Reviews:
 ·Cox HSI
| reply to inGearX
Re: one story vs two story houses - pos vs neg? I've lived in one stories my whole life (concrete slab, no basement). My brother lives in a two story. My take, I've always liked the idea of living in a 2 story, but, I don't know if I would like it in practice. Climbing stairs, while good exercise, gets to be a pain, especially moving furniture or heavy items up them. Then you can hear people moving around on the wood floor (not really an issue on a concrete slab).
I guess I wouldn't rule either out, would come down to how well liked the house and how well I liked the price.
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 KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | reply to Voxxjin
When I was a boy we lived for a time in a house that was 2 stories and a basement. The bedrooms were on the 2nd story and the laundry was in the basement.
However, the house had a laundry chute and a dumbwaiter. As I kid I used to think both were amazing.
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| reply to scooper
said by scooper:When the wife and me bought this house (a 2400 sq ft singlestory contemporary),...
We have a single unit heatpump / propane furnace - a 4 ton heat pump and a similarly sized furnace in the crawlspace.
Unless you are in AZ near the Mexican border, that heat pump is WAY too big. Even there, it is too big. AC makes us feel comfortable by controlling humidity -- plus heat. You will be MUCH more comfortable at 85 degrees and 40 percent humidity than 70 degrees and 80 percent humidity.
Next time you replace the system (and that happens about every 16 years or so unless it is ground source) have a mechanical engineer look at the numbers.
It wouldn't surprise me that some previous owner got some idiot HVAC contractor to install a hugely oversized unit.
Going smaller will save you in power bills too. |
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| reply to graniterock
said by graniterock:As someone who grew up in a ranch style and now live in a two story I am surprised as to how hot the upstairs gets on the top floor as compaired to the main floor.
That is an HVAC design issue. The system was not well designed, but it can be fixed. Have an HVAC expert come in and balance the system. They will restrict the flow to the registers on the first floor, which will mean more air to the second.
You must be careful though. If the system is restricted too much, you will have system freeze up problems in Summer.
This is one reason many new new homes have two HVAC systems. Plus it gives more control, and some redundancy. I really understand that right now -- NO AC. If you have two units and the first floor system fails, sleeping is still OK. If the second floor unit fails, you just sleep on the first floor. |
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 Jack_in_VAPremium
join:2007-11-26
Mathews, VA
kudos:1 | reply to Voxxjin
Ever been on the first floor under the "Laundry Room" when the washer and dryer are in operation? |
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scooper
join:2000-07-11
Youngsville, NC
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
 ·Embarq Now Centu..
| reply to BubbaKlinton
We were the ones who put this in in 1997 - the previous unit had failed. Being relative newbies to this (and not much internet about this), we took the contractor's recomendation. Next time - we'll be having a Manual J calculation done , but it wouldn't surprise me if we are a little oversized - we can hold 70 degrees inside on a 100+ degree day outside (and with NC humidity, to boot) - and we aren't running 100% duty cycle to hold 75 inside in those conditions. |
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Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL
kudos:1 Reviews:
·CenturyLink
·Comcast
·Embarq Now Centu..
| reply to BillRoland
Foot of staircase. | 
Head of stairs | 
Landing looking down. |
1) The top photograph shows the foot of the stairway ending at the first floor hall. The stairway is so narrow that it almost does not meet the width requirement for a stair way lift. Make sure you build a wide enough staircase. Normally the rail the seat rides on has to be bolted to the floor at the foot of the stairs. That means the rail would stick out in the hallway. One stairway lift manufacture offers a automatic folding rail for an additional $1,000.00 on top of a $3,400.00 cost for the basic lift.
2) The middle photograph shows the top of the staircase. To descend the stairs you have to turn right, walk down three stairs, make a 180 degree turn on the landing and then walk down the stairs shown in the bottom photograph. This scheme makes it very difficult to move furniture to the second floor.
