I have a cousin that is retiring and wants to build his retirement home in the Pacific northwest, specifically, the area immediately north of Portland, in the state of Washington.
Places with names like Brush Prairie and Battle Ground.
He asked me if I could suggest to him and his wife, any house designs I though he might like.
So, for those of you that know the area, I have some questions.
What is the best range for roof pitch? Are houses built with full basements? Do screened porches make any sense? What is the best way to do HVAC (or HV only) when you live off the grid, with only electric power available?
Replies
I suggest somethin moldy proof. 8)
Ultra water proof...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
The true Pacific Northwest style ranges from low-lying bungalow to massive timber frame, like Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. Most distinctive are long roof overhangs, wrap-around covered porches, etc., and lots of finish wood, like red cedar board and batten or shingles.
One distinctive aspect of the PNW style is that the structure does not dominate the landscape, becomes a blend with it and avoids pretention.
FHB has occasionally featured some homes of the PNW style...I recall some really nice ones that were built in the San Juan Islands, Western Oregon and Northern California. Beautiful, but nearly invisible until you were right on them.
The Vancouver area you speak of is mostly flat to rolling hills; some wooded, some farmland, slowly being consumed by housing.
The area is fast-growing....has become a bedroom community for the Portland area and its growing suburbs. My Sister-in-Law lives near Battleground and the rural property she bought a couple years ago has since become developed.
So, the PNW style is few and far-between there, as most new housing is contemporary....lots of two-stories (a bad idea IMO for retirees) with cut-up roofs and arch-top windows.
If their building site is more rural, PNW style would probably be a good fit....it rains there a lot in the winter so the roof thing is important....and pitches of 6/12 or less are fine...there may be occasional snow, but not the heavy stuff one would get in the mountains.
Basements, or cellars are common in the older housing in Portland, but the wisdom of incorporating one depends on site conditions. Daylight basements are a good option if the site is on a slope.
Screened porches can be fine if they are protected from prevailing winter weather. (And the Columbia Gorge can send some awful stuff into the area).
I'm not clear on your question about "off the grid" unless they will be out in the pucker brush. Electricity is still relatively cheap (just over 6 cents per kwh). Heat pumps are common, but don't do much below 38 degrees F., so electric forced air is usually part of the equation.
But that area should have natural gas, which is also a common energy source in the area.
Hope this helps.
I posted previously in kind of a hurry before I headed off to work. I occurred to me later that a lot of the older homes in that area and Portland and vicinity are Craftsman style; big covered front porches with tapered columns, lots of stained Doug fir trim inside, with plaster finishes on the interior walls.
Some are neglected and run down, but others have been maintained and are really attractive.
A drive around East Portland in the Rocky Butte area will give a good presentation of what I'm referring to.
And that's probably what they should do; do some driving around in the area and get a feel for the local architecture.
Personally, I love those older houses....they're really inviting and comfortable looking and the good ones are very functional in the climate out here.
And a trip up to Timberline Lodge is always inspiring to me...The stone and timber work done by the CCC program during the depression is inspiring and gives me goosebumps.
Amen to Notchman and his post.
There have been a number of articles in both FHB and This Old House about renovated and resored Craftsman style houses in the same general area (Cascadia). There is something about getting an old house up to modern standards and living your days out in that mileau.Quality repairs for your home.
Aaron the HandymanVancouver, Canada
I am building a copy of this one here in Lake Placid, NY, next year. Took my clients to see the original in Stowe, VT, and they were blown away. So was I.
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It is exactly right for a retired couple like my cuz and his wife. Two guest BRs up, all the rest on one main level, no steps anywhere except for the guests.
I want to suggest it to them because they want to build new, and I can give them cost and how-to advice. Although built in deep-snow country with a full-basement underneath, they can build it on a thickened-edge slab, and use the space where the stairway goes down to the cellar, for a nice storage cabinet, instead.
What do you think?
All those deep porch roofs look great, and certainly add style. But one thing we deal with here in the Pacific Northwet is lack of sunlight for 3,4,sometimes 5 months a year. Those same stylish roof porches will block light from various rooms and leave the house feeling dank and dreary.
Because we get far less than national average number of "sun days" per year, we try to take advantage of what direct sunlight we do get. And because summers are so moderate here, we get by maximizing glazing on south facing walls and orienting our buildings for maximum solar gain. At least some of us do.
Just another note on the same subject - because of our lattitude the sun takes quite a low angle in winter. You might consider making this part of your design equation too. There's far more to good design than picking a sexy looking design and building it, but you probably already know that.
Just to check things out, I went to a real estate site by Googling for "Clark County Washington Multi List." Did a search on the Battle Ground and Brush Prairie areas bracketing the $600K to $950K range. That area is where they were before, and where they will locate this time.
