New House Build

[AllByteNoBark]

Very nice place Richard. Has to be nice to be living on the farm you grew up on.

 

[ovrszd]

First off, nice work on the house. We did stained concrete for the lower level here - kind of a dark leather brown color that came out nice. I think it is a good solution for slabs.

Radiant floor heat - my experiences. I started off thinking an on-demand HW heater was a great solution. I no longer really think so. There are caveats to that, but what i ran into has soured me on them. I have 3 Takagi on-demand heaters. 2 in the house, 1 in the shop. The 2 house ones are very high efficiency (96-97%) and one is dedicated to domestic HW and the other to radiant floor heat. The one in the shop is slightly lower efficiency but still decent (low 90's?) and only covers radiant heat. From the get-go they have some great advantages - small footprint, the ability to do sealed combustion with PVC venting, high efficiency and very simple controls (your T-stat asks for heat and starts the pump, so the heater automatically starts with teh flow from the pump).

HOWEVER.....

I have learned that these are SUPER sensitive to hard water. We moved in Aug 2015 and did not have a softener in yet. It was on the do to list but I didn't consider it urgent. We started having a lot of issues with hard water plugging up the shower valve screens so finally in Nov 2015, I put in a softener. That fixed those issues and i figured we were good. The next year the domestic HW heater started to leak. Tech support was very helpful and they were nice enough to comp me a heat exchanger, which I had to install (THAT was fun...NOT!). They diagnosed it as due to hard water. Now we ran hard water through it for all of 3-4 months at most, then fully soft water, but that was enough to kill it. I had lengthy technical discussion by phone and email on their diagnosis, and it was clear they were right. I bought a good hard water kit and found my incoming well was 24-26 grains hardness. After softening, it was <1. We have not had problems since, for the past 3.5 yrs.

Radiant had the same issue as those heaters got filled with hard water prior to the softener. The one in the shop crapped out this past spring after only ~5 yrs use - same issue as the house DHW. The one in the house is still going (3-4 yrs) and I did flush it with vinegar to see if I could stop the hard water build up. So far it is OK, but who knows if it will die soon? The other wrinkle is antifreeze. Now this depends a lot on where you live. Up here, if the power went out and it got really cold, I would be at risk of freezing the system after sufficient time down. Can't take that risk so I added 50% antifreeze that is designed for radiant systems to both house and shop. I didn't do that right away but when i did things got worse. I start to hear a low grumbling vibration from the heaters when running. This is cavitation that is happening in the heat exchanger due to the antifreeze mix having lower thermal conductivity than straight water. It is bad for the life of the heater. I can improve it by raising the system pressure. Most in-floor radiant runs at 15 psi, but I run 25-30. It still does not quite eliminate it. You also have to up the pressure in the expansion tank and any relief valve to match when you do this. If you are not running antifreeze, you will eliminate part of this issue, but not the hard water issue.

The next time i have to replace one of these, I am going to find a small conventional tank heater and put that in instead. I believe that will improve things but i will lose floor space. Time will tell.

My $0.02
-Dave

Good stuff Dave. I'm new at this and highly appreciate any experiences.

My shop is running on water without a softener. My house is running on water thru a softener. So I guess long term I will be a good test case for hard water problems.

Thanks again for your post.

 

[Steppenwolfe]

Here's a video of the outside of our House and shop.


Outside House Video - YouTube

Beautiful place, enjoy all of your hard work.

 

[ovrszd]

Very nice place Richard. Has to be nice to be living on the farm you grew up on.

Thank you for the compliment. We are enjoying it. I probably have a greater appreciation than my wife. But she understands the value so it's mutual.

 

[ovrszd]

Beautiful place, enjoy all of your hard work.

Thank you. It's been an adventure.

Tomorrow I'll post some pics of the inside. Want to talk about our cabinets throughout the house. That was an adventure.....

 

[truckdiagnostics]

Nice job. Wish I would have built the house that way. The wife wanted the walk out basement

 

[ovrszd]

Nice job. Wish I would have built the house that way. The wife wanted the walk out basement

My first house was walk out basement style. Served us well for raising a family. Cheap floor space. By the time we sold it we were tired of stairs. That was the driving force for this design.

 

[ovrszd]

We used a local cabinet builder. He's been building cabinets for 30 years. Started working with his Dad who has passed on. We tried to use local builders all we could. We didn't inspect any of his previous work. Relied on people's responses that had used him.

