I love working with architects. They are the practical creatives that help clients create the story of their home. They're a wealth of knowledge from a different side of the building world than I'm from and are a great resource to bounce questions and ideas off of. In fact, I've gotten to the point where I won't work on projects that don't have an architect involved because I think they are that vital to the success of every building project. So I'm thrilled when I can offer some tips that might help them create even better projects. This post is a collection of things I've seen over the years, both broad and specific, that I think would be helpful for most residential architects.
Early Stages
View your builder as a teammate, not an opponent
I learned from another builder years ago that one of our jobs as a builder is to make the architect look good. The expectation should not (and can not) be to get perfect plans from any architect, no matter the scale or cost of the plans, just like they should not expect perfection from their builder and crews. Our job as a team is to collaborate to make the best home possible. Any time we can work together to iron out any issues with the plans or construction before it burdens the homeowner is a win for the team overall.
Assemble the team from the start
The best projects I've been a part of have always been the ones where everybody is collaborating from the start with one unified goal. Your builder, surveyor, engineer, designer, and various consultants all bring a wealth of expertise and different perspectives to the table. This collective will always create a better result than any of us could do alone, so assemble the team from the start and utilize everyone's unique talents.
Envelope and Mechanical Design
If the gold standard for construction is high end commercial buildings, it makes sense that we should be moving towards that model on the residential side. In commercial, building envelope and mechanical consultants help create structures that will be reliable, lasting, and predictably comfortable. Utilizing consultants who specialize in these very specific details will help us avoid little annoyances like soffits and obvious chases and huge headaches like water leaks or HVAC systems that don't preform as expected.
Rendering
Reviewing architectural drawings is the world we live in, but the same is probably not true for our clients. While we might be able to visualize what a room on a 2D drawing will look like when built (although I still get surprised regularly), our clients probably can't. Renderings are an easy, and easy to sell, solution. They've also become incredibly realistic in the last few years. Even if renderings aren't your cup of tea, it's something you can now outsource with impressive results. Check out websites like Upwork and some of the artists' portfolios and I would encourage you to include renderings in your pricing packages.
High Performance Construction
Architects do an incredible job creating beautiful and functional spaces/details. I would also encourage you to spend time on some of the nerdier, building science details that will make these spaces perform better and last longer.
Rain Screens
Water is a home's worst enemy. No matter how perfectly planned or executed an assembly is, water is always going to find a way to get behind it, given enough time. So we need to plan on it! Creating a drainable air gap between your cladding and sheathing is a failsafe for when (not if) nature wins. It gives us a way for water to drain and materials to dry out when they get wet. The assemblies don't have to be complicated either. Benjamin Obdyke's Slicker Classic Rainscreen is a great, simple solution to create that gap. There are other ways to do it too, so feel free to reach out if you want to know more.
Conditioned Crawl Spaces and Attics
The more you learn about high performance building, the more you realize the overall purpose is about control and setting your assemblies up for success. Insulating and conditioning your crawl spaces and attics is a great example of that. When you condition these spaces, you're adding further control to what air and humidity reaches the living space while helping the HVAC perform better and not work as hard. Imagine two attics: one that is 150+ degrees in the summer and is relying on the drywall and some blown in insulation to keep that air out of the living space below. The other one is insulated at the roof line with heating/cooling that might get up to 80 on the hottest days. It's easy to see which assembly will perform better and be more predictable.
Continuous Insulation
The 2021 Energy Code update is one of the largest we've ever had. Once Georgia adopts it, our climate zone in Northern Georgia (zone 3) is going to require exterior wall insulation of either R20 (essentially 2x6 walls), R13 plus R5 of continuous insulation, or R15 of continuous insulation. Code or not, continuous insulation is a fantastic way to increase the performance of your homes. They eliminate thermal bridging and dramatically increase the effective R-value of the overall wall assembly.
Example:
a 2x4 16"OC wall with R15 Rockwool batts between the cavities has an effective R-value of 11.5. The gaps in the insulation (the studs) lowers the overall value.
That same wall with just 1" of exterior rockwool insulation jumps all the way to an effective R-value of 15.1
If you want to play around with these assemblies, check out Rockwool's R-value wall assembly calculator.
I really like Huber's Zip-R sheathing because the continuous insulation is integrated into the sheathing and it gets the air barrier on the outside of the insulation, but the Rockwool comfort board is also a great solution and doesn't use foam, which won't naturally break down at its end-life.
If you're interested in more details that will help your homes perform better and last longer, please reach out and I'd be happy to talk all about it with you (I geek out on this stuff).
Building Details
Here are a few quick hitters that I see pretty often:
The wall on the back side of the washer/dryer needs to be at least a 2x6 wall. If it's an exterior wall, we need a double wall to insulate behind the vent box.
Pocket doors are a pain. To do them well, it's going to cost an additional $1000-$1,500 over a standard swing door, not including the usually expensive door hardware. I would try to avoid them where possible or let clients know there's an added cost to doing them right.
Also regarding pocket doors, the frames are not great to mount things like shower glass or cabinets to, so in those situations consider using a swing door or a double wall to give it something solid to screw into.
I try to incorporate curbless showers wherever I can. They cost about the same or even less than a standard curb shower if you plan from it in the beginning and feel/function much higher end.
I also like to put sloped floor drains under the washing machine because the standard plastic washing machine pans are ugly and intrusive.
Before finishing your final drawings for permit submission, confirm rough openings for all doors and windows and include those dimensions in your schedules (to make it fool proof). Also include the header heights so everything lines up exactly how you want it to.
Avoid plumbing on exterior walls if at all possible. It's technically allowed if you insulate it well, but it's not a great practice.
Try to centralize your water heater location to minimize the distance from the heater to the fixtures. Check out this article on The Hot Water Rectangle to learn more.
I hope these are helpful and, as always, please reach out if I can ever be helpful, even if it's not a project of mine.
Bonus Tip: Insulation is a great thing, but it does have a diminishing return as you add more. In other words, the first bit of insulation you add is the most important and everything after that gets gradually less important. The difference in thermal resistance change between R4 and R6 is approximately the same as the difference between R10 and R40. That's also why U-values in windows are so important, because they live on that lower end of thermal resistance and small changes can mean huge differences in performance.
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