Design Guide
The Design Guide is a DIY tool intended to be helpful in analyzing and selecting a building site and evolving a home design. One is encouraged to consider utilizing it prior to making any final site or home plan design selection decisions.
This guide has necessarily set some boundaries in its content and approach. It concentrates on ‘core’ design considerations such as site, the building ‘shell’, and planning thinking and concepts. The planning chapters also include a decent collection of design options in a 2d or 3d graphic presentation format including dimensional parameters.
At this point the only component (product) considerations are doors and windows because of their immense importance to any successful design. Additional component chapters will likely be added to this guide at some point. Their intent is to overview the components role within the whole house and define best choice parameters.
Component research for all home design, processes and products in our internet age is certainly easy and immediate. There are a staggering number of these that are part and parcel of a completed new home project. And the best data unfortunately can be tough to extract. Very tough. The usual and usually accurate advice here is that if something sounds too good to be true, then it is.
Construction Guide
The Construction Guide is similarly a DIY tool. It is intended to inform, explain, and thereby assist in achieving better/best primary construction decisions. It looks at basic ‘shell’ construction from foundation to roof.
As any experienced (DIYer/builder/Architect/designer/ knows, there is seldom only one way to solve a construction situation. Better decisions are always conditional on specific project situations. Climate, site conditions, resources and labor available, budget, timing all usually play a role in finding that better solution. In keeping with this reality, the attitude this guide has adopted is to present the why of a situation, the purpose of the construction action, and any concerning consequences of those decisions.
The guide also has elected to stay inside the boundaries of ‘conventional’ home building construction. Several to many ‘systems’ exist to address construction situations and certainly some do so very well. ICF’s, precast foundation panels, PWF foundations, SIPS panel systems, post and beam structures, log construction and other down home green and sustainable approaches, are all certainly worth consideration when conditions are right. The scope of this guide, and frankly the knowledge base of this author, precludes all these from being included.
One important comment on alternative ‘systems’ of any type is that they all solve some problems well, but seldom do they solve all problems. The downsides need to be well understood before making a commitment.