i forgot to add: double glace window with vinyle edges. polyethene sheets to seal the interior walls from mositure and cold drafts from the outside. and most important a poetic landscape or garden.
u need a development permit for front back and side setbacks first and then a construction plan later.
Vinyl, huh? What about aluminum clad windows like Pella, or fiberglass windows, or wood windows if the person is uber-green and wants to paint them a custom color? Such decisions have very little to do with the design of the house, and are primarily driven by budget and the owner's/architect's sophistication and taste.
The polyethylene sheet vapor barrier on the "interior walls" is incorrect and misleading. I know you mean the interior of the exterior walls, but that is also not necessarily true as we don't know where the OP is looking to situate this good-design house. The cold drafts (hot drafts and lukewarm drafts are also to be avoided) and air infiltration in general is usually dealt with by installing house wrap, such as Tyvek, or the newer sheathing with taped joints. Read up at the Building Science web site before you attempt more such advice.
I like the idea of a poetic garden or landscape, but how do you build poetic?
Many times there is a zoning code in place and the setbacks are clearly called out. This get investigated before any design work or you're just wasting time.
The...outside look of the house...is more important than the interior...? Huh? What is he supposed to do - poll passersby? Is that your idea of good design - design for strangers? The owner determines the esthetics, assisted/lead by the architect/designer, and the building department or zoning board shoots the design down or not.
Hold up there a minute, Hoss. You just said the outside look is more important than the inside, now you're saying that form follows function, and since essentially all function is inside the house the outside should be lead by the inside. So which is it?
Shear walls are not the only way to deal with shear, and local requirements - again, of which we know absolutely nothing - will override any generalizations like you're making.
Ummmm, how big is this guy's house in your mind? If you had said that there should be a cleanout at every change in direction for the _waste_ lines I would have let you slide.
Not sure about Canada (who is - right, Ken?), but in the US the individual states have jurisdiction over who can design what and who is legally permitted to sign off on the drawings.
R
Is that your 20x20 Ken? Nice work on the siding and windows. The last time I saw it, I recall it being without siding. I'm in Ottawa, BTW, and unsure when I'll be back out west.
No. Universal design only works for universal people.
My neighbors don't care what I build on my property. Nor do I care what they do on theirs. Community is an uncaring concept. Environment - I use all of it, all the time.
Why do you think less is automatically better?
U silly.
And you don't know jack about residential design.
How 'bout a backlit fish shaped window?
The flagless flagpole looks like a fishin' rod, so....how 'bout running a string from the flagless flagpole to the fishes piehole? Then count the car wrex out front as the gawkers lose control...........
Same here, cept I let her hang around. ...and its a little bigger'n 20x20, more like 28x28 times 2.
Maybe I should take Richards advice and downsize, cut the top half off and turn it back into treez.
BTW: Why should dwarfs be forced to have a house that is too tall for them, and the added expense? Shouldn't they be able to have a house thats only 4' tall if they want it that way?
I don't necessarily-- it depends. How about you?
A valve on a vent line? To what purpose?
It's also surprising to find out after all these years that what I thought was a real person (Don) is really a two dimensional piece of cardboard!
ROn May 14, 12:44=A0am, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.ca wrote:
For me, right now, less is better. I spend a majority of my time in a 12 x 24 office with a 24x24 workshop hooked onto the side. Works fine for me.
I've been designing a series of small living facilities and using Kenniff as a sounding board on occaision for insight. Live the design, in your head. But at some point you have to let the rubber hit the road - some things just can't be fully imagined in sufficient detail. I'm also working presently on a design that can be built in stages (disregard silly zoning constraints for a moment). Stage 1 can be built for around $30k, is 24'x24' and consists of a living room, eat in kitchen, basic bathroom, bedroom, storage and laundry. Stage 2 can be built for $20k, is 12'x40', making the overall building at this point L shaped, and consists of 1 more standard bedroom, laundry room, master bedroom with bathroom and walk-in closet and impacts the existing 24x24 very little. Stage 3 can be built for another $20k, is 24x40, making th building Z shaped and consists of a large living room (the old living room becomes the new dining room) and a 2 car garage. Stage 4 can be built for about $10k and consists of a porch on the front of the house and a large screened in porch across the back. When its all completed there will be 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, laundry room, eat-in kitchen, dining room, living room and 2 car garage at around 1600 sf. total living area. All of the stages from 2 through 4 have very little impact on the previous stages and were designed so that the existing can be lived in while the additions are being built. Believe it or not, this is pretty tough to do - taking into consideration the HVAC trunk lines, electrical service, plumbing and waste lines, etc. My son and his SO may be the first guinea pigs. Oh yeah, the above prices do not include labor as the owner will provide that.
He's talking about a Studor vent. In email Ken told me the issues surrounding running a plumbing vent through the exterior wall/roof so I suggested a studor in the attic, like I have.
" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" wrote in news:afb70533- snipped-for-privacy@l28g2000vba.googlegroups.com:
Bears out the old principle of the house-construction cost curve, eg there is a minimum cost whatever the size of the basic dwelling, due to all the services, fixed costs etc. Cost per unit area reduces as size increases. Normally cost/unit area begins to rise over a certain size because of structural issues, increasing free spans etc. but this doesn't occur with an incremental approach. What is interesting to me is the concept of "small". 24' x 24' = +/- 54m2 Small for some of us is more like 20m2 :-O
GD metric math, had to pull up the calculator to see what was going on.
20m2 is about 14'x14' and that gets pretty tight for living quarters for *2 people* with the amenities I described. Sure, people can live in less space but there are tradeoffs. I guess I'm firmly attached to the paradigm of the suburbs or rural areas, where the basic dwelling has all of the necessities. (remember, I said disregard zoning issues) What you call house-construction cost curve I call *core costs* and you're absolutely correct. The angle that I coming at though is of upfront and incremental affordability, or better yet, home ownership without a mortgage. **I lived in an army barracks room about that size for 3 years with one other person and we didn't kill each other, but our kitchen has an electric frying pan and a toaster oven and our laundry facility was about 12 blocks down the street. ;-)
The AAV doesn't have to be outside. The whole point is that it is inside and you don't have to run a vent line outside. The normal function of an AAV is not to let sewer gases out, but letting air in to help the lines drain better.
The real issue is whether your local code allows an AAV to be the sole means of venting, and that _is_ an issue of letting sewer gases out. Kind of odd that the expectorator shot it down on freezing issues instead of blowing up your house issues.
R
all enough to
Her house in what sense? She built it for herself?
Fair enough.
Why should I need a hacksaw? :) Prison? Well, O's decent in the summer-- quieter! and warmer than Vancouver, if not more than your Oky. I rollerblade quite a bit beside the Rideau River and canal. Besides, if I wanted to create a steady-state economic party in Canada, this would seem like a good place.
I'd be interested in seeing that as a 3D model. ...I wonder what Rico thinks of my small saltbox.
That's no way to refer to your wife! ;) What salt box? Provide appropriate link, please.
R
Well, all of their designs do look like they were done with a rubber stamp. =3D:0
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