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Home Design Tips

FURNITURE PLANNING - Many office supply stores sell templates that portray furniture sizes and styles. Use these templates with the floor plan to draw your furniture into the rooms of your home. Ask yourself if floor electrical outlets are needed, should windows be moved, are special ceiling outlets and lights needed, are wall electrical outlets in the right location, etc.

FOUNDATION HEIGHT - You should always try to choose a homesite that will allow the floor of the home to be built well above the curb of the road. Find out exactly how much higher than the curb the proposed elevation is. You will never worry about heavy rains plus your home will have much better "street appeal". Most people want to look up at their home as opposed to looking down at it. Be very careful with this as it is expensive to raise the height of a home.

Be very careful if floor elevation, site clearing and fill dirt are shown as allowance items. You can very easily have a surprise that can cost you 10's of thousands of dollars. Any good builder that knows costs should be able to give you a firm price for this item and eliminate it as an allowance item. However, unless you state in the specifications that the floor of the home shall be "X inches" above the curb of the road, in front of the home, eliminating this as an allowance item is meaningless.

We have found that a home that is placed 25 to 30 feet from the front lot line needs to have the floor at least 18-24" above the curb of the road in front of the home. When it is placed on a larger lot, 70-90 feet from the front lot line the floor needs to be at least 4-4 1/2 feet above the curb of the road in front of the home. When a home is placed as described above you always look up to it and no drainage problems should occur.

ENERGY NEEDS - The standard ceiling insulation is fiberglass with R38 value. The walls on a frame home are R13. Insulating higher than these "R" values has diminishing returns. However, a spray foam insulation package with the same "R" values can greatly reduce air infiltration through the walls.

HEATING AND AIR CONDITIONING - The average person feels most comfortable when the interior temperature is between 72 and 74 degrees and the interior relative humidity is below 45 percent. As the humidity goes up the temperature must come down to feel the same comfort. To ensure proper humidity control, the system must be designed to match the heat load calculation. This is one instance where "bigger is not better".

The conditioned air is distributed throughout the home using a system of rigid and flexible duct, collectively referred to as ductwork. Ductwork is a circulatory system that uses supplies to feed air into a room and returns to complete the circuit back to the air handler. Adequate and properly placed returns will keep closed rooms from becoming pressurized which limits the entrance of supply air into the room.

A typical homeowner can expect to spend between 40 and 45 percent of their utility dollars to heat and cool their home. This ongoing expense justifies consideration of energy saving and comfort enhancement upgrades. The investment decision made now will continue for the next 12 to 15 years or through the expected life of the equipment.

System enhancements for your consideration are:

A. Higher Efficiency Equipment can reduce the utility expense while providing better quality and comfort. A typical return on investment, "ROI", will yield above 20 percent.

B. Improved Air Filtration will improve indoor air quality. Basic filter categories are: electronic, pleated media and electrostatic. Select one that meets your needs and lifestyle.

C. Heat Recovery Units use waste heat from your air conditioning system to heat domestic hot water. A typical payback is less than 3 years.

D. Programmable thermostats allow the homeowner to program times and temperature for automatic operation, saving 30% during a typical setback period.

E. Zoning the System allows a single system to be separated into multiple zones. Each zone has individualized control with its own thermostat.

ELECTRICAL - All homes are wired to code requirements which means that plugs are installed so many feet apart, etc. If you have specific electrical needs or locations you should identify those items to be sure you receive what you need. Choose the location of the floor outlets carefully as you will live with your decision a long time.