How to build a house: 01 - Land
Olive House in construction during the pandemic
Potential clients often approach our office, DEMO architects, after seeing one of our design and feeling inspired to build their own getaway house outside of the city.
More often than not, they don’t own land, have a clear idea of how the process works, and how much money they will need to complete their vision.
We thought it would be helpful to write a little guide in 5 parts to illustrate the process and help more people find the right land and build the house of their dreams.
01 - Land
02 - Design
03 - Contracting
04 - Construction
05 - Home ownership
Aside from working with many of our clients I have recently bought land, designed and built my own passive house, the Olive House so I hope that hearing about my firsthand experience, mistakes included, could be useful and inspiring. Stay tuned for the other chapters over the next few weeks!
01 - Land
Picking the right parcel of land to build a house on is not an easy task. There are plenty of variables to account for and fewer properties for sale every year. Finding the right one for you might be tricky!
I experienced this first hand when my wife and I were looking for land to build the Olive House. During this long research and several other site visits done with clients, I came up with a list of essential factors to consider. These recommendations are based on new construction (not renovations) in rural areas in the Northeastern United States, from Maryland to Maine and everything in between.
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Location
The first question to answer is where do you want to build a house?
If you live and work in NYC and want a second home in the Adirondacks, keep in mind it’s a long way to get there, and you will probably not go there every weekend. And the same is valid for others: if you are planning to rent the house via Airbnb or VRBO the highest demand is for dwellings within 2.5 hours of NYC. If you call Boston home, the Berkshires are a popular and attractive area. However coastal Maine is equally distant and offers even more to the outdoorsy types. In short, the choice is yours, there are endless factors to account for, and honestly an architect can hardly help with the first screening.
Orientation
Stella House site orientation is ideal for great views, plenty of light and privacy
The south sun exposure is extremely important for a comfortable, bright and energy efficient house. While there are easy ways to avoid too much exposure during the summer in order not to overheat the interiors, guaranteeing as much solar heat gain as possible in the winter is essential.
A steep, north facing slope does not help this goal. Ideally the land slopes towards the south to make the most of sun exposure.
If the access road runs North of the property this offers the opportunity to make a building more transparent to the south while preserving the privacy of the interior.
Stella House, a house we recently completed in Maine, is a perfect example of that: the (private) access road runs North, the house only has one small window looking in that direction while most of the glass faces south, opening the interior towards the views and the sun.
Topography
A property with a gentle slope helps draining the water away and keeping the house and its foundation dry. A steeper slope can be very interesting as it generally translates into large, extensive views, but it increases the cost of construction (think accessibility of trucks and machinery) and limits what you can do with the surrounding land (ie: hard to play ball on a slope)
A flat land is ideal for construction but make sure to check the land for pooling, if the soil tends to stay wet long after a rainstorm it means that the soil is not draining well, and the foundation of a house might also stay wet.
Last but not least, be aware of flood plains!
If the proposed house site is within the FEMA floodplain it might be hard to get a building permit. It is definitely more expensive, if not even impossible, to get home insurance.
FEMA has a very helpful map that helps getting a rough idea of existing flood plains that can be found here. Note that this map is at a very large scale, most towns have a more detailed map available through their building department. A topographic survey of the lot is also essential to understand if the proposed elevation is above or under the flood plain.
Natural features
Visiting in the winter is a great way to get a better understanding of the trees and features of the lot. On top of that less people shop in the winter, and there are no ticks!
Most people love to have a water feature in their yard, whether it is a pond, a stream, a (small) waterfall. This generally increases the value of a property but it can also become a problem (see the previous notes about the floodplain)
In the Catskills, where we are building most of our projects, other prominent features are of course the vegetation and the ever present bluestone. When I was land-shopping, I looked for land that had a balanced mix of deciduous trees and evergreens. I love the summer lushness of leaves and the foliage show in the fall, but I also don't love to see only naked trees around me in the winter. Especially if those trees help create some privacy towards the road or neighbors.
Geology
Just by looking at the topsoil it is often hard to foresee what is underneath it and how complicated digging for foundations, a basement or the septic system might be. However, if you know what to look for, there are some signs that help you understand the quality of the ground underneath without the need for a soil boring test.
Generally speaking, a property can have a deep soil, which is often easy to build on (and to plant trees, and vegetables in), or shallow bedrock, which is very stable but expensive to build on.
A parcel with shallow bedrock often has rock features exposed and a lot of young evergreen trees. If there are several fallen trees it means they don't have deep roots because they are sitting on bedrock and the wind has easily knocked them over. If there are a lot of sturdy looking, old deciduous trees, you are looking at good, deep soil where they had a chance to plant deep, strong roots.
A lot of fallen trees and visible bluestone, signs of a shallow bedrock. Not necessarily a bad sign but forget about a basement…
Utilities
Unless you are looking at a very rural and isolated area, most roads have electricity running by. Assuming the house site is within a few hundred feet from the road, bringing a cable to your house is generally not an expensive thing to do and often paid in part by the local energy company.
Check that along the same route there is also cable internet service. It is not a given, many remote roads don't have access to it, and getting Spectrum or Verizon to install new cables might take years.
In most rural areas you need to dig a well to get water. In the Northeastern US this is usually not a problem, water is everywhere, the only variable is how deep the well needs to go to find good, clean water. All well water should be filtered, at the very least for sediments and if needed for metals and bacteria. A water quality test is something very important to do to understand what is needed to get clean potable water in the house, however, something that would be done at a later phase in a project.
To dispose of waste waters (sinks, showers and toilets) you need a septic system, if you are curious to understand how it works here you can find a quick explanation: https://www.epa.gov/septic/how-your-septic-system-works
The quality of the soil is important to dispose of the water, a parcel with a shallow bedrock is not permeable, therefore not ideal for this purpose and it will require a more expensive raised leach field.
Most lands for sale have a percolation test report attached to them, this test will tell you if your septic system can be built (in 99% of cases the answer is yes) and, most importantly, whether it will be an in-ground one (cheap) or raised one (expensive).
Neighbors
Sometimes just driving by a place is enough to say "I don't want to live here". It might be because the next door neighbor has a car cemetery in its yard, because there is a loud shooting range right next to you or because there is too much traffic on the road.
Proximity to grocery stores, good hikes, ski slopes increases the value of the property and its attraction if you ever plan to rent it on Airbnb or similar.
Also keep in mind that being next to State Land can be great because you know for sure that nobody will ever develop that land, but it also means that people will be hunting there and you will hear a lot of shots during the hunting season.
No neighbors, no need to fight for your right to party
Zoning
Check the local zoning regulations for the land you are looking at or ask your architect to do it. As with many of the items on this list, this is generally not a problem in rural areas and unless you’re looking at hundreds of acres it is likely that the land is zones for residential dwellings.
Some residential zones also have limitations on size and number of buildings: a project we were working on recently stopped because the owner couldn't get an approval for the construction of a guest house on his lot which, despite the appearances is within the city center zone, not the rural area.
Thank you for reading, follow us on instagram not to miss the next chapters in our guide!
Alessandro Ronfini
aronfini@demoarch.com