have priced out materials. Seams that they have an r17. I've estimated the cost at 7k for the icfs to do my foundation. But the rigid foam might be the winner. As it's only 2k to do the foundation and have an r20. But it's not totally out of the question yet. I am considering solar heating but that might be down the road a little ways yet. I forgot to mention that I will be building a large garage at the same time of the house. Should be something around 40x50 with a slab. I do plan on putting radiant in that. I did consider putting the tubing in the slab of the basement. But I've also considered doing a dual zone for the fro thermal and just havin. It do both the main floor and the basement.

In another thread I started I started building a waste oil burner. I plan to continue the development of that and use that to help with heating house and garage.

After many years in and around construction, last year I had my first ICF experience, I am a believer.
Materials Cost is about the same as single use plywood forms, the walls go up very quickly and easily, rebar, conduit and plumbing all can go inside the walls, draft proof, insect proof pretty much fireproof (depending on the styrofoam used). No form stripping and when it is done it's insulated.
All my footings are on high density foam, with foam on both sides as well.
My floor slab will be insulated and will have hydronic heating. Have made extensive use of Laminated Ferro Cement walls and also have used quite a bit of styrofoam ground up and mixed with concrete.
My house is a bit unusual as we started out with a problem site, it is taking a long time to build but its just the two of us rather ancient specimens and the occasional helper.
Good luck with your house.

There have been some very good answers here and many refer to specifics. But they miss the important point (IMHO) . . . .

Far more important are making early decisions that allow you later options for decisions.

Huh?

For example . . .

Site placement. Just one obvious issue is a south roof orientation for later solar PV and/or hot water panels. But another is placing the home in a place that allows use of an open loop geothermal heat pump (lower down pond, stream or whatever). Your site in hilly Ohio will give you this choice. You have vast quantities of close to the surface ground water. You don't need to do an expensive closed loop system.

Another is placing infrastructure for later use. Right now, you perhaps can't afford putting in PV solar panels. But you can and should put in AWG 4 stranded and insulated copper wires for each hot leg and neutral from the main panel area somewhere up into the attic area. Same with piping for the hot water panels.

You may be not be able to afford geothermal right now - or in slab thermal. But put in the larger return ducts (a major mistake of many not to do this) at the time of construction. Put the PEX tubing in the slab. For now you may not be able to hook either up. Go with a cheap propane heater for ducted heat, but it can be replaced later.

ICF, SIPS, 6 inch closed cell foamed studs, etc - doesn't really matter. Put in what your time, energy and resources allow. Buy good windows, but now is not the time for Marvin. In ten years, I expect much higher energy standards for windows anyway.

In the southern Ohio area you will need a basement (or very deep footings). Make sure to insulate the outside walls with closed cell foal sheet insulation BEFORE back filling. A major, major PITA to dig this out later.

Really look at your resources. Your wish list, if built by a contractor, is in the $150-175 per sq foot (or more) range. Do you have kids, do you have a spouse? Can they help - or are they realistically in need of your time. Doing all this by yourself can mean a very unhappy spouse with divorce - and them getting the house anyway.

What are your skill sets? Can you barter? I once got "paid" for a consult with an exchange of a band playing for my wife's birthday. The band had such a good time they stayed until 2 AM. A great trade.

Maybe you can't afford a metal roof right now - no biggie. Put on a three tab and then in fifteen years, put on a metal one.

The real key to long term energy savings is to rationally insulate and irrationally button up. Get real crazy with 6 mil plastic, foam and attention to detail. Test the house envelope for tightness while you can still seal holes/spaces. This means a blower door test before sheet rocking.

A tight house obligates you an ERV or an HRV. This is one of the essentials with insulation and minimizing infiltration.

Your description of helpers is great - but reciprocity looms. If you have them help you with a big job, are they then going to ask (rope you into) an equally large job?

