New home - Help

[Pertzbro]

Where are good places to discuss new home building? Working on a home and wanted to post the plans, etc and get opinions and ideas from people in the know.

Fine Home Building?
Houzz?

The designer already provided her opinion on a wood burner and drafting. I said with a modern wood burner, 25-30ft of double or triple wall pipe and an OAK it should be just fine.

We're talking 5,000+ sgft lakehome with 3 stories.

I've watched about every Matt Risinger video out there and that just got me to stretch the budget too far by using over the top near perfect building techniques and now I need to back it down to reality.

Thanks.

 

[jalmondale]

Reddit (r/homebuilding) can be a good way to brainstorm ideas, but the saying 'advice on the internet is worth what you pay for it' applies in full =P

I think some of this depends on what you're looking for - advice on construction techniques? Ways to meet passive house standards? More of a homesteading take on low-effort homebuilding? Cool design ideas? Floor plan design thoughts?

If you're looking for a general approach to the process, rather than a place to ask specific questions, I've found Ken Kern's The Owner Built Home to be a fantastic resource. It's somewhat outdated around specific materials, but the general principles and approaches still apply.

As far as wood burning goes, I think the main thing to keep in mind is how to get heat to where you want it to go - hot air loops for anything not heated by radiant line-of-sight heating are good to build in to the design. Since it's new construction, I'd also look at masonry heaters - they tend to be very large and heavy, so difficult to retrofit, but possibly a great match for a large home like what you're building. They're not cheap, but if you use a kit they aren't prohibitive, and they can be heavily customized. They're highly efficient (when properly designed, they're right around 88-90%, vs 75-80% for a typical EPA stove), low maintenance, and you can incorporate cool things like heated benches next to the fire. I've always wanted one, but a retrofit into my house wouldn't make sense, so I went with the next best thing with a soapstone stove (I have plans to make the most over-the-top firepit ever with one at some point, though).

I've designed and helped build a couple homes (just for friends and family, I'm not a professional), and I love geeking out about floor plans/homebuilding, so feel free to DM me any questions as well =)

 

[Montanalocal]

DESIGNING A NEW HOUSE FOR WOOD HEATING

While most people have to make do with what they have when it comes to wood heating, for those building new and planning on heating with wood, there are a few things to keep in mind during the design phase.

Site Placement.

Firewood storage and splitting should be an integral part of the placement and landscaping. You will want access by pickup, and plenty of room to expand, and a place to use and store the splitter. Think of a place for several piles, one for green wood seasoning, and one for split ready to burn wood. The green pile can be some distance from the house, but the ready to burn should be easily accessible to the house.

An ideal set up would have additional short term places to store wood. An attached garage or wood shed could have room for about a week or two worth of wood kept dry, and the stove room a day's worth.

It is also good during the initial placement to keep in mind passive solar gain. With large windows oriented to the south, on sunny days it is possible to let the stove go out during the day. Calculate the roof overhang according to your latitude so that you get the low winter sun, and are shaded during the hot summer. Make sure no trees interfere with the sun.

House layout.

It is much easier to distribute heat in a two story structure. You would want your stove room to be on the first floor, with a wide staircase leading to the second floor for natural air convection.

The stove room.

This is the room you will have your stove in. It should not be a room that you spend a lot of time living in, as normally you will have to overheat this room in order for the rest of the house to be warm. You can use this for activities that do not require one to be there for long periods of time.

Also, think of the path that you will use to bring wood into this room. That path, and the room itself will inevitably accumulate bits of bark and wood chips from bringing wood in on a regular basis. The path should probably not go through the whole house. An ideal situation would be a small hallway connected to an attached garage to bring wood in.

The Chimney.

The chimney should be in the center of the house and come up through the peak of the roof. Chimneys at the ends of the house will radiate and lose heat to the outside. Chimneys coming up through any place except the peak will have to be much higher because of draft considerations, and will be much harder to access for cleaning. In addition, the roof should be as flat as possible to facilitate walking on it for cleaning. Another consideration for roofing is not to use metal roofing. They have very unstable footing, especially with snow on them. There are currently available fiberglass 50 year elk shingles that carry a class A fire rating that have very good traction.

Ideally the chimney should incorporate the maximum amount of thermal mass possible. If possible and financially affordable, it could consist of a large cement block outer layer, with rock facing on the cement blocks. Inside this would be rock rubble, with a masonry flue, lined or not as the case may be. This would extend on up through the second story and out the roof. One can additionally pile rocks around the stove and use rock for the hearth. When all this mass heats up, it will radiate heat for a considerable period of time. The chimney base should be designed from the start to have its own footings.

Upper living area design.

The majority of your living area should be on the second floor, and should have a very open design to allow heat to move freely. It is a good idea to wire in ceiling fans in some of the larger rooms.

 

[EbS-P]

Where are good places to discuss new home building? Working on a home and wanted to post the plans, etc and get opinions and ideas from people in the know.

