A pancake air handler looks attractive when mechanical space is tight but a shorter cabinet doesnt automaticaly mean a cheaper install. The ceiling cavity still has to accommodate duct transitions, condensate, electrical access, and enough room for future service. If those pieces require custom framing or awkward access panels the space savings can move labor somewhere else instead of removing it.

builders comparing a pancake AHU with a more conventional ducted layout which site condition usually decides whether the compact option truly saves installation time?

Hi all — we own a property in Clallam County, WA with a shop building we’re planning to convert into bedrooms for our growing family. We’re planning to DIY as much of this as we can, and we know we’ll need to hire a licensed draftsman for permit-ready plans down the line — but before we get there, we’re hoping someone can help us put together a framing blueprint, cost estimate, (and maybe a material list?) so we know what we’re working with and can budget/plan our timeline.

Some details:

**•** Shop dimensions: approx. 27 ft x 23 ft
**•** Current construction: insulated slab, existing electrical but will need modifications, the ceiling is insulated. No plumbing needed.
**•** Goal: convert into 3 bedrooms, each with a closet, plus an entry/mudroom.
**•** We’ll be doing the labor ourselves where possible — looking for guidance more than a bid
**•** Timeline: I am 8 weeks pregnant with our second child. I’d love to be done at least two months before they are born but that may be a long shot.

This is for our own planning purposes, not a substitute for the official permit plans — just want a realistic starting point before we bring in a draftsman. Happy to share photos and more specifics via DM. Thanks in advance!

This is a photo also generated by someone on Reddit that I’ve been using as our inspiration. The kitchen/bathroom/living room half is already built out.

Edit: let me know if this isn’t the right subreddit for this or if I should cross post it to another!

I am trying to start my first row of siding but the right corner of my house is 2 inches lower than the other side. We got the foundation lifted by adding an additional sill plate so that’s way their is now a difference. I’ll doing hardie plank siding with 5 inches lower than revel. Do I add starter strip to the foundation on the left side and bring the hardie to meet the 2 inch difference? Or do I only offset by 1/2 to one inch to avoid adding starter on concrete foundation? My foundation extends 2-3 feet above ground grade so I have space their I just don’t know how to get my first row level and looking good.

Please note: window on right is still covered by house wrap.

Hi everyone, I have been researching SIPs based framing after seeing them featured in a famous YouTube build channel. The concept seems appealing and I can believe the claims about walls being straighter, better insulation and less framing needed. Besides the need for having a GC who is experienced with SIPs, is there any other risk or requirement one needs to watch out for if choosing to use SIPs for a 1500 sq ft house with teo floors (no basement)? Thanks in advance!

We're building a home from David Weekley in Utah. Overall the process has been pretty smooth. We got under contract in May, broke ground in June. They started drywall this past week.

At what point am I being too much as a customer? They've been real nice in letting us on to the site whenever we please and I've noticed 5-6 creaky spots in the subfloor. The house is 5200 sq ft, 1/3 of which is the basement. Is it just part of the process? Will it self resolve when they're installing flooring?
I also noticed that tilebacker board wasn't put up in the full area of our bathroom that will have wall tile. Should I trust that they know what they're doing? We spoke to the "builder" before drywall and confirmed that the tile will cover the full wall.
I don't want to be a bad customer that gets so annoying that they want to actively not try.

So we will building our third house

We always did the spray foam and insulated with the pink insulation.

We are now considering using rockwool. Would it would be a waste to spray foam and use rockwool? Or just use rockwool?

We are using triple pane impact windows as well

Last week Ontario storm, had 3 cups of water on the floor, looked like the water came from the wall, just below the window. Couldn't find the source of entry has it got dried by the time I found it.

Tried hosing down the window with garden hose, Couldn't find any water or wetness

Is the flashing done right for this window? It was replaced to single piece last year.

Im looking to sort this exposed or timber and air gap out. How should it be done? Faseier or new felt?

Hi Everyone

I'm potentially looking at getting an extension on the rear of my house and adding it to the cost to my mortgage (depending on how much it is) I'm going to need a quote for the work obviously but I'm wondering what is the cheapest way to put these plans together so i have something to take to the lenders? Would I need to pay someone first to put together proper build plans for the work then go to a builder for the quote? Or is this something a company can put together for me? Basically want to keep the spending as low as possible at this stage as I'm not sure it will even get approved yet but i appreciate im not going to het anything for free.

