We love our gas fireplace in the winter. Also, heated bathroom floor tiles.
Conveniences in a house build.
- Thread starter keepngoal
- Start date
I know another guy that put a heating system into his driveway and sidewalks. Never had to scoop snow.
Never got to many of the details but I think he used a geothermal system to heat and cool his home. He just added another ground water loop poured into the concrete like some of the in-floor heating systems popularup in Minnesota. When it snowed he just hit a button and it would recirculate the 70F ground water through his driveway and sidewalks and let that melt the snow. Because he used the groundwater loop, he didn't have to heat the water with the compressor. Only expense was running the pump to recirculate the water.
Never got to many of the details but I think he used a geothermal system to heat and cool his home. He just added another ground water loop poured into the concrete like some of the in-floor heating systems popularup in Minnesota. When it snowed he just hit a button and it would recirculate the 70F ground water through his driveway and sidewalks and let that melt the snow. Because he used the groundwater loop, he didn't have to heat the water with the compressor. Only expense was running the pump to recirculate the water.
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That’s an excellent idea. Or even have a bathroom with two entries, one indoors and one from the garage.
I just built and moved into my new home. (3bedroom bantry style ranch with unfinished basement and walkout patio).
Things I did:
1. Add 3rd stall garage
2. Walkout patio where the slab goes to the stairs of the deck
3. Covered deck and I downgraded the choice of lumbar so I could extend the deck to 12’x12’ instead of the planned 10’x10’
4. Chose a vinyl flooring throughout the entire upstairs except for 2 bedrooms.
5. Gas fireplace in the great room
6. Preplumbed the basement for bathroom and wet bar
7. Increased the door entryways from 36” to 48”
Things I wish I had done:
1. Measured the depth of the garage to add more space. It will surprisingly shrink when you start putting stuff into it.
2. Added an entry door from the garage to the backyard.
3. Pex tubing for radiant heating in the garage and master bath
4. Used insulated concrete form work
5. Upgraded to granite or quartz countertops
If you have further questions or want to see pics pm me, otherwise have fun and good luck.
Things I did:
1. Add 3rd stall garage
2. Walkout patio where the slab goes to the stairs of the deck
3. Covered deck and I downgraded the choice of lumbar so I could extend the deck to 12’x12’ instead of the planned 10’x10’
4. Chose a vinyl flooring throughout the entire upstairs except for 2 bedrooms.
5. Gas fireplace in the great room
6. Preplumbed the basement for bathroom and wet bar
7. Increased the door entryways from 36” to 48”
Things I wish I had done:
1. Measured the depth of the garage to add more space. It will surprisingly shrink when you start putting stuff into it.
2. Added an entry door from the garage to the backyard.
3. Pex tubing for radiant heating in the garage and master bath
4. Used insulated concrete form work
5. Upgraded to granite or quartz countertops
If you have further questions or want to see pics pm me, otherwise have fun and good luck.
We’ve built twice and are moving and starting our third. Agree with a lot of what has been said. Here are the things we’ve done that are helpful.
1. Think about where your router and modem will go. Set up the closet with necessary outlets.
2. We wired this current house with Cat5 cable to the TVs.
3. We installed a whole-house antenna. When we originally did it, we were streaming PlayStationVue for TV and didn’t get locals. Now YouTube TV has them so this is less important but we can get TV is the Internet is down.
4. If you have a toilet room in your master bath, a light up switch or an outlet with a light is nice. Otherwise you have to turn on the light to pee in the middle of the night and blind yourself.
5. Where will you plug in devices to charge? Put an outlet in the drawer or cabinet so they are out of sight.
6. I’m a big fan of dual-zone HVAC systems so each level of your house is comfortable.
7. I would also recommend a whole-house dehumidifier. There is a lot of moisture in a new house - lumber, drywall, etc. Plus basements are often damp. Again, helps with the live-ability.
8. The quality of the carpet pad is more important than the actual carpet. Went with cheap pad on our first build and the carpet wore terribly. Put in a quality pad on this build and the carpet feels so much better on your feet.
9. We insulated the interior walls of this current build. We didn’t in our first build and you could hear a fart in the next room. It is so much better now. We put sound deadening insulation in our mechanical room which makes a huge difference.
