Dear 40/42-ers, After a long wait DH & I are getting ready to BUILD our ‘dream home’ and I have a few questions for the very knowledgeable local experts. Voice your opinion now! 1. Who has a BASEMENT in their home and how has it been? Is it DRY is it mold free? Is it a useful part of you home and would you build a basement again? 2. Anyone build a prefab modular home? No, not a trailer, not a double or triple wide manufactured home. These homes are BIG, multi-box and usually bricked after delivery. 3. Every home we have looked at has a master bath sauna whirlpool BIG ARSE tub. Does anyone really use one of these enough to -really- make it worth the cost? We are not soak in the tub people. I am thinking a nicer larger shower would be much better & more cost effective for our uses. Plus another bath will have a tub to use in case of illness or whatever. Thanks. ~K
On your last point, in case of illness, a large walk-in shower and shower bench is really more convenient than a tub.
can't answer on the 1 & 2, but on the tub.. if this is your dream home and you envision being there until your elder years.. you might grow to appreciate a nice big tub with the sauna jets. I have a "Jacuzzi" oval shaped tub with the jets, and I love it personally. I've always been one to like a nice soak in the tub with a drink or a book after a bad day. But, I was thinking as you "mature" and joints get achier easier,etc.. might be nice to have one. In the house I grew up in, my parents had both, a huge garden-style tub with the jets, and a large walk-in shower with glass doors and room for a bench to sit. If it were my dream home, I'd go for both. And congrats on getting to a point in life where you can start to make your dream home a reality.
Someone I know went the modular route. After all was said and done she said it cost almost the same as stick built. I don't know if it is common but she had a harder time getting a modular financed.
We have a basement and I love it. We haven't "finished" it. Right now we have our pool table, ping pong table, dart board, and some extra furniture down there. If we ever build again I'll have another one. So far we haven't had any problems with mold or water. Our house was built in 1997. Hopefully, if there were going to be problems we would know by now. My luck I'll go home today and it'll be flooded.
1- we are going with a full basement. Our grading contractor said if he had his time over he would do his basement like he is doing ours. We are NOT doing the block and tar, rather we are pouring our basement walls. And for the price we are already building this house for... a few more K and we have a basement... a no brainer. 2- Mod. homes, trailers, doubles & trips just don't hold their value like stick builts do. The peps selling the houses will tell you all day long "onceyou brick a house underneath you can deed it and it's a house then." Ask an appraiser see what they say. 3- Most peps I have spoke to on that subject say save you money on the "indoor jets" They don't use them as much as they thought they would. Just get the giant tub if you want a deep soak and save the jets for an outside hot tub. Happy building. And good luck picking out a house... I almost divorced my hubby over picking out our "forever house" :roll:
A proper basement is designed to "breath" and no additional measures to keep it dry should be needed. My wife and I had ours built in a sub-division and I can throw you a few things off the top of my head on the proper and non-proper ways to have one built according to my experience. We picked the floorplan from an existing house in the subdivision and had it put on the lot we wanted. That way you can walk though the house and get a feel for it, and whatever else you want to change. Use the builder that built that one. 1/2: Find a neighborhood you like! Meet ALL the neighbors! 1: Keep an eye on everyone workin on your house, daily. We used to drive out from Raleigh every day just to watch the house being built. Its amazing how many minor mistakes we caught and were able to have corrected on the spot. Carry a sharpie, and a can of black spray paint with you at all times and mark on the framework any changes you need Wider doorways,walls moved,etc. 2: When coming out carry a 12 pack of cold soda,water,beer,whatever and dispense them to the workers. They will love you for it and take better care to do the house right. Pizzas for them maybe once a week. 3: Meet the foreman atleast once a week. (They rarely are there for more than a few minutes a day. Be there when he/she is. 4: Pay the extra upfront for anything you think, "I can do that later" -Finished garage-hot tub instead of the regular tub, etc. You wont find the time or money to do it later. Trust me 5: For resale value nothing beats upgrades in the kitchen and baths. 6: Put in as many windows as you can afford. I put in only 2 extras and you wouldnt believe the compliments I get from people in the neighborhood with the same floor plan. 7: Put an electrical outlet under ever single window in the house. For those Christmas candles. Good luck.
I built a pre-fab modular home. It is a two-story home built on a center block foundation because we live on the side of a lake, on a hill. Our home came UNFINISHED...the only thing the factory did was provide the walls. We have REAL sheetrock that was put up when the house was set, built on garage, bonus room, basement area (which we don't really use), the vinyl siding was done later, no carpet was installed, we had someone do it..... so all in all, our house is a modular, but our house is valued much more than several stick built homes around my area. There are so many nightmares that go along with building that anyone has the chance to experience, but I am satisfied with my house. We painted ourselves, and did the landscaping ourselves, but our house was not the typical delivery with the curtains and the carpet laid, like most mobile homes. The guy that did the appraisal from the bank said he never knew it was a modular until someone had told him. Good luck to you.
I agree but ya gotta be carefull.... Case in point - many years ago I was wiring a very nice ALL brick house. The future homeowner came by with a huge cooler full of beer for all the guys. I think there were at least 3 trades there that day. The amigos doing the outside brickwork nabbed it as soon as he was out of sight and hauled it out on their scaffolding and went to drinking (gee thanks for sharing, guys) anywho, when I came back for the trim out, you could see EXACTLY where they started drinking, cause the nice neat lines before migrated into something that looked like you'd given a five year old some brick, mortar, and a trowel and told him to go to work.
