ohsix' House

[ohsix]

I thought I'd make a thread to post pics and updates of the building of my house. Mostly because I enjoy following threads of this nature. Also, to get input and ideas along the way.

When my wife and I married, we wanted a house in a certain older neighborhood. We looked around, but everything was too expensive and/or needed a lot of work. Back then, I didn't have any extra time to allocate to remodeling a house. We ended up buying a new house in a new development.

For the past couple of years, we had some discretionary income, and I have a little more free time, so we started looking for a house in the old neighborhood again. Last September (after looking at a couple dozen houses) we found a lot that we really liked. The only problem was we had to buy the house to get the lot.

We bought the house and immediately started working with an architect with the plan to renovate and add on to the existing house. By the time we were done drawing, we weren't keeping much of the original house, but the architect still thought renovating would be cheaper than starting over. 3 out of 3 contractors agreed that the architect was wrong.

Luckily, we hadn't sacrificed much of what we wanted when planning to renovate the existing house. Therefore, re-drawing the house didn't take long.

After planning to start construction in January, we're finally starting in late-April.

The almost clean slate:



I'll take another picture today or tomorrow. They've done some dirt work and tree removal which I'll explain more in my next post.

[Swass]

Cool! Looking forward to progress pics.

[jt09]

ah yes, the old "we had to destroy the house in order to save it" angle. lessons from vietnam being put to use in midland 40 years later.

[jason_ssr]

After I built my first house I learned alot of the things I missed or didnt plan for. Some may not apply, but here is some off the top of my head.

Gas outlet for your grill. I was a charcoal guy so I didnt think about it. Changed over to gas, and now Im whipped to death by tanks.

CAT6 everywhere. the more drops the better.

YOU define the wiring termination location. Preferably in a closet where you office\media server\equipment will be located. Not the master closet like my inlaws. Have it patched on a panel.

external water outlet on any 2nd story balcony\porch.

If you do underground rainwater recovery tanks, get the biggest you can afford. 500gal seems like alot, but its not.

If you do Christmas lights, add an outlet in the eve on an interior switch.

Have all the rooms blocked for fans even if you dont initially plan on having one there.

Have attic planked and cut for a future room. (will keep them from putting weird braces across the middle of the space)

couplings on all water lines in and out of the tank\water softener\recirculator area. So you wont need a plumber every time something breaks.

[vette74]

Put a hot water hose bib near the driveway to wash your car, dog or boat.
Don't let your architect design your foundation.
Place a charging station in your front entry closet or somewhere close so you can charge your flashlights, rc-cars ect.
Think on where you want to put your outlets in relation to where your bed and night stands are.
Don't let your architect design your foundation.

[jgriffith]

[jryoung]

The timing on this couldn't be better since I am going to rebuild myself. Love the tips coming in.

- put a faucet above the stove for filling pots
- 6" elevated floor in the corner of the entertainment room with brass pole.

[jryoung]

[goofyboy]

Because you just might want to hardwire.

We are also in the process of building. We have framing up and I just went over the electrical / wiring with my GC yesterday. I'll post some pictures when it is done.

I added the plugs on the outside of the house. Also added a faucet near the garage for car washing. All rooms are blocked for fans. We have Cat5 everywhere.

Also, I'm getting my media room. Woohoo!

[wakeboarderdave1]

Wireless is way less reliable(signal isn't as strong) and is slower than wired.

[Nor*Cal]

jason_ssr and vette74 both have great ideas.

I'd add:

Electrical every 4-6' or so in the garage,
220v in the garage for compressors, larger welders, ect...
Spare capacity for another 220v line to a hot tub and/or pool.
Gas and Electrical in the laundry room so you can have a choice on appliances

[jgriffith]

[vette74]

jryoung, A structural engineer

[chavez]

CAT6 drops all over for sure. Wireless is great, but until it can hit 1gbps+ using pretty much any device I'd go hardline. I love having hardline in the living room right now. Makes my setup much easier to deal with, especially when streaming from a media server located in another room.

Ever going to own an RV? If yes, consider 30 amp service somewhere accessible out front.
Ever going to own an RV? If yes, consider a sewer access point near the end of the driveway.

Definitely do power in the garage everywhere possible. I've got to drop power to where my new workbench setup is which I am not really looking forward to.

Audio everywhere is a great idea. Just really think about where you might put speakers before committing to any holes for speakers or low voltage boxes.

Have you thought about a media closet? Think a central location where all of your AV equipment can live, and get distributed throughout. If I was to do it, I'd wire this with CAT6, HDMI, and speaker leads. I'd also to an audio distribution system - not just use "dumb" controls in my zones.

Other than that, love the ideas above. Hot water in an easy spot to wash cars would be nice. So would a faucet above the stove and the stripper pole.

