Making a House Low-Maintenance/Easy to Care For

[calmloki]

Re: pre-wiring a house: when we did a full gut and renew on our home we ran multi-pair phone lines, network cable to three locations, and tv coax to something like a dozen locations including the garage. Ten years down the line we use two network prewires and ran new wire to another location. We can plug in phones about anywhere but mostly use multiple cordless phones and a base station. The painstaking tv prewire with amplifier and resistors every so many boxes is unused - satellite tv has it's own co-ax cable of a higher grade than the stuff I used. One good thing I did was to run an empty plastic electric conduit from the house to the garage as well as a couple empty conduits into the breaker panel for future electrical add-ons. Also stubbed gas lines to potential barbecue as well as to dryer, stove, and fireplace locations.

Innovative/interesting/unconventional construction/materials cost time and money. Lack skills? Build what every other builder in your area is building. That way you can get help from them or Home Depot at a reasonable cost. The more custom you get the more cussing you will do. It was amazing to me how much easier building a new garage (even with board and batten barn board siding and old windows and a church door) was compared to rebuilding our home with very little square or of common modern dimensions.

 

[Brat]

One thing I learned when we built 16 years ago is that the data wiring ALWAYS changes, what was state of the art then is inadequate today. Install the data wiring in conduit large enough to replace the wires. Watch the contractor like a hawk, they will often do what is convenient (cheap) for them and say "sorry, too late now".

 

[samclem]

Yes, definitely at least put empty conduit in many places throughout the house, run it up the wall to the attic or down the wall to the basement/crawlspace. Just put a J-Box and a blank plate the wall. It might come in handy later and you'll feel like a genius when it happens.

Likewise, if you have a driveway, lay 2 or 3 empty conduits under it before the pour. You know you'll eventually want to run water, electricity, a data line, or some other thing to the other side.

I'd even argue for a second (empty) sewer line to the street while the excavation is open. Tree roots, backhoes, pipe failures, etc can render one inop, and digging it up can cost a lot. Another 4" PVC pipe laid under the primary and also tied into the main line but dead-headed next to your slab might cost an extra couple hundred bucks but save you many thousands (and a few trees and a week of nonflushable toilets) down the road.

Almost any open ditch is an invitation to add a few options for later at very small cost. And during the fill-in, be sure the contractor buries plenty of caution tape and tracing wires to reduce the chances for expensive and dangerous accidents later.

 

[harley]

A couple of years ago I would have said "absolutely", but it appears wireless is the wave of the future. Not much need for phone or T1 wiring in all rooms today...

I agree on the phone lines, but I would (and did) run coax and Cat6 to most rooms, especially anywhere you might someday have a TV or a computer. Wireless is fine, but for the foreseeable future high def, 3D, etc will need a wider pipe. Whatever the network version of Moore's Law is, I suspect the appetite for bandwidth will continue to outstrip wireless's ability to farm it out. It's not very expensive, it's not very hard, and I think it's worth it.

Of course if you are going to be in the house alone with no shared networking, wireless will probably do you just fine.

 

[NW-Bound]

All this talk about houses really tires me out. Been thinking I might be happy in a small class C motorhome, which I can roll off a cliff when it gets old, and just get another.

 

[REWahoo]

All this talk about houses really tires me out. Been thinking I might be happy in a small class C motorhome, which I can roll off a cliff when it gets old, and just get another.

Roll it off a cliff? Naahh. Just put it up on blocks in the driveway and rent it out. Extra income.

 

[kyounge1956]

What do you think about these ideas?
Sustainable Shipping Container Homes

One of the other lists I read has a plan for using bales to insulate a shipping container. The original building was used for seed storage, not living in. I've always found it a fascinating idea but don't have the metal working skills it would take to make a container into a living unit. You need to be able to cut holes for windows and so on and that's completely outside my knowledge. But I might do it for one of my outbuildings or some thing like that, just to see if it would work in the NW climate. The original bale-wrapped container is in San Diego.

Compact modular green homes built for energy efficiency, indoor air quality and sustainability - GreenPod Intelligent Environments

good looking but mighty pricey.

Dry stack block surface bonded concrete block walls for HTMs

I still haven't decided on what kind of foundation. I want to avoid concrete as much as possible, but if I do end up needing a full perimeter foundation, surface bonded concrete block is about the only way I can think of I'd be able to build it myself. The only thing is, I don't know how a block foundation could be made wide enough for a bale wall, which is at least 18" thick even using the smaller size bales stacked on edge. The same question arises with ICFs, which I've also looked at for making foundations.

Friday Small House–Concrete Storm Drain Pipe House | Coming Unmoored -- Life in a Tiny Floating Home

I think the drain pipe house is an interesting idea. I don't know how I'd like living in a below-grade house. I had a basement apartment once, which wasn't bad. The floor inside was about 4' below grade, so it had windows on three sides, and a drainpipe house could probably do so as well. I find other sorts of houses more appealing, though.

