Archive for the ‘New Construction’ Category

A Log Home As a Second Home

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

A log home as a second home is an excellent choice for many reasons. Here are some of the advantages:

Easier to Build

A nice advantage to building a log home as your second home is that you have the option of using a log home kit to build your home. Not only does this minimize the cost of your cabin, but it can also make the building of the home a fun family project. Whether it’s a ranch style home or a two story home with a view, a log home building kit is available to help make your dream of a second home come true.

Versatile

A log home can serve as a cozy cabin for weekend getaways, be a summer house or a home for family vacations. A home built with logs can be adapted for summer living or winter living, to be a ski lodge or a summer camp style home. A log cabin can be whatever your family needs.

Comfortable

A traditionally built home simply cannot match the atmosphere and comfort of a home built with logs with a fireplace. Whether it’s cuddling by the fire with your significant other, watching the wildlife out the kitchen window or rocking on the porch with a rocking chair, a log house invites people in and wraps them in comfort.

Beauty

From the outside, a home made from logs has a rustic feel that can’t be matched by a traditional home. If you plan to build your home in a forested area, then it will look natural, like it belongs. There’s also a sense of history to a log house, even if it’s newly built. You’ll get a sense of the pioneer days when log homes were the standard.

Eco-Friendly

If you use sustainable logs and make eco-friendly choices with regards to energy and building materials, log homes are an eco-friendly choice for anyone who cares about the earth.

Natural

Many chemicals and often dangerous materials go into making a traditional house. From the fiberglass insulation to toxic paints and stains. A log home owner doesn’t need insulation, and there are excellent choices for eco-friendly, non-toxic finishes for every surface of the home. In addition, a log home structure, simply looks like it belongs in the outdoors.

Family Friendly

Choosing a log house as a second home is also family friendly. Families with kids can teach them more respect for nature and the environment around them.

Log Home Exchange is your source for log homes for sale and log cabins for sale in the US and Canada. Visit us at: http://www.loghomeexchange.com/

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Five Principles of Green Home Design

Monday, February 1st, 2010

A green home minimizes the negative impact on its environment through its home design. Here are a few considerations an architect takes into account when designing a green home:

1. Site: Evaluations and analysis of access, slope, ledge, soil, bodies of water, and vegetation in order to limit the home’s impact on the site environment. This includes the site location (farmland, wetland, protected species habitats) and proximity to public transportation, parks, schools, and stores.

2. Size: A green home is efficiently designed to keep the square footage to a minimum. This reduces the amount of energy to heat and cool the home, lighting, and the quantity of building materials used, and also controls costs and reduces site impact.

3. Solar: Whether or not there is a plan to install a solar energy system to heat the water or produce electricity, there are several other solar considerations in green home design. Designing the home for passive solar makes the most of solar energy by harvesting it into the homes’ natural energy flows. Passive solar systems include day-lighting strategies, heating and cooling control techniques, and natural ventilation. When a whole-building approach is taken, energy savings can be great both in terms of reducing the home’s carbon footprint and the costs associated with heating, cooling, and maintaining the home.

4. Energy: Lighting, heating, and cooling systems are an important consideration in green home design. Renewable energy systems such as solar, wind, and geothermal systems use the earth’s natural energy to heat and cool the home, as well as provide electricity to run appliances and technology..

5. Water Conservation: Building a new home presents a unique opportunity to save water. Two money and energy-saving strategies which can be easily incorporated into an energy efficient home design are 1) reducing the overall water using in the home by specifying low-flow water fixtures, low-flush or composting toilets, installing aerators on all taps, and installing low-flow showerhead nozzles; and 2) specifying a plumbing system that reuses grey water (wastewater from domestic usage such as dish washing, laundry and bathing) for flushing toilets, watering lawns, etc. (note: some grey water systems require approval by most local building jurisdictions, your architect will verify this prior to design).

Of course, a new home should use minimal amounts of fossil fuels, last a long time, and cost less money. Many home design strategies don’t cost a dime in materials but can save hundreds of dollars on heating and cooling costs. The result is a beautiful, healthy home – for both the homeowners and the environment.

About the Author: Jeremy Bonin, a principal partner of Bonin Architects & Associates (http://www.boninarchitects.com), is an award-winning green architect and the author of TIMBER FRAMES: Designing Your Custom Home. With a special interest in sustainable design and green homes, structural insulated panels (SIPs), as well as timber frame construction, Jeremy incorporates renewable energy practices where possible, including geo-thermal, solar, radiant heat, and energy-efficient foundation systems.

