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House Design

The upside of unfinished space is that it's also easy to turn into "finished" space after the fact. Finishing a basement is a good way to increase the value of a home for resale.

My parents are building a house, and for them, it was cheaper to go ahead and finish the spaces that were previously going to be unfinished. When you already have the drywall guys, floor guys, etc all there, it saved time and money to finish it the first time around. For example, my dad installed all the hardwood, about 3000 sq feet, and they had a floor guy sand and poly it. They have an upstairs room that for now is going to be storage only, but could be an office, bedroom/bath, etc later. It is roughly 200 square feet. He spent a few hundred bucks on the hardwood, and installed it, and the floor guy only charged him a couple hundred extra to finish it along with the 3000 other square feet of the house. The guy already had his crew and equipment out there. The other way would have been for that room to always be a work in progress, and at some point, have to go through the construction mess again of laying, sanding, poly. But now, it is done, looks great, and is a box checked off. I think you would be better off to go ahead and layout the basement how you want and finish it and be done with it.
 

wct097

NPD Club President 2021-2022
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP
If you can't get NG, then do Heat Pumps with low ambient heating option and then strip heat as auxiliary. Size the Generator to handle that heating load. A more expensive generator up front will be much cheaper than LP for years and years and years.
I've grown to really dislike heat pumps and heat strips. I'd rather spend money on making the house more efficient (geothermal) and deal with the gas being more expensive over the years than going with heat pumps. That opinion may change once I see the actual costs. I suppose I could live with a generator that is incapable of running the heat pumps but having gas logs and a wood stove for the times when we are off the grid in the winter. That siad, the generator must be able to handle the load of air conditioning units.

My parents are building a house, and for them, it was cheaper to go ahead and finish the spaces that were previously going to be unfinished. When you already have the drywall guys, floor guys, etc all there, it saved time and money to finish it the first time around. For example, my dad installed all the hardwood, about 3000 sq feet, and they had a floor guy sand and poly it. They have an upstairs room that for now is going to be storage only, but could be an office, bedroom/bath, etc later. It is roughly 200 square feet. He spent a few hundred bucks on the hardwood, and installed it, and the floor guy only charged him a couple hundred extra to finish it along with the 3000 other square feet of the house. The guy already had his crew and equipment out there. The other way would have been for that room to always be a work in progress, and at some point, have to go through the construction mess again of laying, sanding, poly. But now, it is done, looks great, and is a box checked off. I think you would be better off to go ahead and layout the basement how you want and finish it and be done with it.
It's certainly something I'd check into. Not objecting to finishing it, just not wanting to spend a lot of money if the cost is high.
 

wct097

NPD Club President 2021-2022
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP
HTF can you not get propane?
NG is typically piped from the street. It's not widely available in the counties. LP = propane and that's what is available and what I intend to use. The alternative to LP or electric heat would be fuel oil and that doesn't really appeal to me.
 

Jerk!

like Einstein but dumber
VIP
I want to design my next house.... or at least put together some thoughts on how it will be designed. I figure it's worth a thread to coalesce my thoughts in. Maybe one day I'll actually draw some lines on paper. I have some ideas, but I'm ADHD and haven't completed a drawing or floor plan since I took drafting in High School.

I'm not sure on exactly what "style" the house will be as of this point, but I know several features that will help get us there.

Ideas:
* 1.5 story w/ partially finished walk-out basement
* Minimum 2500sq ft finished. 3400sq ft max.
* Must have large front porch ( :wifey: )
* Deck or patio in the back of house
* Main level master bedroom
* 3 car attached garage
* Detached shop (2 bay, 2 vehicles deep, tall enough for lift)
* 3br 2.5ba (minimum) 4br 3.5ba (maximum)
* "Bonus" room over garage, but no bedrooms above the garage (I like the bonus room as an office)
* Buried LP tank
* Gas fired heat, water heaters (multiple tankless?), cook top, logs, standby generator, dryer, oven (maybe)
* Wood stoves in basement & detached shop
* Electric service designed around automatic failover for standby generator
* Electric service panels properly laid out and labeled (not like the mess at the compound)
* Electric sub-panels in garage and shop with space for additional circuits as needed
* No heat pumps.
* Heat & AC systems that are compatible with Nest thermostats and properly arranged to make it possible to condition the air in a portion of the house differently than the rest. (The Compound has the worst layout possible as I have to heat/cool 1500sq ft of unused space to condition the air for the few rooms we use)
* Equipment room / closet for home office computer stuff (small rack, etc)
* Cat 5 pulled to several locations in each room and terminated in equipment room / closet (including ceiling and exterior mounting points for Wifi equipment & security cameras)
* LED lighting everywhere possible. No florescent lighting.
* Hardwood & tile. No carpet, no vinyl flooring.
* Brick or stone exterior.
* Acreage appropriate for back yard shooting range :pirate:
* Would like to explore the idea of a hardened vault / gun room in the basement. Cinder block filled with rebar and concrete (or poured with the foundation) with a stout door would be nice. Not talking about bank vault security, but something that would take your average thief a while to get through. Not willing to devote a ton of money towards this though as it's going to be very utilitarian. Work bench, tool box, shelves, and a gun safe or two inside. Extra credit if it's done in a way that I could conceal it after the fact by "finishing" the basement and hiding the door with a false wall.
* Geothermal heating/cooling augmentation (buried/coiled pipes of fluid to use ground temps to augment heating/cooling systems)
* Main floor laundry
* Audio wiring for home theater


