Our Technological Toolbelt

Contractors carry a toolbelt (or drive a truck) full of useful tools for building a house.  We at Istockhouseplans wear a little different utility apparel. Ours is less physical and a little more electronic.  In fact it weighs hardly anything at all (which makes us quite portable without an F-350).

The most important tool we use is AutoCAD LT.  Without a digital drafting tool, we would be relegated to the physical tools of our forebears, that of a pencil and triangle.  Though be not deceived.  We have a great respect for those that still practice this dying art.  AutoCAD can be a little spendy for the weekend warrior.  The LT version is slowly approaching $1000 in price while the full version can be $4000 or more.

If you're just looking for a cheap tool that can still get the job done, we recommend A9CAD.  This free tool has all of the functionality we need except for colortables.  If we didn't have to print pretty pictures, we'd probably be using it.

DoubleCAD is another free product that has much more functionality, about as much as AutoCAD itself.  The look and feel is a little different.  DraftSight is another program we've found that almost perfectly replicates AutoCAD.  It does tend to have a bit of a lag though.

Sometimes we'll play with 3-D imaging.  Rather than pay the several thousand dollars to get the full version of AutoCAD, we've found the ever popular SketchUp from Google.  Sketchup is clean, intuitive, and (like AutoCAD) has several different ways to do the same thing.  We've found the basic version to be enough for our needs though we sometimes crunch the numbers to see if we could afford the $500 upgrade to Pro.  Pro allows more functions including creating your own Dynamic Components.  This means you don't have to create a 2x4, 2x6, 2x8, etc.  You just create a joist and then before you insert, drop down menus allow you to choose width, height and length.

When you order a paper plan from us, we send the file to the printshop as pre-printed PDF sheets.  They print the PDF sheets, bind them, and your plans are born.  There are several ways to create a PDF.  We've tried a few and the best one we've found is CutePDF.  This application installs like a printer in your computer system.  When you're ready to create a PDF from any program, go to print, and then select CutePDF as your printer.  A myriad of paper sizes are available.

The images of our plans that are posted on the website are created through a two-step process.  Unfortunately the quality of jpg and png that AutoCAD spits out are unacceptable.  We've found that we get much better quality from a pdf.  So we'll print the pdf (as mentioned above) and then open it up and export a jpg or png from the image.

Sometimes we'll further manipulate these images to get the size and contrast we want.  For this we use Irfanview.  Irfanview is another free program that does a bang-up job of manipulating image files.  We have used it to crop images, manipulate size and resolution, glue images together and much more.

Our images are then uploaded to Picasa Web Albums by Google.  The images on our website are referenced from Picasa as static images.  You can link to your images so that they are clickable or not, have a border or not, and control the size that the viewer sees.

Our blog is hosted by Blogger, another Google company.  The decision to use Blogger was merely one of convenience.  Rather than have several different log-ins for several different web portals, we decided to keep everything with Google that we could.

To continue the Google theme (maybe we oughta buy stock?) we use Checkout for our shopping cart, Analytics to get a look at our pageview trends, Docs to create release letters, and Maps for our mapplet.  Google has severely limited their Checkout feature so it's back to Paypal.

Our website was created with Google Page Creator.  We were very pleased with the look we had built.  A couple of years ago Google decided to close out Page Creator in favor of a program called Sites.  Our website was converted to the new look and looked just awful.  So we downloaded our coding from Page Creator and had it hosted privately.  This has worked well but it means that when a change needs to be made that we have to manually log in and make the coding change ourselves.  A small price to pay for having that much control.

Our website is now hosted on Google again. We switched to GoDaddy several years ago after reviewing their pricing structure.  But personal decisions have led us away from there as well as their difficult to use page editor.  Namecheap now has our URLs.


*edit: date of this post has been updated.  Sorry for the repeat in your feeder!

*edit: some of our services have changed.

Does your equipment blow or suck?

Happy twenty-'leven from Istockhouseplans to all of our friends out there in cyberland.  We hope your holiday was interesting and thoughtful.  A quick note about our year-end report: despite the down economy, our books show that we made twice as much in 2010 as we did in 2009.  Thanks to everyone who made that possible, and here's a toast to all of you that your books did and will do the same for 2011.

