New House Design Review please :)

BryanF wrote: »

I won't be commenting again.

Hey! you're not supposed to be commenting again!!


Yeah, I'm getting impatient and this guy is taking longer then expected and most importantly, I'm not going to take anyone's word without double checking everything (Arch, Builder,Eng) I know in my own profession, there are too many people I would cringe if my personnel job came across their desks ;p no disrespect, I'm just aware of what happens in most industries...Even surgeons cut off the wrong leg sometimes :eek:


Of course, sometimes you get lucky (especially if the job is straight forward for some strange reason) and I just want to monitor it , I'm interested in the whole process anyway and want to learn about it. Most people are like water, they just want to take the easiest route, not me ;p

AND also, what happens if I don't like his concepts? Seriously....I've had some people, draw up rough concepts, after a good detailing from me as to the constraints of the site...and I wasn't impressed.. HOUSE DESIGN is so bloody personnel(like choosing clothes or aftershave), that you almost need to do it yourself LOL I understand that Arch bring very important almost intangible things like feel and flow to a building that ADD MASSIVE value but tell that to 70% of people living in box like estate houses
and It is a tough little site to design for, admitted by the architect who is currently doing up concepts.
This guy says take one main element and design around it, It has me a bit worried, might be a bit too much sacrifice of our needs in that statement.


I've already come a long way in the last few months, I'm really looking forward to getting past the outward design and onto the house tech(Plumbing,Wiring, HRV, Solar, Whole house water softener, Jarvis uploaded to house automation..etc.)

CaraK Thanks, Very insightful of you to suggest changing the cladding. After showing one of MissWhippy's previous comments to my wife, she suggested getting rid of the stone cladding too, and make it more of a single render (2 tone) like the original design I copied. I think that hit me the hardest, I really really love the natural stone, If it has to go, it goes, but I love that far more then simple render.
Can I ask you to explain the earlier comment "If the house is going to be airtight consider putting balanced external air supply into the floor now" ....Are you talking about design the HRV ventilation at this stage?
Just a note on the cladding material, Trocal(Rubber plastic) is about half the price of Zinc, I was speaking to the Building services manager of Pfizer(Clondalkin), They had the largest installation of it about 20 years ago and he was raving about it. It's a truly massive, flat roof.
and the roof finishes are hard to tell apart....We'll definitely be using that material given the size of the roof, but using that surface on a wall? I'm not sure....you'd probably need something tougher like Zinc, as you said it is pricey.

ustari Don't worry, I'm more balls out typing on this internet forum, really quite an appeasing guy in the flesh. The Arch has thick skin and I've had a good chat with him. I even sectioned off the living room area from the open plan living/Kitchen/Dining on his argument with me about 'Open Plan areas' He's not even a fan of open plan Kitchen/Dining... I thought the 'office/library' space was a sufficient space to 'get away' from the large open plan, I was sorely wrong he convinced me totally ....Can you see your kids, and their friends hanging out in a small office/library?
I'll obviously let him do his thing now.

volchitsa Good point about the Garage, I think It's not in the Irish phych to have a house fronted with a Garage. If you are American, and your car is a member of your family and culture, then it's perfectly acceptable to front your house as soo many do in the states, I noticed it on a handful of new builds in Ireland too.
If I don't stick a Garage in front of the house, then I have to blank off that skinny end of the building with something, see the neighbours design above, modern box type, you can't miss it Then where do I put the garage and how so I access it with large parts? Like a lot of Arch, you may be suggesting making a separate Garage, but then, you can't wall off your Garden because you'll need access(Well I'm going need some kinda access regardless but I guess I getting at, you won't be driving a car across the lawn).. .. I'm open to suggestions, but it's a real pickle.
I take your point, that it doesn't look natural to you, I'm glad I'm far less aesthetically inclined LOL

P.S I'm sure I'll have to re-insert something for the kids, I was designing after bedtime so it was easy to take it out. Maybe a wendy house for my girl, you know how kids like variety.
and NOBODY complained when I took the ten pin bowling gear off the kitchen counter, but in fairness, there's no bowling alley there anymore(way earlier posts) ;p you see that was great advice that just needed time to settle in LOL


and THANK YOU for the Support,, that's all I see here

Right, with some time to spare, I'm looking into the subject of light since I have so much glass on the south side. we do occasionally get baked in Ireland even though it doesn't feel like it.

Here's the Overhang..



and here is some Ideas on designing for sun angle.."in hot climates"
http://articles.extension.org/pages/26272/designing-energy-efficient-new-homes-for-a-warm-climate

from the above link, the rule of thumb is this(but again, maybe there is some leeway since we're not a hot climate?)



