Our House is a no frills, straightforward blog that walks readers through firsthand experience of building a Craftsman inspired home.

From the photos available it didn’t seem to me as though the exterior had a lot of Craftsman details worked into the design, however there is no mistaking the Craftsman influence within many key elements of the interior. From built-ins, to moulding, to cabinetry - you can tell the homeowners were interested in infusing the Arts and Crafts style in as many places as possible throughout their home. I especially love the clawfoot tub with oil rubbed faucet and stained glass window found in the bathroom. Another item worth pointing out about this home blog is that the homeowners are interested in incorporating some eco-conscious elements within their home such as geothermal heating and cooling.

Blogs like this are a prime example of what makes the Internet so powerful. Being able to read the details of what is involved in the homebuilding process from start to finish is invaluable for those looking to follow suit and take on the same challenge.

OK folks. Here’s what I’ve come up with after flipping through far too many horrible garage plans online. If you’ve got any good ones link to them in the comments section.

1. Charming garage with upstairs apartment - This one could be more authentic looking in my opinion. I’m not real keen on the the shutters but the stone facade is a nice touch as are the style of the garage doors. The one bedroom apartment upstairs is cool but I’d be worried that one of my kids would end up using the place as an excuse to not move out - then again maybe I could get them to pay rent…

2. Two-car garage with loft - Key features here are the 10 foot ceilings, stylish garage door windows, and triple dormers. The porch is a nice extra as well, though the columns are seriously lacking any real character. Look like your basic 2×4s. They could use some kind of upgrade that wouldn’t impeed the space needed to enter and exit with vehicle.

3. Two-car garage with covered porch - Love the exterior details on this one and the covered porch makes this one a sure winner. This one is probably my favorite among the five listed. It has a great deal of character and it provides a practical outdoor space that looks incredibly inviting. I even like the landscaping included in the design. Very well done.

4. Craftsman infused garage that looks like a house - This detached garage comes with a sundeck, workshop area and a bathroom. Looks like a clubhouse. Not sure I like the sundeck idea. Seems like an odd place to catch some rays.

Love the bathroom though - just like a gas station cammode.

5. Arts and Crafts style garage that REALLY looks like a house - This is both ridiculous and very cool at the same time. You can park an RV in this thing for crying out loud. Which I suppose is better than having to pull a behemoth mobile like that up alongside your house. At 1200+ square feet, this garage is bigger than some people’s homes. Something about that just sounds silly.

Architectural Designs has a number of well-designed Craftsman house plans including this one. At nearly 2,700 sq. ft., this house is a tad too big for our needs, especially considering we plan to have a finished basement, but it has a nice open floor plan with a large master suite that has access to the covered patio out back. The exterior details are consistent with the period and I love the large, 5 column front porch.

The large arched 2nd story window would be a very cool feature for one of our kids’ bedrooms and I really like the practicality of the large pantry in the kitchen.

The guest room suite is the only area that we don’t feel is necessary to have, especially since there is a bonus room upstairs. But other than that, this house is pretty classic. Nothing too extravagant on the exterior, though not unlike my dream girlfriends in high school, it’s what’s on the inside that could make this house really shine…OK, so that statement applies much better to this home than the girls I was physically infatuated with in high school, but you get the point.

Ehhh, I’m not really sure where I’m going with this so I’ll just close for now before I get myself in trouble.

You gotta love that cheesy title. I found this Craftsman house plan at Architectural Designs. I’m sure some of you would agree that the drawing of the exterior doesn’t really do justice to this home, but regardless, it’s the floorplan that knocks this one out of the park.

To be honest, I don’t get all that thrilled about single story homes. Exterior-wise I feel as though many lack character and that the second story can enhance the home by adding a lot of visual impact and interest. That being said, this one caught me off guard mainly due to how well it’s organized on the interior and that it has nearly all the key features we’ve been looking for in quest to find our dream home.

The following are those key features:

• Master suite is completely separate from the other bedrooms.
• The kitchen looks out over the great room.
• There is a separate laundry/mudroom.
• Both bathrooms have double sinks and the master bath has plenty of space for a stand up shower and claw foot tub.
• There is a formal dining room.

It’s not perfect though. I’d most certainly extend the deck to the west end of the home and add some French doors to the master bedroom. I’d also like the breakfast room to be more of a breakfast nook with built in table and benches. With the addition of a finished basement that would serve as a rec room, this house would be well worth considering. I’m just not completely sold on the exterior.

I’ve gotta talk with my wife but this house may find a way to creep into our top three house plans. I’ll have to set up a house plan ranking system soon so I can get input from some of you folks stopping by.

