AirMech - I read what you said about the storm shelter and losing square footage. If you put the above ground storm shelter in your walk in closet or your pantry then you wont lose any square footage. Just a suggestion. We are going to do a below ground in our garage but if building new I would make our master closet an above ground safe room.
My wife and I had our house built in 2007. It had a lot of ups and downs. We checked the Home Builders Association when looking for a contractor. All said and done I think I could have contracted the work out myself and saved us some money. You do need to watch what they are doing at all times because in our case we never saw the builder/contractor, just the sub contractors. We lived in a fifth wheel on site while it was being built and I'm glad we did. There were several mistakes made along the way which we caught by doing daily inspections of the work. Things like square corners vs bull nose corners, the sheet rock guys were not too happy when we told them to redo all the corners in the house because they were wrong. The contractor forgot to tell them... The plumber put in cheap fixtures instead of the brushed nickel we had in the contract. Needless to say he had to replace them all. BE SURE TO HAVE A CONTRACT and be very specific about all the little details. Anything left up for question will be done as cheaply as possible. The stress level between the wife and I was due to the fact that we thought we would be in the fifth wheel for 4 to 6 months, well , 11 months later we were able to move in. I didn't mind that as much as she did, it was like a long camping trip to me. We are very happy with the house now, its set up the way we wanted. Don't know that I would do it again though...
I'd suggest a couple of things..
1. A good foundation & safe room. The safe room can also double as a gun & valuables safe for you.
2. Make sure you get really good insulation inside your outer walls... especially on the west side of the house. During these 100+ degree days, we can really feel the heat on the west side of our house in the evenings. The outside brick really absorbs and radiates the heat long after dark.
3. If the house will be in a rural area where fire protection might take a while to arrive... or is in a brush / grass fire prone area.. think about going with a metal roof. Metal will help prevent sparks & embers from a wild fire setting your house on fire. I think insurance companies will give you a discount for a metal roof.
4. Even if you plan on having an all electric kitchen....consider having a gas line put in for a stove top insert and capping it off... in case you later want to go gas. It is a heck of a lot easier & cheaper to run the line before installing the cabinets than trying to retro fit later. I went 9 days without being able to use my all electric kitchen appliances in the ice storm of '09. I'm about to replace my old appliances.. and while the oven will stay electric due to its location and size restraints. I'm having a gas line run to replace the electric stove top with a gas insert. Although I now have a Generac 20 KW auto start electric generator for power outages, I'm not gonna risk having to cooking off of a little Coleman propane stove for almost 2 weeks again. Already changed out the electric hot water heater to gas.
5. Laundry room-- make sure your water drain pipe going from the washer to the main sewer line is at least 3" in diameter... and if possible, have it run so it only connects to your main line.. not running through any of the house's other drain lines to get to the main line. When we first got our HE washer. We had water backing up and flooding our wash room. We had never had the problem before. We called the plumbers out several times to have the pipes rodded out and still had a back-up problem. Turned out these new HE washers pump out the water at the end of the wash so fast that the original drain pipe wasn't large enough to handle the capacity. We ended up installing a new 3" independant line going directly to the main line and it solve the problem.
6. Showers & bathtubs-- I recommend that you have access pannels installed on the back side of the wall that the faucets are on [if possible] so you can get to the faucets to work on the plumbing. We had some fixtures go bad and they were so old they couldn't be repaired, they had to be replaced.. it was either cut out the tile / marble inside the bathroom to remove them or else cut a hole in the sheet rock on the back side and then repair & re-paint the whole wall. Those removable panels look nice and give easy access to the fixture if you ever need to get inside the wall to work on it.
Electric-- Make sure your fuse box is large enough to add a few new breakers in the future if needed. And that it uses a good brand of breakers, like Square D... that can easily be bought just about any where.
Also take into consideration the lighting fixtures for your ceilings and above the bathroom vanities... the types of bulbs they will be using. Under the Obama administration, the EPA is requiring some strange new light bulb requirements to go into effect in the next few years. If he is re-elected, some of the older light bulbs won't be able to be manufactured after a certain date and might be hard to get in a few years. You don't want to have to be changing out fixtures in a almost new home just because you can't get bulbs to fit the fixtures. Hopefully your electrical contractor will know what may possibly be coming along those lines.. and help you plan ahead.
1. A good foundation & safe room. The safe room can also double as a gun & valuables safe for you.
2. Make sure you get really good insulation inside your outer walls... especially on the west side of the house. During these 100+ degree days, we can really feel the heat on the west side of our house in the evenings. The outside brick really absorbs and radiates the heat long after dark.
3. If the house will be in a rural area where fire protection might take a while to arrive... or is in a brush / grass fire prone area.. think about going with a metal roof. Metal will help prevent sparks & embers from a wild fire setting your house on fire. I think insurance companies will give you a discount for a metal roof.
4. Even if you plan on having an all electric kitchen....consider having a gas line put in for a stove top insert and capping it off... in case you later want to go gas. It is a heck of a lot easier & cheaper to run the line before installing the cabinets than trying to retro fit later. I went 9 days without being able to use my all electric kitchen appliances in the ice storm of '09. I'm about to replace my old appliances.. and while the oven will stay electric due to its location and size restraints. I'm having a gas line run to replace the electric stove top with a gas insert. Although I now have a Generac 20 KW auto start electric generator for power outages, I'm not gonna risk having to cooking off of a little Coleman propane stove for almost 2 weeks again. Already changed out the electric hot water heater to gas.
