Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The house we bought has solar on it and we are in CO. It saved us a TON in the winter using the furnace. Our highest bill was $80 and we were running it at 69 degrees. Most of that cost was due to the gas water heater tied into that bill. (I take a lot of HOT baths)
I'm actually going into Solar sales because I'm psychotic about the environment and because I can prove they really do work and totally worth the investment!
Solar is another for me too. We added it on a few years ago. If we built another house we'd get rid of gas appliances in favor of electric ones that can be run off of the solar.
We have the same issue with our gas bill being high, it's due to having to use hot water to wash some of my hubs work clothes. Our last gas bill was close to $200 for one month. Our electric bill is very low, some months zero due to having solar.
I want the window placement to offer a lot of natural light that affords a relationship with the outdoors from inside the house. But maybe more importantly, home designers need to really pay attention to both the direction of the sun, and privacy issues when planning window placement.
The sort of things I mean are picture windows over bathtubs, windows facing west which need to be blocked off from the sun (so why have them?), or big windows facing the house next door.
You are not kidding about the window placement and the direction of the house!
I love the way our current home is positioned - I love that the morning light floods the kitchen and breakfast nook, which faces east. And I also really like that the two guest rooms, which we rarely use, face west. That means that here in Texas, where "west exposure" means "broiling sunshine for three solid months," our master bedroom is sort of sheltered from that. We just keep the shutters nearly closed in those minor bedrooms and we can also just close them off completely if we like. But we did have to get dense privacy blinds for our master because of that morning sun coming in at 6 am.
I also like that the garage and all that is on the north side of the house. That's not a side that gets lots of natural light and I love me some natural light. So for rooms on the north side of a house, I want some east or west facing windows as well.
I also want to add that for me, cross ventilation options are important. By that I mean, I love opening up windows in the spring and fall, and I want to be able to get a good cross breeze. So I want windows on both sides of a room if at all possible.
Window placement and the direction a house is situated on a lot are both very important to me. I love a good view but I also really value privacy, and I don't want to have to close a lot of blinds to retain that privacy, because I prefer lots of light and big windows. So where they are, and what they look out on, is super important to me.
Thankfully in our current house, if I am worried about privacy, I only have to shut the plantation shutters in the dining room because the rest of the windows in the main living areas and master bedroom are all along the back of the house. But those dining room windows are important for cross ventilation - LOL.
Lots of thinking about windows here. Actually, the placement of the windows and the way the house is situated on the lot are two things that really sold me on this house.
Yes, I saw that in a neighborhood built where I lived previously in a beach community about five years ago that are selling in the $800k-1 million range. One was built literally spitting distance from a traffic signal. Who wants to spend that much on a home where they can literally reach out and touch the signal from an upper window? Talk about ridiculous.
They tore some of the greenery out around a water treatment plant around me and started building a community there with homes they were originally trying to sell for almost $700K for a 1600sqft ranch home. Fortunately, no one fell for that and now they seem to be selling much larger models in the low $500s. I still think that is an outrageous price to pay to live adjacent to a water treatment plant.
Otherwise, I think some of the window options are limited by street orientation if you are not building a new neighborhood. If you get a tear down or existing lot, there is only so much you can do. If you have a north/south road that is not on a corner, chances are that many of the windows will face east and west. The house I grew up on was a corner house with tons of windows, but I think the garage was on the west (neighbor) side, so that had the optimal placement.
If you do get a west-facing lot, you can always add in greenery to help shade it. That helps a lot. I lived in townhouses in the beach community and the people who lived on the back of me had a nice green space with trees for their west-facing back yards, which had the porches and master bedrooms. This also provided privacy between units. Unfortunately my front was very hot with no trees, but I just had a small kitchen window and one bedroom window there.
Yes. Our house faces west, but the builder put the minor bedrooms, the dining room, the foyer, and the garage along the front (garage faces the side thankfully), so the living room, kitchen, breakfast nook, den and master bedroom all are along the back of the house with windows facing east.
Also, you can cut down on western sun by adding a big porch (which is what our house has) with an overhang and like you said, plenty of greenery. We have a deep porch out front and then a banana tree grows like crazy out there, so we get a lot of filtered green light even though the dining room faces west.
In our previous house, the living room was at the back of the house, but it faced west. Thankfully we had a big covered patio out there which cut down on the sun, but still, as the sun got low, the room filled with sunlight, and in the long Texas summer, it could increase the temp in the room by 5 degrees. It also flooded our breakfast nook and kitchen area with hot afternoon sun. At first this wasn't a problem, but then we had to cut down a big tree (it got some sort of tree disease) and there went a lot of our shade!
Elevator to service 2 floors in the house. The designed the elevator to go up to the attic so you could essentially use it to bring your Christmas stuff right up into the attic. Great idea but you would think that you would have enough room elsewhere in the house that you wouldn't need the attic space also.
Did you know that you can get a hydraulic lift in your garage for under $5000? We are definitely going to add that because we do use our large attic space for things like Christmas stuff. Meanwhile, we already built stairs (rather than relying on the pull down ladder, which is where the lift is going to be installed) to the attic so we don't kill ourselves getting boxes out of there.
Most homes in our area don't have basements so people use their attics for storage instead. I can't wait to add that hydraulic lift to the attic!