Tim Carter emailed and had a problem with the photo in my last entry of him getting body slammed:

Jason,
I will respond in a few days on your blog. The first thing I will address is your copyright violation…… of the mashup of the photo. If you want to take that photo down before I post, it might save you a little pain. I am very involved in a top-secret project right now and simply don’t have the time to deal with it.
Tim

I updated the photo to reflect his request. What a shame. On the positive side, I got my first copyright take down notice ever. In celebration I’m going to go hire a lawyer.

Seriously though, I am honestly interested in discovering what the truth is behind the tank vs. tankless debate both for my sake and everyone else out there reading. I’ve heard convincing arguments on both sides and am left feeling completely unsure. I look forward to Tim’s response. I have no doubt whatever he says will cause my engineer friend to blow like TNT, so I’ll probably have a follow-up should Tim decide to throw in his two cents.

Oh, the joy of blogging.

If you remember, I wrote this entry a few days back in an attempt to shed some light on the tank vs. tankless water heater debate. Tim Carter, a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, explained in a 2002 article that in many situations, tankless water heaters may not be as efficient as they claim. Since that article he’s received emails from individuals verifying his claims - even up until last September. I discussed this with my neighbor the other day who happens to be a mechanical engineer that specializes in HVAC systems and though I know engineers can be a little off the wall sometimes, I had no idea how furious he would get after hearing me summarize Tim the Builder’s claims. He went off slinging calculations and quotients until I had to gently interject with the ol’ slow-it-down hand motion and remind him that I was just the messenger and that if he wanted to battle this out mano a mano with Tim the Bad Boy Builder, I had the perfect place for him to throw down. So here he is in all his glory. I’d love to know what you think.

Holycow, this Tim guy is out of his mind on every level.

1. First, he claims tankless can’t keep up with the flow rate demand. He uses an example of a unit that can deliver 3.8 GPM (gallons per minute) at a temperature of 110 F. Note that there is one vital piece of information missing; what is the entering water temperature? To be able to make any calculations you would need to know the temperature rise that the unit is capable of. Anyway, his claims of flow rates of the various fixtures in a house are correct, 2.5 GPM for a shower head and 1.5 GPM for a faucet. But one thing he forgets is that you don’t take a shower without tempering the hot water with the cold. Therefore, a shower will not use 2.5 GPM of hot water. If we knew either the temperature rise capability of the unit or the entering water temperature I could tell you exactly how much hot water you would use at the shower head. But also to do that we would have to assume a desired shower temperature.

2. That leads us to the next item that he’s all wet on. He claims that most adults take a shower at a scalding 115 to 120 F. Why don’t you try a shower at that temperature and let me know how quickly you scream in PAIN. Maybe I’m a wimp but when I get in a hot tub, like the kind at an expensive resort, at 103 to 105 F I can only stay in the tub for about 10 minutes. Here is some more concrete data: the threshold for PAIN is between 106 and 108 F, and expect a third degree burn in from water at 110 F if exposed for 10 hours, raise the temp to 120 F and expect the same burn in only 10 minutes, raise the temp to 130 and get a third degree burn in only 30 seconds, shall I go on?

So let’s add these two items together and see what happens. But we need, again, to make some assumptions: earth’s average below grade temperature is 55 F and therefore the entering water temp (EWT) is also 55 F, the temperature rise capability of the heater changes with flowrate (GPM) and might look something like this:

90° F rise / 2.1 gpm
77° F rise / 2.4 gpm
65° F rise / 2.9 gpm
55° F rise / 3.4 gpm
45° F rise / 4.3 gpm

So it follows that if I wanted a shower at a deadly 132 F, I would simply turn on the hot water all the way - remember U.S. shower heads are governed to be 2.5 GPM - and not temper the water with any cold water. 55 EWT + 77 F temp rise = 132. Yep, seems to be working okay so far.

Okay, so lets say I’m Tim and I want a 110 F shower. And someone else is going to use a faucet at 1.5 GPM for hand washing at the same time and also at a burning temperature of 110 F. The heater can only give me 3.4 GPM and therefore cant keep up with the 4 GPM demand. However, I bet that Tim would not be doing this.

So now let’s use a more realistic example: A shower at 100 F and hand washing at the same temp. With some simple high school algebra you can calculate that in aggregate 3.27 GPM of HW and 0.72 GPM of cold water will mix to serve both fixtures at 100 F and a total of 4 GPM. Yep, it can keep up. Oh, and by the way there are larger heaters that can handle a larger temp rise at a greater flow rate. Or you can install two heaters in parallel and then double the cataloged capacity (note that if you go this route make sure your installer uses ”a swing check valve” in the piping arrangement). Also, not all heaters cost $1000 [craftsman note: I'm assuming this price Tim refers to was back in '02, so this argument may not apply]. I have seen them for as low as $250; that is practically the same cost of a tank type. On the other hand if you need to install 2 then of course the price doubles and installation is also more but not likely double the cost.

