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Here you see the main wall stud cavity insulated, variable perm vapor control sheet in place, and horizontal furring for the utility cavity in place.
The Michigan XHouse2 previously published here has moved along to near completion. The Owner shared a snapshot this past spring, and I wanted to share that forward here.
Last summer we showed some surprise photos of a nearly complete 0242 Plat House built by a customer in Ohio. This summer we got more photos of the interior of the completed house, and its a sweet one.
Most of the time when we send out House Plans to customers it is like sending a message out into the void, never to be heard from again. But every so often one of those houses bounces back, and appears one day, fully formed in the flesh, both surprising and delighting us! This week was one such time.
I am super thrilled to be able to introduce a new customer project that we are going to track on the blog. There has been a drought of customer builds and I hope this one inspires some others to correspond about their builds. Ok, lets go over some of the interesting features of this build.
Now that thousands of people have learned about the USA New Wall model for easy to build high performance wall assemblies the single most common question is how do you put electrical boxes in the utility cavity? It could not be easier.
A treasure trove of beautiful photos of the Vermont Plat House have been posted to the Owners’ Real Estate Agent’s web site. Yes, the house is on the market, and our designs have been around now long enough that the first houses are beginning to change hands.
But the bright side of this is that it is wonderful to see the house so nicely furnished, so comfortably lived in, and fullfilling that dream of a modern life we can all identify with. Here are a couple of choice photos from the Gallery, but you will find many more on the realtor’s site. There is also a Virtual Reality walk through, which is a series of 360 degree images that you can spin around to look at, each “hot linked” to adjacent view points. Its the closest you can come to a walk-thru without being there.
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| Drone view of the Vermont Plat House |
The Site Plan is the biggest problem with a typical rear garage stacked townhome.
Last time we looked in some detail at the typical configuration of a Stacked Townhome with rear access garages. I promised that next we would look at the site planning implications of this kind of living space arrangement, and that’s what we are going to do today.
Continue reading "Stacked Townhomes - The Site Plan"
I get asked this all the time - specifically "How about Flash & Batt", and I seem to write this explanation out at least once a month. So I thought it would be worthwhile just putting it in a blog post.
So "Flash & Batt", what is that anyway? You want to make a better performing wall, so the builder, or the builder's insulation contractor may suggest "Flash & Batt". Or sadly it may be coming from your architect because most know little about the actual science of putting a building together. On top of this all of the above may be bragging about how green this make them. What they are suggesting is this:
Continue reading "Why "Flash & Batt" is a crappy wall system in a heating climate"
We are in the midst of a plan modification for a Plat House 3 bedroom with a garage attached, and a unique metal + stone cladding scheme.
This includes a mudroom and utility space between the garage and laundry room of the standard plan. The garage is an oft requested expansion to the Plat House.
Continue reading "0971 Plat House 3 modification in the works"
The precedent we are going to look at now is one of the most common configurations for Stacked Townhomes today. This is a three story two dwelling unit townhome configured with a 3 bedroom unit stacked over a 2 bedroom unit, with rear facing attached garages built into the volume of the house. Internally the units are in the typical stacked configuration with each unit consisting of 1 story + 1/2 floor.
I resist calling this the most “popular” configuration because I am not convinced that popularity among developers equals popularity among home buyers. Buyers are traditionally stuck with what is offered, and in this case the popularity among developers is more the result of unit yield per acre than a preference for the configuration of dwelling units.
Continue reading "Stacked Townhomes - typical configuration with rear garages"
The New Arkansas Plat House has forwarded some new pictures of their home - night shots showing them enjoying their Plat House from their fire pit at night.
There are a couple of more night photos uploaded to the Flickr album.
Continue reading "New Arkansas Plat House - night views"
Here is the casual relationship between the kitchen work area and the dining space of the Tray House. This can work for you if you like a large formal dining table and a kitchen table in the kitchen proper, or with a daily table in the dining area, and stools at the island in the kitchen for less formal meals.
Continue reading "0385 Tray House in the kitchen"
