Opinions wanted on my house design

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife and I are in the middle of building a new house out here in Southern California. What we’re doing is quite unconventional, and I don’t know if we’re being foolish or cutting-edge in some of our ideas.

Does anyone have any experience with or commentary about any of the following?

Here are some of the unusual items we’ll be using:

[1] In-floor hydronic heating (not a furnace). This is basically pipes full of hot water under the floorboards. Supposed to be very comfortable and excellent for health too since there’s not hot, dry air blowing at you.

[2] Evaporative Cooler. We’re in Southern California, where it’s usually pretty dry when it’s hot. I’ve never lived with one before, but I don’t mind if my cool air is moist. I assume it’s not your father’s old swamp cooler, the technology has matured.

[3] All electric appliances. After the house is done, we’re going to pull some equity out to put solar panels on the house.

[4] No closets. This is a very European idea, and we’ll be having wardrobes and whatnot instead. I just hate the idea of collecting junk in every available spot in a house, and we want to get away from the “just throw it in the closet” mentality.

[5] Tankless water heater. This is a gas-powered device that only heats water on demand. No huge tank sitting there leaking heat. I’ve researched it and I’m pretty comfortable with its ability to provide enough hot water, but again I have no previous experience with one.

[6] Cork flooring throughout. I really like cork flooring. It’s very comfortable, and should work well with the in-floor heating.

[7] Metal roofing. We’re going for the commercial type with standing seams and concealed fasteners.

The whole house is pretty modern in concept and design, but I keept getting funny looks when I tell people about some of these things.

2

The lack of closets seem like they might present a problem with resale, but outside of that, I’m officially jealous of your new digs.

3

My opinion isn’t worth much, but I like all your ideas except 4 and 6.

No closets could possibly affect resale value since it’s not a common idea.

I don’t know anything at all about cork flooring. I’m thinking of typical cork that most would be aware of and thinking it’s a “dirty” looking color, soft (easily damaged), and hard to clean. I could be completely wrong.

4

Chiming in on the no closets and resale problem thing.

Also when I was househunting I only would consider a kitchen with a gas stove for cooking; electric just isn’t the same. So might consider gas for that one appliance.

Love the heated floors thing, they were awesome in the one house I’ve visited with them.

5

This is just a personal preference, but you did ask for opinions. Have you used a gas oven/range? I hate how electric ranges take time to heat up and cool down, and can’t heat a wok properly (you need a big flame, not a hot, flat surface). Also how the ovens don’t have a proper flame for broiling.

I don’t know if this is the same thing or not, but our friends’ house has heated kitchen tiles, which were very nice. Are you planning to use cork everywhere in the house? Is it easy enough to clean to use in the kitchen and bathroom?

6

I second what Twiddle said. Gas stove = yes, electric stove = no. Yes it’s that important to me.

In general, exotic designs/materials are fairly widespread in So Cal, but the whole no closet idea is just…overly optimistic.

7

Regarding the lack of closets - I believe some lenders and/or appraisers (at least in some states) deem if a room doesn’t have a closet, it can’t be called a bedroom. That only matters if you expect to sell the place eventually. And, personally, I’d hate being without closets - I’m not all that fond of huge wardrobe-size pieces of furniture.

I have seen some shows on HGTV where they install cork flooring - not to my personal taste, but it is an attractive floor.

I wanted a metal roof on the house we were going to build, but my husband didn’t like the idea. I still think it’s a good choice.

8

All for the steel roof. I’m having one done this year.

I almost build a dome a couple of few years ago before I wound up buying my parents house. I would have done the heated floors too.

The no closet idea I’d rethink. Also I’d chime in with gas for the kitchen.

9

I’m not keen on the little hot water service. Put in an honest-to-God gas hot water heater (electric is far too expensive). I’ve had some experience of luke-warm, 2-minute showers, and it’s not something I want every day of my life.

Once you’ve got gas connected, it’s a good and economical thing to use in your kitchen (hate those electric stoves). Also, I’m unfamiliar with hydronic underfloor heating, but have seen hydronic wall heaters and electric underfloor heating, where the wires are put into the slab itself as the house is built and both were great and economical too. I’d assume that hydronic heating can be coupled with gas as well for extra savings.

10

I sixth the gas stove in the kitchen.

And maybe you need to move to Australia if you don’t want built in robes - most of the older houses don’t have them here.

RE floors - my suggestion for you is polished wood floors. We have them and they’re really nice. We had cork in our kitchen and bathroom at our old place, and I like wood much better.

Many roofs here are corrugated iron, and they work fine.

We also have gas hot water and no water tank. It’s great. We never run out of water.

11
  1. Pretty common. All electric is what we have and there are no regrets.
  2. You need to rethink the no closets idea. That seems like a good way to royally screw up an otherwise great house. Nobody is going to make you have clutter in them.
  3. Tankless water heaters are good and we have one. No problems.
12

Tankless is thumbs up.

So is a gas stove. Cooking with electric just sucks. (Though if you are used to it and switch to real fire your instincts for how high you should turn the burner are off - flames are way hotter.)

