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Solar Home Design
January 26th, 2010There was a time when people pooh-poohed solar home design as the stuff of science fiction. Today, we see Global Warming, pollution, rising energy costs and depletion of our natural resources, and realize that solar powered house designs are no longer fiction. And, you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to do it either. We can walk you through the process of passive solar home design, and use technology that won’t bust your budget.
There are several key factors to consider in solar home design, especially when going the passive route. Where are you planning to build? What are the wind patterns in your area like, and what’s the terrain? In passive solar house designs you generally use windows and what’s known as thermal mass to help heat and cool your home. By having small windows on the summer side of your home, and large on the winter, you can help keep your dream home comfortable. Thermal mass refers to things like the masonry used in your walls and/or fireplace chimney. In this type of solar home design, the stones absorb heat during the day, and give it off at night; thus your home stays about the same temperature at all times. Here again, positioning your home and the stonework depending on your location is important.
The virtues of passive solar house designs are that they’re simple, require little maintenance, and have few moving parts. In initial costs can also be minimal as only a change in building material is needed. Now, stepping up to a full solar-powered home can entail a lot more work and investment. Yet, some people see it as important to reducing their carbon footprint. Also, if you’re building a rustic mountain home, you may be miles from the nearest utility, and running power out to you can be problematic, at best.
If you want to go fairly low-tech, you can install a solar powered hot water heater. That simple feature can reduce your electric bill quite a bit. If you have a pool, and want it heated as well, there are solar powered pool heaters. Depending on where you, if you have good sun exposure, a full solar home design may work for you. By installing photovoltaic (PV) solar-power panels on your roof, they will convert sunlight directly into electricity. During the optimal times of year, you can completely power your home this way.
In fact, some electric companies will buy the excess electricity that your solar house design generates! Just think, the dials on your electric meter running backwards. Or, you could say: running the right way. Not only can you be proud of having a completely solar powered home, but you’ll actually be helping your community. For some people, that’s a source of great pride.
No matter what kinds of solar home designs you want to use, we can help you work them into any style of home you want. And, if you’re unfamiliar with all the solar-powered technology that’s out there, we can help you pick out the best systems for your dream home.
Small Home Plans
December 27th, 2009These days, people love the idea of going over their own small home plans, getting them just the way they want. Well, at KADTEC, we’ve got you covered. Utilizing the latest in 3D CAD software, we can create a 3D architectural rendering of any home you can imagine. Why look at flat, boring blue prints when you can take a virtual walk through any of the efficient home designs you can conceive of?
It doesn’t matter if you want a big home or a small home design; the key to KADTEC is that we specialize in unique home designs. These days, small modern house designs have many benefits. Given the state of the financial system, small home plans are easier to build; they are more affordable, and they can give you a mortgage that is easier to handle. Also, if you do your own small home design with an eye to the future, to expanding, you can have your efficient house design, and still build it for a reasonable price. Down the road a piece, when you can afford it, you can add on those additional rooms.
KADTEC can handle the civil drafting for your small home plans. A small home design also has the virtue of being faster and easier to build. The bigger and more complex your dream home design is, the longer it’ll take to build. Also, you want to keep the future in mind. What sorts of energy efficient house plans are going to be coming available? A large house could take extensive renovation to make use of any breakthroughs in energy technology. Along those same lines, small home designs are more energy efficient. Right now, the future is very uncertain. You don’t want to get yourself into your home only to find it’s too expensive to maintain. You want to make sure that your utility bills are manageable. Going with an energy efficient home design, you can save money over the life of your home.
For that matter, there’s the simple issue of architectural styles. How many times have you looked at a home and instantly known when it was built because of the tacky style of the place? Home styles are like fashion styles – they change. What’s stylish today may be downright hideous in five years, and then home remodeling becomes an issue. A large home presents the problem of being hard to change and update when styles change. For that matter, you can change your mind about your home. The layout you love today, you may find it really doesn’t work for you, as you settle into your dream home. Even if you don’t want to expand your house, you may find that you want to remodel certain aspects of it. With small home plans, they are also easier and cheaper to implement.
When building a house, keep this in mind: it’s not like a haircut! If you don’t like your small home plans, it won’t grow back. That’s why getting a good design right from the get-go, viewing the home in a 3D rendering, and keeping the layout small and simple is the best way to get your dream home.
