Building Plans

We received plans today yay!!!

Has anyone outsourced an independant company to review your plans? My husband and I have zero experience with building and do not know how to read a plan or what to look for.

TIA!

Load the pics up here

Hi All!

Any input on my plans would be must appreciated!

TIA!

Amanda

Overall, looks quite detailed and balanced plans with a lot of thinking already done.

I am not sure what is your orientation like, to it is quite hard for me to comment re the amount of glazing and passive solar.

Some pretty minor things I have noticed:

1) 2340x820 internal doors at the ground floor will not be looking very proportional. I would limit them to 2.2 m max and do not mess with cavity sliders.

2) I would have played a little bit with the position of beds in your bedrooms as it seems that some of them might end up right under the windows (which is generally not a very good practice).

3) Not sure why do you need a door from the garage to your laundry at all (it is also taking some of the valuable laundry space you might use for the storage or clothing line etc.). Same applies to the cavity door between kitchen and the pantry. The existing garage door to be opened outside, not inside, as you are technically limiting car parking space in your garage, especially considering that due to WC3 corner you do not have much of the parking space over there.

4) I would have segregated air-con to 8 zones: separates zone for each bedroom + study, rumpus, one dining/meals/family/theatre sounds a bit more logical to me in such a big house.


Just my 2 cents.

What is the orientation of the house? Which way is North?

I’d extend the shower in the ensuite to the full length and have no door, easier to clean and you get a double shower

Also the WC jutting into the garage, will make the garage to small to park a car. I’d put the storage that you have on the right side of garage onto the left, move the garage door across, then the WC will only impede the storage area of the garage rather than the actual parking area.
Also be careful opening the door into the garage from entry way, better having the door opening the opposite way in to entry way (or not at all, just go through laundry)

Thank you for your input Alexp79

Back of the house is North Facing

1) Change internal doors to 2.2 even if the ground is 3m in height?

2) Good suggestions, we'll look at that again.

3) I'd like to be able to carry my groceries directly from the car to the main kitchen. Good thought regarding the CSD's maybe we don't need one between the main kitchen and the butlers pantry, I'd prefer to be able to close off the laundry. Great point about the way the garage door swings.

4) Yes I think we'll need more zones for the AC

Thank you soooo very much for taking the time to view my plans

Rear of the property faces North

Thank you gogo65 this is a very good idea

2.4 m by 0.82 m doors will certainly look unproportionately tall and narrow. 2.2 m is right in the middle between 2.0 m and 2.4 m. But I would keep your stackers and glazed sliding doors at 2.4 m though (or, if you can afford it, go all the way to 2.7 m for the wow effect).

For internal (not external!) doors it really doesn't matter much how high are the ceilings, however, if they are not very proportional - it will be quite noticeable straight away.

You may still leave the laundry -> garage door, I see the point here.

However, it rises question regarding safety, etc. - in that case you would need both garage doors to be secure and solid core. I would replace CSD between laundry and pantry with just a normal door.

For passive solar heating purposes, it may be a good idea to replace your alfresco with vergola/retractable roof type system, so you could be retracting the roof during winters to allow winter sun into your meals area (your tiles + slab will be working quite well as a high thermal mass and will be heating up half of the house for free). Modern ones have built-in rain sensors and can automatically close when it starts raining.

And then you would keep your roof shut during summer to prevent overheating.

Consider some kind of shading + Low E glazing for your theatre and bedroom 5 windows.
They will be getting really hot in summer as they are facing west.

I would completely remove Bedroom 4 western window and instead make south facing window wider.

I would also go for double glazing in your Study as it is south which will be shaded out most of the time.

If possible, go for wider eaves over your north facing Bedroom 2 and Bedroom 3 windows to protect from the summer sun, while making use of passive solar gains during winter. Alternatively, go for Low E windows there as otherwise your bedrooms will be getting quite hot during summer time too.

If you decide to move your WC further under the staircase, here is an original idea on how you can make WC area really small but also quite unique and attractive, install WC with integrated sink:

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/ ... 58f1bOAmTB

I can remember these being around 15 years ago. They never took off. Something about it just seems wrong.
If your powder room is that small that you have to contemplate one of these I'd be looking to buy some space from elsewhere.