Not trying to be any sage as BOY have I screwed up at times with biting off too much. We all do, but think of the big picture first. Identify options and don't sweat the small stuff - especially the stuff that can be easily replaced, painted or will need to be repaired (roofs with hail for example).

Great ideas and you have hit almost every one of them. Keep us posted.


Steve

You might consider the perfect wall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8i-93ABo3I
I build my passive solar greenhouse back wall and roof that way and I really works well.

Here is someone else on here that built with the perfect wall idea.
My camp build 2012 | Off grid tips, cartoons, paths taken
http://ecorenovator.org/forum/renova...ay-foam-2.html

There is a lot of info on the new about the perfect wall system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTwq...AJktVHZH7-BLSR

Steve those are a lot of good ideas. But I plan on installing geothermal in the beginning as with the metal roof and siding. I hate doing things twice. All of these ideas are why I started this thread so early..to plan it out now and come up with all of the crazy ideas first and then build the house. I do plan on building a large garage probably 40x50 or so that will be slab and a planned on putting radiant heat in the slab when I built it even tho I'm not sure when I'll get around to actually heating it. My main concern for radiant floor heat is the humidity issue in the summer. The girlfriend and I can take a fair amount of heat but when it gets humid the ac goes on. So that being said I know there is a huge thread on radiant floor heating on this site that I'm starting to read through again. I'm ok with radiant floor especially matched with a geothermal/solar heat system as long as it's in the budget. What threat budget is? I'm not sure just yet. But that's why I want to get ideas now and price them out to see what I can afford and what I can't.

Does anyone remember off the top of their head what the best option for new construction radiant floor is? I know I'll get to it in the thread eventually.

Also other interesting thought was we both would like a hot tub. But I don't like the idea of that giant power hog. But does any know of anyone has successfully used a geothermal heat pump to heat one?

Also more info on the property. We plan to have a kinda large pond. It's a requirement :) so I plan to put the geothermal pipe in the pond and or in the ground for a closed loop system.

Hmm well I'm giving some serious thought to warmboard.. Seems to be pretty amazing stuff.. I also discovered that they make hydronic air handlers. I'm considering this for use for air conditioning and dehumidification of the house in the summer time. I would use the same water to water geothermal unit for this

http://www.warmboard.com/sites/defau...ves_Energy.pdf

Fordguy,

What is your budget to do all this? And what time frame?

A pond needs to be rather deep and large in your area to provide sufficient BTUs in the winter.

Not trying to be a skeptic, but these plans are either very expensive or very time consuming - and potentially both.

That is why I suggest doing those things first that can never be done over.

Also think of the merits (and money savings) of open loop vs closed loop.

Steve

so a lot of this will depend on how much I end up making off of my current house hopefully 50-75k but I'm expecting 50. so if that come around I will be paying for some of this expensive stuff with cash. I have access to heavy machinery and people in almost all trades.I myself am a "jack of all trades". I have a lot of friends and family that are willing to help(we will see how that goes). But for example the electrition that I have lined up said he would come in and help my lay out the outlets and switches and also what gauge wire to run where. Then i would do that work myself and have him come back to finish the details and sign "the papers " or what ever is involved with inspections. so that in its self will save $$ I've also worked out a similar deal with the hvac guy. Well thats the plan anyway.

as far as time frame? not sure. depends on how many people actually help lol

but without actually talking to warm board yet ive seen what people are paying for a panel online and it seems to be 190ish dollars. i would need 53 panels i believe. plus 1600 or so feet of pex al pex for the main floor and about 1600 or so for the slab in the basement and probably something similar for the 2000sqft garage. the garage will not have electric or anything in the beginning. just a pad doors and a roof/siding.

also I'm going to find out what the minimum requirement is for actually living in the house. for example, do all three bathrooms need to be finished? if not ill just finish the master bath since it will be myself and the girlfriend living there. obviously the rough plumbing would be in for the other two bathrooms. basically get into the house and finish it over time. we have worked out the financial end of things once we are in the house. so i feel like we have a good direction to head in.