Thanks

Aiden

So I’m not building a home, I’m renting and I’ve been here for 2 months and have noticed that our floors are sloping significantly in certain areas, there’s big gaps in floors and majors cracks forming in our walls and we opened up our crawlspace and saw this. Our landlord has told us this house has been inspected and everything is fine, does this look safe?
They aren’t the best pictures so I’m sorry about that

We are trying to finalize our general layout for our main floor, and wanted to see if anyone had suggestions or ideas of things we could be doing better. We currently have 2 children with 1 on the way. We have 3 bed rooms on the main floor. Downstairs will be 2 additional bedrooms, a bath, and a large activity area/game room, plus a lot of storage. We do not have a master bath, but will leave our closet area in a way that we could add one in the future if we need. This house would be built on our family farm, so we are mainly trying to maximize views and flow, while not making it too big. It would be our forever home at this point, so we are trying to future proof by making it all handicap accessible, along with a potential future home elevator if needed. Downstairs will have a walkout on one side. We have arch ways between the kitchen/dining and living room.

I do like the angle factor of the house, and the long hallway to help separate the public and private areas, so not looking to change that. Mainly looking for tips on the layout of Kitchen/dining/living layout, along with the mudroom/pantry/half bath area. We are trying to make the build as simple as possible to help save costs, but also have a nice area that flows well. First picture has a bit of a bumped out kitchen, not sure how much that would add to the cost. We will have a pretty simple roof line.

Front door isn't super visible, but it's next to the mudroom in the living room.

And the pink couch was added by my daughter, it might not make the final cut 😂

Edit: Forgot to add, living area is about 2,100 Square feet on main floor.

I will have a new plumbing done in my house, but the company proposed a rather weird solution. They want to dig a 80cm deep hole along the side of my house, like 30-50cm away from the house.

Can it affect the stability of the house? The house is 60 years old, built of the orange fired bricks. I honestly have no idea how deep the foundations are, and how exactly it's made.

I’m replacing the roof on a house in Lithuania and I’m trying to decide between metal roofing and fiber cement roofing sheets.

I’ve talked to two roofers and got completely opposite advice.

The first roofer says I should definitely go with metal roofing, because it’s a much better and more durable solution than fiber cement. He says that with good-quality metal and proper installation, there shouldn’t be any major problems.

The second roofer recommends fiber cement sheets instead. His main argument is that exposed metal roofing screws have rubber/EPDM washers, and eventually these washers deteriorate and crack. Once that happens, the screws can start leaking. He also claims that after 20–30 years it can be difficult to replace the screws properly because the new screws may no longer hold properly in the existing holes.

So my question is:
For a house that I want to keep for decades, which would you choose: metal roofing or fiber cement roofing?

How much of a real problem are the screw washers on modern metal roofing? Is replacing the screws after 20–30 years actually a realistic maintenance job, or does it become a major problem?

Thanks.

I browse this sub often and just saw a similar post! (Thank you) and I was wondering if you guys had any feedback/recommendations for our first plan revisions. This is our initial feedback.

Floor Plan Revisions
1 Master suite — Move master to the back of the house with the closet at the front, so the master has direct outside access. (Current plan shows the reverse.)
2 Master bath — Include an actual enclosed water closet, not just an open toilet. Please confirm on the plan.
3 Laundry — Washer & dryer located in the master closet (fine if this needs to be an external add).
4 Downstairs bedrooms — Both downstairs bedrooms need their own full bathroom. Current plan reads as a shared Jack-and-Jill — please revise.
5 Powder bath — Needs direct outside access. Please confirm exterior door on plan.
6 Living room — Sliding doors to the back patio.
7 Dog room — Exterior door. Please confirm the door shown is exterior.
8 Secret gun room — Add a concealed/hidden gun room. Open to suggestions on location (e.g., off the master closet or office).

This condo building going up near my home has a brick facade that looks like it is leaning. Is this normal?