Now, to the topic at hand.  A strange thing happened over the holidays.  The building that we work from is heated with a forced air gas system, commonly known as a gas furnace.  It was recently insulated and air-sealed.  Somebody kicked a heat register shut and the tighter house acted differently.  In this case something happened.  Before, nothing would have happened.  This lead us to a little investigation.

First off, a house is a closed system but not entirely.  It is impacted by the outside environment to some degree.  The more a house is insulated and air-sealed, the more you reduce the impact from and to the outside environment.  This means you get more reaction within the house when something changes.  What changed in this case was air pressure.  By shutting a heat register, suddenly more blown air is directed to other registers.  In a tight house, this air is supposed to balance by going into the return register, through the furnace where it is warmed, and back through the registers.

Now imagine that air that is blown into a bedroom can't return to the furnace.  That is, it is blown in but there is no way for it to get out.  This might be the case where there is carpet and the door is shut leaving a paper-thin space between the bottom of the door and the floor.  A little air will get out but now the system will be imbalanced.  Kind of like filling a balloon.  More air goes in, but none comes out.

But the air has to go somewhere.  With a balloon, it will stretch the environment.  Unfortunately drywall is not as pliable as rubber.  So the air goes where it can, that is through tiny cracks.  At some point the room reaches critical mass for pressure.  This is when things start to happen.

Much like a pipe that has been corked off, the air stops flowing through the duct.  It might back up and force more air through another register up or down the line.  If it is a dedicated duct run with no other outlets, it will back up into the furnace.  So what you have is two pressurized environments doing battle.  Try this: grab a straw and a loved one.  Each of you put one end of the straw in your mouths.  Now both blow as hard as you can.  Cheeks will turn red, eyes will bulge, and finally someone will get a mouthful of the other one's air.  This is called system failure.

In the case of your furnace you could simply blow a duct.  However with today's tighter duct runs, the weak spot becomes the furnace, most notably the blower fan.  So the fan has back pressure causing two forces to exert their will upon it.  At some point the fan gives in and stops blowing.  The furnace still warms but the forced-air part has been taken out of the equation.  This tends to happen on the coldest day of the year on a Saturday night.

Granted, one single room is probably not going to have major adverse effects on the HVAC system.  But imagine an 1800sf three bedroom house.  The furnace is likely to be oversized (60kBtu) and the master bedroom might have two heat registers due to it's size (~200sf) as well as a heat register in the master bath and maybe one in the master closet.  The door is closed and there is no appropriate 1" undercut.  In fact, you would need about a 4" undercut.  Air gets backed up in the room.  Your head hurts.  Then the furnace quits.  You thought it was just the end of the cycle but it doesn't turn back on and the temperature continues to drop.  At first you assume a power outage but the VCR clock is still blinking '12:00'.  The next day it's even colder in the house so you call the HVAC tech.  He says he'll be out there sometime between 9a and Friday.

The bugger is that your house was built last year.

Before buying a new house, ask if the system was properly sized.  There are a slew of manuals and related software out there for professionals to use.  As a builder, always ask your HVAC tech how they arrived at the necessity to install an 80kBtu furnace.  Also ask how they are going to mitigate zonal pressure relief.  If they stare at you or stutter or write it off, hire someone else.

In the meantime, Istockhouseplans recommends not using forced air systems.  We push for hydronic floor heat, so called 'soft' heat (electric baseboard) and mini-split heat pumps.  All of these systems take less space and use less or no air.  They can also be sized more appropriately than a furnace can.

Don't forget to check your filters and consider cleaning your ductwork.  Oh, and if your head hurts in your bedroom, simply try opening the door.  Stay tuned for next time when we'll look at some more zonal pressure relief options.

Historic Fail

If you've seen Istockhouseplans' portfolio lately, you may have noticed a pattern.  We're pretty crazy about historic styles.  Large wood, texture, built-ins, house bling, etc. all play a part in the way we design.  But our design only covers part of the scenario.  We can design all we want, but the final product is left to the builder.  We can spec out materials and such but the fact is that the permitting jurisdiction only cares about structural and code issues.  As well they should.  Historic review boards will care about such matters.  In fact, we were recently privileged to sit in on and testify in front of a historic review board for a private commission we are working on.