Look here for great values in GT heat pumps.

Geothermal Heat Pump Systems | Buy Goodman Heat Pump | Geothermal Heat Pumps | Goodman Air Conditioner


Steve

i actually bought the furnace and ac for my current house from there. i think my hvac guy might be able to do better but we will see when we get to that point

so Ive been doing some research on icfs.. and well i think menards might be getting a lot of business from me haha

I plan to do 1 long wall and the two short walls (house will be 60x28) with fox block icfs.so thats a total of 116 linear feet at 8' tall gives me 147 straight block and 24 90* blocks with 285 hv clips lots of rebar and about 23 yardss of concrete.

cost should be less than 10k for foundation and basement floor concrete. obviously plus pex tube and insulation for under floor. the fox block is r 23 i believe.

https://youtu.be/d1qpVYGGDxo

So that would put the cost of fox block at a little more than double for the 4x8 sheets of foam. But the real question is how much does it save in labor?

Found this on warm boards website

http://www.warmboard.com/sites/defau..._Warmboard.pdf

MAKE SURE you get a concrete contractor that has worked with and poured ICFs before. My dad's ICF primary house has a shoddy concrete job that now causes some water leakage into his basement.

EDIT: Better yet, get a slump cone and verify the concrete slump yourself before they pour.

I will certainly keep that in mind. I've been reading up and watching lots of videos on it..

Brain Dump
 

I've never built a house but I've taken a bunch of notes for my future self. Note that these suggestions come from someone who has cataloged the information from the perspective of climate zone 5/borderline 6. You are in Climate zone 4 which is warmer and makes things easier.

First I want to address is the use of a Ground Source Heat Pump (GSPH). This may be needlessly complex and expensive even if using a water based GSHP. I would suggest looking into a Mini Split or the more involving path of Hydronic Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP), both with resistance heat backup for the 2% of days where they don't quite keep up. This will help you keep the installation costs lower because covering that extra 2% of heating days may cost 25% more dollars in heating capacity. You can't heat with typical HRV/ERV ducting as there just isn't enough volume flow, to get around this and incorporate the heat pump in one unit you can look into a Conditioning Energy Recovery Ventilator, or CERV. All mechanical equipment and ducting must be within the conditioned space, I don't know why idiots in the south place the AC equipment in an unconditioned attic.

To make the ASHP viable with lower mechanical costs than the GSHP you must take seriously other aspects of your construction. These include but are not limited to Insulation, Air Sealing, Glazing, Orientation, and Volume-to-surface area ratios. It seems you have Volume to Surface Areas understood with a simple rectangular structure on a basement so I'll skip it.

For insulation you want to kill any conductive heat transfer paths with appropriate insulation. Windows R4, Slab R5, Below Grade R10, Above Grade Walls R30, Ceiling R60. Source(https://www.buildinggreen.com/news-a...ulation-enough) How you go about this is up to you but there are some keywords/thoughts I can recommend: EFIS (Exterior insulation finishing system like REMOTE or PERSIST, Ignore the "behaves like" claims of spray-insulators/SIPS/ICF because they don't mean anything. You might consider adding a frost-protecting-skirt of insulation around the house, this will keep the ground around your home warmer in the winter through the top few feet of ground. Alpen Windows seem good, Consider the bug-vulnerability of various foams, if using spray insulation it should be cavity filling, Conventional building methods modified for insulating performance are recommended such as 2x6 stud walls either foam or bat filled and 4+ inches of foam on the exterior in a minimum of 2 layers without overlapping joints, You can get reclaimed foam sheets for cheap!(look on craigslist), Stay away from vaulted ceilings as they seem to be problem prone. You can increase the insulation value of a wall assembly by reducing the amount of wood in a wall since wood has an R-value of R1/inch it's about 75% as effective as most insulation. To reduce the amount of wood in a wall you can implement Advanced Framing Techniques. Other methods of maximizing the insulation/wood ratio is using a framing method such as Larsen Trusses which are used in conjunction with Dense Pack Cellulose which is another viable option for insulation, pretty simple and healthy to install too. With proper insulation and drainage the driveway can be hydronically heated in the wintertime, $4 in heat might seem like a high expense to melt a bunch of snow after a storm but the lack of ice/injury/PITA/snow removal equipment maintenance costs are your other option.