Fine Home Building?
Houzz?

The designer already provided her opinion on a wood burner and drafting. I said with a modern wood burner, 25-30ft of double or triple wall pipe and an OAK it should be just fine.

We're talking 5,000+ sgft lakehome with 3 stories.

I've watched about every Matt Risinger video out there and that just got me to stretch the budget too far by using over the top near perfect building techniques and now I need to back it down to reality.

Thanks.

Did you see how Matt’s “budget renovation”. Tripled in cost or more and he started getting so much free stuff. quit watching after that. Didn’t even care if he did add it all up at the end.

Best place to talk? Depends on the questions. What level of “expert” You want to chime in. I see a couple items working against “budget” mindedness. Location and size. That’s puts you in a class of what others think you can afford.

My take always from Matt’s videos. Zip system is good and worth it. Splurge on insulation, 2x6 walls. Spray foam while amazing I consider a luxury (zip system should have sealed the envelope well). Get the best windows you can afford. Heatpump hot water is great (I have one). Get a variable speed compressor heatpump. Go back to basics and make the need vs want list.

 

[bigealta]

I would say Do put the stove in your main living room where you will hang out. That's the whole purpose of having one. Our small room with our stove gets to 80f and we Love that. Easy to put a fan in if needed but we don't do that very often. Our stove heats the whole house but it's Much Smaller than your new house. I'm sure u will have a large Open Living Room and that would be perfect for your stove to heat and for you to enjoy it. And i doubt any wood stove will ever over heat a 5000sq ft house.

 

[Pertzbro]

Did you see how Matt’s “budget renovation”. Tripled in cost or more and he started getting so much free stuff. quit watching after that. Didn’t even care if he did add it all up at the end.

Best place to talk? Depends on the questions. What level of “expert” You want to chime in. I see a couple items working against “budget” mindedness. Location and size. That’s puts you in a class of what others think you can afford.

My take always from Matt’s videos. Zip system is good and worth it. Splurge on insulation, 2x6 walls. Spray foam while amazing I consider a luxury (zip system should have sealed the envelope well). Get the best windows you can afford. Heatpump hot water is great (I have one). Get a variable speed compressor heatpump. Go back to basics and make the need vs want list.

I agree, nothing about his house or even many of his clients is even remotely budget oriented. I watch mostly for the new/odd/funky products but got sucked into his earlier shows of building science.

 

[EbS-P]

I agree, nothing about his house or even many of his clients is even remotely budget oriented. I watch mostly for the new/odd/funky products but got sucked into his earlier shows of building science.

He sold me on Schulter Ditra heat for my bathroom floor. Installers hadn’t ever installed it before. Decent product Contrator didn’t itemize so I have no idea what it cost me.

 

[Pertzbro]

He sold me on Schulter Ditra heat for my bathroom floor. Installers hadn’t ever installed it before. Decent product Contrator didn’t itemize so I have no idea what it cost me.

My parents did about 1500 square feet of the the stuff. 3 controllers.

 

[firefighterjake]

If you are designing a house around heating with wood some of the things our ancestors did make a lot of sense, but have fallen out of favor oftentimes.

Low ceiling height vs. taller ceilings. Folks often want the vaulted or cathedral ceiling, but having a lower ceiling height helps keep the heat where people are sitting/standing vs. up high. One may be able to get around this issue though with ceiling fans.

More stoves vs. fewer. Older homes often had a stove in the parlor room, kitchen and even bedrooms in some cases. Up here most Maine farmhouses had a stove in the living room area, kitchen and often one in the basement. This may be overkill as most of us are able to heat the majority of our home with a single stove (thanks to better building construction and insulation . . . not to mention back up heat sources.) Me . . . I would attempt to design a home with a stove in the living room as this is where most folks spend their waking hours . . . and try to keep it as central as possible.

Southern exposure. Not much has changed here, although it seems some folks just position their house according to the layout on the street/road and don't put much thought into having fewer windows on the northern exposure.

Open space vs. closed space. I think this may be a toss up. In the old days those folks living in older homes with multiple, small rooms could easily close off a space by shutting a door if it was not used or heat not needed there. I think that's still relevant to some degree, but on the other hand a more open space design would allow a better flow of heat I suspect.

Two floors vs. one floor. Heat tends to rise. It is much easier to heat from a first floor and let the heat rise to the second vs. trying to move heat horizontally in a single story home with the same square footage. It can be done . . .with fans . . . but it is easier with two floors.

A lot of the older homes had a center chimney. It made sense, especially since there was a lot of heat radiating off the chimney. I still think it makes sense today, even though there is less heat coming from the chimney (heat with the stove vs. a chimney) . . . mainly because placing a stove in a central location tends to make sense.

One advantage we have over our ancestors is the advancement of insulation . . . keep the heat you make by using really good insulation techniques.