According to that..Given my height to the Eave, I should have a horizontal distance of 1.75M on my overhang That's would be UBER Alpine

I'm about to post some pictures showing the light conditions at certain dates, but I should have researched OVERHANG properly, and started reading page 15 of this article :mad: It's very good! explains what to look for (I should have picked different dates for testing the sun)
https://www.pilkington.com/resources/pilkingtonsunanglecalculatormanual.pdf

I'm not putting in concrete floors, It's definitely going to be engineered 'wood' flooring. Not going FULL Hippie on the design.

Right, Here's some Shadow 'Study' pic the computer spat out, Seems ok on the Equinox's....Shaded in Summer, and allows light in during the winter, but again, maybe this is the wrong time to be testing.







Winter Sun



Blah



Oh, yeah, I know, the bay window thing has no shading ;p Anyway, I imagine they'll all be getting Blinds, The wife loves curtains and blinds for some reason...But thinking about it, the sisters place has massive open(no Curtains/Blinds) Glazing facing south, might just do up a Sun Model on her place, Her Overhang extends quite a bit, maybe 1.5M and directly out from above the glass.

ok, I hate threads that don't finish a story....so here goes... Please ignore the shading pictures above, I have that sorted now.

I submitted the plans to the council, but was rejected in the nicest ways.."incongruous with the area"...you can see that the building types in the area are really mixed up, (see attached)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5dd1pno64cj2pq/Rejected_Redacted.pdf?dl=0

In this day and age, people are sticking houses in their parents driveways, and because of the amount of submissions like this, the council are hyper paranoid about garden space that could be converted They didn't understand, I wanted a south facing garden.

- It is considered this site has the potential to accommodate one dwelling only. It is currently laid out to as if a second dwelling is to be accommodated in future. It appears there is insufficient private open space for two dwellings and to meet Development Plan development management standards.

The planning rejection was like a hard kick in the nuts, so much so that my nuts got crushed off the pelvic bone and there was just white hot pain/oblivion for 2 weeks.. I can understand why people don't speak kindly of the planners... I truely didn't understand how much they dictate how your house is to be built.

Once, I got the message, 'get you back wall away from your eastern boundry' , only single story aginst your North side'..etc..etc..move any two story element to the middle...
I started to understand the power they have, and unfortunately all humans/middle management with power, rarely use it fairly.(I'll explain this later)

So after two weeks, we picked ourselves up(myself and the wife) and started again. Now I really wished I had understood post #11 from JimmyMW...he said it so politely, It never registered with me... I needed to hear, 'Forget about what you want to build on your own land..You need to go cap in hand, on your knees to the council and beg them for permission to build'

THis story has a happy ending, I'll update over the next few days.

That design evolved into a big MonoSlab like this

Sorry for the delay, plenty going on over the new years!
Here's a photo of the VR stuff, it works unbelievable well!! It has to be tried to be believed.



right, back on track, a little bit about planners to finish off, these creatures affect everyone in different ways(It's very subjective -
which can be good and bad, depending which way the coin lands, sorry but it is) , from my personnel experience with the site it
was overshadowing along with other issues that were at play, now please pay attention, because this is a little insight into the god
awfulness of the process.

I was told after the 'rejected' plan was launched that the new concept would also need to drop in height!!!(To the tune of 1M!!) This is where I had to
go and pull out the regulation! I had enough of this sht. I hate rules and even more, reading book loads of them, Of course the
regulation isn't made by us, we just lazily reference English regulation of course.

Here's a 'Light Study' I threw at them, a bit more detail was involved but this covers it.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057795088

Now in the end of the day, I love the planners because they made us go back and redesign the house and myself and the wife are
much happier with the results.

But don't miss the point here!.
One of the major reasons my previous, not so good looking design didn't pass was due to the overshadowing effect... with my
newly learned knowledge, I went back and double checked, what do you know!! It provided enough light for the neighbours and
WAS NOT interfering with their right to 'sufficient light'

Planners can pull S*** out of their arse that actually IS NOT RIGHT, so if you're in this situation battling away with them, start
looking up all the relevant law, it's not rocket science even if someone tells you it is!! DO NOT take them at their word like we meakly did....CHECK it out!
Once I spelled it out in a report, it was like.....'OK'...****, here's your planning permission.
All the arguments just disappeared.....

It was a bit of fun, Easier way to get through the above, is 'GET an architect' ;p but you'd miss out on the blood and sweat
involved.

oh and here's more naiveness ;p Don't rely on the planners to notice anything inside your house, all they care about is the outside
look. So building regulations A,B,E,F,H,J,K,L and M.... Ventilation, how to size a wheelchair bathroom(really hard like)..etc
you gotta read that **** yourself, and you know what, .....wait for it.....It's not rocket science, it's just a lot of good comment sense.

ok, here's the approved plans, please get highly critical of them if possible, I'd appreciate it.....obviously there's nothing storage about that space.....but feel free to say anything......Helical stairs(not shown in design) will kill plenty of space in front of the 4.2M window., but sure I like it ;p
Most important point of all, House design is unbeliveably personnel, you are the only one who knows what you really want!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r2lqw1ywokbboot/Approved.pdf?dl=0

Ok, a quick one here, because even a QS needs a good laugh from time to time ;p I was chasing this super QS back in July, but I think he read this thread and didn't want anything to do with me LOL, I'm meeting a lad end of next week, so it'll be interested how much he kicks my figures into shape

DOn't worry, my chief architect program spits out of the quanties here, no hard work on my behalf(jesus I really like that program, almost feel like I shoud have contributed to it, but things get tight when your self building ;p)
But it did make me cry as I put the costs together!