He also claims that his gas bill increased after he installed the tankless heater. Okay, so what! Tim, can you prove to me that the increase in gas charge was due to the tankless heater? No, you can’t, unless you have a separate meter on your gas supply to your heater. A number of things can affect you gas bill: increased gas billing rate, increase use of gas using appliances, and don’t forget that some appliances such as a gas forced air furnace will use more gas as the outdoor temperature drops. The bottom line is that you cannot simply compare your gas bills between months to determine if your tankless heater is more or less efficient than your old tank type.

Now lets take a step back and stop picking on Tim. We’ll take an engineering perspective at the two types of water heaters.

Tankless heaters by their nature do not have a mass of water that they must keep at a constant temperature all day an all night long but, a tank type does. So it follows that the fuel used to maintain the temperature of the water in the tank when no hot water is being consumed is wasted as compared to a tankless heater. The amount of heating energy needed to raise the temperature of the cold entering water to a useable temperature of 110 or 120 is the same for both types of heaters. It does not matter how the heat energy is added to the water but the laws of heat transfer dictate that if you are raising the temperature of 40 gallons of water (typical tank size) from 55 F to 110 (a 55 temperature rise) you must add 18,354.6 Btus (British thermal Units).

Q=m*cp*ÄT and H2O @ 55 F = 8.343 lb/gal, therefore 40 gallons of water at 55 F weighs 333.72 lbs.

So, 18,354.6 Btus = (333.72 Lbs)*(1)*(55 F)

Q=heat energy

m=mass of fluid

cp=specific heat of fluid

ÄT=temperature rise

The reason that the “burner” on a tankless heater is so much larger and is rated at a much higher output rate than a tank type is that the tankless must create this temperature rise at a much, much faster rate than and tank type heater. For a tankless heater to heat 3.4 GPM of 55 f water to 110 it must the burner must “fire” at 93,500 Btu/hr; however it is not likely that you would need 3.4 GPM at 110 F continuously for and hour, but if you did then a tankless could do that for you. What I’m trying to convey is that yes the burner is large and consumes a lot of fuel quickly but it does not typically run for a long time. Again, a tank type heater would still have to add the same amount of heat to that 3.4 GPM cold of water that is entering the tank to replenish the hot water leaving the tank.

Tankless heaters have another advantage that is related to efficiency but more so related to safety. The American Society of Plumbing Engineers (ASME) recommends that hot water in a storage tank be stored at 160 F to avoid deadly bacteria from growing in the tank, Legionella. Legionella grows well in stagnant water like that in a hot water tank on standby when the temperature is between 95 and 122 F. Obviously a tankless heater is by nature immune to Legionella. An inherent advantage of the tankless heater is that the water is only heated to the temperature that it is needed at 110 to 120 F not to the safety temperature of 160 F. In effect the energy needed to raise the water temperature above 110 or 120 up to 160 F is wasted energy but necessary to ensure safety with this type of heater.

If you had the guts to read this all the way through I commend you. You are definitely hard core. Oh, and Timmy…care to step in the ring? The floor is yours…let the battle live on.

Update: The included body slam image was edited due to Tim Carter “asking” me to pull it down due to copyright infringement.

2nd Update: My sarcastic photo response to Tim Carter’s email was changed in an effort to get the guy to actually respond like he said he would. I must have made him mad. I know the guy has a reputation to keep and he doesn’t want any of my 5 readers to see him in a negative light, but the truth is I just want him to back up his claims. I could care less who ends up being “right.” The truth usually ends up being somewhere in the middle anyways.

Paul Duchscherer is an interior designer, historian, and author who along with photographer Linda Svendsen put together a beautiful book titled Beyond the Bungalow entirely about classic Arts and Crafts inspired homes. Some of the photos inside are simply amazing. In particular, I love the dark millwork throughout the dining room from the ceiling to the built-in cabinet. And the triple-arched inglenook fireplace in the living room is a work of art. I know I’m gushing and though I feel like a pre-pubescent teen at a 1983 Michael Jackson concert, I just can’t get over how these Craftsman designs are screaming with character. And all I can do is wipe the drool from my chin and hope someday I’ll have a home of my own that lives up to this level of beauty. I’d absolutely love to have Craftsman designs similar to this in my dream home, but I have a sense that the pricetag for this kind of detail is a bit steep.

So Paul, if you happen to see this, please come to Michigan and design me a Craftsman home for the low, low cost of free. I’ll write glowing comments about you and I’ll even document the design and build process every step of the way. Waddaya say Paul?

Paul?