 

[kyounge1956]

Floors and flooring:
Concrete slabs are pretty darn maintenance free IF they don't crack and if you don't have a water pipe break underneath them. You can avoid the first problem by hiring a really good contractor to do your slab, and ensuring he preps the lot correctly, uses high quality concrete, and uses appropriate steel reinforcement.

Sounds like two mighty big "ifs" to me. Concrete has such high embodied energy too. I probably won't be able to avoid it completely but I probably won't do a full slab.

Basements: I like my basement, but if I were building from scratch I don't know if I'd have one. The conventional argument is that (in much of the country) you have to dig down at least 3 feet to get below the frost line, so you might as well dig farther down and get another level for "free." In truth, it's far from free (moving dirt costs a lot of money, and you still have to build walls, just like you would above grade). And what do you get at the end of the process? Some living area that is dark and possibly prone to flooding/condensation of the walls, etc. There are "new" methods to build directly on a slab with a thickened edge and have no problems with frost heave even in very cold areas. It's done by insulating the ground outward from the home using buried "wings" of rigid insulation. The natural heat from the ground warms the ground under the house and keeps it from freezing. The technique has been used in Scandinavia for many, many decades and it works great. It also saves money during construction. If you want the added square feet offered by a basement, it is cheaper to build it above grade. For more info, see the oikos site for a start. Based on what you've said, I think you'll like a lot of the ideas at that site.

Frost-protected shallow foundations are also on the list of possibilities. Actually, the ground rarely freezes very deeply here. About the most I've ever seen was around a foot deep, and winters are even milder when you get closer to the coast.

Flooring: The acid-dyed concrete floors look great to my eye, but they do require re-sealing every few years. You might like cork. It's natural and renewable (though most of the flooring does contain artificial binders/glue), it feels really good underfoot, and it is fairly durable. I know vinyl has a bad reputation, but I like very much the high-quality sheet vinyl floor in my kitchen and bathrooms. No grout to clean, wipes up easily, doesn't break my dishes when I drop them, and it wears well. I think you are smart to avoid wall-to-wall carpet. I like our real hardwood floors. A few throw-rugs (pick them small enough to wash at home and you'll do it more often) for the spots where your bare feet demand it.

Cork is one possibility. Real hardwood, bamboo, or (real) linoleum are other possibilities. All of those materials are available in click-together floating-floor format. I think linoleum is also available in self-sticking tiles or full sheets (although I don't know if the latter is available for DIY). Or there's always poured adobe. I doubt that meets the "low maintenance" requirement though.

 

[kyounge1956]

Not true, at least the few minutes part. It takes quite while to scrub the fingerprints out.If you just rub it with a sponge and get the fingerprints out you end up with splotches that look worse than the fingerprints. If you use the stainless polish stuff you have to be careful not to leave too much on or your fingerprints will be worse the next time. We have stainless on our fridge and dishwasher, and it's truly a pain to keep looking new. If you don't care, not a problem. But I would recommend white. Chips are really seldom a problem, and a little enamel paint fixes them right up.

Aso, just fyi, the composite deck material needs to be pressure washed pretty much every year, unless you live in a very dry climate. They get mildew spots fairly easily, but clean up nicely with a light pressure washing. Still lower maintenance that wood, but not no maintenance. (snip)

Duly noted

Lastly, don't make yourself miserable with to small a home, just to decrease housework. You'll end up unhappy when it's easy enough to just clean up as you go to keep things neat.(snip)

It may be easy enough, but that doesn't mean I would do it. The amount of cleaning that I have proven willing to do is not enough to keep a 1000 square foot house presentable. I can either design a house that's small enough to stay presentable with the amount of cleaning that I am actually likely to do, or one that I know from the outset will require a significant change of habits on my part if it is to do so. To me, that sounds uncomfortably like setting myself up for failure, which I've done often enough before that I don't want to do it again. And it's easier to add on to a house that's too small, than to delete space from one that's too big. If the house turns out to be too cramped, I'll add a room or an outbuilding.

 

[Stevewc]

Have at least one very wide doorway so large things can come and go easily.

You may even want to consider all doors being wide. I think 36 inch is what you would need, you check to be sure though.
A friend of mine built what he considered to be his last retirement home (He & DW still live there today) and designed the whole house for the possibility of being in a wheel chair. I thought that was a great idea because it is cheaper and better to do this as you build rather than to try a remodel later when the chips go down and you need it quickly. Rest rooms always seem to have very narrow doors for example, not good.
Just a thought that popped in my mind from many years back as I read this thread.
Steve

 

[kyounge1956]

If you are interested in metal siding/roof you might consider a metal building. I know a couple of people who have started with a metal barn and finished it as a house inside.