10. Most contractors will glue and nail subfloor. That leads to floor squeaks in the future. Glue and screw the subfloor. I would also screw the bottom wall plate to the subfloor.
11. If you are going to cover your deck, I would encourage you to screen it in if you can afford it. We did and sit out there all the time in the fall. I would also consider if you would put a TV on your deck and wire an outlet for it. I would also think about if your put up outdoor party lights on your deck and have an outlet for that.
12. We actually went with luxury vinyl flooring in this house and I love it. Much cheaper than tile and more durable than hardwood floors.
13. Most tile their master shower. We did onyx in this one and like it much better. More expensive than tile but cheaper to install so we saw a slight savings. But maintenance is dramatically easier. No grout to worry about. Looks great.
14. We insulated our garage which is nice. Rarely gets colder than 30 degrees in there.
15. Most contractors put on 8ft or 16ft garage doors. Depending on what you drive, that can be tight. We went with 18ft on our double and 9ft on our third stall on this build. So much nicer.
16. Sounds funny but think about the height of your shower heads. I’m 6’2” which isn’t that tall but often find shower heads that are too low.
17. Undercabinet lighting is pretty much a given anymore. We also put in above cabinets lights in this one and really like it. In our first build, cabinets went to the ceiling. Didn’t do that in this one (those high ones were impractical to use and didn’t justify the cost to us).
18. Think about where you will put your Christmas tree. Make sure there is an outlet nearby and no heating vent if you get a real tree. Dries it out. Also an outlet in your mantle if you might be nice if you want to decorate it with lights. Also agree with the post about outlet under soffits for Christmas lights.
Hope some of this helps! If I think of anything else, I will post. Good luck!
1. Think about where your router and modem will go. Set up the closet with necessary outlets.
2. We wired this current house with Cat5 cable to the TVs.
3. We installed a whole-house antenna. When we originally did it, we were streaming PlayStationVue for TV and didn’t get locals. Now YouTube TV has them so this is less important but we can get TV is the Internet is down.
4. If you have a toilet room in your master bath, a light up switch or an outlet with a light is nice. Otherwise you have to turn on the light to pee in the middle of the night and blind yourself.
5. Where will you plug in devices to charge? Put an outlet in the drawer or cabinet so they are out of sight.
6. I’m a big fan of dual-zone HVAC systems so each level of your house is comfortable.
7. I would also recommend a whole-house dehumidifier. There is a lot of moisture in a new house - lumber, drywall, etc. Plus basements are often damp. Again, helps with the live-ability.
8. The quality of the carpet pad is more important than the actual carpet. Went with cheap pad on our first build and the carpet wore terribly. Put in a quality pad on this build and the carpet feels so much better on your feet.
9. We insulated the interior walls of this current build. We didn’t in our first build and you could hear a fart in the next room. It is so much better now. We put sound deadening insulation in our mechanical room which makes a huge difference.
10. Most contractors will glue and nail subfloor. That leads to floor squeaks in the future. Glue and screw the subfloor. I would also screw the bottom wall plate to the subfloor.
11. If you are going to cover your deck, I would encourage you to screen it in if you can afford it. We did and sit out there all the time in the fall. I would also consider if you would put a TV on your deck and wire an outlet for it. I would also think about if your put up outdoor party lights on your deck and have an outlet for that.
12. We actually went with luxury vinyl flooring in this house and I love it. Much cheaper than tile and more durable than hardwood floors.
13. Most tile their master shower. We did onyx in this one and like it much better. More expensive than tile but cheaper to install so we saw a slight savings. But maintenance is dramatically easier. No grout to worry about. Looks great.
14. We insulated our garage which is nice. Rarely gets colder than 30 degrees in there.
15. Most contractors put on 8ft or 16ft garage doors. Depending on what you drive, that can be tight. We went with 18ft on our double and 9ft on our third stall on this build. So much nicer.
16. Sounds funny but think about the height of your shower heads. I’m 6’2” which isn’t that tall but often find shower heads that are too low.
17. Undercabinet lighting is pretty much a given anymore. We also put in above cabinets lights in this one and really like it. In our first build, cabinets went to the ceiling. Didn’t do that in this one (those high ones were impractical to use and didn’t justify the cost to us).
18. Think about where you will put your Christmas tree. Make sure there is an outlet nearby and no heating vent if you get a real tree. Dries it out. Also an outlet in your mantle if you might be nice if you want to decorate it with lights. Also agree with the post about outlet under soffits for Christmas lights.
