why do people find these abject squares beautiful?
Building a modern home in the woods
91–100 of 508 posts
Re: Building a modern home in the woods
#92Cool story! I didn't notice it in there, maybe I just missed it, I would be worried about animals getting in the house, I wonder if they designed it to be animal proof? Being up in the woods there, the house must be under constant attack from the woodland creatures. Animals being anything from bees and ants and assorted bugs to squirrels and chipmunks and maybe bears. I have a SMALL woods behind my house and find all…
The Pemberton area is besieged by grizzly and black bears constantly. It is a lovely part of the world, and somewhat terrifying.
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Re: Building a modern home in the woods
#93Cool story! I didn't notice it in there, maybe I just missed it, I would be worried about animals getting in the house, I wonder if they designed it to be animal proof? Being up in the woods there, the house must be under constant attack from the woodland creatures. Animals being anything from bees and ants and assorted bugs to squirrels and chipmunks and maybe bears. I have a SMALL woods behind my house and find all…
The Pemberton area is besieged by grizzly and black bears constantly. It is a lovely part of the world, and somewhat terrifying.
Well, not right now in the dead of winter, no.
Re: Building a modern home in the woods
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
400A?! My house can make do with 60A, and my previous one with 40A Do they use 350A to heat a swimming pool? Talk about a waste of energy.
Are you in EU? Recall North America uses 120VAC, so a 400A service is equivalent to 200A in the EU
But 200A in EU is roughly 44-50 kW, a common contract for a flat (here in Italy) is 3 kW, if you have a heat pump and/or conditioner it goes to 4.5 or 9 kW.
I have seen (largish) villas with 20 or 25 kW, but everything more than that - like 100 A or so - is definitely beyond common use.
Re: Building a modern home in the woods
#95The way to do this if you're not wealthy is to get a cheapo plot of land on the Oregon/Washington coast ($<100k for up to .5 acres) and put a manufactured home on it. It's way simpler, cheaper, and the construction on manufactured homes has improved a lot over the years (they're framed with 2x6s to survive transport, and this makes them sturdier and better insulated than most traditional houses). I did it and it's be…
The manufactured home thing is really interesting. Do you have more information regarding that? I Googled a bit and found much info about "Mobile home", is it the same thing?
Yes.
In factory built home parlance, generally, a 'mobile' home is built to HUD building codes (which are the same nationwide) and is not considered a permanent residence - often time it stays on wheels even when put in place, and can theoretically be moved at a later date (although they rarely ever are). These are also sometimes referred to as 'trailer houses'. They used to be built very cheaply and were a depreciating asset (think like a car or an RV), but there are higher quality options these days.
A 'modular home' will be built to spec to the local building codes wherever it is being placed (which is usually IRC + whatever peculiarities local government officials have tacked on). They are placed on a permanent foundation, cannot be moved, and are generally treated as equivalent to a site-built home once finished. Again, you can spend a little or a lot on these, some factories will do fully custom designs that would be completely indistinguishable from a high-end site-built home once finished.
Many factories will build either variety, some specialize on one over the other. In rural, higher cost of living areas both varieties are often quite a bit cheaper than a site-built home, both because of the efficiencies and economies of scale a factory can provide, and also because they can be built in an area with lower labor costs and shipped to your land.
In populated, growing urban areas, the cost benefit diminishes a bit because production builders can approximate the benefits a factory has by building 100s of homes in the same neighborhood at the same time.
edit to add: My information pertains to the US, the article references land in Canada. I don't know as much about factory built homes or building codes in Canada.
Re: Building a modern home in the woods
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess we can file yours under "callous indifference". Someone complains about the societal issues that allow a couple to build a SECOND mansion like this in the woods while millions of people are homeless and your response is to paint them as "jealous".
OP isn't complaining about societal issues; OP is trying to drag a couple just because they have demonstrated some modicum of success and happen to be "white". They literally mentioned nothing about societal issues, except the implicit racism in their assumption that whiteness somehow inherently detracts from people's accomplishments.
> They literally mentioned nothing about societal issues
I guess you missed the phrase "extensive societal advantages" in OP's comment.
Re: Building a modern home in the woods
#97This is a dream of mine.
I recently started talking to architects about getting started on the design process of a similar but smaller and simpler home and I was blown away by how much more expensive it was to build a home of this quality than what I'd been reading online.
It looks like as of 2022, you are looking at about probably $600-800/sqft to build something like this for my smaller simpler version. Potentially over $1000 / sqft to match the quality in the post
Re: Building a modern home in the woods
#98"The bigger issue was that the energy demands for the house, which included hot water heating for the pool and hot tub, outstripped the electrical supply we could get on a rural residential build: 400A" Am I the only one who almost spit out his coffee when reading this paragraph? I mean, building a remote home in the middle of a forest is a cool idea, sure. But then end up feeding the whole thing with 400A worth of e…
I'm from the US and I was shocked they needed 400A plus propane. We draw more current then you guys because our voltage is lower but still, 200A services are pretty standard for large rural homes.
> I was shocked they needed 400A
Seconded. I recently completed an all electric high performance remodel, and with 200A service, I can power a heat pump, heat pump water heater, all electric kitchen and laundry, and an EV charger, with Amps to spare. This is in the mild Bay Area, and my heat pump draws about 6A (15A breaker). The largest loads are EV and cooktop/stove.
A 3000sqft custom house built to high performance standards (airtight and well insulated) can be space heated in a cold climate with a heat pump that draws no more than 24A (40A breaker) using a heat pump. At that load a modern heat pump will make 40kBTU of heat. There are many examples of this across Canada.
I just now read that they have an outdoor heated pool, though, so crazy as it sounds they are presumably using electricity to heat it.
> plus propane.
Apart from backup water heating when the power goes out, their hot tub will waste huge amounts of energy, so propane might be operationally cheaper than electricity.
Re: Building a modern home in the woods
#99"The bigger issue was that the energy demands for the house, which included hot water heating for the pool and hot tub, outstripped the electrical supply we could get on a rural residential build: 400A" Am I the only one who almost spit out his coffee when reading this paragraph? I mean, building a remote home in the middle of a forest is a cool idea, sure. But then end up feeding the whole thing with 400A worth of e…
Top-to-bottom windows all over and narrow spaces .. it's actually amazing they fit it in 100KVA. This thing in winter would need about twice that just to not freeze. Hence the propane, and forget the tub and the pool.
Re: Building a modern home in the woods
#100The way to do this if you're not wealthy is to get a cheapo plot of land on the Oregon/Washington coast ($<100k for up to .5 acres) and put a manufactured home on it. It's way simpler, cheaper, and the construction on manufactured homes has improved a lot over the years (they're framed with 2x6s to survive transport, and this makes them sturdier and better insulated than most traditional houses). I did it and it's be…
You must not be aware that mfg homes have gone up in price by about 60% and are now on 14 month wait.
Still going to be cheaper than a site-built home in a rural, high cost of living area.
The materials price increases that are causing factories to raise their prices are also hitting local contractors who do site-built homes.
In fact, if anything, the factories can insulate you from this price volatility more because they have a lot more bargaining leverage with their suppliers than a local contractor who's doing 10 homes a year.