20x30 One-Story in Kentucky

[stoneturtle]

Hi everyone.  I would like to show you an idea I have.  I've got two separate questions.

This is the east side of my design, a 20' wide gable end:


On the left is my proposed bathroom.  Kinda going for this effect, only with more room to move around someone in a wheelchair helping them shower:


The door opening is about 6', with a double 2x8 header with spacers.

1.  Framing - Will the corner be strong enough?  Do I need any kind of extra bracing?  Header good enough?

2.  I was thinking that I could use a dry-deck drain system for catching water underneath, and that if I used the plastic rather than the fabric sort, I could add insulation around beneath it so it didn't freeze up in the winter.  What do you guys think?  I thought it might be the cheapest way to accomplish this sort of arrangement.

No inspectors.  I don't particularly care if it lasts 100 years.  We just need someplace to last until we're done with it, 20-30 years maybe, and it needs to work.

Thanks!

[Don_P]

Yes there is adequate bracing provided by the sheathing on the rest of that "braced wall line". The header should be capped on the ends by a full height king stud with 2 shorter jack studs under each end of the header. Same for the window, you need a king, a jack under the header and I use a cripple stud under the sill. The header size will be in the header and girder table... chapter 5 of the IRC if I'm remembering right.

My personal feeling is a structure should last at least as long as it takes to grow repairs or replacement  .

[stoneturtle]

The headers have the Simpson HH6 hangers, that's sufficient isn't it?  Kind of hard to tell from the compressed graphic, I know.

This is our retirement homestead.  We just need someplace to finish up our ride!

[Don_P]

For the window, yes, the hangers will work. For the more heavily loaded door header, I don't believe so, or I sure wouldn't. It is always better to sit on a column than to hang on nails. I'll bet that a stud is about the same price as the hanger. Do think about how to drain that while making it a roll in. There will be some careful detailing, probably a good idea to frame that area with treated.

[stoneturtle]

Alright, cool, I'll put the double jack studs back in the door framing.  Also in a 5' window on the load-bearing side.  Excellent, this is just the sort of information I was hoping for.  Thank you!  I'll frame the room with treated too.

As for draining - My idea is kind of nebulous at the moment and needs more research (of which this post is part).  But it seems to me that the shower floor is functionally like a deck, and that the drain systems made to keep the area under decks dry would work.  Like http://americandrydeck.com/ or http://www.trexrainescape.com/installation/.   Or....maybe I'll just use overlapping corrugated plastic roofing panels on a slight slope, feeding into a gutter.  That might be the most feasible of all. 

I need to think about it more.  Freezing and insulation and mold...  Early in the development of the idea I thought I might just sink a cheap shower base under it, but the size is prohibitive and I'd really like to keep it large. 

[UK4X4]

My shower pan is made of marine ply, sized to suit glued and screwed together, the corners I taped and did 2 coats of resin, it's around 16 years old and never leaked
more solid than the typical plastic ones.

Ground out some channels to the standard drain before I did the resin,  easy to make, cheap and works, it's since been tiled over, just for a change in the bathroom style,

[Don_P]

I did something similar but we had cloth and resin so basically built a fiberglass shower inside a plywood frame.

Build that part of the house, or for wheelchair access, do the whole foundation on a slab and form the shower floor into it?

[stoneturtle]

My husband's pretty adamant about not using a slab.  He wants to be able to get under the house.

I like the marine plywood idea!  I'd not considered that at all.  That could really work well and seems like it would be pretty easy. 

[MountainDon]

My husband's pretty adamant about not using a slab.  He wants to be able to get under the house.

We've lived in a slab on grade home for 30 years. At first, coming from a home with a basement it just didn't seem right.  But now I would not want to change. 

[stoneturtle]

MountainDon, you seem like the sort of fellow who would want to be able to get to anything himself and take care of it, like my husband.  Why do you prefer the slab?  I understand the floor will never get springy.  But there must be more that I'm not considering?  Things I might suggest to him.

[MountainDon]

Yes it is solid      We like tile floors; nothing better than concrete to apply tile to, IMO. No need to use backer board on the OSB/plywood subfloor because there isn't any wood subfloor.   Can't hear footsteps as one walks around.  No possibility of groans, creaks, or hollow thumps.

No need to build a floor from wood, no girders, no joists, no subfloor. Once the slab was in the exterior walls were up in a day.