Hope some of this helps! If I think of anything else, I will post. Good luck!
When I do my new garage in the spring, it will have a nice "garage" sink with a big cleaning station, and a urinal.
We put a wood fireplace in this build and love it but we ran a gas line to it so we could convert it if we wanted. We also ran a gas line to our oven and dryer in case we went with gas on those.
We set our mechanical room to have room and wiring/water for a fridge and second set of washer/dryer.
If you put in a water softener, have the plumber separate the outdoor lines from the inside ones. No need to soften the outdoor water lines.
If you use a fireplace (gas or wood) consider were your HVAC thermostat goes. I wish I would have put ours around the corner from where it is.
Just mentally prepare yourself for the fact that after you move in, within one month, there will be a list of things you don't like about the house.
Best thing we did, although it cost me about 30k; was built a second house. You learn a crap ton on the first house, then the second house you correct about 90% of them. We didn't intend to build a second, but the most important thing we learned from it was, used an experienced builder. The first one was fairly new and a moron (another person we knew used him and ended up suing him, we were on the verge of it). The second one gave ideas and told us common things done and would explain how extra electrical outlets were only 25 bucks so for a couple hundred dollars we could make life easier than what was already drawn up.
9 and 10 are two of my biggest complaints about our current home. It’s only about 5 years old but the creaking floors drive me nuts. When we put in new flooring I will drive screws into the subfloor.
Also don’t have insulation in interior walls so with a bathroom on the other side of the living room wall you hear when someone uses it. When we finish the basement sound deadening insulation in the ceiling will be a must.
Mission accomplished when spouse built his detached garagemahal...The garage needs to be at least twice the square footage of the house...
But yeah, a big garage (with lots of outlets and grouped banks of lights) is something he loves, and with him having that elsewhere, I can actually get to my car AND open the doors.
I've found that the more storage space we have the more stuff we buy. Big closets and pantries are good, but extra storage for crap can sometimes lead to buying more stuff just to fill it.
Yep, how much useless crap every person has may astound them. When you have to clean out a parent's house you will realize this and try to trim down the crap.
Related to all of the garage comments. Builders and architects always seem to make garages too narrow. I am talking the space between cars and the space to the walls from their sides. I added space to the drivers side when looking at plans. I have plenty of room for the door to swing open even with **** along the wall. And space for two big garbage roll out containers. I might only be adding 18" but makes a big difference. Neighbors garbage cans all sit out in their driverways because theirs no room to roll them in.
I saw a house once that had a pet bath area, I always thought that would be really nice for people with pets. That kind of goes along with the idea of having a sink in the garage.
No idea how old you are, but if you really think you are going to stay in that house, think about how you might like it arranged as you age. For example, my parents remodeled a bathroom with an eye towards how it would work if they need assistance (i.e. a walk in shower, a slightly higher toilet, hand rails, etc). At my age I wouldn't want a handicap accessible bathroom, but I'd make sure it could be remodeled to fix it.
No idea how old you are, but if you really think you are going to stay in that house, think about how you might like it arranged as you age. For example, my parents remodeled a bathroom with an eye towards how it would work if they need assistance (i.e. a walk in shower, a slightly higher toilet, hand rails, etc). At my age I wouldn't want a handicap accessible bathroom, but I'd make sure it could be remodeled to fix it.
If there was on thing I'd like to add to my house it would be an outlet for a generator and a bypass.
Number two might be some electric heat options in the garage. To do it now would be require a upgraded box, mine is only 100 amp and out of circuits.
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re #16 - If you get a fixed shower head and set it for the person who is over 6', the altitudinally challenged folks end up with a very diffuse spray by the time it reaches them. No bueno...
We went with an adjustable shower fixture when we redid our bathroom. Shower head has adjustable sprays, is on a snake, and is seated on a "rail" so you can adjust the height of the shower head up or down. I'm 5'1", spouse is around 5'10" now, and sons who visit are 6' to 6'1". Everyone can have the spray exactly where they want it.
Also, if you have kids, do/will they ever do their own laundry? If so, may I point out that teenagers and college students visiting like to do laundry at very odd hours of the night. I would suggest the laundry NOT be a part of the master bedroom.
