Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Jan 14, 2016 5:07 pm Re: Opinion on floor plan 5Jan 15, 2016 7:03 pm I like the plan but for me if north is towards the rear of the house i would remove the west window from the media room and put it on the north wall for winter passive heating and no west sun in that room in summer. I dont like bedrooms on the west side of the house due to being to hot in summer with west windows. So bed two would need some sun protection. Our Build Thread - JG king Memphis Opinion on floor plan 6Jan 15, 2016 7:13 pm surtees I like the plan but for me if north is towards the rear of the house i would remove the west window from the media room and put it on the north wall for winter passive heating and no west sun in that room in summer. I dont like bedrooms on the west side of the house due to being to hot in summer with west windows. So bed two would need some sun protection. Actually we will be flipping the plan as on the west side there is a 2m+ limestone retaining wall that we want to use as it will give us more privacy and is a better feature than fence giving on neighbours backyard. Only the master will then be on the west side which is fine with us. Re: Opinion on floor plan 7Jan 15, 2016 9:40 pm Extend the Alfresco area out to the end of the media room; looks weird if you do it after the build. Move the master bedroom door to the entry wall; waste of that little space. Re: Opinion on floor plan 8Jan 15, 2016 11:14 pm Hi Alex (I presume), The plan is quite good in many ways. I love the kitchen/ laundry layout. I get that I don't know the site or can fully appreciate your reasons for flipping the plan, but I would say don't if at all you can avoid it. Flipping/ mirroring the plan will place you living areas exposed to the west. Though it sounds like some of this would be mitigated by the retaining wall. It is far easier to reduce window sizes and manage placement in bedrooms then living. I often place bedrooms to the west for this very reason. I have recently written a blog post which is a case study on a renovation, but talk a little about the orientation of the living areas and placing bedrooms to the west. http://www.hackarchitecture.com.au/home ... reet-view/ In addition to exposure of the living areas to the west the media room will over shadow the living areas from the northern and eastern sun all year round. With the media room one side the retaining wall the other side, alfresco roof over. It sounds like there will be no direct northern sunlight into the living area and also be quite dark. The only other negative point I would say about the plan is that is fat, making it difficult to draw a good cross ventilation. As a general rule of thumb, when a plan starts to push greater then 12m wide it doesn't work as well for cross ventilation. There are a hell of a lot of factors the play into this and it doesn't mean it will be terrible. Just most likely you will use the A/C more. As I said originally there is a lot honing for this plan, just a couple of misses on the passive solar design front. Particularly when flipping the plan. HACK architecture Www.hackarchitecture.com.au Re: Opinion on floor plan 9Jan 15, 2016 11:25 pm Sorry, that article link should be http://www.hackarchitecture.com.au/home ... ase-study/ HACK architecture Www.hackarchitecture.com.au Re: Opinion on floor plan 11Jan 15, 2016 11:33 pm dkidston Sorry, that article link should be http://www.hackarchitecture.com.au/home ... ase-study/ HACK architecture http://Www.hackarchitecture.com.au Thanks Re: Opinion on floor plan 12Jan 15, 2016 11:38 pm dkidston Hi Alex (I presume), The plan is quite good in many ways. I love the kitchen/ laundry layout. I get that I don't know the site or can fully appreciate your reasons for flipping the plan, but I would say don't if at all you can avoid it. Flipping/ mirroring the plan will place you living areas exposed to the west. Though it sounds like some of this would be mitigated by the retaining wall. It is far easier to reduce window sizes and manage placement in bedrooms then living. I often place bedrooms to the west for this very reason. I have recently written a blog post which is a case study on a renovation, but talk a little about the orientation of the living areas and placing bedrooms to the west. http://www.hackarchitecture.com.au/home ... reet-view/ In addition to exposure of the living areas to the west the media room will over shadow the living areas from the northern and eastern sun all year round. With the media room one side the retaining wall the other side, alfresco roof over. It sounds like there will be no direct northern sunlight into the living area and also be quite dark. The only other negative point I