Starting with a pre-cut shed or building shell is a definite possibility. I think these are available with wood framing and metal siding. One more thing to investigate.

With regard to handicap accessibility, bear in mind that the space required to really make it ADA compliant (if you choose) is quite a lot. We are building a house and started out wanting to have the master bath and a secondary bath both handicap accessible. It added several thousand dollars of cost to each room mostly because of additional space requirements. The 5 foot turning radius was requiring each bath to be much larger than usual.

We ended up scrapping the idea of accessibility in the secondary bath. We kept it for the master bath although the separate toilet room will be too small to be truly ADA compliant. However, the wall that separates it form the rest of the bathroom can be removed.

Since this house is only going to have one bathroom in it, I will just have to bite the bullet. Either the bathroom has to be adaptable or I have to leave open the possibility of being forced out by a physical disability like a stroke. This could happen to my parents. The bathroom on the ground level of their house is not and could not be made, wheelchair accessible. The staircase to their master suite downstairs is too narrow to have a chair-lift installed, and there isn't really anywhere to put an elevator either. Both my mom and dad have had to use a walker briefly, and that was barely workable with the ground-floor bath. If either of them became permanently wheelchair bound they would have to move out. I don't ever want to find myself in that situation, so the bath will be adaptable from the get-go, including the 5' turning radius. Kitchen too.

For the shower we elected to build one that one not have a raised threshold or door so that someone with a wheelchair could just wheel straight in. To achieve this requires a larger shower than normal since the floor needs to slope to a drain and it can't be too steep.

It did allow us to get rid of the shower door entirely since the shower is now 7 ft long.

These shower-only bathrooms are sounding more and more like the way to go. I can't remember the last time I took a tub bath rather than a shower. It sounds like the shower will be bigger than a tub anyway, so if future owners want a tub, it won't be any problem to make the change. Or I could just do like some of the micro-houses and tile the whole room—the bathroom is the shower.

 

[kyounge1956]

If you truly mean you want to build the house "by yourself," I'd suggest you fully evaluate that position. Even lifting and positioning those straw bales is more than 50% easier with two people. Unskilled labor can be hired cheaply in most places. On the other hand, having someone present who has experience in whatever method of construction you are doing is worth a lot.

Every environment has it's building challenges. In the PNW it is liquid water and water vapor control. Strawbales can work there, but it's not the first location that comes to mind if a long-term durable house free of mold issues is desired.

I do really mean it. It's an ambition I've had practically my whole adult life, and I'm not willing to give up on a long time dream before I've even tried. Maybe I can do it. If it turns out I can't, then and only then I'll look into hiring people. But I've been a supervisor before. I hated it and wasn't any good at it. I find if I want something done a particular way, it's vastly less of a hassle to do it myself than to ride herd on someone else and make sure they do it.

Gaining experience is a good suggestion. I need to investigate taking a bale building workshop before embarking on my own house. Sounds like a good way to use up the last of my vacation balance before I retire.

 

[Stevewc]

Couldn't you just place wide doors to give you a chance to enter the bath room if needed? Maybe not go for the full fledged handicap route. I think you could get by the inspector with just wide doors where needed. I would think that would be your personal business.
Of course you will make the call,
Steve

 

[Khan]

What do you use instead at the joint between flooring and wall finish?

Nothing. Or a very small quarter round.

 

[Khan]

What does everyone think about running coaxial, phone, and T1 into every room of the house? I think that would help with resale value. Also, I know a lot of people that wire for surround sound as well. I don't know if it fits "universal design" but I think its best to keep your house as flexible as possible.

Wireless and Home - HomePlug Powerline Alliance

And always overwire: more capacity/outlets/... than required by code.

Don't know if mentioned: lots of plumbing shutoffs and lots of access panels.

 

[harley]

Wireless and Home - HomePlug Powerline Alliance

I'm a few years out of date, but back when I was finishing my career I worked in a test lab for home computing, video, and networking gear. The Homeplug concept always sounded good but never lived up to hopes. There were always issues with overheating modules, frequency interference, things like that. As I say, I'm out of date now and they may have solved the problems, but I'd do some serious reading before I counted on it. Great concept though, especially for the less technical or those who just like plug and play.

 

[Htown Harry]

I do really mean it. It's an ambition I've had practically my whole adult life, and I'm not willing to give up on a long time dream before I've even tried. Maybe I can do it.

"Chuck" did it all by himself in this video.

I can't speak to the framing hardware he used, but the video is interesting because it shows how he overcame some of the practical challenges of getting a few tons of lumber, steel, siding and roofing materials up from ground level without needing a second pair of hands.

YouTube - ‪Build a Garage, Workshop, Pole Barn, House‬‎

 

[ERD50]

"Chuck" did it all by himself in this video.

