Re: Texas houses

Posted by V35B on February 19, 2021 at 07:10:25 from (52.128.53.123):

In Reply to: Texas houses posted by cjunrau on February 18, 2021 at 11:25:10:

Here in NTX we have some terrible soil that is full of heavy clay and will cause problems with foundations, especially the "spec homes" and other short cut builders. That is why a lot of the plumbing is in the attic, and then there is the cutting of cost. What I have determined over the years is that there is two good ways to build, and I will use examples.

Old school pier and beam with crawl space. My parents house was built in 1948, and my grandparents last house was built in 1951. Both were sitting on piers drilled to the bedrock layer. Both have plumbing under the house, and my parents never froze up during this, and it got to -8 once, and down in the low teens a lot. Both houses have the old blow in grey looking insulation with 2x6 exterior walls. They never have had any shifting or foundation issues. My grandparents never had issues in their lifetime either. Both houses are around 3500 sqft, and have Natural Gas furnaces. Elec/Gas bills run them around 290.00 in the summer, and around 150 in the winter.

Newer construction-

My current house was built in 2019 is sitting on a post tension slab which is sitting on 49 piers drilled to the bedrock. The waste plumbing was roughed in before the slab pour, and entry sleeves were installed at a depth of 2' for water, electric, and one more for future use. They come up in the wall between the garage and laundry room, and plumbing and electric runs through the attic. The attic stays +/-7 degrees the same temp as the interior of the house. The idea is to minimize the amount of pressurized water line in or under the slab. The only other live water line I have besides the entry line is a line to the kitchen island sink, and it is pex inside of a 3" sleeve. The roof has 12" of spray foam on it, the walls have 2" of spray foam, and the rest of that gap is blown in poly. There is no insulation on the sheetrock that is the ceilings, except over the garage, which has bats laying on the sheetrock. From what I can gather, this is the best system around here right now. I made it through this cold spell and did nothing more than I do every day. My electric bills run me about $90-100 per month in the summer, and around %70.00-$80.00 in the winter, we have an A/C unit that is a heat pump system, the house is 2500 sqft. The heater was running a cycle of around 12 minutes on, and 23 minutes off during this cold spell, it kept us at 67 inside with no issues to date. I didn't plan this construction to specifically handle below zero cold weather, it was just the way my builder did it. Oddly, the cost per sqft on our house was a little lower than the houses that are built by cutting corners around here. There are plenty of builders here that are good at putting lipstick on a pig and turning a hefty profit.

We still have numerous people living in houses built in the late 1800's, I used to be one of them. You have to be on your game if you do. Between that, and the more modern construction that is done shoddy, that is what got a lot of people in trouble in the big cities. We live in rural areas where I am, and I just don't see many struggle to cope out here, even though their houses may not be built to handle it.

Take it for what it is worth, it just my two cents.

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