Log Home Designs
December 13th, 2009The idea of log home designs has a lot of appeal for some people. Maybe it’s the idea of going back to nature, or you’re thinking of how Abraham Lincoln grew up in one. They can be beautiful, but they also have problems associated with them. Rather than going with a log cabin home plan, there are great mountain home designs available that are much better.
Log cabin home designs look quaint and pretty from the outside, but they’re fraught with troubles. Termites are everywhere, especially out in the wilderness. Unless you want to go to the expense of getting the logs for your log home building and cabin treated, those little buggers can literally eat you out of house and home! And, if you do treat the logs, now you’re putting chemicals into the environment, not very eco-friendly. Then there’s properly sealing the log home designs so you get a nice tight seam between the logs. Yes, modern chemicals and sealing compounds are good, but getting the log cut so that they fit together close enough for a firm seal is labor-intensive, and expensive. And finally, there’s the issue of getting through those walls. A plus of log home architectural design is the insulation that the logs provide. But, that’s a double-edged sword. Anytime you want to run a utility line, a pipe, or anything else in and out of the house, you have to do some serious drilling!
Instead of log home designs, take a look at the great mountain home designs that KADTEC has to offer. Step one, meet with the staff to look over our portfolio of previous works. From them, you can get some ideas as to the perfect dream home for you. If you have an architect already lined up, our staff can coordinate with them in your mountain home design. If you don’t have an architect, KADTEC can help you find one. Also, the company is in the process of getting its architectural license. No matter what services you need to design your home, we’ve got you covered.
Once you have a basic layout, KADTEC can advise you on making your rustic mountain home plans as eco-friendly as possible. These days, there are lots of green home construction methods available. How do you know which ones are right for you? The staff at KADTEC are experts at green house design, and can guide you in the process of selecting the best elements to work into your mountain home plans.
So, before you let some builder talk you into a log home building plan; check out the better alternatives that KADTEC has to offer. Remember, this is your home, the place you’re going to want to stay in for a long time. Log home designs may seem quaint, but you want the best design possible; that’s what KADTEC can do for you.
Home Landscape Designs and Ideas
November 10th, 2009Getting your home designed the way you want it is really only half the battle; you’ll want home landscape designs and ideas to finish it off. We at KADTEC don’t do landscaping, but we have a great bunch of landscapers that we work with regularly. When you find just the right lot for your dream home design to be realized, you’ll want to get a good home landscape design to go with it.
Landscaping can be as varied as the styles of homes that we can design for you. These days, there are landscape and home design software programs that allows you to review a plethora of home landscape designs and ideas before you ever stick a shovel in the ground. That’s an important feature of any landscape architecture design. As we’ve all seen from recent events, times are a bit tough these days. You do not want to waste time and money on a lot of different full sets of blue prints, only to find just the right home landscape design. That’s the virtue of landscape architect software; you’re landscape architect can create a variety of virtual layouts for your home, and then you can select the one you like.
You have a number of issues to consider when reviewing the home landscape designs and ideas for your dream home plans. First off, where are building? Are you planning to on a coastal home design, or maybe a mountain home plan? Each of these is a unique environment that will impact your home landscape design. A home built near the beach means that the soil is sandy, and the air is very salty. Plants that are very sensitive to salinity won’t thrive in such a situation. You need to be sure that your landscaper knows about such things. If you’re building in a northern clime and/or the mountains, you’ll want to avoid tropical plants. If your landscaper doesn’t think of that, your plants will wilt in the first winter’s frost. Then there are what are known as invasive or nuisance spices of plants. If your landscaper has home landscape designs and ideas that include such spices, your landscaping plan won’t be approved! Those kinds of plants are damaging to the environment.
Then there are other home landscape designs and ideas related to green home plans and being eco-friendly. It’s no secret that, these days, more and more people are concerned with the environment. That concern can extend to your garden and landscaping. A really good home landscape design can incorporate hardy plants that don’t need a lot of care. Desert plants can survive on much less water and fertilizer than other plants. For that matter, you can get a garden composter so that you use organic matter to create natural compost and fertilizer. If you can avoid putting chemicals into the soil, the local environment will be that much better for it. For that matter, if you or any of your neighbors use well water for drinking, you’ll want to minimize dumping chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides into the water table.
