I've had my house for 25 years now. There are a lot of inexpensive details in it found nowhere else that have paid off handsomely.
For example, the washer and water heater are in the basement. The concrete floor under them is slightly sloped, leading to a drain. I've had multiple failures with washing machine hoses and leaks, and leaking hot water heaters. They resulted in zero damage, unlike in other places I lived.
Another one is Seattle homes always have wooden decks. The decks rot after a while, sometimes killing people when they collapse. The rot comes from being endlessly damp, and the local ants nesting in them. The last such deck I had I sawed off of the house, and it collapsed into a pile of sawdust. I was horrified.
So my current house has a concrete deck. Yay, no problems at all!
Here's another goodie. Never, ever, ever have the driveway slope towards your garage. Your garage will inevitably flood. A gutter in front of the door won't help, as it will clog with leaves, sticks, ice, and slush, and your garage will flood.
Also have the garage floor slope ever so slightly towards the door. The only way you can tell mine is sloped is its a lot harder to push the car into the garage than push it out. The slope helps if a car has a major malfunction, and you don't want oil/gas/antifreeze soaking into the walls.
What was weird is the architect and the general contractor were completely uninterested in these things.
There were still mistakes. The bathrooms have MDF baseboards. Whaddya know, MDF swells up when it gets wet. It all needs replacing. The GC should have known better. MDF also swells up with cat pee. OMG. I'm currently tearing that stuff out and replacing it with wooden baseboards.
I should write a book - "Things Your Architect Doesn't Know and Your General Contractor Won't Tell You"
My previous house had two structural weak spots that resulted in the house bending and sagging. I identified one in this house as it was being built and had it fixed. Being a mechanical engineer has its advantages! I discovered that architects know nothing about structures. The structure was also compromised when the plumbing was put in, so I worked with the GC to design a fix.
I think its better to design the bathroom to deal with the moisture instead of wasting energy baking out your bathroom. Crack a window or leave the vent fan on.
Cracking a window doesn't help if you live in a damp climate. My bathroom is in a basement so the vent fan would just bring in more damp air. The heat isn't to bake out the moisture but to force it to disperse.
While most people came to Walter to ask about programming languages and their design, or Empire, you knew better and focused on his true talent: tactics and strategy of North American residential structures.
Haha, I'm a born engineer and am always redesigning things in my mind that I encounter.
Being able to influence the design and construction of my house was immensely satisfying. Both the architect and the GC thought I was nuts with a lot of the ideas, but since I wrote the checks I prevailed.
Another one was the counter tops were inches higher than normal. They're just easier to work on that way, and the bonus was they were too high for The Cat to jump on. I also hate kitchen islands, and so don't have one.
A big mistake I made was not making it wheelchair accessible. That would have cost nothing extra, but I know people who had to remodel their home or were forced to move because they got stuck in a wheelchair.
It's fun doing this stuff. I read a book years ago "Common Sense Pest Control" which remarked that the highway for termites and bugs are the cracks in the foundation walls, which they climb up and then bore into the wood framing. The cure was a stainless steel sill plate (it's usually just a piece of plastic). So my house has a stainless steel plate there. The GC thought I was an idiot. But it works, and it's not like you can add it after the house is built.
I did the low voltage wiring myself because the electrician didn't understand it. Every room has 2 sets of cat5 and RG6 coax. Wifi has improved considerably since then, but I still enjoy the reliability, privacy and speed of wired connectivity.
GFCI breakers on all circuits in the circuit panel.
I failed to add wiring for a generator, this later turned out to be an expensive upgrade. Puget Sound Energy uses overhead wires, which fail regularly.
French drains around the basement, as a damp basement is a relentless horror.
Have you ever scraped the bottom of your car pulling into a driveway? I have. I told the concrete contractor to not have any abrupt changes in slope, and if my car scrapes he's going to have to redo it. He laughed, and said no problem. And it was no problem, he did a beautiful job just as I asked! The neighbors scrape their cars on their driveways.
Another little thing is the edges of the driveway are rolled up an inch or so. This means you can back up, and know when you're at the edge by the feel. Nobody else does that. This is so valuable because of the slope and soft ground off the driveway - you'll get hung up if you drop the wheels over the edge.
The house is designed to make use of the "stack effect" to keep it cool in summer. It works ok, but it could have been better. Houses used to be built to be naturally warm in winter and cool in summer, but the advent of A/C has caused it to be forgotten.
Oh, and fire sprinklers. I did a search and could not find any instance of people dying in a sprinkled building fire. They're expensive though. Ouch.
Thanks for sharing all of this, typical HN at its best. Off the top of your head can you think of any other books like "Common Sense Pest Control" that served you well in a similar capacity?
Thanks for considering it then, and yes I totally agree. Depending on circumstances, I'm not always sure that I'm accomplishing anything when weeding the yard without pesticide.
At my current Seattle-area house I have an area laid out with paving stones instead of the deck and it's great!
Another pro-tip for Seattle is never buy house on the bottom of the hill or on top of the hill (yes, this only leaves hill-side). On the bottom you'll always be flooded during the winder, on the top you'll get crazy winds and rain banging during the storms.
Also get a soils geologist to evaluate the hill behind your house. $300 will save you a zillion if the hill gives way and engulfs the house. Or having the house slide down the hill.
> For example, the washer and water heater are in the basement. The concrete floor under them is slightly sloped, leading to a drain. I've had multiple failures with washing machine hoses and leaks, and leaking hot water heaters.
In Japan I saw a washer in the 2nd floor of an apartment sitting on top of what looked like a shower basin. If the machine leaked it is caught by the basin. Granted that will not stop a leak in the water line from spraying beyond the edges of the basin but something like shower stall walls could mitigate that.
Two of my washer leaks were spraying out sideways. First the hose had split. I switched to braided stainless lines, and then the brass valve on the wall split.
Besides, who needs the dang noise it makes. Banish it to the basement.
I grew up with washers in the basement and only ever put them there. Though washers on the same floor as the bedrooms sounds more ergonomic. I suppose you could simply make the washer room a shower closet complete with floor drain, tiled walls with green sheetrock but cost goes up and exercise goes down ;-)
If I were to design/build my own house the first thing I would specify is that EVERY room with designed water ingress (kitchen/bathrooms/mud room/workshop/washer/dryer/water heater et al.) must have a floor drain. Over the 41 years I've lived in my 1967-built house I've had too many replays of repainting downstairs ceilings after bathtub overflows on floor above....
For example, the washer and water heater are in the basement. The concrete floor under them is slightly sloped, leading to a drain. I've had multiple failures with washing machine hoses and leaks, and leaking hot water heaters. They resulted in zero damage, unlike in other places I lived.
Another one is Seattle homes always have wooden decks. The decks rot after a while, sometimes killing people when they collapse. The rot comes from being endlessly damp, and the local ants nesting in them. The last such deck I had I sawed off of the house, and it collapsed into a pile of sawdust. I was horrified.
So my current house has a concrete deck. Yay, no problems at all!
Here's another goodie. Never, ever, ever have the driveway slope towards your garage. Your garage will inevitably flood. A gutter in front of the door won't help, as it will clog with leaves, sticks, ice, and slush, and your garage will flood.
Also have the garage floor slope ever so slightly towards the door. The only way you can tell mine is sloped is its a lot harder to push the car into the garage than push it out. The slope helps if a car has a major malfunction, and you don't want oil/gas/antifreeze soaking into the walls.
What was weird is the architect and the general contractor were completely uninterested in these things.