Air Sealing: Any planar meeting of tiled surfaces must be caulked with a rubbery pliable color-matched caulk to allow movement without cracking. An ACH50 of 1.5 or better is a great goal, lower is better with .6ACH50 being the Passive House minimum. When air sealing the HRV/ERV must be balanced and makeup air should be mechanically supplied for cooking vents. The ERV/HRV Exhaust should be in the kitchen and bathrooms with the supplies in closets (specifically bedrooms to keep them cooler for better sleep), you cannot exhaust the stove hood through the ERV/HRV because the grease will condensate and clog the heat exchanger. Any intake/exhaust will screw with the air balance pulling or pushing warm air against cold surfaces just asking for condensation and mold/rot/termites. Something like the clothes dryer or fireplace should be selected to eliminate this factor. A heat pump clothes dryer will take longer but not exhaust conditioned air. An HRV/CERV/ERV return should be placed in the laundry room too. A fireplace should only be placed outside, unless you use a sealed combustion self venting gas fireplace that doesn't effect you pressure balance, you won't need a fireplace to keep warm anyways because you're building a comfortable home. The garage should be treated as an outside space WRT sealing and insulating with a proper exterior door for access.

Glazing can be simply picked or difficultly picked I ask that you consider these few points: Windows can be installed with rolls of expanding foam rolls like those made by Vitaseal. Hammer and Hand has a great video on Youtube explaining the installation of a window with Vitaseal. There is a point of diminishing return where more panes of glass reduces their effectiveness and blocks more solar radiation. Position the windows at such a height that the overhangs block them in the summer and allow more exposure in the winter. Tilt and Turn windows are nice. A window should be laced at the mid-point of the insulation value of the wall, with XPS on the outside and bat insulation then the window can be fudged to the outside of the wall for deeper window sills, this helps with the turn aspect of windows not sticking too far into the house.

Segwaying from Glazing to orientation we have to consider the warm side of the house and the cold side of the house. In the winter the cold side of the house on the right-side-up half of the earth is in the north. You shouldn't have many windows on the north side of the house, they won't let in too much solar heat or light and will let out more heat than the south side windows because the north side of the house will be colder. You want more insulation on the north side of the house for this reason too! The simple way to accommodate this is to put the garage on the north side of the house for bonus insulation without the special attention you would otherwise need to give it. Bedrooms can/should also be on the north side of the house to be cooler, and quieter because you will have the volume of the living space on the south side of the bedrooms and the garage on the north side. The landscape plays a roll too, don't live on the north side of a hill, you'll get less sun and more shade from trees all year Orientation of the house isn't super critical and you can be off +- 20 degrees for lot considerations or views because I'll be recommend that you...

Ground mount the solar panes at a later date, this disconnects the serviceability of the roof with the serviceability of the solar panels allowing upgrades/replacement of each as needed. You can then place the solar panels in an optimal location on ground mounts like those recommended by Engineer775 on Youtube. He uses Schletter mounts. Ground mount offers many benefits such as cleaning/cleaning snow, upgrade-ability, expansion, maintenance (none of which are easy with a roof mount). With ground mount panels you are more free to choose your roof shape. A hip roof requires less materials.