What I found surprised me. I didn't see any evidence of a local kind of style. What I saw instead was the kind of McMansion architecture that exists in places as different as Raleigh, Indianapolis, Burlington, VT, Chicagoland, or St. Louis. Lotsa complex roof lines, big glamour entries, you know the drill. Saw some pretty good roof overhangs, too.
I'll have to go to my archived Fine Homebuilding issues. Their annual "houses" issue almost always includes something from the PNW, though usually they are up in the Whidbey (sp?) Island area NW of Seattle.
Here are some questions. If the lot is flat, do most homes get built on slab foundations? Also, are there no flies or skeeters in the summer, therefore no one has need of a screened porch?
And, here's a followup re slab houses there. Do folks do hardwood floors atop the slabs?
Not many houses built on slabs hereabouts. At least that I've seen, Gene. Most common system on a level lot is 2' stemwall on 8" footing, with appropriately placed poured pierpads (whew, that's a lotta litteration) to support post and beams which support wooden floor joists with 3?4" t&g plywood subfloor (actually composite subfloors are far more common than plywood anymore).
We don't have many flying critters compared to other areas on the continent. Don't know if I've ever seen a screened porch in these parts. Sure as heck have never worked on one.
The main reason overhangs are popular here is to shed rain, to keep it off the siding, windows and doors, and like Notchman said, we don't have to deal much with snow issues. But as for a "NW style"? I'd be hardpressed to say one exists. White men have only been here for about 140 years, so there aren't many old buildings of any kind, certainly nothing I think of as NW style.
100% concur with everything Jim and Frank said.
Here is a story about basements in Renton WA area, was almost unbelievable to me even though I've lived here 40 years (grew up in Cent. IL, "up the street" from Boss Hog) and still cannot fathom the aversion to basements here. Subdivison south of here, on a cliff (good luck with a slide after 50 years of spetic and another earthquake) with absolutely the best possible french drain outlet imaginable, not one of 15 houses had a basement. Neighbor 2 lots away sold his 7 acres and 62 ( yes, sixty-two stinking mcmansions, 4000 sq ft house on 4600 sq fto lot) houses built there, not a single basement. One that I looked at had a 13 ft deep foundation wall. As it was being poured, I asked the RE agent about somebody actually putting in a basement. No, he said, it is on a sand lens and we had to get down thru that for sesmic codes. Did they put in a basement? Heck no, they BACKFILLED the thing with the sand!!
PS: I have a full basement, neighbor transplant from Chicago asked "how did you get a basement" - answer was I poured it my self before the developers got to this area!
So let me see if I have the foundation details right for typical houses in Clark County, WA.
A perimeter concrete wall around the entire footprint, 8" thick by just enough down to reach undisturbed soil. Right?
Is there a spread footing poured under the wall? Or does the 8" wall bear directly on the undisturbed soil?
Pier pads are poured at appropriate locations inside to pick up short little posts for floor beam. Correct?
How does one ensure proper moisture protection to keep your floor frame systems from molding and rotting away?
A stemwall foundation has a spread footing as it's base.
Moisture barrier is achieved at minimum with 6 mil poly sheet. I generally pour a slab in the crawlspace in addition to that which does a much better job of keeping the space dry and makes working underneath much easier.
In addition, some regions in the PNW, particularly where I am on the Coast, have seismic consideration which requires more than the normal use of re-inforcing steel and holddowns. The local building codes for Clark County will determine all that.
Crawlspaces generally require a minimum of 18" clearance from ground to bottom of girders, although a little more doesn't hurt.
So is this a reasonable foundation wall section?
Up north in King Co, the sill is typicaly a 3x6 pt with 5/8 bolts 2 ft oc. Plus 2ea 5 ft straps at each corner for sesmic codes -- after the last earthquake.
Basic drawing is correct, Gene. Now make the concrete skim coat slab inside only 2" thick over 6 mil poly moisture barrier if the area is to be crawl space only. Add tar dampproofing coat on exterior of frost wall up to grade line. Add rigid insulation on interior side of frost wall.
Read the various posts with interest. Some posters don't see a distinctive NW style, some do - including myself. Yes there are many generic styled houses out of some big outfit's plan book, but there are still a lot of thoughtfully designed homes and commercial buildings around too. I think the Arts and Crafts style is still alive and thriving in Cascadia. There are many beautiful homes that survive from the original era, and these are for the most part lovingly restored.