If you are considering an elevator you can save money if you install a wheelchair lift. A wheelchair lift has an open platform with formed metal sides. It does not operate automatically. The user must hold down a button until the lift ascends or descends to the desired level. Most wheelchair lifts can accommodate three landings, for example, Basement, First Floor, Second Floor. I was quoted about $18,000.00 for a wheel chair lift and $30,000.00 for an automatic elevator without a basement landing.
If I was building a two story house I would have the shaft way for an elevator or wheelchair lift constructed with the house. I saw one proposed design where the shaft way formed two aligned closets. The cross beams for the floor of the second floor closet was dropped onto brackets. The floor and brackets could be removed if the elevator was installed. If you can afford it install the wheelchair lift when you build the house and get full use of it.
This house has no aligned closets so a shaft way would have to be constructed on the outside of the house. I saw one design where hallways were aligned one above the other with a window at the end of each hallway. The windows were replaced with doors and a shaft way was constructed at the end of the hallways to accommodate the elevator. |
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 SnakeoilIgnore Button. The coward's feature.Premium
join:2000-08-05
Mentor, OH
kudos:1
·RoadRunner Cable
 ·magicjack.com
| reply to inGearX
Advantages of 1 story:
No stairs to climb when going to get the laundry.
Even heat, A/C distribution.
Easy to access roof, and the rest of the home exterior.
Disadvantage:
Can have a large footprint. Meaning on a less then an acre of land plot, it'd be more house vs lawn.
Advantages of a 2 story:
Smaller foot print. Meaning more lawn, less house.
Disadvantage:
Uneven heat, A/C distribution. The upstairs can be warmer in the summer time then downstairs, and hotter in the winter then down stairs.
Having 1 or possibly 2 flights of stairs to climb. When you are young stairs aren't an issue, but as you age and your joints start to go, they become an issue.
Roof, second story exterior being hard to get to. If you own/can afford a ladder to reach that high, and heights don't bother you, then this isn't a big deal. But if you don't own a ladder that tall, or heights bother you, it is a big deal.
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Is a person a failure for doing nothing? Or is he a failure for trying, and not succeeding at what he is attempting to do? What did you fail at today?. |
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SnakeoilIgnore Button. The coward's feature.Premium
join:2000-08-05
Mentor, OH
kudos:1 Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
·magicjack.com
| reply to Mr Matt
Interesting. I had never given an elevator a thought. Though if it starts around 30k, it might be better just to use that money and buy a one story home.
But if building a home, I can see having it planed/put in, during the planing stage. Plus, it could be a feature that a future buyer might be interested in.
Our two story home would have to have an exterior elevator shaft built on. The home is 30/40 years old, and I doubt that they thought about wheel chair access to the second story that far back.
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Is a person a failure for doing nothing? Or is he a failure for trying, and not succeeding at what he is attempting to do? What did you fail at today?. |
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 dosdoxiesPremium
join:2004-12-15
Wallingford, PA | reply to inGearX
I think whether you have kids or not should factor in the decision. When I was a tyke my family lived in an old 3 story house with 10 or 12 foot ceilings and I can't count the times I took a fall down those stairs. I sure wish we had lived in a 1 story then.  |
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Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to Mark910
said by Mark910:Ranch. 1 floor. As you age you will appreciate no stairs.
This
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I may have been born yesterday. But it wasn't at night. |
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 djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
kudos:1
·VOIPo
 ·Verizon Wireless..
·RoadRunner Cable
 ·AT&T U-Verse
| reply to BubbaKlinton
We have a single unit heatpump / propane furnace - a 4 ton heat pump and a similarly sized furnace in the crawlspace.
Unless you are in AZ near the Mexican border, that heat pump is WAY too big. Even there, it is too big. AC makes us feel comfortable by controlling humidity -- plus heat. You will be MUCH more comfortable at 85 degrees and 40 percent humidity than 70 degrees and 80 percent humidity.