Anything that spans I suggest going one size larger than needed. Floor truss spans, go one size up from what you specified. long window headers, one size up, garage door headers go one size up. This will remove any spring from the floor, increase the lifespan of tiled surfaces by reducing the flexing, and generally help the floor more level especially in situations where the long span is parallel with a foundation-supported-wall I've noticed especially slope-y floors. A narrower pitch on floor trusses helps here too. Roof trusses can be to code but should have high knees to accommodate your R60 ceiling insulation and an air gap for a cold roof system (this is when dealing with a REMOTE type construction system)

Larger overhangs keep the siding drier and helps immensely with cooling in the summer. You can also go without gutters with a large overhand assuming the siding is highe enough above the ground to escape splash-back. Gutters can be a troublesome spot when ice dams are likely to form, going without gutters on a metal roof that is sufficiently pitched and ventilated will eliminate ice dams, Valleys in your roof could cause ice dams to form more easily, eliminate them if at all possible.

Hallways are dead useless space, design to avoid them. Because you are spending all of this money on insulation and air sealing (orientation and layout considerations are free) you can save money on your HVAC equipment and monthly energy bills, even solar installation costs because you'll need a smaller system (this is called a pretty good house as opposed to passive house because you are augmenting the diminishing returns of super insulation costs with solar power and slightly larger mechanical systems). Cheaper than passive, more comfortable than code minimum, easier to be net-zero. Since solar is so cheap now I recommend you use only it in conjunction with heat pumps and don't use solar thermal collectors which are less flexible with respect to the energy they create, require specific installation and maintenance considerations, and generally complicate the system. For plumbing I recommend PEX implemented with the Uponor system of connections using the stretching tool. Compliment the PEX with a Home Run plumbing setup with manifold for both cold AND hot supplies with bend supports for speedy hot water delivery and no plumbing connections in walls or floors to fail. You can use PEX for the stub-outs but not for a specific distance into or out of the hit water heater based on your local code.

The two items I would do differently one just mentioned above....

I would not do a GSHP. In a super insulated and sealed house like you are building it isn't worth the extra cost. You will never recover even half of the install cost over the life of the system. In fast the best choice is actually just a plain old 94% ish furnace and a 13 seer ac. With that insulation the systems will run so little that the cost of the system is a bigger factor than the energy used by them.

In fact it's very common practice to put low efficiency units in super tight houses because of this.


The other thing I noticed I would change would be your floor trusses. 16" for that span is adequate but I'd go taller and make the floor stiffer. A floor can never be too stiff specially if you decide to install tile floors and natural tile needs a very stiff floor to keep from cracking. There is a deflection calculator over at the John bridge tile site that is very handy.

It can be difficult to find a traditional furnace small enough for a well insulated and air sealed house, short cycling can be a problem. You want it to run continuously on your 2% coldest days of the year, then you know it's sized correctly.

Very true. Would probably be best to heat with radiant floor heating then one of those micro boilers to run it. That would provide heat and hot water and it can throttle down to very low settings.

Then cooling would be forced air. Wouldn't take much and ducting should be small due to the light load from insulation and it doesn't get very hot or for very long there.
Many would suggest minisplits but I would not. I do like them but they are not a good whole house choice. Takes too many units to get comfort throughout the house. IE you need to figure every room needs one. Yes the bathroom needs one. A bathroom without hvac is not a good thing.
I like minisplits for add on rooms or other hard to temper rooms. The best use of them here in tx is to put one in the kitchen. (Cool only) When the heat comes it's unbearable to cook in a kitchen here and most people cook very little in the summer because of it. The kitchen gets very hot but the thermostat is usually far from the kitchen. So when it does finally kick in the rest of the rooms are over cooled and the kitchen is trying to cool but the ac will kick off before it does. Vent hoods only take away so much heat.
So why waste energy over cooling the whole house when a mini split would remove that heat at he source and keep the rest of the house comfortable. It's how commercial kitchens are done.

For central air in a well sealed low energy home, the furnace is less of an issue now than it used to be IMHO.

We can now buy furnaces like this one.
http://www.goodmanmfg.com/docs/libra...6.pdf?sfvrsn=0
Input rate 30,000BTUhr on high burn and 21,000BTUhr on low burn.

