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DIY
DESIGN GUIDE
Ruinous amounts of time and money
are squandered by many home owners on their renovations.
Inexperience is the reason for
the worst blunders and while it's better to have an architect
assist you, the following list may help the do-it-yourselfer avoid
some of the major design errors.
PRELIMINARIES
Before
starting a design, you need to be sure the existing house is sound,
in order to confidently build on to or into it. Many renovations
built on structurally unsound houses come to grief.
To assess the house's structure,
obtain a free do-it-yourself home buyer's checklist from
Archicentre, or you could obtain a professional home inspection,
also from Archicentre.
Archicentre's Home Renovator
Report is designed to provide a low-cost detailed report,
schematic drawing and cost estimates as well as a preliminary
measure-up. However, if you wish to do it yourself, the following
stages give a good guide.
MEASURE-UP
OF THE EXISTING HOME
- The renovation must use the existing structure as its referral
point, so before working drawings can be made, a detailed measure-up
(in metres and millimetres) of the relevant sections of the
house is necessary.
- Each room should be measured internally, making due allowance
for wall thickness. An overall external measurement will provide
a useful check on the accuracy of the internal dimension.
- If additions are planned, a site plan should be prepared showing
the distance of the house from the boundaries.
- The position of windows should be measured, with a note of
the sill height and height at the top (called the `head height').
- The location of switches, power points, plumbing points and
fixed furniture should also be noted.
- Ceiling heights are necessary. Changes in floor levels should
be recorded and the direction in which the doors swing needs
to be noted for adequate preparation of the working drawing.
- The roof line significantly affects design and construction
and should be sketched as accurately as possible. If possible,
get into the roof space for an accurate measurement of the ridge
height. Without this, difficulties may be encountered when attempting
to integrate new roofs into old.
- Other items requiring fixing dimensions include eaves, chimneys,
porches and floor heights above ground.
- Having assembled this data, a detailed existing conditions
plan should be drawn up in metric at a scale of 1:100 or 1:50.
- At this stage, you have measured the tangible part of the
renovation. Now you must deal with the intangible - designing
the renovation. Once designed, most of the proposed plan will
have to be dimensioned in the same way as described above.
THE
RENOVATION PLAN - DESIGN BRIEF
First,
describe in writing what you want to achieve. You may think doing
this is unnecessary, however, often you will foresee difficulties
at an earlier stage and it will probably help clarify your ideas
and help with the following categories:
Space
- How much extra do you need? Assess your needs by conferring
with all likely users of the space.
- Refer to sizes of existing rooms to get a spatial comparison
between what you have and what you want.
- Consider the impact of furnishings and fittings in the rooms.
Quite often not enough space is allowed for such things.
Circulation
- Work out your preferred relationship between rooms, so that,
for example, one room is not being constantly traversed to get
to the other. Helpful considerations would be the approximate
length of time spent in each room, and the function of the rooms.
Views
- Assess not only which rooms should face views, but what to
build into the rooms for best effect.
Examples: Decide on the appropriate window sizes and heights,
and whether to include decking, skylights and pergolas with
sympathetic planting. Assess impact of present and likely building
by neighbours.
Energy Efficiency
This relates to circulation.
In order to decide where you will install heating and cooling,
you should decide how often you will be in a certain room, how
often you will enter and exit, which other rooms you are likely
to be using at the same time and whether they are close together
or far apart, thereby needing separate heating.
The features you wish to incorporate
also have a bearing on energy efficiency, for example, choosing
between a skylight or a window. Orientation to the sun, garden
planting etc. will dictate which of these two will lose or gain
you most heat and therefore which is appropriate from an energy
point of view. Similarly, should you extend the eaves, or construct
a pergola to counteract western sun? Or a combination of both?
Also, depending on your use of the house, either gas or electricity
may be preferable, with a subsequent choice of ducted heating,
in-slab heating or localised heating.
Noise Control
Assess external influences
such as the street and neighbours. Consider internal noises like
people and machines. The outcome may affect your room placement.
Noise transference can be reduced by sympathetic design.
DRAWING
THE PLAN
There
is usually more than one way to solve a design problem, so try
to explore all the architectural possibilities you can imagine.
Before becoming too settled on a floor plan, consider the roof
shape; many floor plans would produce a maze of rooflines and
ridges, unacceptable for an attractive house.
THE
COST
- Before reaching a decision on the size of the renovation and
the room orientation, you should estimate the approximate cost.
- Multiply the area concerned by the average building cost for
your type of construction. The result may necessitate a reduced
scale renovation.
- Alternatively, a staged renovation may be appropriate.
- Approximate building costs can be obtained from Archicentre
and will vary considerably depending on the standard of finishes
required and the tradesmen contracted.
THE
EXTERIOR APPEARANCE
- Consider the impact of the renovation on the exterior. If
the house has been built in a distinctive period style, such
as Edwardian or Victorian, you should decide whether to faithfully
duplicate the style or add to it in a contrasting modern style.
- Duplicating the old style will be more likely to guarantee
a sympathetic renovation, but could be more expensive and may
not let in the amount of light that could be achieved with a
modern renovation.
- Sketch the proposed renovation from several angles, so you
can study the proportion and be satisfied it will not look tacked
on.
Material Selection
- Clever material selection can not only improve the appearance
of the renovation, but will minimise the cost of creating the
desired effect. The maintenance aspect of the materials selected
should also be considered.
- To assist in material selection, visit display centres, renovator
nights, home shows, talk to knowledgeable friends, visit successful
renovations and refer to design magazines.
While an architect's advice can
often add a little extra `magic' to the renovation (and advise
what not to do), the more ideas you can assimilate, the better
your chance of making up the shortfall in experience.
Archicentre can provide a low-cost
introduction to architectural planning through the Architect's
Renovator Service.
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