Here's my attempt at some QS costings
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j12e3xleb0lprvy/Costings.xlsx?dl=0

THis project was fun, and I learned a few things, I'm helping my cousin put through planning for a single story extension on his property now. It's more out of curiousity to see what **** is thrown at him by the local council

I know, but you have to be careful with them, (Big egos, human nature when you're in a position of power, you don't like back chat...unfortunately, most of us, no matter what we say, would end up like that!...power corrupts...simple as that)

Best bet, is to be as polite as possible with them, like I was counselled ;p to take off the red circular yokes I had on the documents(see link above), because that might make it look like I was treating them like PURE stupid good advise, thank you brother in law.

Best go softly, softly, I have heard too many horror stories, one locally, where they brought their own engineer into a meeting, who explained why the specified sewage system was ok (who doesn't know their job then....again), only to be asked to produce all kinds of reports including shadow studies etc...so they can kick back if you over turn their shell ;p

Hi Again,
Just a quick FYI, with regard Virtual Reality, it is now incorporated as standard in Chief Architect X10..I believe this will be standard in all decent design software in the next few years.

ok moving on with Ventilation:
I gave a well known company a deposit in order to get a ventilation plan of the building (I needed to know where the penetrations would be in the walls..etc.. Sure when I got the plans back, I had to point out that he had a return duct directly over the cooker, and this is a bad idea(It should be a few metres back at least, he's like oh yeah??). At this point the penny dropped (nobody gives a crap about your project except yourself)..I also asked about how the flow rates were calculated and he said the boffin in the back room using equations and rules of thumb, so at this point I think I'd better start learning the basics of HVAC.
He didn't drop any supply vents close to doors, short circuiting the rooms ventilation, so at least that part oh his design was ok.
I'm not sure if 'summer By-pass' is standard on all HVAC systems now or not, but if you're planning on a well insulated, air tight house, you'll want it. It disconnects the heat exchanger between your supply and extract ducts, so you just get fresh cooler air in and all your return air is extracted without adding heat to the incoming air.

Found a good learning resource on youtube here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2Y1KNFoxug&list=PLzd2Luxg9pJ-GC_U4YF5mZ9V4PfnQcaIS&index=4&t=3452s

The guy Jack Rise has a recommended book:
"Understanding Manual D Residential Duct Systems" ... supposed to be well illustrated

Americans call their BER , a 'Manual J'...and it comes with heat loads per room, seems a bit better than our system which just gives an overall heat load, but I'm not that familiar with it. Duct work is covered by their 'Manual D' regulations, and I imagine they are a lot more informed than we are because of how common place ducting is over there.

I got a few quotes from different companies before starting out on this, and I found the biggest differences were made when the company left out a 'manifold'. Once that way of ducting is accounted for, the prices come closer together.
The two pipe system I'm using has the potential for 'Cross-talk'....like talking down the plastic pipe in a children’s playground, so I'm a bit worried about that.

and speaking to some of the sales reps, they point out that the AirBox will only be running at 50% because it'll be easier on the motors and the Box will last longer which is true, but they don't mention, if they screw up the design of the system, and the Box works at over 60% you are going to start getting a lot of noise in the system.

Now I got some tips from an Industrial level HVAC guy(on the web, see link below), who kinda makes light of domestic HVAC. He just outlines 10 points below and maybe this is true, that's all you need to follow and I'm just being a bit pedantic, but it could be like talking to a Civil engineer who will start laughing when you say a house has an engineering aspect to it, or an industrial Electrician who will roll his eyes, about how a house needs to be wired up properly (I guess it's too simple from their point of view)

The high level ducting Expert says that for residential you just need to follow these simple rules!
http://buildingsciencepress.com/documents/insights/bsi-016-ventilation-top-ten-list


I downloaded a product called 'Revit', It's a bit more of a pain in the ass to use, then Chief, but it has a nice ventilation package.
I made a 'family' for the AirBox, and now I just need to get the ducting right to calculate the airflows...Has anyone done this before?
Do I need to turn the rooms into spaces? to really get it working, or will I be fine just with the duct flow rates?
Can someone just do a middle of the road design and then solve the problem by balancing the system with valves on the ends of the ducts? That's the way I feel this going at the moment.