Building a new house (be warned, wall of text and questions)

So there is a chance, depending upon both IF my grandfather wasn't a lying sack of E36 M3, and IF my uncle hasn't stolen or hidden all the money already, but there is a chance sometime in the next year, I'll be able to build a new house. I'm not unfamiliar with the whole home building thing. I spent years in commercial construction, and before that, my dad was a supplier and estimator for home builders for the better part of 30 years. But my dad is dead, and things are a lot different than they were in the 90s technology wise. I'm actually considering doing a lot of the work myself, but it would be a hell of a lot quicker and easier and probably better quality to hire builders.

Obviously, I think anyway, the garage will be getting as much if not more attention than the actual house. And that is where interesting options and questions start.

In floor heating: viable option knowing there are plans for a lift, or would that affect the stability of the concrete? Would a stand alone tankless water heater do the job or does that require a tank for a constant supply? And at that, lift or pit or both?

Is a 100 amp sub panel enough for say, a 3 car garage? One lift bay, drill press, 220v welder, tire machine, 3d printer, and lights, possible floor heat? I'd rather overbuild in the beginning than mess around upgrading down the road. I'd like to be able to use my garage as a full on fab shop, but I don't have the education of how to use what kinds of tools to do things, so I'll stick to cutting and welding until I can take some classes or really grill some machinists/fabricators. Toilet, urinal, sink, and shower will be in a room in the garage as well. No need to track E36 M3 through everything after work.

What is the word with radiant wall heat? I've only just recently heard of this, and really don't know much about it. Is it efficient? Are there problems to be aware of?

Inside the house, I think I already have pretty figured out. A dedicated room for electrical services, cable, and main house media/data server, with cat6 to every room as well as full wireless coverage. 2 "master" bedrooms upstairs, one for me, one for my daughter, 2 more bathrooms throughout the house, plus another in the laundry room. The kitchen though, turns into another mess of questions.

I am a chef. It has been a career for a while, I now run a cooking website. I spend a TON of time in the kitchen, and my main complaint most places I've lived is how small the kitchen is. Obviously, building new, that can and will be rectified. BUT a lot of the property I see for sale doesn't have gas access. How stupid/wasteful would it be to have say a 200 gallon propane tank on property JUST for the kitchen? I don't mind, and prefer to work on, electrical HVAC and appliances, but I really prefer cooking on gas. I've looked at retrofitting at my current place, but it's a huge pain just how I'm setup.

I'm really thinking individual tankless hot water for each bathroom plus the kitchen, but I've not actually crunched the numbers on electrical usage.

I had really liked the idea of full on smart house, but more and more, my paranoia has the better of me. Someone will always have a better key than I will have firewall, and I'd prefer camera's, motion sensors, etc. to NOT have any access to the outside world, so my security system may well be its own intranet.

I mostly just wanted to throw my ideas and questions out there, and get the opinions of people that I don't regularly drink with. Like I said, it's probably 50/50 if I'll even have the opportunity to build said house, but it gives me something to think about and learn about in my down time. It seems the world of homes and home technology is lightyears beyond what it was the last time I was in the building game, and I'm sure there are things I'm missing or not even aware of their existence, and that is why I open this to the hive.

Have you built recently? What would you do different? How budget friendly are some of these conveniences as far as maintenance and upkeep after initial purchase? What would you put in your dream house or dream garage?

Sorry for the wall of text, but these things have been on my mind for a while, and while I need to write up 5 pieces for the website, this is a very helpful procrastination.

I'll take a stab at a couple:

My cousin in Alberta built a quonset hut type shop with in-floor radiant heat. He used two large tank water heaters, the pump and a burp valve. He said it kept the shop warm in the winter, and it gets 40 below there.

With plenty of steel in the slab, I don't think the in-floor piping will affect strength at all.

100 amp panel should be fine.

200 gallon gas tank for the kitchen is probably way too big, but if you own it yourself versus "free to use if you buy gas," etc., I don't see a problem with it.

Dr. Hess wrote: 200 gallon gas tank for the kitchen is probably way too big, but if you own it yourself versus "free to use if you buy gas," etc., I don't see a problem with it.

My thought with that is twofold. When I lived in CA, one of our houses was reaaally out of the way and we got hit with substantial delivery charges. Our tank for the house was 200 gallon and needed filled twice a year. If I am using it for island range, wok burner, and a flat top, I'd have the option of a tap and run for an outdoor fryer and a propane grill as well as maybe outdoor heaters. That should leave me with a once a year fill up, particularly because I'm not keeping a hot water tank heated full time, I think it's really going to depend on whats available. I've been seeing 100lb tanks full for 175 on local CL lately while looking for an empty one to convert to a rotisserie cooker.

