It is difficult to discuss residential elevators without first limiting the choices because there are 5 or 6 different types, not all manufacturers make all of them and they have very different design requirements, advantages and disadvantages. A hydraulic residential elevator can have a cylinder and piston BELOW ground (centered in the shaft) or ABOVE ground (centered or off-center and to one side of the shaft) with cables (roped). This type of elevator requires a machine room that might be required to be next to the shaft or located remotely. An electric motor-driven, roped, counter-weighted residential elevator can be gearless with cables (traction) or it can be geared with a chain neither of which require a machine room and the motors are at the top of the shaft often increasing the required headroom. It could also be a motor driven drum type in a machine room nest to the lowest stop. The shaft size of the electric motor driven and the above-ground hydraulic models is often similar since a counter weight assembly and a piston assembly take up about the same amount of space (7 to 10 inches). So, to help you without writing a design manual we first need to know the manufacturer and the specific kinds of elevators you are considering. A plan with overhead and pit limitations noted would also help. As I often ask, why is your architect not taking the lead in resolving these issues? No offense intended; I'm just curious.

Renovator8 - Blast from the past indeed! Hello to you, MightyAnvil and others! I remember the soundproofing debate we all had many years back - very informative (at least for me LOL). I've had some whacky ideas over the years and it's nice to have some unbiased feedback from experienced people like you and others. I'm actually building this condo concept from scratch. Yes, another whacky idea I've been dreaming up for years. I've been wanting to take an urban building (in the middle of the urban core) completely off the grid with the utility only as a back-up. Basically, all the units will operate 100% on photovoltaics coupled with a large Li-Ion battery bank, inverters and BMS. The local utility here is a bit of a tyrant (and monopoly) and has recently come out with a plan to charge flat fees of up to $71/month to residents even if they use no power at all. I realized years back this would happen to power producers so this is the next step in being independent from the utility. I've had a very very hard time getting accurate power consumption figures from elevator manufacturers. The townhome/condo design is one that almost requires the use of the residential elevators to make them easily accessible. Of course there are stairs one could take... but traversing two flights of stairs every day just to access their front door isn't very appealing. I've read mixed reviews about elevators here and reliability seems to be a concern... but then again most of the comments I've come across were for older residential units - not current makes. The machines seem very simple yet are prone to failure more often than I would expect. The installer stated that the units have improved dramatically over the years in terms of reliability, efficiency and cost. I've been told that they are much more reliable than commercial units. But I'm not sure if this is just typical elevator sales guy talk as online reviews are mixed. I was hoping to get some feedback from people that use and rely on their residential elevators on a daily basis. I know people that own residential units here but they rarely use them. I'm going with prestressed/prefabricated concrete panels for this project and the hoistways have already been spec'd per the mfg's requirements. I was originally going to frame out the hoistways but was worried about noise transfer so am now going with concrete enclosures.

It may be very difficult to make home comfortable with a single zone. It depends on how different the relative heat requirement change with time of day, sun-derived radiant heat and season. Lots of hydronic heating systems were chopped up into zones in an attempt to limit fuel use when oil prices spiked. Now, some are being recombined into fewer zones make them run better with modulating, condensing boilers. The gain from zoning can be marginal anyway with poorly-insulated homes. I have some comments that speak to efficiency and the type of delivery device. Fin-tube aluminum convectors need higher temperature water than radiators. Hydronic coils sometimes use even higher temp water. (The hotter the water, the smaller the coil.) With condensing boilers you need low temperature return water to use the boiler in any way efficiently. The differing delivery devices can be combined to get good efficiency, but you need to find someone that knows what they are doing. With a complete gut you must be greatly upgrading insulation and air sealing. You need less emitter to heat with now and a smaller boiler. If you keep the emitters on the high side, however, you can run with lower water temp and preserve the efficiency of the boiler. A lot of engineering goes into the designs. Enclose the pipes in the crawlspace in a way that couples them to the living space above and insulate the outside of them while removing the insulation between the pipes and the space above. Insulation around the pipes themselves is OK. This is a great forum, but there are not a lot of hydronic heat/boiler heads posting here. There are more at terrylove.com and at heatinghelp.com, "the wall".

yeah, gray and tropical don't go together. Paint the walls another color. Maybe paint that one wall green, and the other walls white get some shelves over the toilet, if you do art on the other wall. how about some faux succulents plants? you could do something like this on the large bare wall and fill these w/faux succulents or other plants. easy to do w/wood dowels. paint the wall green, or paint the wall white and do the wood. or paint the wood dowels a bold color. you have the full wall there, add some art, or some shelving, some type of plants,,, This would be a cool paint treatment. they have those rollers that roll out the design in the paint. faux bois you may want to paint the vanity white, perhaps add some gold accents or, paint the vanity a green shade yes, even pink works w/the shower curtain!