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Know the Sunroom Style You Want

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Sunrooms have different purpose. And because of its varied uses, you also find different sunroom themes that would best suit your wants and needs. One of the most popular sunroom themes today is an attic that consists of slanting glasses on one side of the room and has other entertainment and recreational systems and interesting furniture such as sofas. There are also sunrooms that have a theme that comes in a bathroom to let the occupants enjoy a spa-like experience. To have this kind of sunroom theme, you can equip this room with tubs, towels, shower fixtures, carpets. Also, the scented candles bring your sunroom to greater heights as it offers extreme relaxation. There is still an unending list of themes that you can integrate in your sunroom and some of them include a bedroom, study or den, dining room, kitchen, enclosed patio, recreational room, office room and the list goes on.

Sunroom Plans To Consider

While deciding to build a sunroom to your home, there are a number of important factors that you should first consider. In the planning stage, one should not forget to prepare the sunroom plans. To do this, you can ask a reputable and credible sunroom contractor to do the job for you. But of course, one should not leave behind the most important factor: consider your budget. By knowing your budget, you can now decide on what materials you can use. For those who have sufficient budget, they can have the freedom to choose the expensive ones. But those who have limited budget need not fret as they can still enjoy having a sunroom without sacrificing its quality through the help of the different sunroom kits offered in the market today. So, depending on your budget, you can now consider buying the sunroom you can really afford. And before the sunroom construction, you also need to gather all the pertinent information regarding the construction materials and the different glazing options. And when it comes to the furniture, always find the one which has a size that would be enough in order to still give sufficient space.

Four Seasons Sunroom Architecture

Homeowners may have different preferences on the type of sunroom they want to integrate into their homes. Good thing is that the sunrooms we have today can give you different options. And generally, there are four architectural styles of sunroom and this includes the Cathedral, Curved, Straight, and the Conservatory.

The very first type is the Cathedral and this is a characterized as the one that gives enough space if you are planning to install sliding doors and windows and insect screens. Meanwhile, the Curved type is popular for residential areas and it consists of sliding doors, insulated panels for rooms with foams, correct flooring system, and thermally broken framework. Straight, on the other hand, features heavy duty rafters together with adjustable roof slopes. These are usually purchased in sandstone, white and bronze. And lastly, the Conservatory type of sunroom architecture consists of correct glazing from the solar control and insulation.

Andrew Caxton is the author of more resources published online. Learn more about better living sunrooms and sunroom pricing at http://www.allsunrooms.com/betterliving.html

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Dangers Using Wood Stair Cleats – New Stair Construction

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

I would imagine most people don’t even know what it wood stair cleat is, in construction we have so many words that describe the same thing. A stair cleat is another word for a thread bracket. In other words it’s the part of the stairway that connects the stair stringer to the stair step. These have been used for years and over time, most of them will develop the same problem.

Most wood stair cleats loosened up and create a safety hazard. If the stairs are located outside in extreme weather conditions, for example, if it rains or snows a lot, extremely humid humid weather, or extremely hot and dry temperatures, your staircase might not last that long, if it is or isn’t maintained properly. It’s not a bad idea to use steel or concrete for stairways in these climates.

If you’re ever walking up a set of stairs with wood cleats and the stair steps feel a little loose or wiggly, make sure you examined the stair cleats for safety. It’s not uncommon for someone to be walking up or down a set of wood stairs and having the stair step or tread giveaway because the wood cleats has loosened.

If the wood stair cleats are nailed to the stair stringer, the nails can loosen up, causing it to become loose, as you walk up and down the stairs applying pressure to the stair cleat, this will create movement in between the stair step and the stair stringer. This could cause the cleat to crack, break and separate the connection between the stair step in the stair stringer.

I would suggest using metal brackets instead of wood cleats. The metal brackets will not crack or disintegrate like some wood cleats. Stair building brackets of course can loosen up and should be maintained regularly.

If you decide to use wood stair cleats, I would suggest using screws instead of nails and drilling holes in the wood stair cleats, most of the time this will prevent cracking the cleat. Try to use a thicker material for the stair cleat, for example using a 2 x 4 with lag screws and washers would be better than using a 1 x 4 with nails.

If you’re walking up a set of stairs and a stair step feels loose, contact the owner of the property and let them know, they have a problem with their staircase.

Greg Vanden Berge is working on the internet to promote the education for creating simple to follow guides and home building books to help professional building contractors as well as the weekend warriors. He is currently working on more stair building books and adding useful content to help solve problems created by the lack of construction knowledge in the building industry.