I've heard lots of good about the floor heat, considering doing the whole house that way and not using a central heater or pellet stove like I have now. I love the pellet stove, but they aren't great for every floor plan and storing pellets takes lots of space.

Wife and I had a house built two summers ago. Budget and lifestyle dictated building a relatively small house at 1200 sq ft with no garage, but we went through a lot of the same questions. It's fun to dream big, but it's more useful to dream and plan inside whatever your expected budget will be.

Garage - Attached or detached? You probably wouldn't want to turn an attached garage in to a full on fab shop later down the road... Coveralls, shop shoes/boots, and a big utility sink for hand washing seems to be a more reasonable solution to workshop grime vs adding a second 3/4 to full bath but that's just my opinion. There's a lot of planning that can go in to the garage, but in the end it's basically an open box lined with shelves, tables, benches, cabinets, and possible power tools and air equipment. Put your air compressor outside and plumb the thing for air from day 1. Add more lights than you think you'll want. Same with outlets, for 120 and 220. I'm sure others will chime in with more... As far as heating it, does it need to be heated year round 24/7 or just when you're out there working? A standard propane or oil fired forced air heated might make more sense if you only need heat intermittently.

Consider going with three bedrooms. It'll make the house a LOT easier to sell in the future vs a 2 bedroom and you can use it as an office space. Also, 4-5 bathrooms (each bedroom, laundry room, garage, and main living area from the original post) is probably a little overkill. Remember, you're going to have to clean all of those commodes. Master bath, shared bath for bedrooms 2 and 3, and a half bath or around the living area for guests. Possibly the same half bath can service the garage too.

Why run cat6 cable everywhere vs just going wireless? Seems as pointless as having telephone jacks for a land line phone in every room... Technology is moving too fast and mostly going wireless correct? It seems to be that building a house "smart" for 2016 technology doesn't seem all that... smart? Maybe just have hard lines for the security system so it can stay off the internet completely. That being said, buy the wall sockets with built in USB charging ports in addition to standard electrical outlets, and have as many as you can stand to see in a room. You can never have enough outlets.

Are you planning on a single story or multiple stories? It's harder to do with a large single story house, but try to keep all of your plumbing in the same area of the house. Much more efficient and cost effective that way to build.

Never heard of radiant wall heat, but we have radiant floor and love it. Ours is fed by a Rinnai on demand propane water heater that also supplies our domestic hot water. Could have also supplied our kitchen range too if we hadn't gone electric (our builder strongly suggested against a gas stove due to how airtight our house was designed to be). For heat and hot water, in Alaska in a very efficient house, 200gal of propane lasts us about 6 months. Personally with as little as we use I'd rather lease from Amerigas or whomever and let them handle the maintenance and delivery.

Speaking of, if the kitchen is the most important thing to you why wouldn't you have propane for it, even if that's the only appliance in the house that needed it in the end?

The biggest thing about building and designing a house is knowing what you can and wont' compromise on. For example, we could have built our house out of 2x6 and insulated with conventional batting and I probably could have added at least a 1 car garage/workshop. Instead, I gave up on that for right now to build a house with 10" thick walls filled with spray foam insulation, triple pane windows throughout, and a HRV fan for fresh air over a standard vent fan so that our energy bills ended up being 1/4 of what they were in our last rental that was a conventional stick built house. Our kitchen is large for the size house we built because we both like to cook, and our main floor is completely open because neither one of us wanted to be stuck hidden away in a galley kitchen while everyone else hung out in a different room.

So start your list. Must haves, Really Wants, would be nice's, definitely don't wants. See what fits a realistic budget and what doesn't. And get some graph paper, start sketching.

We're located out in the country, so no natural gas hookup. Propane company provides (for $100/yr) a 500 gallon tank that runs primary heat, stove/range, BBQ and overhead radiant heat in the garage. Used to use propane for hot water, but went to air sourced heat pump/electrical for reliability reasons (stupid positive ventilation water heaters).

Folks spending money in our area (Iowa, can get really cold in the winter) spend it on ground source geothermal systems.

On the garage, I like the overhead radiant-- like this. I've got it angled out along the back wall.

Heats up to comfortable levels really quick if you don't want to leave it on all the time. Once it's running, if you're in direct sight of the radiator, you're warm.

One point to think about with primary radiant heat in the house though-- I remember spending a winter in Montreal in an apartment with radiant floor heat. You'd freeze while in bed or sitting on the couch because the heat from the floor was blocked.

Actually, I'm much in favour of cat6 - in fact I've started wiring up our house despite us also having a Wifi network. The main advantages are that you end up with higher and consistent data rates for those machines that you can wire in. Plus in our case, we switched from the crappy cable company DVRs to a Tivo plus Tivo Minis as a whole-house solution and the Tivos really want to be wired in for reliable streaming between devices. I also back up all the computers in the house to a central server and the increased speed and stability are very noticeable.

