Measurements

[crisw]

I have read many times that buildings should be laid out in increments of 2' or 4' to save materials. Now that I have all the walls in my plan where I want them, I want to make the nudges needed to get those measurements. However, I am not sure of which dimension is the most crucial! Should I be measuring the dimensions to the outside walls? How should I set up my dimension defaults box? Thanks!

[Kilgore Trout]

I'm not sure how hard I would work at trying to do this. I think this makes a lot of sense for a big builder or manufactured home company that make hundreds of houses a year. In the case of a homeowner who is going to build one house it will probably have hardly any impact on the bottom line.

If you look at lumber prices right now, they are probably at the lowest level they have been at in many years. Also, one of the biggest costs associated with building a house is labor costs. If you can design a house that is easier to build as opposed to one that will take much more work, you can probably save a lot more money then saving a little bit on materials.

Another consideration is which materials you are trying to minimize. If you draw a wall that is 8' long and 8' tall, chances are you won't be able to use a 4x8 sheet of sheathing for the outside and use a 4x8 sheet of sheetrock on the inside. You might be able to design your house so that the inside or the outside works out well but both would be almost impossible. But saving a sheet of sheetrock or a sheet of 1/2" OSB here and there probably won't matter much.

Your best bet is working directly with a builder (ideally the one who will be doing most of the actual work) and asking him what you can do to reduce your construction costs (not just materials). You might even show him some of your preliminary designs to see if there are things you could do to reduce the cost. If you are going to be doing everything yourself, then you probably want to design things so that they are easier to build rather then least material cost.

[crisw]

I am more concerned about material wastage, which I want to reduce as much as possible (we are trying to make this home as green as possible), than I am about cost reduction. What you say makes sense, though, and most of my dimensions are already within a few inches of where they should be (I think!) So I guess I won't worry about it too much

[Larry]

Make your wall height 8' even and they can cut off the overlap with the ceiling drywall and have some spare (just in case). Always make your rooms just under 12' in width for carpet fit although some come in 15' widths, I hear, now. To do this you will require your joists 8' less 4.5 inches for three plates and will create wastage anyway.

The wood you cut off will not be any different than the trees falling down and rotting in the forest with old age.

You will drive yourself crazy trying to do this. Your roof will have slopes where the sheeting will be cut off into a milion (exag.) angle pieces for your fire pit and the OSB will burn black smoke when the petroleum products burn in it.

[Allen42ACJ]

Outside of the framing..Center of interior walls and openings..Keep 1/16" checked..Move things to round off..
You want to make it easy for someone else to read.
Post a picture of your floor plan..

[crisw]

Hey, be nice now Larry! I can't be driven much crazier than I already am.

We won't be using any indoor carpet, so I don''t need to worry too much about that.

Thanks for the other suggestions- I've got two years to tweak things before handing it over to a designer/builder, so I may get it straight by then.

[Larry]

Well there are certain dimensions you do not want to exceed, for sure but the ends of the things are just not really "savable". If you make it perfect for a 12 foot rug width, your joists will have to be 14 feet long with slightly less than two feet cut off and wasted. It is impossible to win them all in that battle. If you exceed about 15 feet in your rom size you will need to go into truss construction or LVL composite wood beams etc....

One thing...show your plans to framers and ask for quotes on the job. Even though you don't intened to go through with it for a long time...many will make suggestions on how to "clean it up" or make it easier. I redid my plans ever subtrade I asked for a quote from. I rearranged all my joist directions and eliminated some iron beams in my house after talking to a guy that wasn't even interested. The field guys know a lot from experience and you get to pick their brains when they peruse your plans for a price. They look pretty hard to make a price decision based on time and difficulty to build.

...and some walked away...afraid to fail with my turrets...LOL I did it myself, instead of the $36K asked.

...well, except the roof...I chickened out and got a "less than perfect" job..but it is done now!

Best of luck with it. It is fun (once it's over)..LOL

[Kilgore Trout]

"we are trying to make this home as green as possible"

Wasting materials is only one consideration. What materials you use is another. But what might be an even bigger factor is designing your house to not waste resources after it is built. I am certainly not an expert at any of this but I think you want to do things to keep your energy usage low. Things like good insulation and using lots of natural light. Another thing to consider is keeping the house small since a big house uses much more energy to heat and/or cool then a smaller one.

[crisw]

Yep, we are considering all of these. The house is just 1800 SF, not counting the basement, situated facing south with windows on the south, probably will use SIPs (if we go with the timberframing) still looking at energy options like geothermal. We'll be working with several green design suppliers/builders (I am still in the process of getting this all together-again, I'm glad I have two years to do it!)

[Larry]

Considering "geothermal"

Consider where the pollution, from the geothermal energy, it takes, and where it will be produced.

On energy groups many forget that producing electrical energy may not be the most efficient method (green wise) to go. Hopefully more wind, hydro and solar power will be implemented in the future, but then the quardruple system wastes a lot more energy than people expect in producing the system materials. ***SIGH*** and is less cost effective, so far.

Where I am, natural gas is as cost efficient (energy dollar-wise) as geothermal, being the COP is about 300% but the cost of NG is 1/3 of electrical energy. The maintenance, and cost, of a geothermal system is ten times the cost of a simple NG furnace so there is no gain or advantage there either. It is really hard to know which way to go without considering the downstream effects of your choices.

[billgilbert]

The points made here are interesting and valuable. I have tried to maintain rooms that would permit 14' joists as a maximum. Others have said that the difference in 8' and 9' ceilings would not make a considerable difference in cost. I found in researching heating costs that a squarer design provides the most efficiency, but with all of the windows I think the gain is modest.

I have taken advantage of my son's insight who, as a P.E., structural engineer, and home design consultant, has not found any serious design blunders. He will have his drafters convert my plan to the drawing set a builder typically requires and recommend cost savings.

A relatively constant steep hillside of about 18% has presented a lot of challenges and opportunity. I only have one foundation wall below grade. Terrain retaining walls could be an issue and i was told to keep them at/under 4' to avoid site engineering for the county.

I Googled extensively for a "modular" builder in the Seattle area who could take my systematic, easily compartmented plan and divide it so it could be "factory" built, but most turned out to be manufactured homes builders and weren't ready to do custom plans.

I have decided instead to go with a panelized concept, (Armstrong Builders, Auburn WA) but not necessarily SIPs (Premier). I too have a year to go so I am hopeful I can get all of the wrinkles out ahead of time.

Comments appreciated.