Building a 3rd floor

[katonkbuilder]

I'm in the very very preliminary stages of buildling a 3rd floor (I have no experience whatsoever in construction). What are the important planning steps involved in this?

I'm planning on getting married within two years, so keeping costs down is *very* important, but I'd like to build the third floor so it is "upgradable". For example, I can probably only afford wood floors, but would like to build the 3rd floor so it can support marble floors later on. I'm assuming I would have to let the GC and architect know this so they build a stronger (and more expensive) structure for the 3rd level's floors. I'm alittle handy, and have friends who are, so putting in fixtures, painting, electrical, and trims could be done by meself in the future. Its the actual structure, roofing, and perhaps pluming that I wouldn't be able to do myself. What are other things I should do to make the thrid floor (and roof) more easily "upgradable" in the future (i.e. reinfore the floors) and what things should I make sure I put in now as opposed to later (like skylights, outlets, broadband wiring, wall layouts, etc.)?

The third floor is going to consist of a master bedroom & bath, and perhaps one or two more rooms (a study and a guest), or drop a room and get a huge closet.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Rich]

Probably the best thing to start with would be the flooring system. You will want to use TJI's / BCI's Silent Floor (LHS should carry these). The LHS will also give you a design that will hold marble or whatever. The additional cost of these versus standard dimensional framing is well worth it.
As far as electrical goes - I would rough-in for power (of course) and internet. If you want to go to a sound system down the road rough-in for that too. You can pull everything to a junction box and just record the location on the plan so you can get to it later on - or put cover plates on them or later on put in remodeling j-boxes.
Skylights are not too bad to put in after the fact. You can get them of a size that they fit in between rafter spacings.
To save some costs now you can also place all framing at 24" o.c. - you gain some insulating (small but some) factor and a little money. Is what it does is places the load transfer from the trusses to the studs to the floor joists. You can also get windows to fit inside the 22.5" space of the studs to minimize headers also.
Any other questions specific to what you want in there?

[katonkbuilder]

Rich, Wow, thanks for the great info. I'm printing this to keep the issues you brought up on file! Awesome.
What does "o.c." and "LHS" stand for?
Could a fireplace in the master bedroom be put in later, or should that be put in now, cost wise? I was also thinking that it would be nice if the masterbedroom was elevated, having two or three long stairs leading into it, as opposed to being on the same level as the other two rooms. Would this increase costs significantly?
Any advice on closet systems and the bathroom for the master bedroom? Any tips for saving $ in these areas or where to find good prices on medium-nice quality fixtures? It would be nice to put in a shower and a whirlpool bath, and probably tile everything until we can afford marble later on.

Thanks!

[roger g]

I guess I have to be a little blunt here but I can't think of a way around it. You say you want to save money yet it seems that you want a very big house or so it appears and it looks like you want to put the best into it plus you are saying that you know little about building. What you are expecting is fraught with problems.
I applaud the fact you want to learn and save which is something we all aspire to do BUT doing all this for you first time is problematic. It has been done many times bot not many times successfully . Most people that tackle these sort of jobs will have been mechanically minded all their life to some degree and a house project is usually a big leap but an attainable leap. Everyone is good at something and pretty good at a few things and maybe iffy on even more and a disaster on a lot.
What I'm saying is you maybe losing dollars to save pennies. I've seen people with good intentions who start and make a complete mess of a project the cost to fix it was worth more than the whole project. I've seen home owners who constantly bug other trades who are working on the job on how to do certain things. Most trade guys are very helpfull but day after day, week after week, month after month tends to wear thin. I've seen homeowners who THOUGHT they knew certain things create so much problem that the trades walked off the job. I guess the reason I bring all this up right now because I was at a place yesterday and the workers walked off the job and will not come back. The homeowner is now stuck with a house that someone else is going to complete at a higher price. I've seen this before over the years and the owner believed they were reasonable. Even when the workers don't leave, the working atmosphere is terrible and what sort of a job are they doing then. Workers can see that you are cutting corners usually on their trade to save money but they can see what you want as a result. I've seen homeowners complain about minor things yet their new addition will raise their property taxes $5000.00 a year. It will cost them thousands to furnish. More to heat and maintain etc etc etc.
Learn as much as you can about building which it looks like you are and be very carefull. Yesterdays episode brought it to the front.
Sorry for the rant but information is information and knowledge is everything.
Roger

[Rich]

