Building a house, how small is too small?

sengsational said:
About the composite decking...you didn't use the hidden fasteners? The edges need face fasteners, but if you buy the grooved boards, the hidden fasteners manage the field. I wonder if that would be any faster.
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They do look better, but they're a PITA if you ever need to remove a board. You have to take off the end piece and remove everything until you get to the one you need to replace. And when we had ours installed, they took significantly longer than using screws. But it does look good.

The technology has probably improved in the last 15 years, so the above statements may no longer be accurate.
 
We used the special trim screws and the matching plugs for the deck. I have heard bad things about the hidden fastener stuff but I dunno. The plugs almost disappear and we installed them using a laser and straight edge lol so they look pretty sharp imo.

The siding is just LP smartside. We did use the highest tier Behr paint but probably will need repainting in 15 years. Not me!

We are doing all work ourselves, even the roof. The whole point is to build a house totally ourselves, otherwise what is the point?
 
Fermion said:
We used the special trim screws and the matching plugs for the deck. I have heard bad things about the hidden fastener stuff but I dunno. The plugs almost disappear and we installed them using a laser and straight edge lol so they look pretty sharp imo.

The siding is just LP smartside. We did use the highest tier Behr paint but probably will need repainting in 15 years. Not me!

We are doing all work ourselves, even the roof. The whole point is to build a house totally ourselves, otherwise what is the point?
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I hope you use safety harnesses and don't free climb it. I did that once and both of us guys fell at separate times, neither hit the ground but a hospital trip was required for the other guy :facepalm:.
 
Sunset said:
I hope you use safety harnesses and don't free climb it. I did that once and both of us guys fell at separate times, neither hit the ground but a hospital trip was required for the other guy :facepalm:.
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We have two safety harnesses that arrest a fall and I also use a climbing harness from our sailboat mast ascending with a prusik knot.
 
Fermion said:
We are doing all work ourselves, even the roof. The whole point is to build a house totally ourselves, otherwise what is the point?
Click to expand...

I bought land in 1997 planning to build a house almost entirely by myself...I probably would have subbed out the foundation, maybe the rough-in plumbing, and definitely the drywall mudding but would have done the rest myself. Then I ended up buying a fixer and selling the land. I'm still a little disappointed that I never built.
 
Most homes of today are either being built under guidance of a HOA or local building codes. For example, codes don't allow 7' ceilings. And in many places, they want a minimum number of bedrooms to protect the home prices of neighbors. Homes built under FHA rules require 3 bedrooms and a carport--even if they're small.

There's a trend we see where tiny homes are being built. That's great for singles and sometimes a couple. However neighborhoods where such houses can be built are rare. Sometimes such small places will have very low income people with social or drug problems living there too.

I prefer to designing a home from the inside out taking advantage of my past homes' room sizes. For example, I like a 20' x 20' kitchen. And I prefer my bedrooms to be a minimum of 12' x 14'. My wife has to have 2 closets with a minimum 225 square feet. I once had a man cave that was 13' x 22' and it was a good size for a living room. And you can make any home feel much larger with cathedral ceilings and tray ceilings--which work best in a single story home. And a double car garage is mandatory at a minimum.

But I'll never have another man cave like in my last house--28' x 48' with 10' ceilings, a and a big rock fireplace. It was truly overkill.
 
Yeah our last house had a man cave 7 car garage with a auto pit. I think this whole house would have fit in that garage.
 
Using bama's model, our house rooms are a wee bit small so I take the dimensions and make adjustments. I get to somewhere in the 1800~2000' range. I think i can trim it a bit if I optimize it.
 
So many details

I consider you lucky to have a 2nd engineer in the process. The design details can be tedious, and must be aligned not only with the way you want it, but with building code. And then the decisions about implementation techniques. Even in my small projects, I fret over "will it work", "is it cost effective", "will it be 'right' ", etc, and without another set of trained eyes, and ideas, it's kind of nerve wracking. I can get my sister on the phone (she designs and buys for my BIL, who's a self employed building contractor, so that helps some). But nothing like having more than one qualified person working through the details.
 