Closets affect resale - but good on you! (But then where do you put things like luggage?)

13

Your going to need a boiler (gas) for your in-floor heat. So you may as well go for the gas stove.

Not sure about the cork floors, but I have no experience with them.

No Closets? No way (for me at least).

14

I’m going to agree with everyone else and say that you need to get closets for resale.

If a person is a junk collector, they will find a way to clutter things up even with closets.

I’ve seen houses like you describe with only wardrobes and people have still managed to use one of the wardrobes to keep a bunch of junk in them.

15

My opinions:

  1. Radiant heating = good. I’d love to have it.

  2. Evaporative cooler (I really think this is a swamp cooler, no how much the technology has been modernized) is probably good. (I have never used one.) The one thing is: do most other houses there have central air? If so, you might be hurting resale value if you don’t have it too.

  3. I’d never ever ever buy a house with an electric stove. Anyone who is any type of cook over “EZ-Bake Oven” standards will want a gas stove. In my opinion, gas stoves with electric ovens are the best. Electric stove only might as well be a hotplate.

  4. No closets is a very bad idea. You might like it but a large percentage of people who buy a house want closets. It’s a major selling point to have them. There’s no reason you can’t keep yours very neat and spare if you like it that way. I would not buy a house without closets. It’s kind of strange, frankly, in modern construction; I’d bet money that if you did a secretly recorded open house, lack of closets would be the number one comment.

  5. Tankless: depends; how many bathrooms will you have? How much hot water do you think you’ll need to generate at one time? I’ve not yet come across a tankless that could take care of a couple of showers in a row, the washer and the dishwasher, all in the space of a couple of hours. Perhaps you might want to get more than one, zoned for specific use? They’ve done this on This Old House a bunch of times and I can’t imagine they’d install something that they had any doubts on.

  6. Don’t know much about cork flooring, but it does look nice. It would be a plus for me.

  7. No comments on metal roofing because I have no experience with it.

16

If you go for cork flooring, don’t skimp on the treatment. Give it the maximum number of layers of whatever lacquer etc. is recommended, with the full amount of drying time in between. It seems like a hassle & expense, but it’s the difference between a floor that lasts 3 years and one that lasts 20.

17

Tankless water heaters are quite common here in the UK (we call them combi boilers) - they are OK, but typically don’t cope very well with changes in flow rate, which can mean that they really don’t perform at all well with a shower.
Not that they are necessarily particularly brilliant at other things either; we had one in my last house and if you decided that you wanted a bit more hot water in your bath, you’d have to have a bit of cold first, somewhere along the line, whereas from a tank, the water in the pipes might have cooled a little (it will do this whichever solution you choose), but the new hot water isn’t preceded by a lot of cold.

In certain circumstances, combi boilers can be less efficient than a conventional boiler and well-insulated tank - they have to heat the water quickly on demand, which might mean they are burning the fuel less efficiently, for example.

18

That’s an unusual idea? In the non-humid states of Australia, it’s a standard. Ducted evaporative cooling is right through my house, and I’d swear by it (and that link takes you to a company I used to work for). On hot, dry days, the house can get downright icy. SA is supposed to have a very similar climate to yours, too.

Again, this is unusual? I have one and it’s brilliant. (We’ve got a Rinnai ‘Infinity’ if that helps at all.) It produces hot water for as long as you need it, on demand. Also seems to be considerably more water-efficient than the old one we had (full size tank jobbo) and it’s indistinguishable from the full-tank versions in terms of how long it takes for the hot water to come through the pipes. Only thing to note is that if your power goes off the hot water stops within seconds (I had a five-second power outage while showering one morning. That was an abrupt wake-up!). However, they have an electrical control panel inside the house and all you do is hit the ‘on’ switch when the power comes back.

You mean like this corrugated iron kind of stuff? That’s modern? giggles Well, I’ve lived in houses with metal roofs and had no problems whatsoever provided of course that you remember to insulate the ceiling (but I’m sure you’d do that regardless). Current place has a tiled roof, but I’d certainly not consider either option to be a make-or-break deal as they’re utterly indistinguishable once you’re inside and the insulation is in.

You’re getting real funny looks from me right about now. :smiley: Maybe you should consider checking out some Australian house plans?

19

Ditto what all the others are saying about closets. I do some real estate speculation and development, so I speak from experience. Closets are a very huge factor for resale value. If a house or apartment just has small closet space, then people react very strongly. It’s the most common thing that people will complain about. I can’t imagine a house with NO closet space at all. It would be very difficult to sell.

The condo’s I’m building now have two big closets in the master bedroom, a closet in the second and third bedrooms, and a coat closet on the first floor. I only wish I had the room to do more.

20

You want an all electric house in California, the same state that brought us rolling blackouts in '01? I purposly had a gas range & stove, hot water heater and heat in our newly built home because if the electric goes out in the winter (which happens here in the Mid Atlantic), we can bathe, eat and not freeze. Obviously the last one wouldn’t be a problem in most of California, but bathing and eating are right up there at least to me.