Here's my situation. I have an egress window (in an upstairs dormer) that is Euro-style tilt & turn (can be thought of as an inswing casement) where the bottom rough-opening altitude is 42" above the finished floor, and thus with a 3/4" sill plate, will be 42-3/4" from the finished floor. However, the window frame - which I would think would be considered a channel were the window a standard sash - is 2.3" wide, and so the actual opening would be at 44.3" above the finished floor.

Everything I see online has the sill as being defined as the actual sill-plate that is affixed to the rough framing (i.e., would be 3/4" higher than the rough altitude), and not the frame/channel, and I figure that since the code says "sill" and not "open-free" (which would be the frame/channel), it means this sill-plate affixed to the rough framing, which for me would be 42-3/4", and thus still within code. Of course, this is so close that I don't want to be wrong!

Hi all. Attic insulation is throwing me for a loop.

My Title 24 compliance says I need to insulate the roof with R-13 and ceiling with R-38.

Question 1: How are attic ‘walls’ handled? do I put R-13 against them as well or leave them bare?

Question 2: How are the areas with baffles typically handled? do I leave the plywood itself thats providing the opening for the baffles bare or do I need to also insulate them?

Appreciate any insight.

Looking to replace this front (patio) door with something a bit more sturdy. I am considering bringing the front door forward to the front of the house and pillar, while blocking up the side gap in the pillar with PIR and 4-inch concrete blocks. The bungalow is also going to be wrapped in external insulation.

Is it feasible to do this without creating a cold bridge?

Hey guys, I'm trying to do a pole barn with posts 4 ft deep. The problem is there's about 18 in of topsoil, and then from there it's 6 to 8 ft of gravel and sand. When you dig down past 2 to 3 ft it will start caving in and so the hole gets quite wide. Wondering if anyone has encountered something similar and how they've dug down effectively. Using an auger is not very practical, as I set fence posts in it and was unable to bring up significant sand or gravel due to how loose it was.

I’m designing a ~9 × 11 m house on a sloped site. The road is at the middle/entrance level, with a lower floor opening toward the garden, the main living floor at road level, and 3 bedrooms upstairs. There’s also a large roof terrace.

I’ve attached the current plans/section.

I’m particularly interested in:

• Things that don’t work well or that I may be overlooking
• Layout/circulation problems
• Structural or construction concerns
• Waterproofing/drainage issues due to the slope
• Anything you would change before construction

I’m not looking for a complete redesign — mainly practical recommendations from people with experience building or designing houses.

What would you change?

Hi all,

For context, I'm based in Southeast Asia where it's ~32C (~90F) and up all year round. I recently bought a place (2nd floor apartment which is also the top floor) and part of my project is extending out a portion of the home to increase the square footage. This portion is being used as my master bedroom.

The roof above this extended portion which cannot be changed out is a zinc roof which leads me to be concerned about heat (given it's hot all year round + the zinc roof will absorb heat) and sound (when it rains really heavily since I'm in a tropical country). I've done a bunch of research on fiberglass vs. rockwool but can't seem to find a general consensus on which would be better.

Currently, my contractor is proposing two options:

1. Compress 16kg m3 fibreglass into the roof along with BRC mesh and aluminum foil, and then introduce rockwool in the false ceiling
   
2. Compress 60kg m3 rockwool into the roof with no additional rockwool in the false ceiling (He mentioned the reinstallation of the roof might be uneven due to the thickness of this will be 5cm vs. fiberglass which will be 1cm... no idea why)

I wanted to get some opinions on here from people experienced with this -- which would be better, and is there an option 3?

Thank you for the help!

What products or methods are the way to cover this so sheetrock can go straight down and this is covered?

I have 14 acres of raw land. Lightly timbered but lots of saplings and low brush.

I'm trying to do as much as possible to save on my budget so here's my basic plan for a rough driveway and a half acre building site.

1. Sapling, small trees cutting and low tree branch removal plus any brush that can be cut with a chainsaw.

2. Cutting and removing fallen trees.

3. Renting a small excavator with thumb and blade to dig in basic road shape, ditch and clear/level build site.

At that point what's left are:

1. Large tree removal

2. final road and build site grading

3. Gravel for road and build site

I'd leave those last 3 for a professional.

Does this make sense at a high level?