I think that a burn rate of 30,000BTUhr would be acceptable even for super insulated house. The reason being is that even if you have no load, a 30k furnace takes about 20 minutes to heat up about 1,000 square feet of space by two degrees. I think this is a reasonable temp rise in the winter that is imperceptible to most people. If that sort of temp rise bothers someone, a 10 minute cycle is fairly normal for a furnace and running it at the lower burn rate wouldn't be unreasonable. Furnaces like this are finally available and have more efficient ECM motors. Just a few years ago, the smallest I could find was a 40k furnace that has a 25k low fire.

This allows you to size your ductwork for the 600CFM that a 1.5 ton AC would need.

..but that's where I think the real problem lies, especially if a home is smaller. The AC load on a well insulated house that isn't packed with windows and doesn't need the cooling. A 1.5 ton AC is still oversized IMHO. I have a 2100 square foot house with double paned windows that have bad seals and are from the 80's and don't reject heat and very little blocking the sun coming in the west facing side of the house. I have a 2 ton AC and I think that with my current load that a 1.5 ton AC is appropriate for my space. ..seal, superinsulate, and change the windows and I'm oversized at twice the square footage that I would have if I built myself a house to replace my current one.

The other issue besides an oversized AC comes with the natural gas bill. How much is the fixed fee to be connected to it? I have a $3.50 fee from the city and an $9.50 fee from the natural gas provider. I'm paying $13 to have a pipe go into my house before I start buying gas. This is $156 per year. A very well insulated and sealed(I'm talking at least R60 attic, R40 walls, etc) house would probably use about this much money heating electrically. I'd skip the pipe and install the most efficient mini-splits or multi-split that I could find that work for my climate. This way you get around the oversized air conditioning issue and get the most efficient AC you possibly can and also get the most efficient heat you possibly can as well. If you go with separate mini-split systems instead of a multi-split, you have redundancy in your system if one of them goes down, which is an advantage to a central heating or cooling system such as a furnace based system. You also don't have the labor expense of ductwork or hydronic either. I think the cost of multiple mini-splits in a system would be a wash to putting in ductwork or a hydronic system, both types of pipe are a pile of work, even more so the hydronic.

Here is a netzero retirement community.
Building Passive Houses and they almost always use mini splits.
A good read no matter what.
Ankeny Row | Home Power Magazine

Well that's a lot of good info. I've been doing a lot of thinking about the radiant floor lately and I'm kind of leaning towards not doing it. I'm not sure if the 15k price tag will fit into budget. It's not even just the 15k tag it's the fact that I will still have to install mini splits or a central ac unit to cool/dehumidify the house in the summer.

I have no plans to hook up to a gas line. As the monthly fees are annoying for the amount of gas I would use.

As far as what kind of system I will end up installing I don't know just yet. But a small geothermal system won't be to $$. As I can dig the trenches and things myself. But the duct work will obviously add cost to that instal. But I think with the floor joists that I plan on running the duct install should go much faster

Thank you all for the input and ideas KEEP IT COMING!

I have also thought about putting some cheap heat and ac in and then hacking a system to take over for the long run. Maybe a 3 phase variable speed geo heat pump? :)

But I'm just not sure i will ever have time for that with building a house and garage.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/member.../323-image.jpg

interesting info on pump and dump with a pond.

Like I said before - really look into open loop GT heat pumps. You are on a well - why not use it?

Secondly, your house insurance goes down when you have a pond (and are not within city limits). A pumper can drop a suction line into the pond and have almost unlimited water. House insurance like 30% less . . . . .

When you have a lot of quality sub-surface water (which you do) and you already have a well, it is a simple jump to a pump and dump (open loop) GT heat pump.

Your cost is < $3k for an open loop system.

Steve

Well at a minimum I would install tubing in all poured concrete. The pex is cheap and you don't have to hook it up right away. Any seccond floor stuff can have the tubing attached later.

