2 ms·

My house has no garage, but a semi-circular driveway plus a spur that means that we could park 9-10 full sized vehicles. There are basically no houses here with

by dsr_ 3y ago

My house has no garage, but a semi-circular driveway plus a spur that means that we could park 9-10 full sized vehicles. There are basically no houses here with a 3 car garage, and rather few with a 2 car garage. Houses without garages are fairly common. It rains here, but it also snows here -- so a roof that can shed water but not hold the weight of 3 feet of snow is not suitable. Putting our roof on a house in Georgia would just be a waste of money. Some ground can deal with basements. Most of Florida can't, so they build on slabs. Then they need to put the HVAC and plumbing somewhere that isn't the basement. A house in Florida should be designed to withstand hurricanes and floods. A house in California should expect frequent minor earthquakes. My backyard view is great. My front view is of a road. Planning for those in the wrong direction would be bad.

bluGill 3y ago
Parking in the sun is an option. Everything else is something most houses can be adjusted to handle without changing the layout. It turns out that a roof built with the basic standard components can handle a large enough snow load for most locations. Even if it can't, the roof it generally engineered separately and placed on top, so you can interchange a different one without changing the house plans. If you don't have a basement you delete the stairs down and get a closet which is also used for a tornado shelter. A house in Minnesota is designed to withstand hurricanes and floods - It turns out storms can momentarily get as bad as a hurricane and so houses everywhere need to handle it. Likewise MN gets minor earthquakes - it is rare, but still happens enough that unless it greatly increases costs (it doesn't that much) you take in the earthquake work someone else does. No California does have major earthquakes that Minnesota houses probably cannot handle. California is on their own code system. However Minnesota shares codes with states that get hurricanes and floods - those states put in a little more insulation than is needed, while they build for hurricanes - and both states get better results for it. Meanwhile those designing building components can scale better (cheaper!) knowing that once their parts work in one state they can sell to others.
gpm 3y ago
> Some ground can deal with basements. Most of Florida can't, so they build on slabs. Around here every house has a basement. Flooding is an extremely minor concern given the terrain and you want the foundation to be below the frost line. The provincial building code requires a heated basement on clay soil (all nearby soil is clay) to a depth of max(1.2m, frost line).

by dsr_ 3y ago

bluGill 3y ago

Parking in the sun is an option. Everything else is something most houses can be adjusted to handle without changing the layout. It turns out that a roof built with the basic standard components can handle a large enough snow load for most locations. Even if it can't, the roof it generally engineered separately and placed on top, so you can interchange a different one without changing the house plans. If you don't have a basement you delete the stairs down and get a closet which is also used for a tornado shelter. A house in Minnesota is designed to withstand hurricanes and floods - It turns out storms can momentarily get as bad as a hurricane and so houses everywhere need to handle it. Likewise MN gets minor earthquakes - it is rare, but still happens enough that unless it greatly increases costs (it doesn't that much) you take in the earthquake work someone else does. No California does have major earthquakes that Minnesota houses probably cannot handle. California is on their own code system. However Minnesota shares codes with states that get hurricanes and floods - those states put in a little more insulation than is needed, while they build for hurricanes - and both states get better results for it. Meanwhile those designing building components can scale better (cheaper!) knowing that once their parts work in one state they can sell to others.

gpm 3y ago

> Some ground can deal with basements. Most of Florida can't, so they build on slabs. Around here every house has a basement. Flooding is an extremely minor concern given the terrain and you want the foundation to be below the frost line. The provincial building code requires a heated basement on clay soil (all nearby soil is clay) to a depth of max(1.2m, frost line).