The house we sold had very, very good cabinets. So our expectations were pretty high.

The cabinets are finished in Rustic Cherry like our previous cabinets were. We really like the look of Cherry. Karrie did a good job of finishing the fronts. There are an occasional visible nail hole but you have to inspect them pretty close to find those. The fit of the doors and drawer fronts are pretty good. I adjusted a couple doors for a better fit after Karrie was done.

He installed the units in the house without the drawers, doors attached. He added the counter tops and cut out the sink holes after the cabinets were installed. I was a bit surprised by that. We cleaned a LOT of sawdust out of the cabinets before he installed the drawers/doors.

Karrie was hired on 01 October, walls were roughed in so he could get accurate measurements 01 December. We set a move in date of 01 April. We finally told him we were moving in on 11 May. He wasn't done with the cabinetry. I told him there would be no more wearing shoes into the house. No more leaving a mess behind himself. He worked an additional week to finish after we had moved in.

Here's a couple initial pics. First is the sink cabinet in the laundry room.

Next is miscellaneous cabinets in the kitchen area.

Hallway linen closet

Sink cabinet in 2nd bathroom

 

[ovrszd]

Terry selected two different styles of counter tops. First pic is the laundry room cabinet before sink install

This is the kitchen island before cooktop install.

 

[ovrszd]

This is the Laundry Room Sink Cabinet finished. Drop in large bay sink. High clearance faucet. Pull out drawers behind swinging doors on the left to store laundry supplies. Pull out trash container behind swinging door on the right.

This is the Kitchen Sink Cabinet finished. Flush mount sink embedded into the counter top for easy cleaning. Single bay deep sink. High clearance faucet with extendable hose and a soap dispenser.

 

[ovrszd]

This is the Kitchen Island finished with cooktop stove. I get scolded sometimes for using the cooktop as a counter top.....

A pull out double trash container. This was a huge item of contention.... When Karrie installed the trash container he put if behind a swinging door. Open the door and then take hold of the trash container and pull them out. Terry derailed (rightfully so). She gave Karrie the "kill" look and said "I am NOT putting my hand in the trash container to pull them out!!!" I jumped in supporting her and said the trash container pullout is designed to fasten to a cabinet front. Pull out the front and the trash container comes with it. Karrie said "well I've never installed them that way". I said "this can be your first then". He rebuilt it.

Plenty of shelf storage space in the living room side of the cabinet.

In this pic you can see the overhead light and get an idea of the size of the Kitchen work area. The Pantry is behind the stain glass door.

 

[BigBlue1]

A pull out double trash container. This was a huge item of contention.... When Karrie installed the trash container he put if behind a swinging door. Open the door and then take hold of the trash container and pull them out. Terry derailed (rightfully so). She gave Karrie the "kill" look and said "I am NOT putting my hand in the trash container to pull them out!!!" I jumped in supporting her and said the trash container pullout is designed to fasten to a cabinet front. Pull out the front and the trash container comes with it. Karrie said "well I've never installed them that way". I said "this can be your first then". He rebuilt it.

View attachment 634605

That's the only way I've ever seen them (as in your pic). We have two in our kitchen and I know various other folks with them. It would be inconvenient having to open a door and then pull out cans.

Sounds like your cabinet maker may do good work but is a bit difficult to deal with...

Rob

 

[ovrszd]

This is the Master Bath cabinet. Onyx sink/counter top unit. Plenty of storage in the cabinet. Pull out drawers behind the swinging doors on each side of the sink. Plenty of storage in the upper part of the cabinet to the right.

Dirty Laundry baskets in the bottom of the right cabinet. This too became a matter of contention. When Karrie was done the baskets didn't have a front on the pullout. Again, Terry said "I am not going to take ahold of the basket to pull these out". The pullout was designed with a metal flat front so it could be fastened to a pullout cabinet front. Karrie suggested not doing that because the tall cabinet front would make it hard to get the baskets out..... Okay, but put a front on the pullout. He did. White Pine. We stained and varnished it.....

 

[ovrszd]

Our house plan called for a double bi-fold door closet in the hallway. Terry didn't like that idea. She wanted a built-in cabinet. With minimal input from Terry he designed this cabinet. He nailed it. Everything about it works perfectly. Size of the drawers are perfect. Fits and is trimmed out perfectly. I'm still not sure if he's capable of doing this level of work consistently or if he just got lucky....