As for the geothermal. It's easier for you there than here(ground gets too hot) and if you can dig your own trenches the cost of geo is pretty low compared to a well system. I don't like the idea of using a dri king water well for geothermal as well. It should have its own dedicated wells however that prices geothermal out as at least here Wells are around $25 a foot to drill. Then just the 500' or deeper water well now is a fortune. 200' no longer cuts it most places here now.

Imo the best and most economical geo system is using a pond or lake. Which I don't know why people here who love on the lake don't drop their coils in the lake. Way cheaper to run than conventional.

The 3 phase variable speed heat pump is not a bad idea assuming you can get 3 phase to your house. I wish they would make 3 phase more available to residential. Cheaper motors more reliable and I can buy 3 phase machines without needing a vfd.

so other things i have been thinking about.

domestic water. pex or copper? i kind of like the pex manifolds with a designated run to each faucet/shower.

attic insulation.. or rather where to stop the "conditioned space" at the ceiling of the first floor or go all the way p to the roofing trusses? all of the mechanicals like hvac will be in the basement. so im thinking of insulating the ceiling of the house and venting the attic

Vaulted ceilings look nice, but they make heating and cooling the space they cover much more difficult to heat and cool. No matter what you do, the hot air stratifies up there. In the summer, it's not so bad if you keep the air still in the area. In winter, much of your heating energy will live there, keeping no one warm. If the vaulted ceiling vents into the upstairs, and everyone stays there, the effect is not so bad. But then when they go downstairs, you know what happens. BRRR!

For plumbing, PEX is hard to beat, especially with a manifold and solid runs to points of use. Besides not needing to glue or sweat fittings, if the pipe ever needs to be replaced, pulling a solid run from the manifold to the point of use is pretty durn easy compared to hacking and figuring and splicing with whatever.

Pex for water.

No attic. Make your roof the Insulating barrier. It's generally the preferred method now but requires spray foam or use sips for the roof.

so the original plans have changed a lot to say the least. I have been crunching numbers on a lot of things and basically, what I have found is that with the two buildings i had originally planned on building ( house and garage) will cost about 7k more to build as two buildings compared to one building.

The New Plan!
build one 50'x90'-50'X100' building. Go from a 1700sqft basement to a 1000sqft basement(this will also save money) . The rest of everything will be a concrete slab with pex!.

I've also been doing a lot of research on "owner builder". I had always thought that a licensed electrician, plumber had to do the house. but as it turns out some places have an owner-builder exemption. That basically would allow a none licensed carrying person to do plumbing and electric as long as it passes inspection! the plan is slowly coming together. The owner building exemption is a HUGE find! now i just need to find out if it exists where I want build!

obviously part of it will be house and part of it will be garage. :)

Most states allow the owner to do all work to their house as long as it meets local code. Here in Tx if you are in a unincorporated area(outside any city limits) there are no permits or Inspections unless it's commercial or a school. Some hear that and think oh well there will be lots of crap built but it's not the case.


As to your house that's a pretty big place even with the downsize to a 1k basement. People that move here from places with basements.... They always say oh I just need a small house around 1800sqft. But when the realize they aren't getting 3600 sqft of living space they then realize that housing costs are much higher here when you consider the actual sq footage.

It's always cheaper to build one big building over two smaller ones. And making a house say 5' wider in one direction has a small impact on construction cost. Houses with lots of inside corners viewed from outside wastes lots of $. Turn that I side corner to an outside and all you add is a little foundation and roofing and adding very little to the heat load but adding lots of cheap sq footage. It's hard to beat square for efficiency of construction, usable space and building efficiency.

Building a house is a huge undertaking. However it can be extremely rewarding. Go ahead and sign up for Green Building Advisor, and get a subscription to Fine Home Building. The Journal of Light Construction is also a good one, though its harder to read. Also start learning Sketchup, its an invaluable tool that can help you visualize how everything fits together.

