I think I'm building a house!

[DEnd]

Originally Posted by Fordguy64

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.

So a pole barn saves money in a few areas. It requires fewer board feet of dimensional lumber. However for this you get an effective wall depth of only 1.5" which is not enough for insulation. It also requires basically no sheathing, however when you insulate a space you need some form of sheathing to act as an air barrier. By the time you add all that back in you end up with higher material cost and higher labor cost. That said your structure is the least expensive part of the build basically, so the overall cost can still be similar.

You can still put walls where ever you want, even with dimensional stick construction, it may take a few pieces of engineered lumber if you do multistory construction but meh... If you go with an engineered floor system on a multistory house then you just about can put walls anywhere. With my House we used wood I joist, and with the ones we used we could easily span 20', we could have spanned more with larger ones.

I'm mostly with Elcam on having the Master on the main floor too, but not mandatory, I'm fine with a ADA style full bath and a room that can be converted to a bedroom.

[DEnd]

Originally Posted by Fordguy64

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

PEX is less expensive, easier to run, and more resistant to freeze damage. because it is cheaper to buy and install home-run systems become cheap enough to be feasible. If a home-run system is well designed then it can reduce wait times for hot water, but it still has to be well designed, poorly designed a home run system can be just as bad or worse than a conventionally designed system. A well designed conventional system can perform almost as well as a home-run for lower cost, poorly designed however it can be pretty horrible.

That said I'm closer to a novice than a pro with Copper, and the installation time difference to me isn't that great. Copper is a known material, its lifespan and health effects are well understood. PEX on the other hand has more unknowns, but you should be comfortable with that to use it, if you are not I would recommend copper.

As far as the attic insulation goes it depends on a couple of factors. #1 is your snow load, anything above a 10" (I think) regular accumulation calls for a vented roof, otherwise you will get ice dams. Below that and you can go with a non vented roof if you want. #2 is attic uses: if you want to store stuff in there then you need to insulate the whole attic, as well as provide appropriate airflow and conditioning. #3 HVAC design: if you have HVAC stuff there it's best to bring it into the conditioned envelope. #4 Budget: Air sealing and insulating at the ceiling plane of the top story is the cheapest way to stop air exfiltration and provide your needed R-value for your energy goals.

[DEnd]

Originally Posted by jeff5may

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!

You hit the issue with vaulted ceilings on the head, while getting it completely wrong.

The issue isn't the air stratification, that happens with 8' ceilings too, though the stratification layers tend to be a lot smaller. Ultimately air stratification is manageable via managing heat source temperature, air movement, and solar gain.

The real issue with most vaulted ceilings is air leakage, which is why the effect isn't as noticeable in the summer. In the winter there is much greater heat driven air leakage because of the stack effect. The hot air rises increasing air pressure relative to the outside cold air forcing all that expensively heated air out of the building envelope. This decreases the air pressure (relative to the outside air) on the lowest level of the house forcing cold air into the house. Your heating energy isn't living up there it's just waiting in line to get outside. Bring the air leakage down to reasonable levels and your heating energy will hang around a lot longer, and make the air stratification issue manageable.

http://buildingscience.com/documents...dings-stack-up

http://buildingscience.com/sites/def...es-Straube.pdf

[Fordguy64]

DEnd. Thanks for the replies. But pole barns can have a lot more insulation than 1.5".. They also have either 4x6 post or 6x6 or possibly in my case a 4x8 with the addition of the 1.5" of insulation.

Also labor costs really won't be an issue besides poriing the pad and most of the concrete work. Everything else I plan on doing my self

[DEnd]

Originally Posted by Fordguy64

DEnd. Thanks for the replies. But pole barns can have a lot more insulation than 1.5".. They also have either 4x6 post or 6x6 or possibly in my case a 4x8 with the addition of the 1.5" of insulation.

Also labor costs really won't be an issue besides poriing the pad and most of the concrete work. Everything else I plan on doing my self

The 1.5" of insulation is what it allows without adding more lumber. To get more than that you have to add lumber to the walls.

Your labor has a cost. You are already going to be much slower than a professional, using a labor intensive building will extend your construction time, which at minimum increases the amount of time you are not in your home.

I've built three pole barns and a conventional stick frame house. All I'm trying to say is don't look for a pole barn house to save money. I did a quick calculation and just the structural cost for a 24'x24' pole barn vs conventional and structurally (no structure for any interior wall finishing) only runs about $1,000 - $2,000 more for conventional (including siding and roofing), and that is at retail prices. That savings quickly evaporates once you add in the extra labor, the needed air-sealing details, extra lumber needed to add interior wall finishes, etc... For a building where you don't need insulation, air-sealing, and residential style interior finishes Pole barns are a great deal. If you need those details conventional stick built is the way to go, at least as far as cost is concerned.

If the pole barn type of construction tickles your fancy for other reasons (it's basically light timber framing) however go for it. Since you are doing the work the house should be what you want, not what I or other people think is best. As long as the house is properly constructed it is way more important that you love your house than it is the structural system you used.

Loving your house is also why I say hold off on designing it until you own land. That will allow you to take the best advantage of your site. That way you can have a pretty house with pretty views that is energy efficient. I also assume that since you are moving to the country you will want to try growing some food as well. Permaculture (which I'm not advocating for) has one very good idea on plant placement, and that is high needs crops should be placed where you will see them everyday, thus encouraging your interaction with them. If you are interested in growing your own food then a basic idea of a planting plan should also be taken into account when you are designing your house.

