Wow I'm at 870 sqft and hope to upsize to 1500 in the end through reno's. What the hell would you do with 3000 sqft of space? I already have a room that is just book shelves and junk storage.

In the old western movies the street that Clint Eastwood walked down was always basically a load of simple sheds but with one grandiose frontage facing the main street.

Then when you look at the movie set itself, it only has the frontages with no shed, just wooden stays, for the areas they never pan the camera around.

An interesting metaphor for the American economy, the camera is going to start panning around all those false frontages with just the props.

Me, the wife and 3 kids live in right around 1500 sq ft. I would like to upsize to 2000 just to get another bedroom (We have 3 bdrm 2 bath) but for the most part we have room. I just dont like the way the house is laid out, it isnt an efficient use of space IMO.

Then again, you have to consider basements on some houses. My dads house is something like 3000 sq ft. But, he also has a full basement which accounts for half of that space.

And to give you an idea how nitpicking to detail he was (He's a tightass, much like myself, with money) the house has a sheet metal roof with no breaks whatsoever. Its a simple V metal roof. He vented out the side of the house. No possible area for leaking, and no shingles to wear out/catch on fire. He went with spray in insulation. He uses a corn stove for heat.

Last year , for the whole year, he used 70 gallons of propane.

Its a big house, its a nice house, and its a very efficient house.

My family of two grownups and two kids live in 1000 sqft, with a half basement, unfinished. When I am on the computer in the kitchen, and the kids are playing piano and watching TV in the very next room at the same time, I think a little bigger would be ok. 2br 1ba is a tad small.

Til the heating bill comes. We kept it toasty warm last winter, and I would talk to my sister in a fairly standard home, and her bills would be 50% higher, And she was cold! Small has its goods and its headaches.

BTW, you did see the two furnaces in that thing (NatGas undoubtedly)?

Last year I used 217.7 gallons of heating oil. This year the house is insulated. I have yet to turn on the heat. The tank is 230 gallons. Nice to know I could go all year on one tank.

Which brings us ultimately to the point.

Its not the size, but how you use it.
Or maybe thats for sex?

Ok ok, seriously. The problem isnt the ever larger houses we build but rather the codes and methods used to build those houses. What would you rather have, a 1000 sq ft house with no insulation or a 3000 sq ft house that you personally got to pick and choose everything that went into it. I'll take the larger house because I could use the best insulation possible and ultimately have a much more efficient house then a smaller house with inferior (or none at all) insulation.

Rather then bemoan the larger houses we should push to enact stricter building codes which require better R values of insulation, better lot layouts and other features which would add a fraction to the cost but ultimately make for a better house in the long run.

What happened to the rugged individual who wanted less government interference in their affairs?

Of course, being the USA, building code inspectors and surveyors should now be armed.

No kidding. I would opt for the well-insulated 1,000 SF house, but since Spec didn't give me that choice, I'd have to say 'neither.'



The codes in place are pretty stringent, anyways (esp. with the IBC coming online). Write more code, and you'll just have more violations getting covered up in the haste of throwing up the McCrap. True craftsmanship and quality from the big home-builders? Give me a break.

The same thing that happened to the person who wanted people to be mature and responsible.
He realized it was a lost cause.

My word, the only thing constant is change!

Strict building codes can be good if they're well-administered. The problem is the same places that want strict building codes want to pay the building inspect 10 bucks an hour, which makes them end up with incompetence, thievery, or worse. My mother's house somehow passed a roofing inspection where a 4 sq. ft. hole missing in the sheathing was covered up by shingles, AND had 3 layers of roofing (maximum for code was 2). The layers of roofing were the only thing that kept one from falling through the ceiling, though I suspect in the right place one would have fallen through.

This is one of those areas that is a tough solution. If you compel builders to put in high-end efficiency products, they will scream like hell and get you tossed at the next election. Very few towns have the willpower to weather the storm (no pun intended) and put together strict codes that are followed.