Something I plan on doing on the next house is anywhere I think I may one day put a desk, tv, computer, stereo, etc go ahead and put a metal box with mud ring and stub down a short piece of conduit into the basement/crawl space so if you need to add/change a wire you don't have to try to fish the wall. Just put a blank plate on it after drywall. The only thing I would do differently would be to actually run these to a home run location in the basement but then again I'm a believer having a telco/network room/closet in your house. You might not be so crazy.
Just remember on those really big tubs you may need to upsize the water heater. Hate to run out of hot water at half full. I've never had one but have you done any research on tankless heaters?
I agree with Daredevil and take heed of Just One Guy's additional comment about the beer. End of day would be good if you're going to do beer. From days framing, I can tell you a 10 am biscuit and soda would hit just right. If you do a garage, I have been very frustrated by the lack of outlets in my garage (1), but our builder (SWB builder) did a poor job on this house (and refused to fix most of the issues). That is why you need to watch. Check the subflooring from the bottom carefully to make sure the nails are in the joists. That is my problem today. Sounds like you've stepped on a squeaky toy every two feet.
Love the basement. Add gutters and keep them clean = dry basement. BIG shower over tub. Garden tub in last house only collected dust Happy building!
There was a big legal battle a few years back when someone was proposing to build a custom modular home in The Governors Club. The jusdge finally ruled that it was acceptable to build the house but that if it was discernable from one of the other custom homes that it would be removed at the owners expense. The house was still standing last week so there was nothing any of the opponents could find that identified it as a modular construction. There is a range of quality in modular construction just as there is with stick built. The house before this one was built from a modular framework. The walls were built in a factory to our specifications and set into place with a crane. Since the walls were all square once the first floor was set into place there was no way to get the exterior back out od square unless you really tried. I did have to watch the nailing of the subfloor as there were a couple of nailing lines that missed the joists and I had to have them renail them. I also had them put in screws as a secondary retaining system, which prevented the squeaks for the time in which we were in residence. Extra outlets are alwasy good, and a couple of extra circuits too. The tub depends on your goals. If you want to live in the house wihtout resale put whatever you want in the bathroom. If you may sell the house at some tim ein the future you need to mirror the current housing market. In that case a good real estate agent would be a benefit to ensure the popular additions were included.
we have a single level house with a basement ( i would say ranch but that doesn't really describe our house) our lot lent itself to a basement so we went with that -- our builder did a superior job in making sure it was waterproofed --- we have a playroom and a single car garage - for the restoration of a car that maybe one day will actually get restored anyway we are glad to have it as we have teens and when they have friends over they are usually down there -- the advantage over an upstairs bonus room is that we don't hear all the foot traffic and noise that frequently can be heard w/ the kids above your main living space the other thing we did in building this house was designate the fourth bedroom/home office as disabled friendly -- the door is 36in wide to accommodate a walker or wheel chair and the bath beside also has a 36 in wide door -- a shower that would allow use by someone who need a roll in style shower and a pedestal sink that would allow a wheel chair -- we did this and jokingly have called it the in law suite as both sets of parents age ya- never know if you might end up needing to care for them -- our house is all brick and we have a standing seam metal roof similar to those on the schools (not bright blue or teal) it was slightly more expensive on the front end but has a 50+ year guarantee double that of shingles so we went with it the only thing i would do over / change is the electrical -- this was our first experience and now having lived in the space i wish i had put more switches in and changed the configuration of some of the lighting in the main living spaces -- but i chalk that up to a lesson learned if we do it again
Thank you all for your wide array of ideas & points. We plan to build on family (FARM) land and our only neighbors will be family. Hopefully, we will not need any bank help as we have sold our previous home and plan to roll that money into the new home. We are living (rent free!) in a home on the farm now so we will be --right there-- to watch every inch of the building process. Why Modular? Well, I had major reservations of living in an upgraded trailer. HOWEVER, after visiting the factory and learning a great deal about the new industry of modular home construction I am SOLD on the idea. The company we plan to use DID NOT start out as a mobile home builder and work in to a fancy triple wide with options types of homes. They build very custom (read: LARGE) homes, with high-end features and are usually brick & stone. Our lot has a natural slope so a basement would be open sided also known as a walkout basement. I was very concerned about long-term water & dampness issues. As of now, we plan to have a precast wall foundation system like http://www.superiorwalls.com/. They are made in Oxford, NC. Again, this is a newer technology that is now being used in residential construction. From what I have learned, this is the way to go to stay DRY! Kitchen Ideas: Anyone have taller (40+’’) lower cabinets? DH & I are both tall. Again, our home will be our LIFETIME home and building for re-sale is not a consideration. We do plan for 36’’ doors and a handicap accessible bathroom in the basement which could serve as a mother-in-law suite as needed. Thanks. ~K
Kel, Superior Walls is an excellent system if you're interested in having a basement. I'm not sure of the cost difference, but you might want to consider a poured in place system with proper waterproofing. You may be able to save a few bucks and end up with the same product. For anyone considering building a basement - do it. The price difference is relatively small (10% or less typically) and you effectively double your square footage, not to mention the ease of adding cat5e, rg6, additional outlets, etc. down the road.
