Thoughts on new house design and floorplan

[planner steve]

We are going to build a new house in Northern Idaho. I'm looking for comments on the layout idea we have so far. See attached for current floorplan.

Some info/criteria about the project:

Front of the house is oriented North
House will have natural gas fired in floor hydronic heat, slab on grade construction
Need 3 bedrooms and one flex/office room. Don't want formal dining. We don't like open concept.
Desire to take advantage of natural light for working areas
Max size if around 1900 sq ft
This is envisioned to be our "last house". Less concern about resale, more concern about old age ADA stuff
I want to have the ability to enjoy a fire and the independence of wood heat capability. Could be a free standing stove or a zero clearance fireplace.

One of my frustrations is before putting any ideas on paper, I wanted the wood stove to be located in place with easy access from outside so I could avoid mess hauling wood in. I envisioned the stove location would be centrally located in case we ever did use it more. It wound up where it is due to other criteria taking priority.

So before I get into the minutia of which stove, etc I wanted to get some bigger picture thoughts.

Has anyone designed a floorplan that is close to my criteria but better for wood heat?
Would my alternative locations be any better or would it put the stove in a bad place for traffic?
Is there some other location for the wood stove I'm not seeing?
Other things to think about?
How would you alter this plan?

Thanks for your ideas. Steve

 

[MAD777]

I'm at about the same stage of life, so have had many of the same thoughts. I'm far from an expert, but have learned a lot recently by reading this forum incessantly.

To me it looks like you'll have a very warm living room, slightly warm kitchen / dining area and a cold house otherwise, if you had to depend upon the stove for heat.

What I learned is that the more open a plan is, the better suited it is for a woodstove.

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[planner steve]

I'm at about the same stage of life, so have had many of the same thoughts. I'm far from an expert, but have learned a lot recently by reading this forum incessantly.

To me it looks like you'll have a very warm living room, slightly warm kitchen / dining area and a cold house otherwise, if you had to depend upon the stove for heat.

What I learned is that the more open a plan is, the better suited it is for a woodstove.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

I'd agree with your conclusions on my present design idea. I've been reading this forum a lot and currently heat a long ranch style home with an insert. It is a challenge to move heat to the ends of the house.

Maybe I should have just asked members for "the wood heaters dream house design" to see what that would look like.

 

[MAD777]

Ha! I think that would be a single room house with a woodstove in the center! LOL

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[Hogwildz]

The central area should heat up nicely, the ends not so much. Unless you get some kind of convection flow going, which is not an easy task in a long rancher. How high are the ceilings going to be in the main area? Ceiling fans may help circulate the warm air some. I'd be putting the stove where the bookcase is myself. That office is going to be a chilly room. Have one here like that. A small space heater works just fine. The bedrooms in the far end may be chilly also, but most of us like it a little cooler where we sleep.

 

[planner steve]

The central area should heat up nicely, the ends not so much. Unless you get some kind of convection flow going, which is not an easy task in a long rancher. How high are the ceilings going to be in the main area? Ceiling fans may help circulate the warm air some. I'd be putting the stove where the bookcase is myself. That office is going to be a chilly room. Have one here like that. A small space heater works just fine. The bedrooms in the far end may be chilly also, but most of us like it a little cooler where we sleep.

The living room will likely have some kind of vaulted ceiling and a ceiling fan. Not sure about the rest of the house yet. I kind of like 9 foot ceilings in public areas but not necessary for bedrooms and office. I'll definitely put that office on it's own zone for the in floor heat. Same for master bathroom.

Things get more complicated with new construction because it will likely be air tight enough that I'll have to do a fresh air make-up system (Heat Recovery Ventilation, HRV). I'm not sure how that impacts the heat circulation. Reality is that the wood stove won't be a primary source of heat with today's gas prices, but that can always change. So if I can design in better potential wood heat capability, it will be much cheaper than doing it later. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[begreen]

With a very tight house plan on an outside air supply kit for the stove.

 

[MAD777]

Maybe a forced air heating /cooling system, with the return located in the living room, will distribute the warm air to the far reaches if you leave the blower running on constant.

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[planner steve]

With a very tight house plan on an outside air supply kit for the stove.

I'm planning on outside air supply. Did a lot of searching here and found info on length of run and incorporation into slab foundation. Which is why I love this site!

 

[Destructor]

I would also look at cooling. if you can rearrange some walls, doors and windows a bit you can achieve better cross ventilation during times that you don't really need AC. Heating and cooling go hand in hand.

 

[DickRussell]

For heaven's sake, if you are in a heating climate with also some need for summer cooling, and you want interior comfort without cold spots in the winter, put your first money into the building shell. It costs so very little extra to go to the very tight, superinsulated category that for a new build it makes no sense not to do so. Building just "to code" is a seriously wasted opportunity to get it right. The winter heating and summer cooling loads will be so much lower than with a "code built" house that you can heat/cool it far more simply and get more interior comfort out of it. Save the money spent on plumbing for radiant floor heating and put it into the shell of the house. But first you need to do a lot of reading. Go over to greenbuildingadvisor.com and start with a search on "pretty good house," a general concept worked up by a group of interested builders in the Portland ME area.

 

[planner steve]

For heaven's sake, if you are in a heating climate with also some need for summer cooling, and you want interior comfort without cold spots in the winter, put your first money into the building shell. It costs so very little extra to go to the very tight, superinsulated category that for a new build it makes no sense not to do so. Building just "to code" is a seriously wasted opportunity to get it right. The winter heating and summer cooling loads will be so much lower than with a "code built" house that you can heat/cool it far more simply and get more interior comfort out of it. Save the money spent on plumbing for radiant floor heating and put it into the shell of the house. But first you need to do a lot of reading. Go over to greenbuildingadvisor.com and start with a search on "pretty good house," a general concept worked up by a group of interested builders in the Portland ME area.

Hi Dick,

Thanks for the prompting to consider green practices. I've been lurking a lot on the green building advisor site already.

I first want to nail down the floor plan. Do you see any problems in building this floor plan to be super insulated? I'm trying to avoid adding air conditioning so great insulation helps with that goal. Because nights almost always get into the mid 50's, I'm leaning towards using a whole house fan to cool at night, then shut in and rely on good insulation, proper overhangs, etc. to get through the day.

My lot is in an area with lots of problems with flooded crawl spaces so I'm pretty convinced that slab on grade is the correct foundation. Since I have the slab and natural gas available, the hydronic heat becomes a viable option in my mind. But still a lot of research to do on that subject.

This discussion has helped me better understand the shortcomings of my initial floor plan if I were ever to heat primarily with my wood stove. I'll consider these thoughts in our design modification.