That said I absolutely encourage you to start designing houses, just remember you aren't designing your house (yet). This is to allow you to do the most important part of the process, to dream. Look at house plans, look at design magazines (you know the frou-frou ones), Houzz, etc... dream about what it is you want. Put pencil to paper (figuratively if you use a computer program) and start figuring out what works for you. Don't worry so much about cost, but worry about how you want the house to live. For example with me keeping dirty clothes off the floor can be a challenge, so whenever I'm working on a house design I want to make sure I have room for a hamper near my undressing areas (bed and shower). I also find it important to have private spaces, my general rule of thumb is one room for living (besides the kitchen and dining) for each bedroom, plus enough room in each bedroom for a sitting area. So for example a 3 bedroom house might have a living room, a Den, and an office/library. Those are some of my personal preferences, I've included them in house designs from 5,000 sqft to 500 sqft. None of them I plan on building, but by working those plans it allows me to see solutions a lot easier. And when I buy or build I'll know what I want.

[Fordguy64]

Well we might have found a property that we are interested in. 20 acres at the end of a long gravel private drive in the middle of no where but 12 minutes from grocery stores and a Home Depot. I'm having trouble getting some info on the property but it looks like electric will be the only utility available. So this has me looking into a rain catchment cistern. The roof will be approxamently 5000sqft and my area averages 40 inches of rain a year. So I would say we are a shoe in for this kind of system.

[Fordguy64]

So this is my thought for heating and cooling. First off I really like the idea of mini splits but I don't want 4 outside units all over the outside of the house.

So my thought is to stick with hydronics. Have a geothermal water to water unit with buffer tank. In slab radiant heating and cooling. I realize that the floor cooling isn't nearly as affective as it being in the ceiling. So the cooled floor is more of a heat sink? The next major issue is humidity. For that I'm thinking about putting a hydronic coil in the hrv. To take it a step further I had an idea to use something like those hydronic kick space heater things to put in each room to take care of the rest of the moisture In the air. Obviously they would all need a condensation drain but so do the mini splits.

Hopefully that makes sense. Thoughts?

Ps I've done a ton of reading on radiant cooling. The biggest thing is to monitor the dew point and make sure the floor doesn't get colder than the few point other wise the floor will condensate..


https://youtu.be/6uj8vwSaZCE

I haven't watched the whole thing yet but it seems pretty interesting

[DEnd]

Rain Catchment: by the time you count tank, filtering, water treatment cost etc... you'll likely be over the cost of a well. Don't get me wrong I love the idea of rain catchment, but appropriately sized tanks are very expensive, and you will likely need to add a water treatment system as well. A good well on the other hand has very low biologicals in it already.

Mini splits: No need to have multiple outdoor units, you can have multiple indoor heads on one outdoor unit.

Radiant Hydronics: The effectivness of heating and cooling for radiant is best on the ceiling. This is because we want the heat to radiate onto or away from us (the animals in the house) the best path is to the ceiling as we often have things in between us and the floor (like beds, chairs, couches, rugs, etc...) Generally the ceiling is fairly clear of these silly radiant heat obstructions. (ok ok in reality heat, for most indoor settings and temperatures, isn't being used to heat us but to heat the exterior walls reducing our heat flows to them) People like to do Radiant floors for heat because it has the side effect of warming up the floor to toasty levels, and people like warm toes. That would be a a down side to using the floor for radiant cooling, you'd get chilly toes.
The other upside to the ceiling is it has less thermal mass so it can react quicker.

You are correct about the dew point. The biggest issue is you will need a way to get the dehumidifying loops cooler than the other radiant surfaces (floor, ceilings, walls, and furnishings). This means separate equipment. Ideally for something like this I would run a minisplit through an ERV (for why see my post here: http://ecorenovator.org/forum/50721-post18.html ) except I would have it pulling from and dumping to inside (so the normally outside exhaust and the normally outside intake are connected together through the dehumidifier), or have the whole shebang after a HRV or ERV on the fresh air side of a balanced ventilation system.

[natethebrown]

Originally Posted by DEnd

Rain Catchment: by the time you count tank, filtering, water treatment cost etc... you'll likely be over the cost of a well. Don't get me wrong I love the idea of rain catchment, but appropriately sized tanks are very expensive, and you will likely need to add a water treatment system as well. A good well on the other hand has very low biologicals in it already.

I disagree. Many wells need treatment and filtering as well. Also, depending on the water table, it may be a very deep well, adding the need for an above ground storage tank and booster pump.

[Elcam84]

If you haven't priced well drilling lately it might shock you. It's $25 a foot here. So a minimum depth well is 250' these days and they recommend much deeper as there are many places that have wells at 200' going dry. 400' is the minimum target depth here. That's a $10k that's ten thousand dollar hole in the ground that you still need another couple grand to get the water out of it.

Course water depth varies greatly and costs also vary as well.

If you do go with a well see what a 8" diameter well would cost. There are some other odd diameters that are popular as they are drilled with oil and gas drilling bits and pipes. But a larger diameter well gives you more water volume to pull from.