Looking Good.... Can't wait to get that far along with ours...
 
Laser on the Deck

Curious...did you use one of those spinny laser things to find and plane-off high spots on the joists or something? Or what was the laser part of laying down composite deck boards? I'm going to be doing some in a few weeks.
 
sengsational said:
Curious...did you use one of those spinny laser things to find and plane-off high spots on the joists or something? Or what was the laser part of laying down composite deck boards? I'm going to be doing some in a few weeks.
Click to expand...

So we used one of the spinny laser things first to make sure the ledger board was level against the house, then we shot it over to the posts to get them cut correctly level for the beam that would sit on them (obviously the joists go from the ledger board (where they hang on Simpson hangers) to the beam where they rest on it with Simpson hurricane ties H1Z).

Note that we sloped the front deck away from the house 1" over the 6 feet width (but level over the 16 foot length). This is considered best practice for draining water away from the house...1/8" to 1/4" for every foot. So we just spun the laser over to the posts and marked down 1" from there.

I have a Spectra crossline + 6 dot laser which is $$$ but much to my annoyance we end up using the $ spinny laser my wife got on Amazon more.
 
Fermion said:
Note that we sloped the front deck away from the house 1" over the 6 feet width (but level over the 16 foot length). This is considered best practice for draining water away from the house...1/8" to 1/4" for every foot. So we just spun the laser over to the posts and marked down 1" from there.
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I've always figured that water will drain between the deck boards so I never sloped any decks that I built.
 
Music Lover said:
I've always figured that water will drain between the deck boards so I never sloped any decks that I built.
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Probably true. I was worried I might noticed a 1" drop though and I don't notice it at all so I guess it doesn't hurt anything to do it.
 
Fermion said:
Probably true. I was worried I might noticed a 1" drop though and I don't notice it at all so I guess it doesn't hurt anything to do it.
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I might have noticed a 1" drop on the deck (or maybe not) but I probably would have been more concerned with other people noticing and thinking that I built my deck crooked :LOL:
 
I think I read in one of those "build your own deck" how-to books, they do recommend the slope, but I also wondered why, given the gaps. I'm using existing structure, so don't need to make that decision.
 
Everything I have read recommends 1/8" to 1/4" per foot but several sites do say you don't need a slope if your deck has gaps and the boards are oriented parallel to the house.

I think we will still do the slope on the back deck like we did on the front, even though we have spaced the boards apart according to the Fiberon specs (3/16" gap). That small of a slope I can't see visually or feel when walking on the deck. Heck, maybe in a snow storm/freeze the gaps can get frozen and then you could get melt water on top of them...I dunno :)
 
The genius that built my deck (part of the house that we bought) decided that it would be cool to put the decking on a 45 degree angle. A real pain to sweep, shovel snow off, etc.
 
pb4uski said:
The genius that built my deck (part of the house that we bought) decided that it would be cool to put the decking on a 45 degree angle. A real pain to sweep, shovel snow off, etc.
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I shovel and sweep my deck in every different direction...the direction the boards run has no effect on how the job turns out.
 
I think that Fermion's decision to slope the deck away from the house is a good one. I think everyone would agree that sloping it towards the house would be a bad idea.
 
Fermion said:
Everything I have read recommends 1/8" to 1/4" per foot but several sites do say you don't need a slope if your deck has gaps and the boards are oriented parallel to the house.

I think we will still do the slope on the back deck like we did on the front, even though we have spaced the boards apart according to the Fiberon specs (3/16" gap). That small of a slope I can't see visually or feel when walking on the deck. Heck, maybe in a snow storm/freeze the gaps can get frozen and then you could get melt water on top of them...I dunno :)
Click to expand...

Are you going to put a water drainage system under the deck joists, so that the area under the deck is rain free ?
 
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