Our house plans - What do you think?

glede

Have attached house plans for a dormer bungalow. All opinions on them both good and bad are welcomed. Thanks in advance

Quazzie

I'd consider moving the fireplace in the living room. Apart from that it looks pretty ok. I'll throw on my critical hat in the morning and give it a thorough looking over.

glede

glede wrote: »

Have attached house plans for a dormer bungalow. All opinions on them both good and bad are welcomed. Thanks in advance

GROUND FLOOR
Every room is plenty big for a start. I like the fact that the living section is seperate from the bedrooms. I woud put a door in the hallway just around the corner from the stairs. This way the bed room section is private. When you have guests etc they can come in and go to anywhere in the living are without seeing down the hallway to the bedrooms. (Just incase your walking across the hall in a towel:D) Also you will loose less heat when the front door is open

Quazzie

Quazzie wrote: »

I'd consider moving the fireplace in the living room. Apart from that it looks pretty ok. I'll throw on my critical hat in the morning and give it a thorough looking over.

Yes I always reckon you should have the door, the fireplace and the telly on one wall. Push the door up to the corner of the wall is on now. Fire place in the middle and telly in the other corner. Then the suite of furniture facing out towards the door

glede

Thanks so much for all the replies. I think ye might be right about the fireplace. We had hoped at the start to have it on the wall separating the living room and the dining room so that we had the option to put a stove in the dining room if we wanted. We were worried that the living room would be difficult to furnish in that case tho. Would the room be a funny layout with couches etc?

BryanF

• try to make more of the south aspect light/ solar gain
• its does seem that rooms could generally be reduced slightly
• have you looked at this as a means to working out your energy costs and maximising windows and thermal envelope
• i would consider doors to the sun-room unless your going to do a phpp calc(passive house assessment)
• i'd consider adjusting the upstairs to avoid having the master en-suite over the living room and on the south side?
• i'd also be looking at doing a mvhr layout at this stage

now is the time to price this house i would strongly recommend using a QS before you go for planning that way if the price isnt right you could reduce your extremely generous floor area and still build a quality, comfortable, low energy home


best of luck

Carlow52

GF: 16 corners, 2 bay windows and no porch, which I thought was a requirement.

toilet 2 far away for dinner party/other non overnight guests

Upstairs: dont know what plan is for nippers etc but if more than 1, are they, and herself going to be banished to the ground floor until, to quote Charles to Diana, they are ready to play polo.

1200 in ensuite vs 4000 in hot press

hot water pipe runs very long, even with recirculation.
16/11
ps it would have been better to say up top that what u were posting was already changed

glede

oh no I thought we were making good use of the south aspect light/ solar gain. Please advise on how we could make it better. We are hoping to have a heat recovery system but are in still unsure of what heating system to go with. How much would you reduce the rooms by? We are worried that the house is too big and will be impossible to heat.

In regards to upstairs we have altered the plans (dont have a revised copy yet) so that the master ensuite and walk in wardrobe is now a bedroom and they are moved to run along the back of the house eliminating the drying room and instead putting in a 'normal' size hotpress.

Thanks for all the comments

the_syco

Question: would steam produced from the master ensuite not cause problems (mould?) with the clothes in the walkin wardrobe, on a long term basis?

/edit
Just saw your post.

okiss

I would advise you to have a door between you kitchen and living room.
If you have a family you will use a the living room a lot and you need to be to see a child/children with out going into the hall.
A couple I know were advised to do this when building there house and were glad they did.
Also when planning a kitchen I would measure kitchen press ect and both in lenght and dept as these can take up a lot of room in a kitchen and having a kitchen 1 or 2 feet wider can make a difference.

BryanF

glede wrote: »

oh no I thought we were making good use of the south aspect light/ solar gain. Please advise on how we could make it better.

no offence, but isn't that the job of your architect? as I don't feel like doing it for free. where the sunroom is, is the direction the sun is coming from, so that is the direction you should be facing your building and the main habitable rooms.

We are hoping to have a heat recovery system but are in still unsure of what heating system to go with. How much would you reduce the rooms by?

have you priced this build? you've got a 5/6 bedroom house! - ask your architect to recommend a QS and provisional price how much it would cost to build to passive standards and then scale it down by 10% so this standard could be achieved within your expected budget.

We are worried that the house is too big and will be impossible to heat.

proviosnal BER and phpp calc will tell you what your kwh/msq cost will be and you can predict the heating costs from there.

In regards to upstairs we have altered the plans (dont have a revised copy yet) so that the master ensuite and walk in wardrobe is now a bedroom and they are moved to run along the back of the house eliminating the drying room and instead putting in a 'normal' size hotpress.

Thanks for all the comments

• get priced by QS
• provisional BER for compliance
• PHPP for energy modelling and tweaking window/ building fabric specifications

DOCARCH

My tuppence worth! I think the house is too big! As BryanF suggests I would scale down maybe 10%.

Given the house is so big, is there any need for winders (angled steps) to the bottom of the stairs? You should not have to have winders - this is just lazy!

I would loose the bay windows to the front. Going to be hard enough to comply with new Part L without bay windows.

Add porch.

Loose the angled section of wall between the Hall and Kitchen/Dining.

Poor Uncle Tom

1. Move the kitchen to utility room door 600mm further towards the rear of the house leaving enough room in the utility to carry the work top through behind the door.

2. 3 bedrooms on the GF and no linen cupboard. Push the shower 800mm into the 'Toilet' and make room for a linen cupboard opening onto the bedroom corridor. Also put a radiator into the cupboard.

3. Remove the winders from the stairs, regs breach.

4. Move the front door and side windows out in line with the bay window wall creating a draught lobby inside.

5. Remove the overall waste of space by reducing the kitchen from 5000 to 4500, the utility room from 2500 to 2100 and the overall entrance hall by 900mm taking the entire length of the house down by 900mm. The build cost and running/heating costs will also drop. The hotpress and gallery would take up the slack on the FF.

6. A full bathroom isn't necessary on the FF with two ensuites already there. Turn the GF 'Toilet' into a bathroom instead.

Please don't take offence, just my opinion.

Technophobe

With all the space there, maybe as PUT alludes to, have a think re bathrooms/toilets.....

For one, what about closing off the door on the bathroom between the 2 bedrooms on the GF and instead making it a shared ensuite..??
Locate a small toilet for guests elsewhere then if you want (you do still have the Utility one too..)

The full bathroom (as PUT says) seems wasteful on the FF...

e30fitz

think the plans look good can you post the outside view of the house and also whats the ridge height of the house just to give a better idea of the house