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Posted by brianlanning on October 4, 2006, 6:02 pm
Hi Everyone. I posted a while back about the 5000sqft basement and got
a lot of good answers. I have a few more now But first some
background and an update.
We're sort of in a blue-sky brainstorming out-of-the-box thinking mode
now. We have nine kids and have decided that traditional houses just
aren't cutting it for us. The space is used inefficiently and the
layout is totally wrong for our needs.
When I say steel building, I mean a large factory made steel building
shell with steel paneling on the outside and inside with 6" of
insulation between them. We'll have some windows and doors to start,
but will probably add more later.
We decided against the basement (yea!). We'll probably build some sort
of concrete tornado room or something instead. Haven't given it much
thought yet.
The size is now probably 50x80.
The idea is to get into the house as cheaply as possible up front, then
have a lot of flexability and options to partition the space later. By
doing it this way, we can pay cash for everything and add rooms or
features as we have the money. No mortgage. And we would end up with
an industrial loft type house with a lot of space and with our unusual
requirements for a house.
So I have a few new questions.
First, instead of the basement I'm thinking we'll opt for an 18-20 foot
eve height. The idea is that we'll have really high ceilings now, and
add a free-standing second floor later inside the shell. I figure
we'll start with some normal 1st floor type rooms, but make the
ceilings in these rooms out of appropriate floor joists for a second
floor, so like 2x6s or 2x8s, at the normal 8 or 9 feet off the ground.
Later, I would just climb up there, put in a staircase, throw down some
plywood, flooring, and whatever else to make a second floor. I think
I'll have to treat these like load bearing walls. I can't transfer the
weight of the second floor to the shell. So they'll have to be
free-standing. Would I need a footer under the slab under all these
walls? I'd like to have the freedom to rearrange the locations of the
new walls after we've moved in. So maybe rebar in the slab instead of
wire mesh or a thicker slab would make the footers under the interior
walls unnecessary?
What if I made a post and beam type structure, footers under the posts?
I've seen these free-standing steel structures in industrial settings.
Maybe that would be better? What about footers under those? Can you
point me at someone who sells such things?
The second question is assuming a mostly flat grade to start, how much
can I expect the footer and slab to cost?
And lastly, we're thinking of doing this in a rural part of northern
illinois or southern wisconsin. What can I expect the well and septic
to cost, planning for a dozen people?
>From steelbuildings.com, I'm estimating $35,000 for the shell. So here
are the costs so far:
shell - 35,000
footer/slab - 16,000
building assembly, 4 guys, a crane, and a week - 15,000 (this is a
guess)
windows and doors - 10,000
well/septic - 10,000 (this is a guess)
hvac - 10,000 (this is a guess)
plumbing - 5,000 (this is a guess)
electrical - 5,000 (this is a guess)
general contractor crazy enough to do this - 20,000 (another guess)
stuff we didn't think of - 20,000
or 146,000.
Does anyone have any interesting ideas?
brian
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Posted by Bob Morrison on October 4, 2006, 6:28 pm
In a previous post brianlanning wrote...
> Does anyone have any interesting ideas?
Yes! Abandon this idea. Making a pre-engineered steel building into a
code-acceptable habitable space will take more time and money than you
think.
You can accomplish some of your ideas (large open spaces) with wood
construction that will be easier to install and easier to modify in the
future.
With 50x80 you could very easily run a beam line down the middle and span
the 25 feet with I-joists. 50-foot span for wood roof trusses isn't out
of the question. Exterior walls would be 2x6 bearing walls.
You would then have a structure that can be customized and modified over
time and still look like a house. You do want to sell this thing some
time in the future don't you?
Insulation and wiring will be more easily accomplished in a wood building
than in an industrial steel building. With this type of framing system
you can even put a basement in all or part.
--
Bob Morrison, PE, SE
R L Morrison Engineering Co
Structural & Civil Engineering
Poulsbo WA
bob at rlmorrisonengr dot com
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Posted by longshot on October 5, 2006, 6:19 am
> In a previous post brianlanning wrote...
>> Does anyone have any interesting ideas?
>
> Yes! Abandon this idea. Making a pre-engineered steel building into a
> code-acceptable habitable space will take more time and money than you
> think.
>
there are companies that already do this,. I have seen flyers. I think you
could get a lot more than you think for 150k. try to find a floor plan /
kit from one of those companies. google pole barn houses
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Posted by Bob Morrison on October 5, 2006, 10:33 am
In a previous post longshot wrote...
> there are companies that already do this,. I have seen flyers. I think you
> could get a lot more than you think for 150k. try to find a floor plan /
> kit from one of those companies. google pole barn houses
>
There is a world of difference between "Pole Barns" and pre-engineered
rigid frame metal buildings.
Neither one makes a very good house. Yes, you can turn them into
residential structures, but that is not the purpose for which they were
designed. Why do it? It is much easier to build with wood, especially if
you intend to modify the building over the years.
I have worked on several pole building to residence conversion projects
over the years. They almost never work out as well as promoted. This is
particularly true if you want the building to be energy efficient. In
order to work efficiently you must build energy efficient walls and
ceilings inside the skin of the pole building. For all that work you
could just skip the pole building and build a conventional wood frame
structure. In the end you will have something that looks like a house and
can easily be re-sold. Not many people want to live in a house that looks
like a barn.