The thing everybody seems to worry about is plumbing. The waste drains are put in before concrete of course. So careful measuring is required to get the placement right. Unless one is going to be remod;eling and moving sunks, tubs, etc there is generally no need to get into the drain and waste pipes.  We used to have the supply lines under the concrete as well. But it was PB and we re-piped years ago. Now we have PEX and it all runs in a conditioned chase in the ceilings and then drops down the walls. New homes around here are now done with PEX under the slab. Continuous runs of pipe, no hidden joints under the slab. Not much to go wrong when you think about it.  I', not worried about remodels; we have no need to add space. Actually would like to remove some now that we are just two.   

Our entire house is bolted down to the ground. J-bolts embedded in the monolithic slab.

On grade slab means no need for elaborate wheelchair ramps.

No concern with freezing pipes in that space between the ground and the raised wood floor.

And I totally dislike crawling around and working under houses where the spaces are usually cramped, dark, dingy with insufficient room to swing arms, use shovels, etc. Being under a house is not in my playbook anymore.

All that said, I do have a fondness for a house with a full basement with full headroom height. So if I was not going to have a slab I would like a basement. But those cost more.

[stoneturtle]

Thanks Don.  He read what you wrote and is considering it.  I think it was the walls being up in a day that swayed him.  It -was- the plumbing that he worried about.

He's a big guy, 6'4" and 230lbs, and I think finding ways to keep him from having to cram himself under the house is a good thing.

Now after all these weeks of studying up on post and beam, I will have to start over studying up on building on slabs lol.  That's my share of the work, the planning and research.  How does your water come into your house now, Don?

[MountainDon]

City water line. Dug a hole outside the house where the supply line comes to from the meter.  Drilled hole in closet floor adjacent to entry point. Dug down outside and pushed curved section of pipe from inside to outside. Installed ball valve inside closet, boxed in with removable panel. Then PEX goes up into attic to the chase.  Outside connected PEX to the PVC supply line from meter.

What type of home heating / cooling system is planned?  Ours is forced air and most of the PEX follows the air ductwork and is insulated and enclosed together.

[hpinson]

Fewer points of entry for rodents too. 

Also no place for animals to crawl up into and die during the winter leaving a big stink.

[Don_P]

Our house is half crawlspace and half raised slab. There is a thin "rat slab" in the crawlspace

[stoneturtle]

Haven't made a firm decision on air/heat yet.  It's on my list...Plumbing was next after I got the framing figured out, which was almost done down to the nail shopping list lol.  Then after plumbing, heat and air.

I was leaning toward the ventless units when we were looking at a smaller floorplan.  I'll have to do more studying on it.  It's more important to keep the house cool in summer than toasty in winter, we're both more tolerant of cold than heat.

What do you guys suggest?

Edited to add - I had to google rat slab, never heard of that.  A good idea though!

[stoneturtle]

Still waffling on the heat/air thing.  We've decided to go for the concrete slab though!  I think we will just stain it rather than putting down tile or anything.

I made this to share our plans with my daughter. 

I thought I'd post it here.  Now, don't pay attention to the details of the porch, I just stuck that on from the old post-foundation plans, I've not started redoing it yet, LOL!  But it'll give you an idea of what we're aiming for anyway.  There's a lot of details in the framing of the inside of the house I need to clean up but it's close, I think.

Since we're going with a slab foundation and buying trusses, I figured it would be ok to make the plans 24' wide.  It helped a lot with keeping wide lanes for moving a wheelchair around, and there's a place about 5 miles away that stocks 24' trusses ready made at 4/12.

There is explanatory text at the bottom of the pictures and you can stop the slideshow if you need more time to read.  What do you guys think?

[GSPDOG]

Stone turtle it looks good and just a couple of observations and reality will probably be different than reality just things I noticed in the drawing.

- The facial board and you may be planning something like I did and use 2x6's.  They need to join at the post and not between post.  Also suggest notching them in.
- With the fascia board and where the wall tie in I as a matter of course off-set them so I do not have a break line all the way across. the building.
- Corners if you have not done it before you should have three board corners, 2 for the normal stud walls the other is to connect dry wall or other interior wall material.  again it may just be a conceptual drawing thing.

Looks good like the design.    Happy New Years.

[stoneturtle]

Thank you, and Happy New Years!

Yeah the porch is just...conceptual.  That's a good word for it.

The corners...I know about that, and I thought I had provided nailing surfaces!  But since you've pointed it out, I went back and found a couple that I hadn't.  Thank you so much.  I will do a thorough audit for this today.