Plan on getting a construction loan. Once you start construction they are impossible to get, so get it to start with. Keep as much cash as you can out of equity and in the bank, this gives you the ability to go over budget, and you will go over budget.

Due to my view that a construction loan is mandatory, that makes a very strong argument for hiring a General Contractor, as a GC can keep you from having an extremely long construction time. A good GC will also have access to much better subs than what you likely have access to. As far as construction time goes it took my Dad and I 1.5 years working full time to build our house, and that was with hiring out the foundation, masonry, plumbing, hvac, electrical, drywall, counter tops, and roofing, as well as having a full time carpenter. It took my Uncle the same amount time building a much smaller and simpler house. That time savings makes a good GC a good deal.

No offense but you are way to early in the process to even start designing the house. You need to nail down what your budget is, how much time you have to commit to the project, what your site is like, what your aesthetic preferences are, what you want your operating and maintenance expenses to be, how you want the house to flow and work.

I'm not a big fan of pole barn construction for a house. It's great for barns, but it is more expensive than stick built to get to a finished interior.

I would also strongly consider a 2 story house. It is more energy efficient and it is less expensive per sqft.

I would not touch a GSHP. They are a great idea, but they are too expensive for the benefits, there are cheaper ways to meet your energy goals.

Likewise I wouldn't do radiant in floor heat even in the garage. Unless you are a collector or are going to be working out of the garage, garages don't need to be conditioned space 24/7.

SIPs can be great, and even though they are likely the more expensive option, they can end up saving money by reducing labor and interest payments. That said they can also be a PITA and their ability to save money overall can evaporate quickly. To really save money everyone who even touches them needs to have experience with them.

How are the pole barns more expensive to frame the interior than a stick built? As far as I know it's the same. Except you can put walls where ever you want because they aren't supporting any loads

As far as heating the garage goes I do spend a lot of time in the garage in the winter. And when say heated I mean 50* at most.

You still have to build the exterior walls so they might as well support the roof. It's the same reason I don't like pole buildings(metal buildings here) for shops as they are fine if uninsulated but if you want to insulate it well you end up building a building inside your building.


Trusses on 2x6 walls are preferred for cost and efficiency. Also look into 2x6 walls using 2x4 studs. It reduces heat and sound transfer and is usually cheaper in materials as 2x6s are pricey compared to 2x4s.

Also make sure to use the trusses properly. They require support and bracing during install which uses allot of long lumber. Also make sure your drywall is not attached to the truss within 16" of a wall as trusses lift with snow load.
Now if you want you can instead of attaching your drywall to the trusses you can put conventional ceiling joists in but that's allot of added materials cost.

Whatever you do ceiling wise never ever ever ever ever put up furring strips and attach your drywall to it. Yes it seems like a good idea in many respects but the HVAC,network and especially the electrician will be cussing you the whole time and you will end up with more oops drywall repairs because there is no way to know where the ceiling joists are.
Try putting can lights in a kitchen with furringnstrips....


Two story as mentioned has allot of benefits as its cheaper to go up than out construction wise and possible energy savings. Two story houses are more costly to design and install the hvac system and get the whole house comfortable. Usually ending up in a two system house.
You also end up with stairs. Never put the master bedroom upstairs. Always put a full bathroom on the ground floor in addition to the master bath.
Been in too many houses up north that you have to go up a flight of stairs to use the bathroom. They like to put all the important rooms on the seccond floor which is bad planning.

Also single floor is always preferred for happy living purposes. I don't like multifloor houses unless one is a basement as that doesn't count.

Also if you can get an older copy of chief architect cheap I highly recommend it. It's the best software for drawing buildings. Easy to use. You can download product specs from the manufacturer including trusses or autogenerate stick framed roofs. It will even make a complete materials list and if you put the prices in for materials it will calculate that as well.

Very powerful software and very easy to use. I drew our house in less than an hour and I'm not a quick user. Took longer to get all the measurements than to draw it.