 

[ovrszd]

Somehow I screwed up and thumbnailed this pic into the previous post, sorry....

This cabinet makes room for the Refrigerator as well as a stacked Microwave/Oven. Good storage.

When Karrie started installing the Microwave/Oven he ran into a problem. The cabinetry was 1/2" too shallow. I had given him the Specifications sheet on the Ovens. He started making excuses saying the Ovens weren't built right and that he'd installed a lot of them with his cabinetry at this depth without problems. His helper (older gentleman, retire Aeronautical Engineer) picked up the paperwork on the ovens and started looking thru it. While Karrie was still making excuses John said "oh here it is right here Karrie" and showed him the specs which called for a cabinet 1/2" deeper than what he had built. So they pulled the Ovens out and cut the back out of the cabinet to get the needed 1/2". No big deal. Just shouldn't have happened.

 

[ovrszd]

Here's the spec drawings for all the cabinetry that Karrie built for us. I think you can see the proposed cost for each. In the end we paid right around $19,800 for all of them installed.

 

[ovrszd]

So now for the Cabinet problems.

1. None of the interior structures including the inside of the doors and drawers had any type of finish on them. Bare wood. We weren't content with that. So Terry and I spent a weekend putting a coating of Urethane on them. Our previous cabinets were finished that way. Not sure it's a necessity but we felt like it should have been done considering the cost of them.

2. One cabinet door in the Kitchen was warped so bad that it was unacceptable. He built a replacement. I adjusted four doors that didn't quite match where two doors swung closed next to each other.

3. Drawers. We have 47 drawers. They all have "closers" on them. When we first examined them we found 15 that didn't close smoothly. They would maybe bind a little halfway closed or maybe bind at the "closer". Either way it required effort to close them. That was not acceptable. We marked each one that we thought needed attention with tape. When Karrie came to work the next day we toured the house and examined all 15. If the closer would pull them shut he said they were fine and would get better with use. The problem on every one of them was that they were built too tight widthwise and bound the closing rails. The drawers whose closers wouldn't pull them shut he took to his shop and narrowed them. We examined them again and marked the ones we thought still needed attention, can't remember the number. When Karrie came to work that morning we toured again. He took only one to his shop for adjustment. Said the others didn't need anything.

Terry and I discussed this at length. Here's my take on this. Our expectations exceed his abilities. All of the drawers can be opened and closed. They just aren't as smooth as I think they should be. We can argue with Karrie til the cows come home and it won't matter. The drawers still won't function at the level of our expectations.

So, this Winter I'll pull drawers and shave them until they work right.

I don't consider myself a bitchy guy. I totally understand every man has a capacity he can function at. I also understand that expecting a higher level of performance than is capable of a man is a disaster waiting to happen. I now know Karrie's abilities in Cabinet building.

I am very open and honest about our build. A lot of people have toured our house and I am always completely honest with them about the various contractors that did work for us including their price. I brag on our primary builders all the time. I've probably over bragged on them in this thread. But they deserve that.

Karrie also gets an open, honest evaluation when talking to people about our cabinets. My error happened in the beginning when I didn't tour homes and look at his cabinetry work before hiring him. So who's fault is it that our cabinets don't meet our expectations?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I built all my kitchen cabinets for my house. Someone suggested to me I should go into the cabinet making business. I said no, no one could afford what I would have to charge to come out even.

Determining and meeting expectations can be challenging. The pull out trash drawer should have been specified as a pull out. I’ve seen them both ways.
Inside of doors I would have expected finished, but I did not finish the drawers themselves.

 

[ericm979]

View attachment 634613

We have a cabinet with sliding pan drawers like that. My wife hates them (I'm neutral). It's personal preference. She wants deep drawers so there's not two motions of opening the doors and then sliding the drawer out. Also the way they are built, the slider hardware goes right to the corner of the pan drawers. If you don't open the front doors all the way, the hardware gouges the inside of the doors. When we bought the house they were already heavily gouged up.

Even though the cabinets were not quite what you wanted they sure look nice, as does the rest of the house.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I don’t like opening 1 door to pull out a slide, I hate having to open 2. Have a drawer like that in my French door fridge.