Interesting, but it looks like Chuck started in the summer, worked through the winter, and the following spring, summer, fall and didn't get it finished before the next winter.

We don't know how many hours he devoted, but that appeared to be just a shed, no bath, kitchen or HVAC or anything, from what I could see.

Seems like a complete house (even a small one) would be a lot to bite off. I'd really want to work side-by-side with someone who is actually doing this to better understand just what it would take, and how much 'supervising' would be required for things you probably need to hire out (electrical, plumbing, some cement work?). It's probably been mentioned, but dealing with inspectors can get very 'interesting' and stressful with any non-standard construction, regardless how good it appears to be.

-ERD50

 

[calmloki]

Chuck is a tough sumbitch with good pyramid building genes and handy tractors and such. He also has more than a few construction skills. See Chuck lay out corners and build forms and jigs. See Chuck roof.

The connectors are handy, no doubt, but they aren't magic.

 

[samclem]

Chuck is a tough sumbitch with good pyramid building genes and handy tractors and such. He also has more than a few construction skills. See Chuck lay out corners and build forms and jigs. See Chuck roof.

The connectors are handy, no doubt, but they aren't magic.

Yep. There's a reason the countryfolk used to do barnraisings as a community project. 20 guys working on a project for a week can get a lot more done than 1 guy working for the same number of manhours.

 

[NW-Bound]

Roll it off a cliff? Naahh. Just put it up on blocks in the driveway and rent it out. Extra income.

Whose driveway? Can I stay on yours?

I am getting tired of home maintenance. A small motorhome is all one needs. And that's only because of the weather. Else, a hammock between two palm trees is all a guy needs, as I mentioned earlier. Houses are overrated!

 

[REWahoo]

I am getting tired of home maintenance. A small motorhome is all one needs. And that's only because of the weather. Else, a hammock between two palm trees is all a guy needs, as I mentioned earlier. Houses are overrated!

Spoken like a guy who owns two houses and a motorhome.

Hey, at least you have a ready-made answer to "whaddya do all day?".

 

[Htown Harry]

Starting with a pre-cut shed or building shell is a definite possibility. I think these are available with wood framing and metal siding. One more thing to investigate.

Interesting, but it looks like Chuck started in the summer, worked through the winter, and the following spring, summer, fall and didn't get it finished before the next winter.

We don't know how many hours he devoted, but that appeared to be just a shed, no bath, kitchen or HVAC or anything, from what I could see.

Seems like a complete house (even a small one) would be a lot to bite off.

Chuck is a tough sumbitch with good pyramid building genes and handy tractors and such. He also has more than a few construction skills.

The lesson of the Chuck video is that the house-building process CAN be completed truly solo, but it's going to take a lot of time, skill-building and more than a few specialized tools. And very good balance on ladders.

Chuck is a 1-in-10,000 kind of guy.

An attainable objective for most of the rest of us might be to self-complete the cabinetry installation, plumbing and electrical fixture installation, sheetrock finishing, painting, flooring, fencing and landscaping. These are all skills that can be learned through self-study, a Home Depot demo class and relatively inexpensive trial and error. (See the home remodeling show-and-tell posts by Purron, The Fed and others for what is achievable.)

The next level might be things that would be physically difficult to complete solo, like framing, roofing and anything involving lifting and placing 4x8 sheets more than 4 feet above floor level.

3rd step tasks carry a high risk / expense if you mess up. Hanging exterior doors and windows might fall into this category. Pouring and finishing concrete, too.

Next would be those things that have safety implications, numerous code requirements and other factors that the pros should handle - HVAC systems, gas and water lines, much of the electrical work. (This category has opportunities for DIY cost savings, though. You should pay less to get your sewer line installed if you dig the trench. Installing ductwork is relatively low-skill part of an HVAC installation.)

My two cents:

• Whatever foundation and framing type you choose, develop a construction strategy that has a general contractor taking the project to X% completion, with you doing the rest.
• Negotiate with prospective contractors to see what cost-savings are possible if you work alongside some of the tradesman.
• Realistically develop two budgets - money and time.

My guess is that you will feel plenty fulfilled (and half as burned out) if you take a strong role in designing the house and complete only a portion of the actual work.

 

[nphx]

The fabcam.com link was nice for wood frame. i would love to build like blueskyhomes.net ( YouTube - ‪Blue Sky TV Promo‬‎) but at $270 sq/ft there seems to be quite a bit of markup.

 

[ziggy29]

• Realistically develop two budgets - money and time.

And -- especially if contractors are involved -- these two sometimes have some interplay. If one is in need of a "rush job" it's likely to cost more, and if you are flexible enough to allow your contractors to schedule your work when it's convenient for them (such as between other jobs), it will mess with your schedule but you may get a price break.