Well
let's add it up. Saving on roof, insulation, some building
materials and possibly since the home will have a smaller exterior
exposure a saving in heating and cooling cost. It adds up to
great savings EXCEPT when you consider the following:
Hallway space is wasted space in a house. You do not eat pizza,
watch TV or entertain in a hallway. Hallways are just necessary
spaces providing you access from one room to another. A house
plan which has less floor space dedicated for hallways provides larger
rooms elsewhere in the house. With this in mind a 2 story home
presents us with a great opportunity for hallway space. A
staircase to me is nothing more than a stacked hallway with a little
storage space underneath. If a staircase is 3 1/2 feet wide plus
3" walls over a floor space of 15' then we are
dedicating 120 sq ft of space just for the stair case which always
leads us to a now required upstairs hallway, say another 60 sq ft or
wasted space. This wasted space if incorporated into a single
story house would provide enough space for another bedroom plus closet.
When I was young, Dad would rise early on a cold Michigan morning and
restart the coal furnace which had extinguished itself during the
night. Once the coal heated the air, gravity allowed the air to
rise through the house while the cold air fell to the basement where it
would be heated by the furnace. This system needed no electricity
and as long as you had a Dad willing to stoke the furnace in the
morning it was great. Down here in LA (lower Alabama) the major
expense is not heating a home but cooling. The one unit for
heating and cooling is not a viable solution to
a two story house. Although an electric fan can force the cool
air upstairs nothing will bring the hot air downstairs so the circular
flow of air, which is necessary, does not occur. We end up with
cool air being mixed with hot attic air and a miserable environment to
sleep since the humidity is not being taken out of the air. All
this brings us to the necessity of 2 heating and cooling systems to
provide adequate cooling in a second story home.
When you add the cost of wasted space, second heating and cooling
system plus the perceived detriment of stairs (especially if the master
bedroom is upstairs) when you sell the house, the advantages of a 2
story home take on a new light.
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