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Start Budgeting For Your Very Own Sunroom

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

It only takes a few weeks before you can enjoy in your very own sunroom. However, if not properly managed, the money you need to spend on the sunroom would go sky-high. Because of this you need to properly monitor the different expenses when it comes to building your very own sunroom. You also need to determine the materials and the quality of sunroom you want so you can create your budget and prevent overspending. In most cases, the cost of sunroom construction would go as low as $10,000 and as high as $70,000. And the do-it-yourself sunroom kit is applicable to those who want to trim down their expenses on sunroom construction. The figure on the sunroom costs mentioned above may still alter and this is due to the material cost, style, design, flooring system and the labor cost you will choose. If you have a bigger budget, then you can go for the more elaborate designs. But if you think that your budget is only at the minimum, there are still excellent sunroom designs and materials that can give you full satisfaction without having to break your bank account.

Sunrooms are getting more and more popular among homeowners today because of the practicality it offers. As compared to the traditional rooms, the cost of building a sunroom is a lot more economical. Read on, so you can have a clear idea on the expenses you need to shell out when planning to build a sunroom. In the labor charge aspect on constructing the stairs, you need to have an approximate of $300. Other expenses which would cover the labor charge also include the roofing and the flooring systems. If all these combined, you need to have at least $12,000 for the labor charge alone. The sunroom materials are also the determining factors on how much money you need to spend. For those on a limited budget, you can opt for the vinyl as it is more inexpensive as compared to the costs of aluminum sunroom. But if you have all the money to spend, then you can settle for the wood. Though wood is the most expensive, it is the one that needs regular care and maintenance to prevent premature damage.

Of course, a sunroom would never be complete without the furniture. As we all know, sunroom is also synonymous to wicker furniture. These two are the considered as the perfect combination. Wicker furniture is also economical but it also endows the entire room with an earthy and natural appeal.

If all the budgetary constraints are settled, then you can now start building your very own sunroom. Once finished, this place would serve as your haven for relaxation and a nice place to spend your quality time with your friends and loved ones. All these can be enjoyed if you properly plan the important aspects in building a very cozy sunroom. Don’t let money hinder you from having a sunroom of your own. Choices are so varied so this gives you no excuse to not have one on your home.

Andrew Caxton is the author of many articles published online.Learn more about sunroom kits and diy sunroom kits at http://www.allsunrooms.com/kits.html

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Hiring an Architect

Friday, October 30th, 2009

If your dream home project has been in your head for a long time and now you are ready to move on it, the first thing you have to do is find an architect or designer who will put the plans together. Many have a difficult time finding the right person and knowing how to approach them. This process can be easier than you think if you prepare yourself with the right information.

Before going out to interview potential architect/designers, prepare yourself with the following information. This will allow you to better communicate the direction you want the designer to take.

  • Size, Appearance and Function – What square footage are you looking for? Indicate the style of design you prefer such as, Victorian, contemporary, ranch style or territorial. What will be the function of the space you are going to create? Do you entertain a lot? Does your life style call for a formal dining room? Do you need customized space like a hobby room or computer/media room? Do you have art pieces that need room to display?
  • Your Budget – Much of the design parameters will be governed by how much money you are planning to spend. Keep in mind that kitchens and bathrooms are considerably more expensive than other rooms. High-end fixtures, flooring and counter tops are also budget busters for many. Try to give the architect a range of costs you feel would be acceptable and within your means. It is useless to have a project design that is beyond your ability to fund the building costs.
  • Materials – Be ready to explain your preferences in building materials. Some people want to use a lot of stone and brick. Others cannot live without wood flooring. Think about what materials you want in your surroundings and be ready to relate that information to whoever you are interviewing.
  • Time Frame – When do you want to start and when do you expect the work to be finished? You need to know how quickly the design work can start and any time constraints you might have driven by business obligations, children’s school year or vacation plans.

Armed with this information, you will be able to answer questions posed to you and provide answers that will be needed for the architect to suggest a good design and realistic fees for the work. Be mindful that you will be spending a considerable amount of time with this person, so be sure they are easy to talk to and have an understanding of your needs and dreams.

Before committing to anyone in your selection process, be sure to ask the following questions:

  • How long have you been in business?
  • Does your fee include job visits? If so, how many?
  • Is your firm fully insured?
  • How many people do you employ?
  • Do you have a valid license?
  • Do you use consultants? Who are they and how are they paid?
  • Can you provide me with references?
  • May I see some projects you have completed similar to mine?
  • What do you estimate the costs of my project to be?

With these answers you will now be comfortable and confident with who ever you choose to do the design work.

After 30 years experience in custom home building, Bill Trimble is offering valuable information for the owner-builder as well as those proceeding with a licensed contractor. Information can be found in his book Screw It! I’ll Be My Own Contractor. Go to http://www.BeMyOwnContractor.com

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