When we build, the Electrician is probably going to hate me. I'm going to be over the top OCD about how the circuits are laid out and wired. I cannot stand the fact that my (3) 200amp panels are filled with circuits that are all labeled "lights". I find it completely unacceptable that the GFI kitchen circuit also supplies outlets in the dining and living rooms. It also infuriates me that I have only one 15amp circuit supplying the garage.
I have a bonus room above my garage, it will be an office when its done service as temp storage room.

I have another room below my garage that is the armory/laundry bunker room thing. :rotflmao:

I want to get a sign made up that says "Laundry/Armory"
 

Jays89YJ

Udaho
VIP
NG is typically piped from the street. It's not widely available in the counties. LP = propane and that's what is available and what I intend to use. The alternative to LP or electric heat would be fuel oil and that doesn't really appeal to me.
The new oil burners have come a long way.

I'd go with a burning fuel, boiler, hydronic heat @ 180*F, HRV, etc. The hydronic option can be done multiple ways:

Hydronic:
heat coil, forced air
radiators
baseboards
radiant - in-floor or under-floor (the latter costs less)

Have the hydronic glycol water heat your domestic water too. You'll buy a holding tank with a hydronic coil in it. The boiler should be a higher efficiency one.

**** air to air heat pumps.
 
My parents have an electric heat pump. They also have a 1000 gallon propane tank buried. It runs the cooktop and the gas fireplace, and eventually, an outdoor grill. They should have also done the water heater, but went electric on that, im not sure why. The heat pump works great, and the gas fireplace will burn you out of the room…and it is a big room, ceilings are 20', upstairs balcony area open to below, room itself is about 20'x25'…so total volume of the room is quite large. Seriously, we were sweating on christmas eve, had to open doors and let the cold air in. If you designed a house with power outages in mind…being able to close off upstairs/basements, and have multiple gas fireplaces, that might be sufficient.
 

FinlayZJ

Doing hoodrat things
VIP
...(geothermal)...That opinion may change once I see the actual costs.
Geothermal well fields rules of thumb. Your mileage may vary, but this gets you in the ballpark:

500-600 sq ft of home per ton.
350-450' well depth per ton depending on soil. $8-10 per foot of drilled well.

Plus all your normal costs. There are lots of rebates/credits out there for Geothermal so look in to your state.

Based on what you said, Geothermal look like they'll be roughly $20,000 for the wells.
 
We broke ground Apr. 1, and moved in the end of Aug.
LOVING the radiant heat, have a tankless LP boiler that does heat and domestic hot water.
The house is all one floor, except the bonus room over the 3 car garage.
We went country/craftsman on style, as we're out in the middle of nowhere.
If you can, and you want to be very involved with the building, find a contractor that will "advise" you for a flat fee, VS a percentage of the project. We saved $$$$ writing the checks and paying cash where we could.
 

DieselSJ

Staff member
VIP
Geothermal well fields rules of thumb. Your mileage may vary, but this gets you in the ballpark:

500-600 sq ft of home per ton.
350-450' well depth per ton depending on soil. $8-10 per foot of drilled well.

Plus all your normal costs. There are lots of rebates/credits out there for Geothermal so look in to your state.

Based on what you said, Geothermal look like they'll be roughly $20,000 for the wells.
I think we are discussing more of a horizontal loop setup vs a vertical loop. This uses 6-8' deep trenches instead of deep wells. I would love to do this at the Dieselranch when we redo our HVAC.
 

wct097

NPD Club President 2021-2022
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP
I think we are discussing more of a horizontal loop setup vs a vertical loop. This uses 6-8' deep trenches instead of deep wells. I would love to do this at the Dieselranch when we redo our HVAC.
I suspect the type of setup largely depends on the part of the country you're in and it's climate. I know that my mom's walk-out basement stays a pretty consistent temp with most of three sides surrounded by earth. I would guess that the horizontal loop setup would work pretty well around here. No clue about cost, but it's certainly one of those things I'd be interested in exploring.