Many newer homes in this region have touches of exposed timber, log and stone that echo the mountain/wilderness ethos of the region, even if they are in suburban Portland, Seattle or Vancouver. Timber frame and full log homes have a solid folowing in the custom home market, although certainly a higher-end proposition pricewise. Many commercial buildings show the same ideas, through use of cultured stone on above-grade foundations and fireplaces, log or heavy timber ridge and gable end projections, exposed beams, and so on. Natural wood finishes for interior and exterior trims are very popular. Douglas fir and western red cedar are the most common, and, being locally produced, are reasonably priced. Cedar shake roofs are still desirable, despite their cost and the associated bush fire hazard they present. But they do make the home blend into its surroundings nicely.
Stucco is popular for exterior siding, probably more than any other system in my area. Vinyl and metal cladding are seen as cheap but nasty options for the most part. Board and batten cedar or cedar shake siding is still done, particularly in rural areas.
So if there is a style for the Pacific Northwest, it is Arts and Crafts-derived, with emphasis on natural, regionally sourced materials and a desire to harmonize with the landscape.
Wally
Lignum est bonum.
Gene; The input you're getting from others is solid and your section of the foundation is typical.
Now, since I'm a workaholic and am plowing through this weekend, again, I didn't have time to mention a couple of things....
I'm on the Southern Oregon Coast and we're in a Seismic 4 zone (same as LA, so I can't speak knowledgeably about Clark County, although it abuts the Cascades and is not terribly far from Mt.t. Helens, so the County or the state of Washington may have some seismic code issues.
Jim Blodgett, a good guy who loves seafood, mentioned the concrete piers and posts for supporting intermediate girters in the subfloor system: Anymore, when I do a stemwall foundation along with the thin "rat slab" I excavate for grade beams along those support areas. That way, steel anchors can be installed during the pour to secure the post bottoms; or we build pony walls to support intermediate spans as necessary.
But, at this point, some of your questions along with the photo and the price range you are exploring tells me that you're going to want a good architect to flesh out the details and design the home that fits the client and the building site.
There are some good Archys out here and some damned poor ones. Getting aqainted with the better builders in the Portland/Vancouver area (more research for you, sorry!) will most likely get you lined up with the right design people who will be familiar with the current codes and site conditions in the area.
I'm 250 miles from there so my input is limited.
BTW, the photo you posted, while not precisely PNW style, could be modified only slightly in appearance to meet my perception of that genre.
However, sometimes people get so obsessed with the outside appearance of a home design that that shortchange themselves on the interior.
BTW, DW is a Home Health RN for our local hospital and can attest to the wisdom of accessibility for retirees (and others).
Gene, the plans here are good for consideration.
I also remember Piffin writing about a job he had, designing/building/inputting ideas for a senior residence back on his Island.
Accessability, long-run low cost and maintenance free, that's the ticket.Quality repairs for your home.
Aaron the HandymanVancouver, Canada
Something volcano proof would be appropriate. Google up PNW volcanoes and seismic activity, it isn't the rain that's going to get me it's the ash.
Okay, we all live under the volcanoes....I would research zoning and covenants thoroughly, it is very common for a county to allow zero clearance subdivisions to mingle with the larger homes. Many builders, my current employer included, have built there dream to find the apple orchard down the road devolped into budget houses....everything has a place just nimby. Washington State encompasses rain forest to desert. I agree with sly karma pick a style that melds with the area.
A porch is nice, but you don't need screens unless you have horses or such.
Unless owner built, it is hard here to get anybody to build a basement, -- relator quote "profit margin is under 60% on basements"
I thought the "grid" was electric power. For older folks, keep stairs to a minimum and use low maintenance materials. Incomes for retired people usually stagnate but the cost of living doesn't.
Many love Craftsman styles and timber frames but initial costs as well as maintenance are prohibitive. The cost of oil heat is having some dire consequences for the fixed income folks in the Northeast.
My father is coming home today after hip replacement. He has Parkinson's too. His house is on a hill with steps everywhere. No shower or bedroom on the first floor. His house has become an albatross. He retired as a Professional Engineer with what was a good income. today he is living close to the poverty line.
If this could be the house that they drag him kicking and screaming from in the future, I would look at access, energy efficiency and maintenance first. Work a sensible design around those elements.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
There is a definite old PDX style in NE Portland where I live, that being long extended roofs (6/12) and large porches, but most of the newer developments are house styles similar to the suburban expansion you see everywhere else in America. It would cost a bundle to build a house like mine these days, which explains why prices are skyrocketing. There are only so many of the older style houses. It would be hard to tell the difference between a development in Beaverton and one in Philadelphia. While one could incorporate the older style elements in a new house, I bet it would stick out like a sore thumb in a new development. As one gets closer to the mountains, the houses do take on more of the older "lodge" styling. Wood stoves are pretty big out here.
