PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

The 2nd floor layout does not change regardless of which 1st floor layout is chosen...

 

One thing you will probably notice is that there is place for a washer and dryer, which means that they would be located in the basement. Strangely enough, this plan can be ordered with a crawl space or slab foundation; I see no way of putting a washer and dryer on the main level of this house without reworking the area circled in red and possibly deleting the powder room, or putting them in the garage...

 

What's the problem?

 

As you can see, the plan can be ordered with four different foundation types...

 

Without the garage, dining room, and study...

 

1st floor layout with garage, dining room, and study...

 

I plan on renting a place with my friend Mike first, then saving up for and ultimately buying a house. If I hit the lottery, I will just pay cash for a place like this.

 

Crawlspaces are a pain in the goddamned ass, trust me

 

I know; I'm just pointing out that there isn't a non-basement version of that plan with a laundry room...

 

I looked at a house without a basement once. It's uncommon here, especially in newer homes - I think this one was built in 98. I wasn't thrilled with the boiler being in a closet, or having the washer and dryer in a small laundry room upstairs. The basement keeps them out of the way and quieter.

I think they did it so they could have radiant heat. But that also meant most of the 1st floor was either finished concrete or ceramic tile. The tile's fine in the kitchen and bath, but concrete everywhere else made it feel kind of industrial. I much prefer hardwood or even a vinyl/laminate plank floor, but that would have prevented the heat from working effectively.

 

The 2-bedroom cottage being discussed at the moment would be right at home anywhere in New England!

Here in Pennsylvania the majority of houses, both single-family and multi-family (townhouse and duplex) have basements. The majority of houses built without basements are in 55+ communities, marketed towards residential older people who want minimal stairs. There are at least two single-family homes in a neighborhood near my own, built in the 1980s, that do not have basements. Those are not in an age-restricted community, but rather they were built on land with a high water table and the basement would flood if they chose to do a basement.

The single family homes mentioned above were built in like 1987, and they all have electric heat pumps. Strangely enough the townhouses directly across the street, which were built in 1986, all have gas heat with cool-only central A/C units; I am also pretty sure that these townhouses have basements as well, and there there is a condo complex located next to the townhomes, which also built in the late 1980s and has heat pumps. I know they are heat pumps because I have driven past the condos on cold days and seen the outdoor condensers frozen up. The oldest houses in the neighborhood were built in the late 1960s, and the newest in the early 1990s. Almost all have basements, the vast majority have natural gas heat, and I'm aware of probably a dozen that have heat pumps. A small number have oil heat.

 

I'll bet you looked in or around Brockton MA, the Campinelli style homes.

 

I take it you have done your share of plumbing in a crawl space too?

Basements are nice. If you want to finish the ceiling. Do drop ceiling.
It might not look “good”. But you’ll save time and money later.

 

Yeah they do suck, l had to go in mine about a week ago.

 

My house has a crawlspace under the bathroom, outside access. Real stupid idea..though it's almost 100 years old. Never done plumbing but I have been in there.

The other one accessed in the basement isn't fun either but I only have to do that a couple of times a year to turn on/off my spigot outside.

My basement is small, I can't stand up under a beam.

Just a pain in the ass I would rather not deal with.

 

I went to visit my aunt in the Atlanta suburbs in August 2011, and during this time I was more obsessed with HVAC than I've ever been; I made a video of the central A/C and gas furnace in her house. My aunt's house is 1950s 2-bedroom brick rancher that she bought in 2006 and sold in 2016 when she moved to Kenya for work (she works for the CDC). The house had a Janitrol (now known as Goodman) air-conditioner and 80% efficiency gas furnace, circa 1996, so it was not original to the house and already a decade old when my aunt bought it.

I went into the crawlspace, which was constructed more liked a concrete basement than a traditional crawlspace. It could only be accessed from the outside, and the space underneath the house was never meant for human occupation. The furnace was located down there, along with a sump pump to keep the space from flooding and damaging the furnace; I believe there was a light down there too. I can remember thinking, when I was down there, how much it would suck to be an HVAC technician in Georgia during the summer!

 

Here are some pictures my aunt took during that visit back in August 2011. Her air-conditioner had never been cleaned in the time she'd owned the house, and by 2011 she had been living there for five years, so I braved the Atlanta heat and cleaned it for her! The damage to the condenser was there when she bought the house in 2006. Most of it was caused by the previous owner's dogs lifting their legs and urinating on it. This did not noticeably affect the cooling performance of the unit. The two access points to the crawlspace are visible in these pictures...

 

@6 gearT444E

Janitrol was the precursor to the system installed in your house. Janitrol was of decent quality, but Goodman bought them out sometime in the 1980s. Quality was okay until about 1994 or so, but then it took a nosedive. Goodman and Janitrol air-conditioners and heat pumps manufactured from like 1995 to probably 2001-2005 are, in my opinion, some of the shittiest ever build. This is because the construction was flimsy and they used reciprocating compressors. From 2006 to the present day, Goodman has been making the style of units that your house and my house have. Overall build quality is a little bit better, and more importantly, they use scroll compressors.

My aunt's house was relatively small, and even in hot-as-hell Atlanta (Hotlanta), the air-conditioner was oversized. The Janitrol unit seen in the three pictures above was a 4-ton (48,000 BTU) unit. My aunt's house probably needed a 3-ton (36,000 BTU) unit at the largest. If it was well insulated enough, a 2.5-ton unit would probably do the job.

An oversized unit will cool a house down efficiently, but it won't sufficiently condition the air and the house will feel clammy and humid; I determined nominal tonnage and manufacture date of my aunt's air-conditioner by deciphering the serial number on the data sheet, and once I explained that the unit was likely oversized, she did tell me that the house felt humid most of the time. The air-conditioner and furnace were both still fully operational when my aunt sold the house in 2016, but I would bet money that they have been replaced since then.

 

Nah, this was in rural Western MA. It was on 4 acres and not visible from the road, which was appealing. It also had a barn, but that would have been more of a liability than an asset given the condition. I did put an offer in on it at the time, but someone beat me. I ended up just 2/3 of an acre and an older house, but it is more conventional and has a decent sized garage.

I had always figured I would something newer on more land by the time I am 35 and sell this place, but with the way the market is, that may not happen.

Really, my house isn't bad. It's just that I grew up on 5 acres where I couldn't see another house from mine and I want that again. My little place does have a ton of potential. One of its redeeming qualities is that it's well suited as a house for a couple without kids. It's two bedrooms but the rest is very open. I have a den with a fireplace, large living room with another fireplace, big kitchen and dining room that I could put a sliding glass door and deck onto.

I did a light remodel of my den this past winter. It's a ~225 sq ft room between the garage and the house. I ripped out the carpet and put $1/sq ft vinyl planks down. Between that, a coat of paint, and some new furniture I'm happy with how it came out - all for less than $1000 when I was done:



The actual land, though small, is a nice spot. This is my back yard:


I built a little fire pit on the lower section by the river:


The hill between the lower and upper yards is a bit of a nightmare, but I'm working on getting enough hostas to cover the worst parts.

 

I had an acre growing up but it butted up to a cul-de-sac on the left and had woods between us and the house on the right, lot of privacy. My mom still says she wishes they didn't sell that house.

Like you, I have a small house..about 1100-1200 square but for us 2 and the cats it's enough. I wouldn't mind a better garage and another room for my pool table though.

They're not top of the line per se but those planks are pretty cost efficient for sure. That's what we did upstairs. Pretty amazing what can be done in some spaces for short money, albeit requiring a little sweat equity as well.

We have a small backyard but I have my pool and small firepit so it's enough.

Is that a Maine coon cat?