--
Bob Morrison, PE, SE
R L Morrison Engineering Co
Structural & Civil Engineering
Poulsbo WA
bob at rlmorrisonengr dot com
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Posted by brianlanning on October 5, 2006, 11:01 am
Bob Morrison wrote:
> In a previous post brianlanning wrote...
> > Does anyone have any interesting ideas?
>
> Yes! Abandon this idea. Making a pre-engineered steel building into a
> code-acceptable habitable space will take more time and money than you
> think.
How can I say this? I've made it my mission in life to ignore people
who tell me I can't do things. Now, you may be completely right. If
someone gives me good supporting arguments for why something can't be
done, then I'm open to listening to their ideas. But my knee-jerk
reaction to knee-jerk reactions is to simply ignore people. People
think I'm nuts for making my own furniture, yet they tell me how nice
it is and complain about the junk in the store. People think I'm nuts
for doing my own car repairs, yet they complain to me about how much
the repairs cost and wish they could get $50 brake jobs. People tell
me I'm nuts for being a consultant and hopping around rather than
getting a nice "stable" job, yet they wish they could get away from
their dead-end job and make more money and have more freedom like I do.
People tell me I'm nuts for having nine children, and for adopting
five of them from three different countries, yet I have interesting
life experiences and a big loving family. People tell me they wish
they had more children, but never do because they decided they can't
afford them. People think we're nuts for renting the house we're in
now and "throwing money away" every month instead of buying, until I
tell them how the $12,000 a year property taxes mean the house has to
appreciate that much every year just to break even. Most people are
confined to a prison of conformity, unwilling to try new or different
things, limiting their options, because it's not perceived to be normal
or proper. In short, my wife and I have built a life around walking to
a different beat, thinking outside the box, doing things that other
people think are nuts.
So why, specifically, shouldn't I consider this?
> You can accomplish some of your ideas (large open spaces) with wood
> construction that will be easier to install and easier to modify in the
> future.
What if I want to accomplish all of my ideas? And who would wood
construction be easier for? I'm not ruling out wood construction. I'm
just considering all my options.
> With 50x80 you could very easily run a beam line down the middle and span
> the 25 feet with I-joists. 50-foot span for wood roof trusses isn't out
> of the question. Exterior walls would be 2x6 bearing walls.
I'm sure there's a wood frame solution to this. Whether it's more
cost-effective to do wood vs steel is debatable. The only advantage to
wood frame I see so far is that I may be able to tie the second floor
into the outside walls. But that may not matter.
> You would then have a structure that can be customized and modified over
> time and still look like a house.
Do I need for this to look like a house? What do you mean by "look
like a house"? What does a house look like? Do you mean the
cookie-cutter tract housing polluting our nation? Does a normal house
have vinyl siding or bricks instead of painted steel? Or maybe you
mean a "normal" house just like everyone else. If that's what you mean
then I definitly don't want it to look like a house.
Houses today have an "open" floor plan. I don't necessarily want this.
For example, I have to limit access to the kitchen. I have to be able
to lock the kitchen and pantry. I need a kitchen larger than most.
And I need a pantry the size of most bedrooms. I have three
refridgerators. Most "normal" houses today have a large open kitchen
in the middle with 8 different ways to get there. Look at your kitchen
and tell me how many baby gates you would need to totally block it off.
And are some openings even impossible to block? Could your three year
old pull the gate down or climb over?
What if I told you that I don't want closets in the children's
bedrooms? (oh, the horror!) I want one large combination
closet/laundry room with three sets of washers and dryers. They can
have dressers and armoires in their rooms if they need them. And if
it's really an issue, we can add closets later.
What if I told you I wanted an outdoor bathroom? Or the ability to
open an entire wall of the livingroom to a garden outside? How about
roll my computer desk into this courtyard?
What if I said we hate drywall and don't want it in our house?
>You do want to sell this thing some
> time in the future don't you?
No. I don't ever want to move again. We've built several houses. And
it's always a compromise. A compromise between what we want and what
the builder is willing to do. And also a compromise between what we
want and what has resale value. No more. We're building what we want
how we want it. We're tired of neighbors or the city telling us what
we can and can't do. We're also paying for it how we want. We're
tired of mortgages and worrying about equity and whether we are
upsidedown or not, being tied to this payment until we're 100. We
don't get the mortgage deduction anymore anyway so there's no advantage
left. (as if that's really an advantage)
> Insulation and wiring will be more easily accomplished in a wood building
> than in an industrial steel building.
I disagree. Insulation could be done at the factory. Or it could be
installed when the building has no interior walls. I expect that all
the conduit will be surface-mounted around the perimiter. I'll run it
through the interior walls like normal.
>With this type of framing system
> you can even put a basement in all or part.
We sort of decided against that in the last thread. But that decision
was based on cost because of the size, not because of wood vs steel.
If we made the building small enough, we could have a basement just
fine in the steel building.
> > Does anyone have any interesting ideas?
I was sort of hoping for ideas and not judgement.
brian
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