Green Roofing Products
October 29th, 2009When looking to build a new home, green roofing products, and other materials can yield a great dream home design. And, don’t worry that using green appliances are going to bust your budget. These days, you have a plethora of products to choose from, and many are very reasonably priced. In some cases, the government even gives you a tax break for using green roofing products and other similar materials in your house design plans.
Also, you don’t have to worry that you can only use green roofing products and the other building materials on some mountain-man looking cabin. No, you can create a modern house design in any style you want. If you love minimalist architecture or want a truly unique house design, we can help you do that. Do you want some really contemporary home designs, or maybe a rustic mountain home plan? We can help you create them. Green roofing products can be used on all of these styles of homes; and we can help you do so much more.
In terms of eco-friendly products and green appliances, there plenty to choose from. A hybrid vehicle is a good start, and then maybe a garden composter to help you fertilize your garden and landscape areas naturally. The less chemicals you dump into the environment, the better. You also don’t have to spend a fortune as you strive to help save the planet. Something as simple as a passive solar home design can incorporate thermal window panes, orienting windows to maximize winter exposure and minimize it during summer can be very helpful.
It’s important that you find a green architect who understands such things. While we don’t currently have an architect in-house, we work with plenty who know how to properly design a green home. they will design a home in whatever style you like, and make use of green roofing products and other alternative house designs to make your home as green as possible. Yet, we can also keep an eye on the bottom line. You want to do your part to help with Global Warming, pollution, and the depletion of natural resources, but you also want an affordable green home.
If you feel that a passive solar system isn’t enough, and want to explore different types of alternative energy, we can help with that as well. There are solar home designs available, and we can work with you and your architect to make your home as energy independent as possible. Using green roofing products and other green building materials can be just the first steps in creating a truly green home. Depending on where you live, wind and solar power can augment or even replace making use of power from your local utility. By trying to build a green home, you can do your part to protect our fragile ecosystem, and KADTEC can help you do it.
Energy Efficient House Plans
October 16th, 2009There’s no denying that we live in “interesting” times, shall we say? Making sure that you have energy efficient house plans is of critical importance these days. Gas prices vary widely, and sometimes getting enough home heating oil is tough, especially if you live in a remote location. This is where energy efficient home designs are vital.
There’s a lot of debate as to the causes of Global Warming, but no one can deny that the world is warming up, and greenhouse gases are the driving force behind it. So, if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, energy efficient house plans are the way to do it. Maximizing your insulation, putting good shingles on the roof, and installing high efficiency appliances can be the key to achieving all of this. Many times, the construction methods used by the builder can be critical. It’s important that, when building a green home, it gets built right. Here’s one example: some builders will cut a notch out of the wall insulations when installing an electrical outlet. Each of those notches is a tiny hole in your insulations. If they do that for every outlet, it can add up to the equivalent of an open window in lost energy! Do you want to leave a window open all winter and all summer? What affect is that going to have on your energy efficient home design? Not only is your money essentially billowing out the window, but you’re pumping still more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This is where KADTEC can help you by insuring that the energy efficient house designs outlined in your home blueprints are carried out properly.
Today, there are a variety of energy efficient house designs you can choose from when laying out your dream home plans. It doesn’t matter what architectural style you want: a Victorian home design, some cottage home designs, and even something as different as German architecture. All of these types of homes can benefit from eco-friendly products. Building a green home doesn’t mean having to sacrifice anything, if your engineer knows about all of the green architect resources available.
Energy efficient house plans can incorporate something as simple as passive solar home designs – the windows oriented to get plenty of the winter sun, and little of the hot summer sun. Then there are full solar home designs you can look into that will give you maximum energy efficient house plans. There are solar hot water heaters, and solar panels to go on your roof to supplement your electrical system. Depending on where you live, your energy efficient house plans could include a windmill. Placed in the right location, one of those can generate a lot of electricity. You can also check with your local utility, and see if they have a buy-back program with people who generate their own power. Some municipalities require their electric companies to buy power people generate themselves. As a result, if your energy efficient house plans prove very efficient, you may end up selling your excess power!
