New Home Construction Noob

[99silveradoz71]

I'll agree with the above. Thankfully I added length and width to my garage when signing papers for the house. I definitely would've had a rough go fitting the first truck or this one in there without the extra room.

[Aaron1085]

So I am planning to stay with the single 3 doors. The plan is to extend the 3rd bay another 2-3 feet in length to add some more room for my truck and "walk around space". I'm not too worried about height, though I'll look into 8 foot high doors. It'd be nice to have 10 foot WIDE doors, but unsure the economical impact of that just yet.

[03blackz71]

I worked with a builder that did spec homes for about a year. I need to sell my other home before I was going to build. SO in that year we looked at many of there house they were building to see there building process and see what different options that they do in the houses. It is easier to see this in person than looking at pictures or drawings. When we did build we took a spec home and changed a few things to make it our own. I made the garage bigger, when I did that it also made my laundry room bigger so I could fit a laundry tub in there. The rest of the house was pretty much close to what they had speced out.

 

My garage is roughly a 3.5-4 car garage. I have the standard 2 car single door (roughly 22x21 and the 3 car door is 9' wide (roughly 16x31) and my garage doors are 8' high. The 3rd car is also 10' deeper so if I ever get a crewcab long box it will fit with no problem. My ceiling is also 10' high. I am so happy I did this when building because I have so much room. I also added a hot/cold water line and added a floor drain so I can wash cars during the winter inside. Also had them pre install a gas line so I can add a garage heater. Which I am working on getting install soon.

[RyanbabZ71]

Next home for me will have a drain and hot water line.

 

 

Ryan

[03blackz71]

Next home for me will have a drain and hot water line.

 

 

Ryan

 

It is awesome during the winter. I can wash off the floor and get salt and dirt off. But one flaw I have is I put the drain on the 2 car part and not the 3rd car where my truck parks so the water goes half to the drain and other half to the door. Hopefully in the next year or so I will get the trench style drain install on the 3rd car part and then get the whole floor coated to cover up the install.

 

 

Here is picture of the house from last year and the garage makes my old Sierra look small with the 3.5" of lift and 33" tires.

Also a picture of the 3rd car part of garage when installing the 2" leveling kit on my Silverado.

 

 

[hockeypro1411]

Another thing to consider is adding radiant heat tubing to your basement (if you have one), your garage, and even your driveway before concrete is poured. Even if you decide not to install a boiler right away, the tubing is relatively cheap. A natural gas boiler coupled with radiator is one of the most efficient and cost effective ways to heat a home. Heating the concrete slabs naturally heats the rest of the space, and eliminates a major heat sink. Not to mention there's nothing like going to the garage to work on the truck and having a warm floor to lay on in January, or pressing the snowflake button on your boiler control and watching 6 inches of slushy snow disappear from your driveway.

[Amiodynski]

Another thing to consider is adding radiant heat tubing to your basement (if you have one), your garage, and even your driveway before concrete is poured. Even if you decide not to install a boiler right away, the tubing is relatively cheap. A natural gas boiler coupled with radiator is one of the most efficient and cost effective ways to heat a home. Heating the concrete slabs naturally heats the rest of the space, and eliminates a major heat sink. Not to mention there's nothing like going to the garage to work on the truck and having a warm floor to lay on in January, or pressing the snowflake button on your boiler control and watching 6 inches of slushy snow disappear from your driveway.

 

I'm planning on doing this when I build my new garage and pour a new driveway.

[Aaron1085]

Geez, what's the average cost of that? Install and operating costs....

 

 

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[hockeypro1411]

Install is very minimal. The tubing literally gets zip tied to the wire mesh before the slabs are poured. You can find tons and tons of information online about how to route the tube to zone it for the boiler. At this point you're into it relatively little. You can stop here and always add a boiler later if you decide you'd like to. Having that tubing in the concrete is a major selling point of a house. There's always the option to not use the driveway heat or whatever if you decide it's not worth the money. The benefit of adding a natural gas fired boiler system to the house is obviously to heat the concrete slabs in the cooler seasons, but it's also far more efficient than a regular hot water heater, and gives you the option to not even install one. Your typical water heater fires up every so often to keep the water inside at a specific temperature, even when you're not home. A boiler system is more "on demand" and only fires when needed. Even keeping your basement slab at 60 degrees in the winter will make an unbelievable difference in the rest of the house. You'll notice the furnace coming on much less which is also saving you money. Initial/operating cost of a radiant heat system is very hard to beat. They're very efficient systems.

[Aaron1085]

Well, the basement and foundation is poured, but I suppose I could still convince the builder to install tubing in the garage prior to that being poured.....I just don't think the wife will go for it. Eventually the plan is to insulate the garage and have some sort of wall mounted propane heater, we shall see.

 

The house is coming along nicely; first floor exterior framing is done.

[Aaron1085]

So I plan to seal the garage floor and concrete front porch this coming weekend. I need some suggestions... Ideally, I'd like a natural finish for my garage floor with a polished look. I'm only concerned about using a clear sealer/epoxy and it being slippery when it gets wet in the future.

 

I need suggestions for garage floor and front porch sealer??

 

 

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[peejaykay]

So I plan to seal the garage floor and concrete front porch this coming weekend. I need some suggestions... Ideally, I'd like a natural finish for my garage floor with a polished look. I'm only concerned about using a clear sealer/epoxy and it being slippery when it gets wet in the future.

 

I need suggestions for garage floor and front porch sealer??

 

 

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I grew up in southern NH. What town? There aren't too many builders around that build homes with character anymore. Look into Connor Homes out of Vermont, they build amazing stuff. You're looking at $250-350/sq ft when all is said and done though. Think about school districts if you have kids.

[Aaron1085]

I'm in Londonderry, we are already underway with LaMontagne Builders. So far so good.

 

My question is really pertaining to product suggestions for garage floor.

 

 

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[SilveradoMoe]

My parents bought there home and had a contractor build it. They made a fair deal on the price but the contractor screwed them on scrap materials. They had plenty left over and he ended up using it on house about a mile away. Basically stole all the materials once finished with the house and used them for his personal gain. Also, took some shortcuts in the build. I would make sure you trust whoever plans on building it or build it yourself.

 

I bought my home as a foreclosure, because I got it cheap. I bought it at auction for $59,300 and spent about $15k doing a complete remodel and just the way I wanted it. Basically, I already had the frame, piping and electric and everything else was ripped out and built new. It sits on 5 acres with a pole barn that fits about 4 cars and a nice pond with an island. Best part is my $475/mth pymt is about to drop to $350/mth and I could sell it somewhere between $150k-$180k. I'm now considering going into business flipping houses and continuing as law enforcement as a side job.

[gbo62280]

 

I bought my home as a foreclosure, because I got it cheap. I bought it at auction for $59,300 and spent about $15k doing a complete remodel and just the way I wanted it. Basically, I already had the frame, piping and electric and everything else was ripped out and built new. It sits on 5 acres with a pole barn that fits about 4 cars and a nice pond with an island. Best part is my $475/mth pymt is about to drop to $350/mth and I could sell it somewhere between $150k-$180k. I'm now considering going into business flipping houses and continuing as law enforcement as a side job.

15K for a complete remodel is some efficient spending, good work!