New Guy,questions on 24x40 house plans

[300stw]

I am new to this forum, great info,
I am entertaining the idea of building our own home
I like the looks of the 20x30  1.5 story homes.
I am wanting a wider longer home, maybe 24x40, 1.5 story, 4' sidewalls on the top story, 12x12 pitch roof, top floor would be 24x20, rest open ceiling, bath and bed upstairs, bath, kitchen and laundry main floor, bedroom and hobby rooms in a basement.
I am in NE Montana, need to build for cold weather,
Are there any plans around for this type house,
Thoughts , suggestions, i have a parcel bought and payed for, existing power, sewer and water allready at a home site,,

[n74tg]

Welcome to the forum.  Making any set of plans longer is I think, not a lot of problem.  But, making them wider is definitely a problem as the roof load and wall load calculations have to be redone. 

Good luck on what you end up with.  I'll be interested in what others have to say on this.

[MountainDon]

   As Tony said, longer is easy easy. It's just a matter of adding more of what is already drawn. But wider gets into new calculations for everything from the foundation up through floors and walls to the roof.

If you planning on 4 ft high sidewalls on the upper floor for a 1.5 story you might as well build a full 2 story. That's my opinion at least. You get more usable floor space for very little extra money. It looks totally different though. You also get full height side walls for windows without building a dormer. Of course dormers can look nice, so that's a matter of personal choice. Maybe you get get the space you want in a 2 story 20 ft wide?  Something to think about.

Building with a 4 foot high sidewall/kneewall in the upper story can be done but is not just as simple as adding the 4 ft height and dropping the roof on top. There are outward forces on the sidewalls from the roof/rafter loads that must be controlled. This is easy with truss roofs, but requires special trusses to make use of the upper space.  This could also be handled by an engineered ridge beam instead of the simple ridge board and rafter method.

There are solutions to every problem, some simply cost more.

[Bobmarlon]

Mayby you could take the existing plan and just ad a 4 foot ad on onto your house extend the roof down on 1 side.  And to open it up to your great room you could construct the connecting wall with post and beam