[ohsix]

Thanks for the ideas. Already have an RV and store it at my shop, which is where the welder and air compressor are as well. I think I'll add a sewer access point to dump the RV as it is mostly used for boondocking. Good idea on the hot water hose bib. Already have a media room with A/V closet in the design. Slab is engineered, by an engineer. Outdoor kitchen with gas and water is in the design. I'll have the house wired with CAT 6. That may already be on the electrical plans. Good idea on Christmas light outlets.

Keep 'em coming.

[RampageWake]

FIL remodeled their lake house recently and had all outlets upgraded to 110v + USB, thought that was cool:

http://www.gadgetmac.com/news/2011/6/23/u-socket-usb-wallplug-adds-x2-usb-outlets-for-gadget-chargin.html

[jt09]

[pyrocasto]

Sweet, look forward to watching this progress!

[RampageWake]

JT - no problems so far, the mfg of his outlets may be partner approved, I dunno...

[Nor*Cal]

Oh, and I've replaced all my toilets with ADA compliant ones. I'm 6'3" and appreciate the 2-4" of extra height.

[jason_ssr]

Great ideas on the multiple types of cables into the wiring closet. The materials cost is relatively cheap, and they generally charge you per "pull". They dont care how big the bundle is. Its also one of the more costly and difficult things to do after the fact.

[eeven73]

At $20+ an outlet that could get out of hand

[chavez]

eeven73, I've seen them at $13/per, but still.

I'm probably going to throw a few of those in some "high value" locations.

[goofyboy]

[eeven73]

I totally agree with some key spots, however having a contractor do an entire house would get ridiculous.

Especially when it is probably a 5 min job to change one out where ever you really need them.

[Corporate]

A lot of good recommendations here already many of which I would second. We do a lot of entertaining so a must have for us was a separate butler pantry of the kitchen with some counterspace, a second sink, and another dishwasher. Our contractor does higher end stuff and installs a Servo-drive kitchen cabinet for the kitchen garbage. I thought it was over the top at the time but it is really handy being able to tap the cabinet with your foot and the garbage pop out when you have wet or food covered hands.

-hardwired and mounted space heaters in the garages
-wine storage that is temp controlled

I'll stop now before I get too carried away.

[Okie Boarder]

Looks like a good start...looking forward to the progress pictures. Lots of good ideas, so far. Some things I'd add...hose spigots everywhere you can think you might want them, if you're doing a sprinkler system, think about where you want system components for easy access and repair, think about electrical in the garage on the ceiling, too (various additional lighting, cord reels, etc.), have too many electrical outlets throughout the house instead of not enough, think about kitchen cabinet design and how you use the space and want it to look - things like appliance garages and bread boxes are nice to keep in uncluttered. That's all I can think of at the moment.

[nmballa]

[chavez]

One use for cat6 that most people don't even know about is video distribution. HDMI can be converted and transmitted over cat5e/6 and is a pretty efficient way of doing longer runs around a house.

Conversion plates are cheap too, under 20/pair from Monoprice.

[Nor*Cal]

[wakeboarderdave1]

[chavez]

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10425&cs_id=1042501&p_id=8009&seq=1&format=2

[jason_ssr]

Wireless is fine for internet surfing and streaming internet-quality video, but sux for any real data moving compared to gigabit wired connection. Wireless connections are very inconsistent, but it is unnoticable when browsing, or even saving data to another source. I mean, whats a few hundred ms to you? However, in high end streams, its the difference between epic quality and pixelated crap.

In the future when you need to pipe 1080P+ video to a media device your wireless will be lacking.... trust me. Im having to run one of my GTV devices wirelessly, and anytime I try to stream a large 1080P file from my media server it chokes. The wall its on is basically impossible to rewire without taking the entire wall\staircase down (its on the outside wall of a bi-level staircase).

The future of home entertainment is streaming content. You see bandwidth numbers increasing every few months it seems. As speed increases, content image quality is going to be increased. it will eventually exceed the wireless capabilities. So, wire it now when its cheap and easy to do so.

Like Chavez mentioned, CAT5e\CAT6 are universal twisted pairs. They can be patched to do anything from HDMI video to gigabit to telecom\fax service to home automation. You want as much of this stuff ran as many places as reasonably feasable.

Your contractor will want to leave it all loose in a box panel for you to figure out later with masking tape labels that fall off 20min after he leaves. You have him comb it and patch it on a patch-panel with labels. From there on out, there is nothing you cannot do from a connectivity standpoint. You decide one day you want a fax machine on your workbench in the garage --- you go to your data closet, you take a whip and patch it from the phone line to the port on the patch panel labelled garage\workbench. TADA! You have a nephew over who wants to play a FPS on his laptop on a hardwire in the spare bedroom --- you go to the data closet, you run a whip from your router to the port on the patch panel labelled Spare BR2. TADA! No toning out lines (like I have to do at my inlaws every time they want to change something) or adding RJ45s to bare wire. Just click and your done.

[DCdave56]

Washer/Dryer hook-ups in the master bedroom closet... Always wanted that.

[Nor*Cal]

What jason_ssr said...