would say about the plan is that is fat, making it difficult to draw a good cross ventilation. As a general rule of thumb, when a plan starts to push greater then 12m wide it doesn't work as well for cross ventilation. There are a hell of a lot of factors the play into this and it doesn't mean it will be terrible. Just most likely you will use the A/C more. As I said originally there is a lot honing for this plan, just a couple of misses on the passive solar design front. Particularly when flipping the plan. HACK architecture http://Www.hackarchitecture.com.au Will it be a big problem for the living to be on the west even with those small windows? The living will be 5.5 wide by 5 long. Unfortunately having a 21m frontage we wanted to use it fully but i understand when you say fat. For now we are looking at yard space of 4.5m to the side of the living and 5m north of the alfresco Opinion on floor plan 14Jan 15, 2016 11:47 pm Re: Opinion on floor plan 15Jan 15, 2016 11:55 pm The reason to have the house flipped was mostly to be able to enjoy the retaining wall as on the other side is the back yard of both houses and being so high and made of limestone would give us some privacy. We are also looking at putting a swimming pool at some point. Having the alfresco on the north and right hand side would point to 3 different backyards. Left , diagonal and centre. Still undecided lol Re: Opinion on floor plan 16Jan 16, 2016 12:12 am (quote)Will it be a big problem for the living to be on the west even with those small windows? The living will be 5.5 wide by 5 long. Unfortunately having a 21m frontage we wanted to use it fully but i understand when you say fat. For now we are looking at yard space of 4.5m to the side of the living and 5m north of the alfresco [/quote] So the house will not be sitting only a few hundred mm from the retaining wall as I had first imagined. A couple of up and downs to that. It won't protect the western wall from heat quite as much as I thought, but it won't be quite as dark also. Is it a big problem? This is up to your preferences. My ideal is to allow direct sunlight into the house in winter to warm the house an keep it out in the summer. Preferable even keep it off the external walls in summer. I think you will get enough reflected light into the living space to be comfortable. It won't heat in the winter and will probably heat up more then comfortable in the summer. But this is about your preferences, I have spoken with a prospective client that wanted a dark house, counter to all my natural instincts, but her skin was very sensitive to the sun. Oh, I haven't actually seen any reference to where you are building? If you are in Tasmania well go for it, it will be quite nice in the cooler months in the afternoon. I am in Newcastle so I am focused on knocking out the heat of summer, winters a very mild. If space allows beef up the insulation, it is cheep and effective. Seal gaps around windows and doors when they go in. (If you get enough say in all this). Add door seals and weather strips to at least external doors. Use low-e glass to the western windows regardless weather you are required to or not through Basix (a NSW thing) HACK architecture Www.hackarchitecture.com.au Re: Opinion on floor plan 17Jan 16, 2016 12:29 am Nope the house if flipped will be 4.5m from the retaining wall.we are building in Perth. Re: Opinion on floor plan 18Jan 16, 2016 5:49 am Great plan. I would put insulation in the bed 2 walls to reduce noise from laundry and powder room. Also, bed 4 could have the wardrobe lengthened a little while still being able to open the door, otherwise the space there won't get used for anything. Re: Opinion on floor plan 19Jan 16, 2016 7:34 am I would consider running scullery along media wall and run kitchen island that way as well, you will get vastly superior acess to kitchen from media room and kitchen flow will be better has you dont have to get to kitchen only by one route. Re: Opinion on floor plan 20Jan 16, 2016 9:41 am Joker I would consider running scullery along media wall and run kitchen island that way as well, you will get vastly superior acess to kitchen from media room and kitchen flow will be better has you dont have to get to kitchen only by one route. Hi Joker, Can you elaborate a bit as it's a bit hard to visualise? Thanks for the suggestion. The space between shower and sinks was too tight. I agree about the toilet location. So I have tried two other options: The lower one is… 3 6240 these look like missing batts. Go up and take a look. But yeah moisure meter is a completely different tool 4 9506 i thought the flipped plan initially but bec i want narrow pathway from entry to dining (dont like bend), also cannot fit the… 7 17432 |