Affordable and Livable Homes

Affordability can be achieved by sacrificing livability, but it can also be achieved by controlling construction, operating, and occupancy costs.

Affordability versus livability

One-story houses with back doors and private laundry facilities are the least affordable and the most livable homes. Eliminating private laundry facilities reduces the cost but lugging laundry to and from a public laundry is a nuisance, and the machines are not always available. Replacing front and back doors with a single entry door at the side saves the cost of the interior pathway to one door, but then access from the front and back is not as direct.

Joining houses at the side produces rowhouses. This saves the cost of the exterior walls that have been eliminated, and reduces land cost per unit by eliminating the land between some units. Livability is degraded by the noise transmitted through the walls between units. In a duplex, the units can be arranged to put the bedrooms on the outside and areas less sensitive to noise facing each other. This is not possible if there are more than two units because only the outside units can have bedrooms on the outside.

A unit in a building with a full second story is less expensive than a unit with similar rooms in a one-story building because there is less area per unit for land, footings, and roof. Two-story buildings can have either rowhouse units or stacked flats.

The savings for a two-story rowhouse unit are partially offset by the cost of the stairway and the requirement for a bathroom on each floor. Livability is reduced by the inconvenience of the stairway and by the impact noise generated in upper stories. However, in large units the inconvenience of the stairway is offset by the reduced average distance between rooms.

The savings for a flat in a two-story building are greater than for a rowhouse unit because there is no extra bathroom, there is usually no back door, and the exterior stairways are shared and do not use up expensive interior space. The savings are partially offset by the requirement that ground-level units be wheelchair accessible, which requires oversized bathrooms and utility rooms. Occupants in lower flats will suffer from impact noise generated by unrelated occupants above them, which cannot happen in the other building types. Livability is further degraded because there is no direct access to a common area.

Stacking flats more than two stories high makes the flats even more affordable. But a tall walk-up is the least livable building because many units suffer from impact noise and formidable stairways.

Using elevators to supplement the stairways in tall buildings makes the units more livable, but then all units in stories serviced by the elevator will be required to be wheelchair accessible, not just the ground level units. The cost of the elevator and the extra accessibility can only be justified if the land is so expensive that a tall building is the best use of the land. But then there will probably be more than twenty units, and special provisions will be required for deaf people and blind people, as well as for crippled people. Tall apartment buildings are for rich people and handicapped people, not ordinary people.

Affordability via cost control

For a home to be affordable, it must have low construction, operating, and occupancy costs. Occupancy costs are those additional costs incurred by occupants because of inadequate facilities. In a free market all of these costs are borne by the occupant, whether owner or renter.

Our buildings are designed for low construction, operating, and occupancy costs.

Reducing construction costs

The buildings are compact because they have simple shapes. This not only reduces the cost of the building, it also reduces the land cost per unit by increasing the number of units that can be placed on a site.

Exterior wall lengths are exact multiples of two feet, allowing standard lumber sizes to be used with no waste.

Exterior walls use nominal 4-inch studs, which are considerably cheaper than 6-inch studs and provide more than adequate support. If 4-inch studs are not deep enough to contain adequate insulation, insulation board can be added to the exterior.

Basements are avoided because they are much more costly than frost-protected shallow footings. There is no living space in attics because it is costly to provide adequate insulation and ventilation above attic living space.

A garage is treated as a room of the house, not as a separate entity. This allows the garage floor to be placed at the same time as the floors of the other rooms, reducing labor costs.

Roofs are simple, to minimize labor costs. Slopes are steep enough to allow the use of inexpensive covering materials, but not so steep that significantly more material is required.

In most floor-ceiling assemblies joists are placed on 24 inch centers, not 16 inch, so that fewer are required. Yet the joists are minimum size because interior bearing walls are strategically placed to reduce span distance.

Reducing operating costs

Heating costs are minimized by designing for passive solar heating and by using cantilevered roof overhangs that provide more room for insulation at the eaves. The buildings have most windows placed on long walls on opposite sides of the building, so that one of the window walls can face south to collect solar energy.

Air conditioning costs in summer can be as high as heating costs in winter. To reduce dependency on air conditioning:

The parallel window walls provide cross ventilation.
Long overhangs protect the window wall that faces south.
The window wall that faces north receives very little sun.
Ridge and soffit vents provide unusually good attic ventilation, preventing heat buildup in the attic and reducing radiation from the attic into the conditioned space.

The superior attic ventilation also minimizes water damage caused by condensation under the roof.

Reducing occupancy costs

All units have substantial kitchen facilities. If the kitchen is inadequate, food costs will be higher because occupants will buy prepared food more frequently.

Except for the smallest unit, all units have private laundry facilities. This eliminates the cost and nuisance of going to public laundry facilities.

Most units have a back door that can provide direct access to a back yard or common area. Without a back yard or common, the cost of recreational and social activities will be higher because the occupants will pursue these activities elsewhere.

Livability

Room layout

The prime objective in room layout is efficiency. The public area has an informal living room and an eat-in kitchen that provide social, recreational, and dining facilities for family and guests. The largest units have a rumpus room in addition to the informal living room and a dining room in addition to the eat-in kitchen.

The informal living room and eat-in kitchen make a family room and a formal living room unnecessary. There is no great room because a great room has so many pathways that it cannot contain much furniture.

The main entry accesses the living room, and the pathway to other rooms is along one side of the living room. This prevents cross traffic from interfering with living room activities, and provides three walls for furniture.

Room design

In most units, the kitchen is L-shaped with a door and an oversized window facing the back. Patio doors are not used because they function poorly as either a door or a window. There are no cabinets above refrigerators, ranges, or sinks because short cabinets are not cost-effective. The corner has a sink, not cabinets, because inexpensive corner cabinets are awkward.

Rooms are just large enough to accommodate the intended furniture. Unless a room is huge, furniture will be placed against a wall instead of in the middle, so wall length is more important than room size.

Even the smallest bedrooms are large enough for a full-size bed, a chest of drawers, and a desk and chair. Bedroom closets are in one of the walls near the bedroom door, to minimize the length of the pathway to the closet. Closet doors are arranged to provide enough space to butt furniture against the end.

Most bathrooms are large enough for a tub-shower combination. Bathrooms without a tub-shower combination are used only in the first story of two-story buildings, or as the public bathroom where each bedroom has a private bathroom.

Noise control

The slab foundations eliminate noise transmission under the floor. Bedrooms are separated either by closets or by sound-resistant walls. In duplexes, bedrooms are on the outside and rooms less sensitive to noise are on the inside.

Temperature control

The slab foundations provide thermal mass to reduce temperature fluctuations. A register in each habitable room sends conditioned air to the exterior wall, which is the part of the room most subject to temperature fluctuation.

Leonard Azar, 309 Oxford Street, Brookings, OR 97415, (541) 469-2429, e-mail.