Our old 3.5 ton unit installed into our 1400 square foot two story home was a bit oversized. I wouldn't go less than 3 in that house though.
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quatrixPremium
join:2005-02-11
South FL
kudos:2 | reply to inGearX
Am I the only one who didn't know what a "cape" home is? |
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| The only one who admitted it. 
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Cod_(house)
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Gadgets |
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 alkizmo
join:2007-06-25
Pierrefonds, QC
kudos:1 | reply to quatrix
said by quatrix:Am I the only one who didn't know what a "cape" home is?
Don't feel bad, I only assumed what ranch style homes are.
Where I live, these are the terms we use:
Bungalow - Single story with basement
Split-level - Half is 2 story, other half is 1 story (Set in middle of the first half)
Cottage - Two story with basement
The end |
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| reply to markf
said by markf:I would say a big factor for me would be land costs. Where I am, to purchase a lot would be expensive enough and I would want as much outdoor space as possible, so I would give 2 story.
While I understand the when we get older argument in favour of a bungalow, I have a long way to go yet. I would probably want to downsize from my next home into my "retirement " home too.
To have the land for a one story would mean being out of town, (or paying a fortune) so more driving, and at an advanced age I would see that as less desirable. If I were custom building I would make sure the stairs are wide enough to accommodate a lift if necessary.
To put up a ranch-style house on my hood would take about 1/4 - 1/3rd acre of land which means purchasing two lots with existing 2-storey homes on them, demolish the homes, and only then build the ranch house - and would cost about $3-5+ million to just buy the existing homes. Besides which, ranch style just isn't the style in my hood.
A hydraulic elevator big enough to hold an ambulance stretcher or 4 people, which goes 3 floors (basement, 1st, & 2nd) will run about $25-30k. Depending how the house is designed, you can even have 1/2 floor stops to stop at a garage level. I'd rather have an elevator than a stair lift. With an elevator you don't have to move even if you're confined to a wheelchair or use a walker. Using the numbers above, to build an accessible ranch home in my hood which would esthetically 'fit' in the neighbourhood would cost $3-5MM for land + construction costs vs. $30k for the elevator + remodel costs in an existing home.
The nice thing about home elevators are the door options - you can have just one door - like a regular elevator, front & back doors - like a freight elevator, or doors at 90 degrees to one another. The latter two options give you lots of flexibility in room/corridor layouts on different floors.
You can always rough-in a space for an elevator in a new/remodeled home, and use the space as 4'x7' (or so) walk-in storage on each floor until you want to add the elevator. |
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| reply to inGearX
I like the height. I can see the street and look down on a nice view. Watching the street from ground level isn't as nice.
I lived in a ranch for most of my life (dad's house) and didn't like the single level. I wished we lived in a multi-level house. |
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 VoxxjinMade of HamburgerPremium
join:2010-01-13
San Antonio, TX
·Time Warner Cable
| reply to KrK
said by KrK:When I was a boy we lived for a time in a house that was 2 stories and a basement. The bedrooms were on the 2nd story and the laundry was in the basement.
However, the house had a laundry chute and a dumbwaiter. As I kid I used to think both were amazing.
Same set up as my house going up except for the laundry chute and the dumbwaiter (intellectually challenged waiter for the PC world )
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Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war |
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VoxxjinMade of HamburgerPremium
join:2010-01-13
San Antonio, TX Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
| reply to Jack_in_VA
said by Jack_in_VA:Ever been on the first floor under the "Laundry Room" when the washer and dryer are in operation?
The one house we had that the laundry room was on the second floor was right over the downstairs bathroom so it didn't matter.
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Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war |
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| reply to inGearX
said by [bquote= GadgetsRme  :I'm 30 but I plan on living
I was 26 when I bought my house.
I am now 57, and I was in a very bad accident in 2002.
I see a future where the second floor and basement are not on my program.
Planning for the future is a good idea, and the future may not be as far from now as you think. |
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