Design you own dream home
September 26th, 2009Do you want to design you own dream home? For some, it’s a Victorian home design or a little gingerbread house nestles amongst some maple trees. For others, it’s a luxury mountain home with the Grand Teton Mountain Range (or some other range) as the view out their master bedroom window. Or maybe you’ve always dreamed of a little beach home design in the Florida Keys or on the Pacific shores.
Well, it doesn’t matter if your dream home is a Tuscan villa, German architecture, a ranch home design, or an eco-friendly minimalist home design; KADTEC can help you design you own dream home. We have the technology – 3D home design software, and other programs that will allow us to guide you through the process from conception to construction of your dream home plans. With our knowledge in engineering, you can focus on the layout and design of your own dream home, and we’ll take care of the calculations, plans, and permits.
Once you’ve selected the location for your dream home, you need to consider how you want to lay out the property. Is your land very steep? If so, you may have trouble with erosion when it rains. We can grade your lot to prevent that. Do you want to design a dream house that’s a split level home? That may require a stemwall or retaining wall; we have structural engineers in-house who can handle that, and help you design your own dream home, and then pass the home design on to your architect. We also have a number of excellent landscapers that we work with regularly. They can use landscape architect software to give you a veritable Garden of Eden on your property, yet make it something easy to maintain with a good sprinkler system and a little tending by you.
These days, many people want unique dream home plans, especially given the concerns about Global Warming. So, if you want to design your own dream home to include solar home designs, green home plans, biofuels, and the latest in energy efficient home designs, we’ve got you covered there as well. We can design an eco-home that
Everyone has ideas about the sorts of rooms they’ll have in their dream home. Whether it’s a home gym, home theater, library, your own private office, rec room or workshop, we can work with you to create the perfect layout for you. Do you want a master suite with walk-in closets and separate bathrooms? We have the knowledge and expertise to create that. Also, it doesn’t take an architect to create house plans; we can handle all aspects of the layout, and then take care of the permitting for construction.
Custom House Plans
September 14th, 2009These days, many people want a custom house plan, for whatever reason. Maybe it’s too big or too small for what they need. Maybe there aren’t any Tuscan home designs in their area, and that’s what they’d love. Or, maybe there’s a more pragmatic reason – maybe an eco-friendly home is what they want because you’re concerned about Global Warming.
Well, it doesn’t matter what your taste in homes runs to; at KADTEC, we can help you with your custom house plan. When you consider the state of the economy, and the many environmental issues facing us today, you want real experts working on your house plans. You first must decide how much house you can afford, and then settle on a style of architecture. After that, there are a myriad of decisions for you to make. Do you want to go with a steel home design, or a frame home design? Is the area you want to build in known for termites? While you’ll want to use treated wood in such a situation, are there alternative house designs and techniques you can use that are eco-friendly?
At KADTEC, we can handle all these questions regarding a custom house plan, and more. If you want to incorporate fung shui into the layout of your rooms, or make use of the most energy efficient house plans, we can do it. Our firm knows how to layout excellent custom house design, create wonderful home theater room design, home office designs, and any other sort of unique home plan that you might want. It doesn’t matter if you want a southwest home design, rustic mountain home plans, or even Nordic house designs. By making use of the latest in 3D home design software, we can create any sort of custom house plan you want. There are also a number of passive solar home designs that are quite economical, and can be incorporated into any custom house plan you come up with.
Once your custom house plan is done, and the engineering calculations are completed, KADTEC will help you get all the necessary permits. Depending on where you plan to build your dream home, you may only need a simple building permit. On the other hand, if a variance is needed because your custom house plan exceeds the height restriction in the area, or is going to be built too close to the edge of your property, KADTEC can take care of that as well. If your property has poor soil, our engineers can assess that, and design a retaining wall or other means of dealing with it.
No matter the issues you face in creating your custom house plan, we can handle them, and get your custom home built.
Design Styles
August 28th, 2009There’s an old joke that Henry Ford used to tell customers buying a model T that they could have any color they wanted, so long as it was black! Well, those days are gone, in more ways than one. Here at KADTEC, we can walk you through the entire craftsman home design process to create just the perfect dream house. The key for you is deciding which style you want to build. So, let’s look at some of the many styles available.
