Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 14, 2017 9:29 am Hello everyone, I was hoping to get some advice in regards to our house plans. We are building in Canberra. We are building on a sloping block (slopes from the road back up the hill) and so on the ground floor at this stage we have a double garage on the right (as you look up the hill) and on the left is a rumpus/spare room. Above the rumpus room is our master bedroom and above the garages is the combined kitchen/living room. Some questions we have: - The architect likes a suspended concrete slab in between the bottom and top floors. The builder (who we haven’t engaged yet, but have got feedback from) said he thinks that joists and bearers would be the better option. o We originally wanted floating timber for the look, however now we are thinking it would be a waste to cover up the concrete slab with another flooring option if we could just polish it instead. o I’ve looked into this and found pros and cons on both, people for and again each. - We think that the choice of floor will affect our heating and cooling options. We were hoping to have hydronic in slab (which means we would need to have the slab) plus hydronic panels in some of the rooms and perhaps 2 or 3 bulkhead air conditioning units (I think they are referred to as split systems, but not those ugly wall mounted ones). - We are also looking at a thin roof design, which was another reason we had to have the bulkhead a/c units, as with a thinner roof, we couldn’t have the ducted in place for a/c and heating if we wanted that. We seem to be going around in circles a little bit – depending on the roof, it may have an impact on the heating/cooling which will in turn have an impact on the flooring etc. I am not even really sure what we’re asking, we are just a bit lost and feels like we’ve got questions being asked that we don’t know how to answer. It doesn’t help when the architect and the builder have differing opinions. So just wondering if anyone has any thoughts they might like to share with us that could help us! Cheers Re: Decision help - flooring, heating, cooling and roofing! 2Mar 14, 2017 6:36 pm Very exciting to get things moving congratulations. We looked at polished concrete flooring but our our builder advised against it. They tend to crack and as he said to us in 2 years time will you be happy with cracks in your floor? If the answer is no then don't do it. After he said this to us every time I saw a polish concrete floor I checked for cracks. Everyone of them had cracks. Just something to think about Decision help - flooring, heating, cooling and roofing! 3Mar 14, 2017 7:56 pm Lames We seem to be going around in circles a little bit – depending on the roof, it may have an impact on the heating/cooling which will in turn have an impact on the flooring etc. I am not even really sure what we’re asking, we are just a bit lost and feels like we’ve got questions being asked that we don’t know how to answer. It doesn’t help when the architect and the builder have differing opinions. Nice to hear about your prospective build. You needn't worry about the circles, as we all go through that when there are so many choices. It's all good so long as you are spiralling inwards towards a solution. You seem to have ended up considering that it all depends on your roof, because that had flow on implications for the heating and the floor, but I'm not entirely sure that is your start point. We are building in Cooma, and so like you understand the importance of heating and cooling. First and foremost is orientation, because if your design gets that right, then you have won half the thermal comfort battle. From there you can then consider your heating and cooling. I'm glad you are considering hydronic heating, because in my opinion heating objects rather than the air is a more natural way of heating so you will feel less thermal draft. Whether or not you need a slab for hydronic can depend on the heat source, because if you can get the water hot enough then you can use radiators instead. I presume you have town gas, but an alternative could be a heat exchanger/pump, in which case radiators are generally not practical. In terms of the roof, what do you mean by thin? Do you mean something like those made by Ritek or Kingspan? If so, you may still be able mount a cassette style split system air conditioner, rather than having to create bulkheads. Finally, as good as polished concrete can look, there is nothing like the warmth or classy look of timber. Did you mean a laminate or real timber, because you might want to see Thor's Hammer at Yarralumla to see if re-milled timber might suit your budget? Edit: builders and architects (and engineers too for that matter) will often have differing opinions because they are seeing the challenge from different angles. In the end it's your house, so you need to weigh up the options and make the choices that work best for you. Re: Decision help - flooring, heating, cooling and roofing! 4Mar 14, 2017 10:02 pm I can definitely empathise with the circles thing - everyone seems to go through that (and we still are)! We're also building in Canberra, and in your case we'd definitely go the suspended concrete slab for thermal mass, even if you don't go for in-slab heating. Either way, thermal performance is worth much more here than in most other parts of Australia (and yet so many Canberra houses get it sadly wrong...), and I agree with arcadelt that the first thing to do is to make best use of your orientation - good orientation for passive solar design combined with the suspended slab could make your house a real winner in terms of both comfort and low energy bills. If you don't go with the slab, then I'd strongly suggest that you make sure you have good insulation all round (including double-glazed windows). As an alternative to polished concrete, tiles (on a concrete slab) are almost as good thermally as bare (polished) concrete, and with none of the visible cracking. If you like the timber look, there's a number of timber look tiles available these days (of varying quality, but there are some really good ones out there) that could give you the look you want with the thermal performance (and durability) of tiles. That's what we're currently looking at (timber look tiles on concrete slab) as the best balance between looks and performance. Re: Decision help - flooring, heating, cooling and roofing! 5Mar 15, 2017 5:23 pm Hi guys thanks for all the advice. Our number one issue is probably budget so we will see if we can get some quotes for both options and compare. The builder roughly said slab would be $40k more than joists but that was rough figures off hand - another mate said he didn't think it should be that high. We are meeting with architect tomorrow so will discuss more and make some calls when we get the final quotes! Cheers!! Re: Decision help - flooring, heating, cooling and roofing! 6Mar 15, 2017 5:46 pm A suspended slab will be expensive as it is relatively rare and hard to get right. The price doesn't surprise me. Building a Madison 45 with Porter Davis Madison 45 Blog (Send me a PM with your email address to be added) Re: Decision help - flooring, heating, cooling and roofing! 7Mar 15, 2017 8:58 pm Yeah, suspended slabs do cost a bit - it's not just the slab itself, but also the support it needs (extra masonry or steel to hold it up). We'd ideally have a suspended slab for our second storey, but its (probably) not going to happen due to the cost. We still have the ground floor slab, and will probably compromise with Hebel PowerFloor for the upper floor (not as much thermal mass as a concrete slab, but much better than timber, has good insulation and soundproofing, and a much more solid feel without any squeaking floors in the future). The Hebel option looks like it's only going to cost us a few thousand more than a standard particleboard floor, and much, much less than the suspended slab. That being said, there are some Canberra builders out there who work with some 'alternative' suspended slab systems that offer reduced costs. One builder we spoke to uses Smartslab (which can be used with timber framing, saving a lot of cost), There are other options out there as well - your architect may (or may not) be familiar with some of these. Re: Decision help - flooring, heating, cooling and roofing! 8Mar 16, 2017 4:31 am Thanks algernon - I was doing some reading and I did see that Hebel Powerfloor - I was going to speak to the architect about it today when we meet. Looks interesting. I haven't heard of "Smartslab" but have just done a quick search and will also bring that up - thanks so much. I plan on installing an undercover walkway (awning ??) from my carport to the back door as shown in sketch. I will be using Boxspan Beams and have no concerns regarding… 0 781 Hi there, I'm a conplete newbie to this, but I'm looking to put a floor down in my 6x9m shed. 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