which is cost effective?

Tale of 3 houses I've built in the last few years.

First was 1 1/2 story ... about 1300sqft + a full basement....in fact, the with the slope of this lot, I had to build up almost 8' on the lower side just to get up to the floor of the basement !

Two bedrooms, two full baths, hardwood on first floor, ceramic tile in kitchens/baths. I cut most of the framing lumber off my place and did all the work etc heat pump and carpet upstairs.

House footprint 28x36 .......Costs ran 35 bucks/sqft



House #2 also 1 1/2 story type....28x40 + 16x24 attached garage...about 1800sqft finished. 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 baths Hardwood downstairs, carpet up, ceramic bath/kitchen floors...no basement, crawl space. 36 bucks/sqft.



House #3 was a tri-level....way more spread out. 28x36 on upper level with drive under garage area, then 24x24 livingrm/dine/kitchen level over crawl space.....about 1500 sqft finished. Cost ran 48 bucks/sqft. It does cost more to go out than up !

Wow, those are beautiful! Ok, here's ours. I hope this works right.

I agree 100%, if heating is a reality where you live then the wider the house the harder and more expensive it is to keep warm. On a 2 or 3 story house put a heat source in the basement and the whole house gets warm. The only bad thing about a tall house is doing maintenace/repairs. I am afraid of heights and standing 40 feet up on the roof isn't something I care to do very often, I'd almost rather let the roof leak than go up there to fix it. I would say that your personal taste should determine what type of house to build, the cheapest way is to set a trailer on a cinder blocks but not everyone wants to live that way. Spend the money and build it the way you want it the first time, it's worth it IMO. I can't imagine not having a basement, I have my workshop down there and it's as warm as the house opposed to my outdoor shop that is c-c-c-cold 9 months out of the year.

Deb,

I went to the location of your pics, and they are really small there too !

Try using Digistash.com .....also free.

It puts a small thumbnail type photo in the 'album', then when you click on an individual pic, it becomes a full screen size like I posted. Once you're at the full size pic, right click your mouse on the pic, and select "Copy Image Location", and paste that into the Image icon here....you'll get a full sized picture that way.

I'll read up more on walkout basements. We would like to build right the first time but i'm sure there is always something as an afterthought.

The pictures are great! We do want to build small less than 2000, we will be empty nesters but our number one priority is energy efficiency.

Please keep the ideas coming.


Deb, will you resubmit your pics?

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"Ain't nothing worse than the smell of mendacity"-- Big Daddy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Let's try this again. I tried the digistash site this time.

Edited: No it did not work. will keep trying.

Hopefully, this works. I checked it and when I pull up this thread I see big pictures now. Let me know if everyone is still seeing them as small.

Got big pic. Is that a walkout basement?

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"Ain't nothing worse than the smell of mendacity"-- Big Daddy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Yes it is a walkout basement. Main entries were on the side and front and there was going to be a deck around the whole upper level. We did the house small (only about 725 sq ft on main level) as it was only DH and I.

If your land is cheaper than the cost to build up - then build out. If not, build out.

If you can afford to build up by shoring up the lower floors to support the upper floors, that saves you money in less foundation (as far as total are covered), roof, exterior walls, insulation, etc.

If your soils are difficult to excavate or are very wet or you can't build past a certain elevation (codes, etc.) you may find it cheaper or easier to build out vs. up.

Consider sump pumps too for basement areas.

Lots of factors.

I can't answer your question exactly, but our basement (26 x 50 feet) cost $20,000....it doubled our square footage....but was way less than half the price of the total house construction.

What I don't understand are those people who build their home on a crawl space that is maybe eight blocks tall (+/-). The crawlspace provides them with no living area and if they would have shelled out a few bucks more....to add a few more courses of block and pour a concrete floor....they could have doubled their square footage.

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This is the government the Founding Fathers warned us about.....

Cabin Fever - in our area it's a LOT more expensive to build a full basement vs. a crawlspace and most people don't need it or want it (the market doesn't pay for basement space). Soils and high water tables are also difficult because you can't often have a usable basement vs. a crawlspace without SERIOUS excavation and more cost to fill. With a crawlspace you can do a perimeter block foundation but with a basement you really need a slab. Earthquakes are also an issue here. Most folks just need a crawlspace for mechanical stuff and almost never go down there but the more intuitive of us use them for root/vegetable storage (IF it's properly built out for that - it really isn't meant for storage and although it's rare, some of these crawlspaces FLOOD and/or FREEZE seasonally!).

If your land is rocky, as many mountainous areas are, the excavation will be more expensive. If it were me, and I had several acres of wooded area, I'd probably forgo the basement, downsize the house, overbuild the garage for some attached storage, build a couple of outbuildings with specific purposes (shop, equipment storage, livestock barn,...), install an outdoor wood furnace/boiler and heat all the buildings with in-floor radiant heat. If you can earth shelter part of the house (or the buildings), so much the better. Without knowing exactly where you will be located, I SUSPECT that heating will be more of an issue than cooling.

You wouldn't have the issues of:
Stairs
"Inevitable" basement problems
Place to locate furnace / water heater

You ever wonder why a catagory 4 tornado kills more people in OK than in MN?
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