Not to mention that most consumer grade Wifi access points are cheap junk and things are only going to get worse if every light bulb really ends up with wifi access. I'll buy a professional grade one next as they're supposed to be much better quality, but also much more expensive.

Re IoT/smart home, I'm also not super stoked about that. There's been a ton of security issues with those devices (like smart door locks that would unlock to everybody who had one, "security" cameras that punch holes in firewalls using UPNP and have no passwords, etc etc). We do have a Nest thermostat that seems to be working OK, but the fact that it's accessible over the Internet requires some basic thoughts about security. My sprinkler system is also running Linux, but at least for that one I can get security updates and all that jazz and have full control over the OS (it's a Raspberry Pi with an OpenSprinkler board).

BoxheadTim wrote: Actually, I'm much in favour of cat6 - in fact I've started wiring up our house despite us also having a Wifi network. The main advantages are that you end up with higher and consistent data rates for those machines that you can wire in. Plus in our case, we switched from the crappy cable company DVRs to a Tivo plus Tivo Minis as a whole-house solution and the Tivos really want to be wired in for reliable streaming between devices. I also back up all the computers in the house to a central server and the increased speed and stability are very noticeable. Not to mention that most consumer grade Wifi access points are cheap junk and things are only going to get worse if every light bulb really ends up with wifi access. I'll buy a professional grade one next as they're supposed to be much better quality, but also *much* more expensive.

I was actually about to say that about the wireless. Sure it's great for phones, tablets, laptops, but for smart tvs, online gaming, UHD video streaming, without spending thousands, wireless is lacking. If I'm "lucky" I would be in a comcrap service zone, so trying to stretch that speed(joke) as far as possible, hard lines for computers and game systems just make sense.

I've been drawing with CAD, 3d home design, and even the sims 3 for a while, I've always had a picture of my dream home, and while it won't even be in the state I want because of my daughters mom and her family, I can at least make the house and garage how I want it.

Geothermal heat hasn't taken off, to my knowledge, in our area, especially since they started fracking here and giving everyone and their brother free gas and building that up. That's all I want to say about that.

It basically translates to a bigger, modern version of the house I have now, with a basement and a bigger garage. Layout plans are basement with utility and server room then left unfinished for storage and indoor projects, first floor mainly open, full bath, kitchen, then second floor of 3 to 4 bedrooms, I'd like to do 2 with a bathroom, then maybe a shared bathroom between the other two rooms. Overkill yes, but as my daughter grows I'm sure she'll appreciate a private bath, and a shared one between guest bedrooms/offices wouldn't be too bad. And then the garage.

Planning to home school her, so I think having a 3rd bedroom and a classroom/office upstairs would be helpful, without breaking up the downstairs floor plan.

You guys mentioned putting the air compressor outside instead of in the garage. I assume this is for noise or vibration? I'm guessing I'd want to put a shed around that as well. Attached would be nice, I actually do like the setup at the house I grew up in. Between the house and the garage is the laundry room/utility room. Has our well pump, laundry stuff, electrical entrance, and toilet and shower. I like that layout because it splits the roof line up, keeps a lot of the noise down, and lets me clean up before getting back in the house.

Should everything go belly up, and I can't build, I'm still slowly rebuilding my current house. The problem is, it needs a full rebuild and it's just not worth it. The land it sits on is worth more than the house, so I'm just keeping it going until it collapses basically.

Ah see I'm not a gamer nor do I stream much (I live in way out never gonna get cable or dsl land), so wifi is the only solution. We only have one tv, in the living room, anyway.

The laundry/utility room between the house and garage is a great idea, and a great place to put your garage bathroom.

Oh and back to heating, the one thing I miss from my old rental is the pellet stove. My new house is warmer and does it for a lot less money with the efficient build and radiant floor, but it's not as cozy as the old place was with the pellet stove going.

Radiant wall heat... I am assuming you are referring to something called a "trombe wall". This type of wall can be effective, but needs certain conditions. It needs strong Southern exposure, without wind. That typically means it will have a glass wall separating it from the elements (2 walls, not cheap). It also needs to have mass. That means thickness, and weight. It needs to be constructed of masonry, or sometimes water barrels, etc. The concept is thousands of years old, but usually impractical due to cost.

Separate gas for the kitchen is fine (I have it in my house too, because we prefer to cook on gas). Be aware you will have 2 issues- the propane company will be hesitant to install an oversized tank without significant usage (you can probably get past this with a little persuasion- tell them you are a chef). But you should also know that LP gas does not burn as hot as natural gas. It has different cooking qualities, which you will notice as a chef. It might be something you learn to adjust for, or something that totally annoys you or ruins your souffle.