That being said, Battleground has a different climate than Portland by virtue of being closer to mountain foothills and away from the Willamette Valley. They are usually a good 5-10 degrees cooler than places near the River. We have a very small bug problem in PDX, but closer to the mountains there may be significantly more skeeters and flies. I know that I really slather on the bug juice when I'm up there hiking. If I had a screened porch, I'd see about getting the roller screens so that it could be opened up.
Most houses here have a full basement, but the house itself is usually 3 ft above grade. They seem to have excavated dirt from the street area and used it to build up around the house. My basement is no more than 3-4 ft below street grade. You rarely see flooding except near rivers.
Rain is an issue here. Its not really rain like the East Coast, but more a continuous drizzle. It could rain all week and we might not even see an inch. Umbrellas don't really work as you more walk through the rain rather than the rain falling on you. Also, the cloud deck is oppressively low at times which leads to a claustrophobic feeling. I have a friend who lives in the west hills at around 700 ft el and his house is constantly in the clouds in the winter. Parts of his roof have at least 2 inches of moss, which, BTW, is the state flower. We also suffer from darkness this time of year, exacerbated even more so by overcast skies. In town second floor sunrooms on the west side of the house are common, as are bay windows and those kitchen windows which extend out from the structure.
It doesn't really get that hot in the summer, or that cold in the winter. Our gas bill this winter for a 2-1/2 story, 2200 sq ft house with the original windows (lots of big leaded glass ones) and *no* wall insulation will be less than $500. The combination of a large overhang with lots of glass works out well. When you want light in the winter, it is at the right angle. In my neighborhhod most houses will have a large deciduous tree which shades the house in the summer, but lets light through in the fall. We have window AC units but that is mostly for white noise. 80 in the day and 55 at night is normal
Another big thing out here is landscaping. The moderate temperature range and humidity are great for growing all sorts of plants. People tend to have one or more plants in bloom at any one time. Rather than being a drab dreary town, Portland is one of the more colorful places. It wouldn't surprise me if we had the most landscaping companies per capita.
Thanks for the info. Here is the most extreme overhanging roof of the house in consideration for the Battle Ground or Brush Prairie area.
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You can see the screened porch in the far back, and here it is from the inside.
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And that outside corner of the house halfway between the camera and the porch in picture number one, is the dining room corner. That corner is seen from the inside in this picture.
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Three windows mull right into the corner from both directions, which is a common theme seen elsewhere in the house. As I said, there is a lot of glass in the design.
Here is a question regarding heating. Does anyone heat with hydronic radiant tubing in the floors, and dispense with air conditioning? Or is air conditioning a must, and ducted forced air system is done, probably using a heat pump?
I have seen the landscape out there, during visits long ago. My cuz and his wife, when they lived there before, had a fabulous setting, with lush decorative stuff growing everywhere. An old school friend of mine lives in Boring, and operates a small nursery there, specializing in rare Japanese maples. He took me on a tour of a huge nursery operation nearby, and I was amazed.
In floor hydronic heating is catching on out here. Heat pumps are (re)gaining popularity as gas prices soar and electricity is (I guess) cheap here. Most folks don't have air, but we're 120 miles North of Portland.
That living room in the first photo - beautiful, but see how shady it is in there? A steeper roof, with a few 4x4 skylights would light that room naturally. We often sit in our living room and read, with no lights on, even on a gloomy day.
Our summers are like Maine. There might be a few days where AC would be really nice, but one could easily survive without it. We lived in a bungalow for about 5 years and had just a single window AC that ran for maybe two weeks in the summer at most. Previous tenants had a 240V window unit which they used in conjunction with the furnace fan as a whole-house AC. When it does get hot, it is rarely humid. Just open your windows at night and close them up during the day. I'm also a big fan of the cellular shades which let filtered light through but keeps the heat/cold on the other side.When I think overhang, I see something on the order of 2-3 ft for the second floor and a foot for the first floor. The first picture you have is more a porch roof than an overhang.You must have gone to the nursery on 224 just east of Boring. There are alot of similar big operations out here. I believe I heard on the news the other night that Oregon supplies half the Xmas trees in the US. Saw a huge trainload heading east next to I84 last weekend.
Gene,
I live about 60 miles NW of Jim, I have radient floors with no A/C. Maybe 20 days a summer do I wish I had A/C. However when you look at the photo the 4 large windows you see on the second floor are our bedroom. The view of the mountains makes it worth it. With the style of house your looking at I would cut back the overhang or cheat and go to 10' high ceilings. This would make the rooms a little cooler, let in more light, and with radiant higher ceilings is not a problem. Just a couple options. Good Luck
Jason