While the historic review board was amenable to both historic-ish styles and the builder's pocketbook, we were a little disappointed that they didn't even discuss certain issues.  Some of these we think are crucial to distinguish between a true classic and a blatant reproduction.  While we mentioned some key issues a few years ago, we think that there are three that should always occur on a reproduction or historic remodel:

Windows.  Look at an old house.  Where are the windows located?  They are generally inside the wall.  Now look at most new homes and answer the same question?  The windows on the outside of the wall.  A little 2-3" nudge makes a huge difference.  So how do you install a new flange window inside the wall?  One way is to frame your openings 3" larger each direction and then install a 2x4 subframe inside the 2x6 frame.  The window then gets mounted to the subframe and floats inside the wall a few inches.  Cut down on all the extra wood by integrating the 2x4 subframe as part of the structural load path.  Another option is to purchase tip-in style retrofit windows.  Cost may be a factor in this case.

Siding.  Have you ever wondered why a substandard recladding of an old home looks so disappointing?  Think texture and relief.  First, old homes did not have one type of siding.  Two are minimum.  Even if both styles are lap and the difference is 4" vs. 8" reveal, it can make a house pop.  The biggest problem in our opinion is the relief of fiber cement lap siding.  How thick is the bottom edge of yesteryear's lap siding?  Darn near 1/2".  Now look at the specs of Hardi-plank.  How thick?  5/16", barely more than 1/4".  the stuff might as well be flat.  That tiny little edge looks puny, like trying to do 5/4x6" bargeboards.  Hey Mr. Hardie!  Have you ever considered putting a lip on the edge of that stuff to give it a stronger look?  If we ever get to build, we will not use that stuff.  Who cares if it lasts 100 years.  That's 100 years of puny looking disappointment.  "What will you use then, tough guy?"  What indeed.  Glad you asked.  Wood.  Wood lap siding with a 1/2"+ edge to it that makes the house look like it has been around forever.  Prime 6 sides and paint the visible sides.  Lots of work, yes, but the result is amazing and the durability just as good as Hardi.

Roofing.  It used to be (back when I was a boy!) that the roof color was complementary to the color scheme of the house.  Light grays, browns, even red, blue and green asphalt shingles gave interest to the color scheme below.  Now it seems that most new homes are similar to the Model T.  "Your roof can be any color you want, so long as it's black.  Because I bought 3000 squares and I have to get rid of it..."  Why are new roofs black anyway?  Is it because there's some aesthetic about a sharp contrast to one of the 3 shades of camel that new homes are colored?  We think it looks like a thick heavy black cap that smashes the house down and makes it look foreboding.  It also invites heat to be absorbed into the attic.  If you're building new historic or renovating, please don't use black.

If anybody out there can answer our concerns, we would love to hear.  Add a comment to this blog and set us straight.

May We Suggest?

From time to time Istockhouseplans receives questions about our plans.  Some feel that we are too light with our information, not including enough detail.  If this sounds like you it's quite possible that you have worked with an architect in the past.  Architects are quite notorious about detail.  As we noted earlier, we are not those architects.  A colleague said something very true the other day.  The quote mostly follows, "My plans are more of a suggestion.  It's up to the builder to take care of the details."  While this may sound arrogant or lazy, we see real value in this statement.

We have tried filling detail into plans only to have it ignored.  A good example is stairs.  If you are site-building stairs, there are at least three ways to build the carcass, at least three ways to attach the treads and risers, and at least three ways to attach a finish material.  Right there are 27 ways to build stairs.  We see no need to include every possible detail.  You as a builder are going to build stairs the way you have always built stairs.  If the situation messes up your usual way of doing things, you'll figure out a way on your own based on your own experience.

The same goes for detailing exterior trim.  This is why our houses look fairly plain.  All of our homes are drawn with typical 6" lap siding except for the occasional board and batten or shingle pattern.  Don't like it?  Change it, we don't care.  If you want to throw T1-11 all over it, feel free (but for heaven's sake, don't tell us, send pictures or advertise it as our plan!)  Don't like the kitchen layout?  Fine with us, talk to an NKBA professional.  Porch too small/big/unattractive?  Have a beer, peruse a magazine, and design your dream porch suitable to your region.  It's all in your hands.