5. Laundry room-- make sure your water drain pipe going from the washer to the main sewer line is at least 3" in diameter... and if possible, have it run so it only connects to your main line.. not running through any of the house's other drain lines to get to the main line. When we first got our HE washer. We had water backing up and flooding our wash room. We had never had the problem before. We called the plumbers out several times to have the pipes rodded out and still had a back-up problem. Turned out these new HE washers pump out the water at the end of the wash so fast that the original drain pipe wasn't large enough to handle the capacity. We ended up installing a new 3" independant line going directly to the main line and it solve the problem.
6. Showers & bathtubs-- I recommend that you have access pannels installed on the back side of the wall that the faucets are on [if possible] so you can get to the faucets to work on the plumbing. We had some fixtures go bad and they were so old they couldn't be repaired, they had to be replaced.. it was either cut out the tile / marble inside the bathroom to remove them or else cut a hole in the sheet rock on the back side and then repair & re-paint the whole wall. Those removable panels look nice and give easy access to the fixture if you ever need to get inside the wall to work on it.
Electric-- Make sure your fuse box is large enough to add a few new breakers in the future if needed. And that it uses a good brand of breakers, like Square D... that can easily be bought just about any where.
Also take into consideration the lighting fixtures for your ceilings and above the bathroom vanities... the types of bulbs they will be using. Under the Obama administration, the EPA is requiring some strange new light bulb requirements to go into effect in the next few years. If he is re-elected, some of the older light bulbs won't be able to be manufactured after a certain date and might be hard to get in a few years. You don't want to have to be changing out fixtures in a almost new home just because you can't get bulbs to fit the fixtures. Hopefully your electrical contractor will know what may possibly be coming along those lines.. and help you plan ahead.
Be sure to include a Storm Shelter as a part of the house. As the house is being built drop in every day. Don't make it the same time, surprise them if you can. That way you catch a lot of problems before that can be fixed or changed. we did that when we built our house 23 years ago and my wife stills say she got everything she wanted except for a storm shelter. But then we were young a storms didn't happen like they do no. we've had an aweful lot of F4's and F5's the last 15 years.
When we built a house in Ohio (11 years ago), we wrote the checks to both the GC and the sub. Seem to recall it made it harder if not impossible for GC to deposit it in his account.
I did an IcF house myself and never regret anything about that decision! If you ever want any info let me know.
I dont know if they are enforcing the Ch 11 Energy Effeciency Code ,in the IBC up there yet.
If theyre not , make them us that as a spec....and if they have never heard of it...do like was suggested above .
Good Luck
Personally, I've never "built" a home, but our first home was built by Heartland Homes back in the '90's. Between my wife and myself, we visited the building site every day in the week except for Wednesdays. The builder and the contractors KNEW that we would be showing up. One of us would go in the morning and the other in the afternoon. As a result, we felt that we had a well built home and we worked with them to add a few "amenities."
So, make sure that if you build, that you make a nuisance of yourselves with all the visits to the site.
Secondly, I would also suggest 2" X 6" walls with insulation to match. In our last home, we saw good results in utilities in spite of having a lot of windows. You'll also want good quality blinds to help keep out the summer heat. As for appliances, in our last home where we had to buy the washer, dryer and refrigerator, we went to Builder's Supply over on West Reno. They are a good source for appliances.
Third, any ceiling fans you buy, make sure they are Hunter fans. In three homes since the '90's we've mostly had Hunter fans. That was because our first choice of fans in the Heartland home were Harbor Breeze because they were cheap. "Cheap" is the operative word for them because there was one that I was never able to balance and two of the three that we bought lost one of the three speeds within two years. After we went with the Hunters, we've had 15 of them in 3 homes and I've never had to balance a single one of them. They are also quiet and we've never had any problems with them. Shoot, we even put one in the RV where we now live.
Fourth, it has been mentioned that building a home will be stressful on the relationship. I will agree with that based on relationships that I've seen destroyed by those building homes. So, go into the process with a full agreement between the two of you about what will be done and what will not.
Good luck.
So, make sure that if you build, that you make a nuisance of yourselves with all the visits to the site.
Secondly, I would also suggest 2" X 6" walls with insulation to match. In our last home, we saw good results in utilities in spite of having a lot of windows. You'll also want good quality blinds to help keep out the summer heat. As for appliances, in our last home where we had to buy the washer, dryer and refrigerator, we went to Builder's Supply over on West Reno. They are a good source for appliances.
Third, any ceiling fans you buy, make sure they are Hunter fans. In three homes since the '90's we've mostly had Hunter fans. That was because our first choice of fans in the Heartland home were Harbor Breeze because they were cheap. "Cheap" is the operative word for them because there was one that I was never able to balance and two of the three that we bought lost one of the three speeds within two years. After we went with the Hunters, we've had 15 of them in 3 homes and I've never had to balance a single one of them. They are also quiet and we've never had any problems with them. Shoot, we even put one in the RV where we now live.
Fourth, it has been mentioned that building a home will be stressful on the relationship. I will agree with that based on relationships that I've seen destroyed by those building homes. So, go into the process with a full agreement between the two of you about what will be done and what will not.
Good luck.
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