Building first house, What type of flooring?
B G
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
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Jacqui Naud
4 years agoB G
4 years agoRelated Discussions
Advice on building first house
Comments (13)ZIP sheating runs (in our area, check with your local supply company that sells Hubber products) around here about $13/4x8 sheet. Compared to cheap OSB sheathing, that costs about $7. With ZIP you also need the tape, which is around $30 per 100' roll, so add several rolls to that price. However with OSB, you also need to add in a building wrap such as Tyvek, which costs 150-300 per roll, dependings on what size you need and how much. ZIP plus the tape will cost slightly more (on my house with about 2200sqft of wall surface it adds about $500 total, WELL worth it). The advantage however is it saves the step up putting up tyvek (i hate it!) but also seals your house much better then tyvek and typical sheathing. it also creates a natural water resistant drainage plane and reduces air infiltration much better. Also look into Advantec subflooring, also made by Hubber. THE subfloor to use, IMO. I have not found it to cost any more then a high quality subfloor product. ZIP should not replace XPS or any other form of "outsulation". It is just a weather coated osb sheathing product, with no insulative values. The XPS creates a thermal break between the outside and your studs. While thermal breaks are not as important in your area as cold climates, they also add another layer of air blockage and help to keep your conditions space in, and humidity out during the summer. If it were me, I would progably install either 1/2" or 1" of XPS OVER the ZIP sheathing. Tape the zip, tape the XPS, and you will have a nice tight structure. If you want to skip the outsulation step, you can shoot 1" of urethane between the studs on the interior. This will actually seal your house better most likely, but will come at a high price tag. In your area, you are not going for a super high R like in mine, rather as tight as possible and enough R to keep your conditioned space efficient. XPS is r-5 per inch. spray closed cell urethane is around r6.5-7 per inch. spray in cellulose is around 3.7-4 per inch. Assuming you used zip, no exterior xps, and cellulose fill, you will be around an r 20 for a 2x6 wall. Your affective r after thermal bridge would be more around r-16 range. Add the XPS, and you are at r-25, and your affective r is still around r-21-23 due to your minimal reduction of no thermal bridging. Spray in closed cell foam does not eliminate the bridging, however it does seal very very well....See MoreFirst Floor Overview for Possible New Build
Comments (8)TheBobo: Thanks for the input. It's not as idiosyncratic as it appears, for small town New Mexico. You have 14 risers in the stairway before the fold back and a total of 22. This would make this a...12 foot ceiling? Seems way overkill for a small space. The staircase design was driven by two requirements: Tread depth sized for the owner's size 14 shoes and clearance for a 6'4" human where the top floor crosses the stairwell. That, combined with the desired landing size and the NM code for rise/run results in nearly 12 foot ceiling in the lower floor if the staircase doubles back. The upside to that is that we can have ceiling fans and chandeliers without the owner risking scalp wounds. It's a real help in hot weather. The pantry is the same size as the kitchen. Do you really need it that big? Yes. It's a small town 1.5 hours from the nearest Costco or Trader Joe's so we will be making infrequent shopping trips and buying in bulk. Wine, flour, paper goods, detergent, cat food, canned goods, etc. will be stored there. By putting the bulk of the storage in a utility area, we minimize the amount of finish cabinetry needed. It can have painted pine open shelving instead of the custom mesquite stuff I want for the kitchen. It's a huge cost savings. The powder room is directly visible from the living area. Yes, it is. With the constraints of "must be accessible without nose-powderers getting in the way of the cook or going through a bedroom" that's the only place it can go. If the door is wide open, you can see the sink and from one area, the front half of the toilet bowl peeking out of its niche. So it's going to have to be REALLY pretty just in case the door is open. The living/dining space is more than twice as wide as it is long, which will give it the feel of a hallway. We debated and dumped the idea of separate LR and DR areas and went with the "open" American Foursquare plan, where the combined LR/DR runs the full width of the house. It's like a typical Mexican Colonial "sala" (living/dining room) that is meant to have furniture moved around for events, and has the traffic along one wall from entry to stairs and kitchen. The neighbors across from our current NM house - in an 1880 or so adobe - have an amazing 14x40 sala with 15-foot ceilings down one side of their house. This is the concept: http://media-cache-ec5.pinterest.com/550x/60/38/77/6038770800a92560cb1beb4261e83662.jpg http://media-cache-ec5.pinterest.com/550x/60/38/77/6038770800a92560cb1beb4261e83662.jpg It's serving triple duty - dining area near the kitchen, living room chat area in the middle, and a small reading/chat area near the front windows. With 12-foot ceilings, vigas going across the short dimension, big rugs and well-scaled furniture set mostly across the short dimension it's should avoid the bowling alley look. As you enter and turn right, you can see down the long dimension through french doors to the veranda into the south garden ... or you can look across the short dimension into the east garden through the windows. We're still discussing windows VS french doors on that side. ============================= GreenDesigns: Do you have specific design solutions to offer, or is your "not gonna work" reaction your final word? Not gonna be accessible at all. You're not leaving enough room for that. What is "that" and where do you think "that" needs more room? If you have a specific area that falls short, please let me know. Pocket doors take walls that are twice as thick and take space from your rooms. No, there is a hardware/frame combo for standard 2x4 walls. At worst it takes a 2x6 framing. Minimizing sound transmission is easy if you build it correctly. It's just applied acoustics. They are a poor solution to a problem that should get solved another way. What are your suggestions for the problem of eventual handicapped access and the desire to eliminate wasted door swing area? I'm afraid that the only thing that I see working about the plan is to have all 4 sides have porches on them. That works in a cooling climate, although it will rob the interior of any natural light and you will need to pay extra attention to the lighting plan. It's in New Mexico - 320-340 sunny days a year, even when its cold, and dry temps in the 95-105 in the summer. "Portales" (wide arcades over walkways and patios) are the rule, not the exception. It's comfortable being outside almost all year if you can get into or out of the sun as needed, and walking into a cool, dark house is a blessed relief in the summer. Skylight over the staircase, aerogel light panels (should count as walls, not against our precious window allotment) in some "windows", transoms, whatever they call the traditional small windows near the ceilings in Pueblo architecture, and 10-foot windows under the veranda should help....See MoreIncreasing ceiling height of the first floor of a two floor house.
Comments (25)Why are people so hung up on the DIY thing? OP never mentions that her intention is to DIY, just that she is looking for information to educate herself on how this can be done - presumably so she has some understanding of the options contractors will present her. Anyway, the only advice worth following is from CPMarlin. This is going to be very location and house specific. Find people in the immediate area who have done something similar (or ask RE agents if you don't know anyone yourself), find out who did their work, and then speak with those contractors (assuming, of course, that the referrers were happy with the work). San Francisco is it's own world - not just the costs which are probably the highest in the country, but the local building/seismic codes....See Morefirst build. thoughts on house plan. pro cons?
Comments (5)You're giving an awful lot of exterior wall over to closets, both upstairs and downstairs. Closets should go on interior walls, so bedrooms, bathrooms and living spaces can have windows. Is the size of your lot dictating the weird garage arrangement? One 3-car garage would allow much more natural light into the living areas of the home. A big fat NO to the cooktop on the island. Put the cooktop on an outside wall where it can be properly vented, eliminate the second island, and gain yourself a lot of space in the living/dining rooms. One does not need to seat the whole family at the island when there is a dining table 2 steps away....See Moreapple_pie_order
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