Good breakdown roger.. and good advice. I liken it to a sliding decision scale (stole from a PM I worked with). People have certain activities that they are 100% comfortable with making decisions on and they are about 100% accurate when they make the decision. Then they have a number of activities that they are about 80% accurate on making decisions. Then there are those activities that they are only 50% accurate on. Typically those activities that they are only 50% accurate on are the ones that cost the most money.
I tell people that work for me that they need to learn more and more until they take those 50% accurate items to 80% and the 80% items to 100%...and on down the line. When they get to 100% accurate then they can teach someone else to do it and responsibilities change at that time.
So if you're not comfortable with an activity and you believe that there is a chance of an error when you make a decision - think about the following rating system for risk.
Scale goes from 1-10. 10 being the highest risk and 10 being the highest dollar value. Let's say you have a sink you are installing - dollar value is maybe a 2 and risk is maybe a 5 - multiply those together and you get 10.. not bad. Now take structural framing on a third floor (example only) - risk for loss is a 10 (loss of life) and dollar value is a 10 (paying for the loss of life).. multiply that - 100. So chances are if something goes wrong with the sink install it's going to be 1/10 as detrimental to you as having the 3rd floor framing cave-in. Now think back to your sliding decision scale. If you are 100% sure about the framing you can probably drop that a couple notches on the risk scale.. if your 80% sure keep it where it's at.. and if your 50% sure - double it.
I'll stop there as I've probably bored everyone into a stupor with little understanding of what I just said. We use the risk 1-10 scale in determining safety risk on the jobsite... but it's all relative to everything we do in life.

[katonkbuilder]

Roger, Thanks for the advice. Right now I'm trying to figure out what items need to be put in at the initial planning stages, and what can be left out. I'm trying to keep/avoid change orders b/c that increases costs. The project is to put in a third floor into a house which I plan on living in for a very long time. The living situation is such that a 3rd floor is necessary, period. The house is in San Francisco, and the money I put into this buildling project will be my mortgage; otherwise I could not afford to live in San Francisco with the crazy prices around here.

Anyhow, I'd like to know as much as possible so the plans and drawings are done correctly, and the general contractor all the sub contractors know upfront what is being put in and what isn't. I don't want to be cutting corners during the construction, but doing it upfront. Ideally, I just want them to build the third floor structure, windows, doors, walls, wiring - the major stuff. Like a blank slate/floor so I can put in all the fixtures, trims, and decorations, lighting - all the minor construction stuff myself. Things like what rich suggested are exactly the types of things I need to know to plan out the costs and the extent of the contractor's job. A gas fireplace is a frivolus extra, but I wanted to know if its something better planned for now as opposed to later. The bedroom needs a bathroom with a tub and shower, and I figured a whirpool ($600 at Homedepo) isn't that big a deal. The stairs leading up to the Master bedroom seemed like a good design idea, and I was wondering if that significantly increased the cost (they are already going to have to put in a new floor, so raising a few feet and putting in some stairs seemed like it wouldn't cost too much more-it would cost a great deal more if I did it later).
Not being a pain-in-the behind is good advice, so I will all the more work harder to plan the whole job out so that my "thriftyness" is worked out in all the plans, before and not during the construction.

Any advice on construction ideas that don't cost much but make a floor/room/closet/bathroom more beautiful? Is there a website or design site with ideas?

Thanks in advance.

[roger g]

Looks like you are starting on the right foot.
One possible problem that I have seen over the years is when you leave something unfinished to be done years later. Some times the plumber or whoever will rough in some plumbing for a futute bathroom. Because it is only a rough in it isn't going to finished by him. When something is being built it is in the final stages of finishing does the imperfection start to show them selves and must be adjusted. Using the plumber as an example. he has to leave you with a finished job so he must be very capable of doing everything right. If he is just roughing something he doesn't have to be too carefull because he isn't finishing it. Years later another plumber comes onboard and wonders who in the hell did this!!!.
Sometimes it's much cheaper in the long run to finish something by the same person. I wish building was like computer programs where you can put in different scenerios and see what the outcome would be.
It even scares me when I think of all the possible problems though in most cases they don't happen. But when they do..................

Roger

[Rich]

Another thing to take care of first - before you talk to builders etc... is make sure that your construction loan will allow you to not complete some areas. Many times construction loans will require that you complete all areas to substantial completion. Also make sure you check with the building department on those areas that will be unfinished - as they may not close the permit. They may give you the "Ok to occupy" but not your Certificate of Occupancy. Between those two there could be some problems to deal with now instead of later.
As far as the gas fireplace - that's a simple thing to add later... except for the gas line. Rough-in a gas line if you know approximately where it is going to go and you can frame out from the wall to accomodate just about any single or double faced fireplace.

[katonkbuilder]

Rich, great advice once again! Those are definately important things to think about. Do you know of a good "idiot's guide" to buildling a third floor? Just to get a rough idea of various construction methods, terms used, etc?

[Rich]

Nothing jumps to mind. If there's something specific you want answered feel free to ask. If it's framing methods or tile installation etc.. doesn't matter - most regulars here have done a little bit of everything.