The kitchen should be able to have the groceries and supplies easily brought in. The trash and rubbish easily removed as well. Supplies stored and yet easy to remove from storage when wanted. Figure the food path which frequently is something like cabinets/refrigerator to the counter to the sink to the cooking appliances to the plates, eaten, then plates back to the kitchen, cleaned and stored. Set things up so that path can be easily followed without too many excess steps and it will be an easy to live with kitchen.
Same thing for the living spaces. Just follow your daily life - or what you want your daily life to be - and shape the house around it.
This is important to me. This wasn't a deal killer but one thing I really DID NOT LIKE in one of the first homes we bought was that the garage was across the house from the kitchen. That meant that to bring in groceries, we came through the mudroom, across the foyer, across the living room, into the dining room and finally into the kitchen. Like I said, there were other positives so it wasn't a deal killer but believe me, after several years of doing that, I thought long and hard about it the next go round.
I'll tell you something else that's not a deal killer for me but it gives pause for thought - access from the garage to the back yard. We don't have that here. We have a storage shed for most of our tools, but not all of our tools are out there - smaller hand tools for instance, we keep in the garage. So if we want something from the garage if we're in the back yard, we have to go inside the house and through the kitchen to the garage.
- More outlets (indoor and outdoor) than you think you will need
- More outside water spigots than you think you will need
- A mudroom with places to store shoes and hang coats
- A large laundry room with a sink and extra fridge
- Closets, closets, and more closets, including linen closets
- A powder room so guests have a restroom to use without invading a bathroom people living there use and store personal items
- A dedicated guest room and guest bathroom
- A really big garage
- Kitchen open to living and eating area
- Formal dining room (I know a lot of people hate this, but we have one, and I love having it, especially on holidays)
- Double ovens - I have them and use both all the time
- A really large, gas cook top. Either duel fuel or separate from the ovens so the you can have a gas cooktop and electric ovens
- Hardwood floors
- A dedicated office with doors
- Large master bath with big shower, double sinks, separate water closet, and jetted tub. I know jetted tubs have lost favor, but I love mine
- A large wall that provides room for a large TV. I hate TVs over the fireplace
- An irrigation system
- I love pocket doors and don't think they are used enough. So much better than an open door taking up room space. I would use them where I could.
- Lots of windows and natural light
- I would love a screened in porch as well as a large patio or deck
OMG! Amen especially to the ones I bolded. But honestly, I love just about everything on this list.
I love, love, love our house, but we didn't build it and get this - it took me a minute or two to figure this out after we moved in, but there was originally NO OUTDOOR SPIGOT ANYWHERE IN THE BACK YARD. Now - this is a big lot - nearly an acre. There are three outdoor spigots but all of them are along the front or "front sides" of the house (hope that makes sense).
Thankfully there is a nice wall in the living room that easily holds a big TV, but when we looked at the house, the previous owners had a TV mounted above the fireplace. I mean, this is front and center of the whole house. UGH. Not a selling point. I had a contractor move the outlets to the top center of the mantel. Speaking of which, I have found that I really do want to have outlets on the mantel.
Speaking of outlets - amen to adding more than you think you might ever need. When the contractor came out to move that outlet above the fireplace, I had them add outlets everywhere. I think it was like $40 per outlet - money well spent. Oh, yes, and don't forget outlets outside either. I had them add several out there as well. Because - outside lights. Phones for bluetooth stuff. All that jazz.
Solar is another for me too. We added it on a few years ago. If we built another house we'd get rid of gas appliances in favor of electric ones that can be run off of the solar.
We have the same issue with our gas bill being high, it's due to having to use hot water to wash some of my hubs work clothes. Our last gas bill was close to $200 for one month. Our electric bill is very low, some months zero due to having solar.
Holy moley, Batgirl! Install a heat pump water heater.
We are rural and electricity is our only utility bill, which runs less than $100/month with no solar electric. I upgraded all the insulation in the house, including ductwork and water lines. It's noon, and the temp in the house is still 69 degrees, with the AC set for 72.
You are considering resale.That's very important at this point.
You must have stone countertops. The "quieter" the pattern, the better. Yup - those will cost 2X as much per sq ft, but do it once and do it right! People get turned off by loud ugly countertops and it is the first thing they look at. If classy looking stone is beyond your pocketbook, go Corian.
3+ or 4 BRs. I don't know why, but houses with 4 or more BRs are selling way faster than the standard 3 BR with one of those BR's quite small (that is < 12'X15').
2 1/2 baths. One a guest 1/2 bath. One full bath with a large capacious shower is now norm. The other? Up to you. If a tub, it must be more than 34" wide, inside dimension.
Heavy flusher toilets. Toto is one brand that comes to mind. We eat a lot of pasta these days because it is cheap. But digested pasta has that "stick to the bowl" problem (ahem). A vigorous flush is important these days
For resale always remember that crawl space or even slab in many parts of the country are "no sale" - and, yes it varies. So, check it out in that area. Full basements always sell much faster.
And, nat gas nearby? But only propane there? You lose immediately.
Couple of tips. Happy building.
Last edited by TwinbrookNine; 07-03-2020 at 01:40 PM..
Bathroom vanities with drawers. Pedestal sinks are space wasters.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