Or put it this way: Our house plans are like a cooking recipe.  Add more meat, change the veggies, and spice it up a notch.  Throw in your own special ingredient, change the heat, or create a redux to simplify the whole thing.  (FYI, cooking is a side hobby in the office kitchen).

We feel it is our job to create some space layout, flow, and basic structural capacity.  But the rest we leave to you.  If we feel something is important to a particular look, we might detail it out.  Send us an email and we can give some more suggestions.

New Website Part the Second

You may not notice any change to our website, which is now up and running. A couple of weeks ago we told you about the issues we had when Google changed their webpage host from Page Creator to Sites. Most of the problems were resolved but we do have to go through every page now and fix the error that shows (or rather doesn't show) pricing. We may just remove this as it is redundant to the information in the checkout box. So you should be able to use the page mostly as before.

The biggest benefit is that by being hosted on GoDaddy, we have a direct URL and no more forwarding. The drawback is the advertising bar at the top of every page. To eliminate it, download Mozilla Firefox web browser and the AdBlock Plus Add-On. We have found it to be excellent at removing 99.99% of all web ads.

We will have some tiny house plans up by the end of the year. We are also dabbling with the idea of designing, building, and selling small mobile houses similar to Tumbleweed Homes. These will be one of a kind and based on the trailer that is available. As with our plan sets, we will not charge for local delivery.

New Website

Sort of... not really. We had given warnings that Google would be moving hosting of our pages from their Pages protocol to the new (and less improved) Sites protocol. The migration finally took place and our site looks awful. Well, awful compared to how it was. That, and the functionality has been engineered out of it. So now you can look at an aesthetic eyesore of a website from which you can't buy plans. Great marketing, eh?

We will be desperately trying to revive the page with as much of our intermediate web savvy as we can. In the meantime, you might want to see how the Japanese build a house in a day...

Countdown to Eternity

Good afternoon faithful blog followers! We want to let you know about some changes at the old istockhouseplans homestead. For a while we changed our checkout system to Paypal, but their inability to offer coupons sent us back to Google Checkout. With Google Checkout you can confidently purchase house plans from us knowing that we will never, ever see your credit card number. Now, whether or not you trust Google is a different story. We have also implemented a shopping cart feature which is one of the reasons we went with Paypal for a while. Sort of annoying to order a whole load of plans one at a time.

This calls for a celebration! In order to move some inventory by the end of the year, we are offering a coupon code for 50% off your order. Yes, half off everything in the store, right down to the fixtures and CFL lightbulbs. (Okay, no lightbulbs, apparently we aren't closing our doors). After you fill your cart up with all sorts of goodies, enter coupon code '2009' to take advantage of this offer.

Why buy from us? Three reasons: Our plans are simple to build; our plans are beautiful and functional; our plans are designed for energy efficiency.

After the end of the year, the rest of our coupons will still be available. (Hint: sort our blog posts by the 'coupon' label to see what else we might have). Of course if there are any questions or complaints, go ahead and email us and we'll try to give you the best customer service experience we possibly can.

Don your Helmets

Istockhouseplans has received lots of compliments on the look of our web page. We want to say thank you to everyone who has given us kudos. If we haven't heard from you on that note, we'll assume you're introverted and have meant to. We'll thank you in advance.

To that end, we want to warn you about an upcoming change. We have been hosting our sites on Google's Page Creator utility. Unfortunately, Google is discontinuing that utility in favor of another one called Sites. Now who are we to balk at free web design AND hosting AND porting? But we have read some news that some links and features have become unavailable with the transition. In the next few weeks we expect our site to make it's final transition and we want to apologize in advance for any hiccups that may occur. While we expect everything to work fine, there could possibly be some problems. If you need information, please send us an email at info@istockhouseplans.com.

We're also in the process of updating our checkout feature to a more user friendly Paypal shopping cart. Now you can enjoy secure shopping, no hard-selling, and the protection that comes with Paypal. As always, shipping is still free. If you are interested in purchasing a plan and see an old Google checkout button, please let us know so that we can convert it to the new Paypal version. If you are interested in multiple plans, remember we do offer a discount. Email us with what you are looking for and we will put together a package price for you. Since we are going to Paypal, all of our old coupon codes may not be working. We will update as soon as they do.