The Steps to Building an Addition | House Addition

by Building Dreams

Creating House Floor Plans for Major Room Additions or House Addition

House Floor Plans for Major Room Additions

When your house is too small, have you ever wondered what the steps to building a house addition? Often times when we meet a new homeowner who wishes to add more bedrooms or baths to their home, they describe to us what the finished addition will look like. The paint colors, tile selections, the furniture layout, and the like.

However, the following items are our concerns – in order!

Structural Integrity of Room Additions

During the entire design and build process of an addition to home, Building Dreams wants to maintain or improve the structural integrity of your existing home. In fact, this is our top priority. We inspect and measure your existing concrete footings, foundation walls, center posts and beams, structural steel, large header openings commonly found over windows and doorways, and many other items. We do this so we can calculate the amount of weight these items can hold. With any addition, we can determine the total amount of weight being added upon your existing structure. This calculation is through live loads and dead loads (building materials, occupants, furniture, snow, etc.). If required, some of your existing structural elements may need to be up-sized. This actually is quite common and further increases the homes integrity and your safety.

Mechanical Systems of a House Addition

A further inspection of your electrical, plumbing and heating/ventilation system is crucial to the safety and well-being of your family. Often times we find that the electrical service may need upgrading to perhaps a larger 200 amp service. The electrical portion combined with perhaps the running of new water and gas lines (where required) are usually never much of a problem. An area of concern is determining how to run sewer lines and ductwork from the new point-A (your addition) back to your existing point-B (the mechanical room). Much thought is put into this avenue so not to open up many chase areas within your existing and finished space. Our blueprints take all of these factors into account so our room additions projects run smoothly and efficiently.

Great room additions have great mechanical systemsBecause sewer lines must be properly pitched downward sometimes our choices are limited. With ductwork however, it is often more efficient to install a new second furnace and air condenser.

Creating House Floor Plans for Major Room Additions

We take great pride in our in-house design process so to give your family lots of unique construction elements. Examples could be walk-in closets, vaulted ceilings, skylights, architectural residential roofing shingles, a floating staircase, halogen mood lighting, material textures and many others. We want your friends and family to be wowed.

We involve you in our design presentations so you can visually see what the new and revised house floor plans will look like. Additionally, we want to blend in the exterior elevations of any new wall and roof lines so the addition looks architecturally natural to the original home.

Final Thoughts

In 95% of the additions we build, the homeowners and family can remain in the house during construction. Watching Mother Nature is crucial when planning on tearing off the roof structure on 2nd story addition or other room additions. We go to great lengths to build quickly and to protect the home as much as possible against unforeseen elements.

Many times we cut in the staircase from your existing first floor up to the new second floor after drywall is completed. This keeps the home secure, better HVAC, and the noise and dust is in better control. Our workers and all of our materials enter and exit up ladders through the new window openings. This way we don’t keep trampling through your home while building your house addition.

We would be honored to show off our impeccable quality standards and our house floor plans to you. Designing our major room additions has been our niche since 1993. For a list of communities we work, please view our About Us page.

For more information on a home addition or to schedule an appointment, visit our contact page and tell us about your individual project.

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