Rustic mountain home plans are our specialty. These homes generally have a covered front porch and a large rear deck, and high ceilings throughout the home. As the mountain home designs are often built on a steep slope, we can handle the design of a stemwall or retaining wall to properly support your foundation. Mountain home plans also lend themselves to green home construction. You can go with a timber frame design, or make it a stone mountain home.
Of course, we can handle any craftsman home design you want. Gingerbread house designs are beautiful, and feature lovely scroll woodworking incorporated into the porch railings, posts, and the house eaves. Often the home’s sidings are wood shingles, and you can have them carved into geometric designs and patterns. The island of Martha’s Vineyard is famous for its gingerbread house designs, and their web site has many pictures to give you ideas. One caveat though, these homes can require a lot of maintenance; so keep that in mind.
If you’re interested in the southwest home design, your craftsman home design can have a distinctly adobe and Spanish flavor to it. Those homes usually have tile roofs, wrought-iron railings, and mono-color walls with an earth tone. When you landscape such a home, you generally go with desert flowers and vegetation – lots of cacti. Now, you can go with contemporary home designs of a southwest home. The design preserves the classic style, but the homes tend to have sharper lines, recessed lighting, and an overall modern look.
A lot of times, the environment where you’re looking to build will influence the craftsman home design you settle on. French country home designs lend themselves very nicely to warm climates. They feature a timber frame home design, wide porches, lots of French doors (naturally) for ventilation, and few interior hallways. If you want to minimize your use of air conditioning, and you find halls a waste of space, this is an ideal craftsman home design for you.
Some people prefer a home all on one floor, especially if they or a family member is handicapped. In that case, ranch home designs are the perfect craftsman home design for you to consider. They’re snug, efficient users of space with few interior walls and large windows. This is great for taking in the view. The emphasis is on open spaces, and minimal decorative details. This can be ideal if you want to design your own dream home. Over time, you can add little personal features to truly make the house your home.
Don’t think that these are all there is when it comes to craftsman home design; there are many more styles to choose from. Get in touch with us, and we’ll walk you through the entire design process.
About Kadtec
August 6th, 2009Our firm has been around for nearly twenty years, and we are skilled at all types of residential home design. It doesn’t matter if you’re a property owner looking to create your dream home plans, or a developer who wants to build hundreds of homes; we have the drafters, designers, and engineers to create the drawings and do the calculations you need in order to get your permits. Whether it’s a building permit, or all approvals from various agencies in your area, we have a proven track record of getting plans approved quickly.
Don’t let the fact that we don’t have architects in-house worry you. Not only do we have architectural drafting software, but we can work with any architect you want. For that matter, if you’re looking to design your own house, we can advise and guide you through the whole process. If you’re a developer, and you’ve got a piece of property that offers some building challenges: steep slopes, unique terrain, and/or poor soil, we’ve also got you covered. Our staff of structural engineers can handle retaining wall design, grading for steep lots, and steps to improve the soil on your property.
In terms of architectural styles, you name it, we can handle it. From coastal home designs to mountain home plans, from exotic Tuscan homes to high-tech solar home designs, we know how to design and supervise the construction of all of them. And, by creating an architectural 3D rendering, we can take you on a virtual walk through your dream house. So, whether it is contemporary home designs, Victorian home design or ranch house plans, we’ve got you covered. With our architectural drawing software, we can create you dream home plans quickly and efficiently.
We also know how to design energy efficient homes, and eco-friendly houses. These days, it is no secret that Global Warming and soaring fuel prices are leading many people to want to go with green appliance and building materials. We can help you design everything from passive solar home designs to a full solar house design. The passive systems have the virtue of not being costly to install, they don’t require much maintenance, and they have few moving parts. Going the full solar home design route, we can help you with adding photoelectric cells to the home to augment (and maybe replace) the power you get from your local utility.
No matter what the style of your home, we can help you in the layout. We can cover home theater design plans, home bar designs, and go over home office design ideas. Any feature that you want on the interior of your dream home plans, we can design for you.
We don’t do landscaping, but we have a long list of landscapers who we work with. If you want a great garden that won’t bust your budget, we’ve got just the people to help you. If you want to extend your eco-friendly products to the garden, we can add a garden composter, efficient sprinklers, and the landscapers we work with can advise you on low-maintenance vegetation.
So, look over the library of services we provide. We think you’ll agree; no matter the size of your home design plan project, we’re the company to handle it.
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