Advice The Home Improvement/Automation Thread

I want to build a house but when a tiny plot of land would be over 100k and likely closer to 200 it’s def not happening here.
 
Yeah, I'm fortunate that I have enough space on the existing plot for a new place.

We're within 3 months of paying off the mortgage, so we'll have all that land equity to offset the build cost
 
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I mean, laundry chutes are awesome if they aren't banned in MoCo. Central vac is worth looking at.

Blower door tests are required in AACo I think. We had them on new construction.

Whoever said three phase is tripping. Even if it's AG zoned they'll give you a 600 amp service before they give you a 480/277 line.
 
kiwi said:
I want to build a house but when a tiny plot of land would be over 100k and likely closer to 200 it’s def not happening here.
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I don't even think they sell land in the city. You pay ground rent and you only own the building.
 
Domon said:
I'll have to check on the cost of radiant in slab. We're trying to go with an as-close-to-stock model the builder has as possible, full custom cost too much.
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Our house is full custom, but we saved a whole bunch of expense on the engineering side by just keeping it structurally simple as fuck. It's a single floor + the outline is a simple 30x50ish rectangle shape without any protrusions or insets or anything, and it's got a simple two slope roof supported by prefab trusses that only rest on the exterior walls, Going this route saved a ton of engineering cost - the stamped drawings for the house were done by an engineer at the truss company, as if it was a random garage or warehouse or something.

No structural walls inside also decoupled the interior and exterior design from each other, so tweaks like "hey lets move this wall over 1 foot" late in the design didn't require a bunch of engineering work.
 
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Domon said:
We're probably about to build a new house. What cool things would ya'll integrate?

If they'll let me, I likely will do all the low voltage wiring myself after framing is done.

My current plans:

1) Dedicated server room in the basement with its own air control, where all the wiring drops into
2) cat6a to every room obviously, a number of strategic drops in the ceiling for wireless APs
3) 1 inch smurf tube to strategic locations with fiber optic HDMI or displayport cables as a starting point
4) automated lighting, thinking the cheapest/easiest way is probably still local z-wave/zigbee dimmers. Not going to automate outlets
5) whole house audio pre-wire, including some outside speakers on the deck/enclosed porch
6) Hoping I can get the builder to nerd-out a bit, at extra cost for a really tightly sealed house, would love to be 1ACH50
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Treats I did for myself:

- Generator panel to run well pump/lights/HRV/whatever when the lights are out.
- 1" conduit running into the utility room to bring in internet from outside, going to a small shelf above the panel where I've got the router and NAS poked.
- 100A outdoor subpanel on the front of the house. For electric car chargers, plugging in a welder or camper or whatever.
- Conduit running from the wall mount TV boxes to the outlet boxes beneath, to cleanly run HDMI cables and whatever through without cords going down the wall behind the TV.
- 24VAC going to the doors to run doorbell cameras.
- edit: conduit going from panel to roof for eventual solar install.

I thought about running other stuff, but my previous house had speaker wire and coax coming out of half the walls, and I didn't want to end up eventually staring at a bunch of old obsolete CAT6.
 
fly said:
That will be a bittersweet moment.
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I'll save some stuff, like the 30 foot long 12x12 walnut support beam, some of the original super dense true 2x4s, the 12-14 inch wide diagonal board sheathing. Turn them into a trestle dining table or something.
 
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Domon said:
I'll save some stuff, like the 30 foot long 12x12 walnut support beam, some of the original super dense true 2x4s, the 12-14 inch wide diagonal board sheathing. Turn them into a trestle dining table or something.
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You don't have any ageing relatives you might have to bring over in the near future?
 
fly said:
Not as cool, but we're about to build a two car garage for the new house, with an area for a workshop. Anything I need to think about?
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Sounds obvious, but what exactly do you plan to do in it? That'll determine what you need to think about.

Power outlets everywhere, for one. Good lighting.
 
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