Part of the solution has to come from the market. Maybe a required videotaping of the insulation installed, wiith close-ups showing it's R value could be used to show the behind the walls stuff. The tape could come with every new house, much as an owner's manual comes with a new car.

$1000 a month to air condition in Texas would adequately house a homeless family of 4 in Chicago, just to put this into perspective.

In fact, if you add up the square footage of entrance foyers, gallery walkways and other useless and wasted spaces in larger tract housing, this all adds up to the amount of space familes of 4, 5, 6....used to live in, entirely.

You can get this perspective by driving through suburban regions up and down the arterial roadways...but you really see it in the photographs shot from the air: no trees.
(what my grandfather used to refer to as "God's air conditioning.")
All that cooling...absolutely for free. Shade. What a novel concept.

It's as if some rule of law set down somewhere decreed absolutely, that the cost of energy had to rise to a maximum (so that those who sell it will reap profits accordingly.)

I love the debates: Trees. They fall over in high winds. Children fall out of them and break bones and skulls. Nasty raccoons nest in them. Their root systems foul up the plumbing. Their leaves mess up the lawn in the fall.
They have to be pruned and fussed over.
On the other hand, they shade houses and yards. They rustle in the breeze (a lovely sound.) They provide oxygen. They provide an esthetic
that otherwise cannot be manufactured. They grow up with a community. Generations mark the passage of eras by measuring their growth.

Back to housing size and expense:
I think there is a kind of infectious noxious and rather toxic kind of "gigantism" that has infiltrated our consciousness. (Supersize me)

North Americans live in ridiculous amounts of space. I am reminded of all that English gentry that couldn't afford their castles anymore...and had to open them up to the tourist trade, in order to pay the bills.
Somehow I don't see this happening in Arizona..............

House size is all about status, after all. Very few people in the income bracket who could even contemplate the affordability of an oversized house have large families anymore.
We're looking at an average of anywhere from 2-3 rooms per occupant, all the way up to 5 rooms or more.

Anyhow...all the people who live this way - if their heating and cooling costs double or triple, and if their transportation fuel costs do the same, and they can still afford it...well, they'll keep on doing what they do.

On the other hand, I can't help but get the feeling that in the years to come, there will be a huge demand for smaller affordable houses closer to the city core. And for that reason...heating and cooling 1300 square feet will be a lot more affordable than 2 or 3 times that size.

They will also discover that they don't need to hire Molly Maid every month to clean the place. The 25-40% savings on house price by being 40 miles out of town will not look nearly so attractive.
Not to mention their kids re-discovering independent mobility again.
Not to mention mom and pop trading a 90 minute commute for a 25 minute jaunt to work.

Just imagine: The family room morphs into a 30 square foot renovated back porch. The apartment sized kitchen reduces down to a cozy breakfast nook seating 4 in the corner.
The en suite bathroom morphs into one main bath that everyone has to share (with the intrepid powder room tucked in the basement.)
And (o lord) parking for one!
I can't stand it.

I just checked out a bunch of houses in my area that are around 1200-1500 sf and cost from $60-80,000. They are on 1/4 acre lots and heat easily. There is practically no need for cooling around here. These houses are in quiet neighborhoods that are safe and fairly mellow. Why don't people want them? They will soon, I'm sure. Then there won't be enough of them. The McMansions will turn into multiple apartments for the poor. This is what always happens. Snob hill turns into the slum, while middle class neighborhoods stay more or less the same.

Just heard an interesting thing on TV which might be a good idea for you to get a better control on heating/energy costs.

We all know we can easily compare the efficiency of cars with the "mpg" number. How about something like that for houses?

That's exactly what will be mandatory here starting next year, if you sell a house you have to give this number, which is calculated like this:

Kwh / m^2 in one year for heating. A normal value for a new building would be between 60-80, for an old building it should be smaller than 200.