I'm not one of those people that would spend $100k to make my electric bill $50 instead of $200, but I'd certainly entertain $10k to save $50 per month in electricity. I like efficiency, but not just in terms of cost savings. A more efficient system will generally work fast/better. For example, my Nests turn down the heat after 7am and only run the heat pumps to maintain a much lower temp while we're out of the house. I imagine that simply circulating air using a geothermal radiator would keep the house a little warmer while the heat pumps are off during the day, meaning that the heat pumps don't have to work as hard to get up to temp by the time we get home from work.
 
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DieselSJ

Staff member
VIP
I suspect the type of setup largely depends on the part of the country you're in and it's climate. I know that my mom's walk-out basement stays a pretty consistent temp with most of three sides surrounded by earth. I would guess that the horizontal loop setup would work pretty well around here. No clue about cost, but it's certainly one of those things I'd be interested in exploring.

I'm not one of those people that would spend $100k to make my electric bill $50 instead of $200, but I'd certainly entertain $10k to save $50 per month in electricity. I like efficiency, but not just in terms of cost savings. A more efficient system will generally work fast/better. For example, my Nests turn down the heat after 7am and only run the heat pumps to maintain a much lower temp while we're out of the house. I imagine that simply circulating air using a geothermal radiator would keep the house a little warmer while the heat pumps are off during the day, meaning that the heat pumps don't have to work as hard to get up to temp by the time we get home from work.
I was researching this a while ago and one of the examples was a house in PA that used 100% geothermal, thus no LPG use at all. Savings is way greater than $50/mo.

Geothermal Installation by the Numbers in Pennsylvania | Geothermal Genius
 

wct097

NPD Club President 2021-2022
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP
I was researching this a while ago and one of the examples was a house in PA that used 100% geothermal, thus no LPG use at all. Savings is way greater than $50/mo.

Geothermal Installation by the Numbers in Pennsylvania | Geothermal Genius
Interesting. I was thinking more of a system to augment heating and cooling, not a stand-alone. I wonder what the life expectancy of those parts is. Would suck to drop $20k on geothermal with the idea of a 5-7 year payoff, then find that you have to replace the loop in 4-5 years.

edit: I would also expect the installation to be somewhat more cost effective to do when building rather than as an upgrade.
 
Interesting. I was thinking more of a system to augment heating and cooling, not a stand-alone. I wonder what the life expectancy of those parts is. Would suck to drop $20k on geothermal with the idea of a 5-7 year payoff, then find that you have to replace the loop in 4-5 years.

edit: I would also expect the installation to be somewhat more cost effective to do when building rather than as an upgrade.
The article states average 15-20 years on the pump and 50+ years on the ground loop.

We have found it to be much more efficient to set our house at 68 degrees and just leave it. I have read a lot of things that suggest that maintaining a single temperature if much more efficient than changing the set point during the day. It is easier to keep 68 degree air at 68 degrees than it is to warm 60 degree air up to 68 degrees.
 

wct097

NPD Club President 2021-2022
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP
The article states average 15-20 years on the pump and 50+ years on the ground loop.

We have found it to be much more efficient to set our house at 68 degrees and just leave it. I have read a lot of things that suggest that maintaining a single temperature if much more efficient than changing the set point during the day. It is easier to keep 68 degree air at 68 degrees than it is to warm 60 degree air up to 68 degrees.
That assumes your house is pretty efficient at keeping heat/cool out. In my case, specifically in the summer, I get a lot of morning sun into the great room that opens into the kitchen and breakfast nook. My heat pump can't maintain 70* in that room in the summer and runs constantly if I leave it set below 80*. If I set the schedule to 72* from 4pm to 10pm and 80* otherwise, it runs considerably less as it doesn't have to struggle against the sun to bring the temp down. Set at 80* overnight and through the day, it doesn't waste energy keeping the temp constant when we're not using that space.
 

FinlayZJ

Doing hoodrat things
VIP
I imagine that simply circulating air using a geothermal radiator would keep the house a little warmer while the heat pumps are off during the day, meaning that the heat pumps don't have to work as hard to get up to temp by the time we get home from work.
What you speak of is no different than just running your fan today. The "geothermal" portion is at the condensing unit/heat pump you currently. Instead of being air cooled, it's water cooled.

The geothermal well field absorbs or dissipates heat. The indoor unit is still using a refrigerant coil and compressor. The efficiency is gained by have a constant ground temperature and is lower than ambient air (summer) and warmer than ambient air (winter). This is where the efficiency is gained. Here's a system diagram with domestic water heating.

 
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