This is the third of three entries about my own home. The first covered what I got right. The second covered what I got wrong. This one is different — these aren't mistakes, exactly, and they aren't triumphs. They're the decisions that remain genuinely open. Living in the house since April 2023 hasn't produced an answer one way or the other, because the tradeoffs are real and balanced, or because the right answer depends on values that vary from family to family, or because I simply don't have enough data yet.
I find these questions more interesting to think about than either the wins or the losses. They're where the real complexity of residential design lives.
The generator question
I have a diesel generator. It works. It's reliable, it produces good power, and diesel fuel stores well for long periods without the degradation issues that gasoline has. But I wouldn't recommend diesel to most clients. I might choose it for myself again, but I'm not sure.
Diesel is a fuel that I want to have on hand for my truck, tractor, heavy equipment, and generator. It is easily portable and available everywhere. We don't use propane for anything. It isn't easily portable, but it is available. Most rural and off-grid homes already heat and cook with it, which means the generator can share a fuel supply that's being managed for other reasons anyway. A propane generator also integrates with modern inverters seamlessly. For an all-electric home on a shared propane supply, that integration is probably the right choice. I wanted diesel because I thought I was going to be putting a lot more hours on my generator than I do. I've put 80 hours on it in 3 winters. I was also concerned about the longevity of propane generator motors. I know the diesel will run forever if maintained. Propane generators are way cheaper though. About $8,000 vs $20,000. So it's a matter of priorities.
Exterior foam insulation
I used foam on the exterior walls as part of my insulation strategy. The thermal performance is excellent. But the foam has caused complications during construction that I'm still managing, and it requires the trades to work differently than they normally do. There are good reasons to use exterior foam — it breaks the thermal bridge at studs in a way that continuous cavity insulation can't — but there are also good reasons to consider SIP framing or site built SIP framing. That forces the framer to work with new materials and methods, but every other trade is the same as normal.
Vented vs. fully sealed and conditioned attic
I have a vented attic. This is the standard approach and it works. But a fully sealed and conditioned attic — where the insulation is applied to the roof deck rather than the attic floor, and the attic space is within the conditioned envelope — has real advantages in certain configurations. Mechanical equipment in a conditioned attic operates in controlled temperatures rather than in summer heat that can exceed 130°F or winter cold that approaches outdoor temperatures. Ductwork in a conditioned attic doesn't lose energy through its walls to an unconditioned space. The air sealing boundary is at the roof rather than the attic floor which is was easier to air seal. But it does make roofing more complicated.
I've gone back and forth on this. The vented approach is cheaper, simpler, and well-understood by everyone in the trades. The conditioned approach has meaningful performance advantages in the right configuration. If I were designing the home today I'd think harder about which approach actually suited the building geometry and mechanical layout before defaulting to vented. I think for my home I would still come to the same conclusion, vented. That would be because I'm off grid and there would be less volume of air to condition. It's the same reason I didn't choose 10' ceilings. In another home I would probably lean toward conditioned attic and would do more with interior ceiling height and style changes.
Under-porch storage rooms
I built storage rooms under the porch. They provide useful storage, but they've caused more problems than I anticipated — drainage, moisture management, access complications, and the ongoing challenge of maintaining a space that's neither fully interior nor fully exterior. In retrospect, a cold storage section of the basement underneath conditioned space would probably have served the same purpose with fewer complications, at roughly similar cost. I'm not certain of this — the under-porch approach has advantages in terms of access and separation from the main living space — but I'd think about it differently if I were starting over. That approach would have helped me with adding another bedroom to the main level of the house.
Room geometry and acoustics
I wrote in the previous entry about the acoustic problems in my home. What I'm still uncertain about is how much of that was avoidable given the other constraints of the design. I think I would have put a dog leg into the kitchen, dining area, living area combination great room that we have. That would have broken up the room more but still let my wife hear what was going on.
What I know: any room that's roughly cubical, or that's a series of cubes in a line, will have acoustic problems. What I'm still working out: how to address this systematically in future designs without making every room feel like a recording studio. I don't have a reliable formula yet, but I do know how to use modeling tools to check whether there are significant problems before committing to a design.
Small practical questions I still wonder about
Projector wiring and built-in speakers
I wish I had pulled wire for a projector and roughed in for in-ceiling speakers in the main living space. I didn't because I wasn't sure I wanted either at the time. At this point I still don't have them — not because I don't want them, but because adding them to a finished ceiling is enough of a job that it keeps getting deferred. If I had roughed it in, I'd have made the decision one way or the other by now. Wire is cheap. The decision to not pull it isn't free — it just defers the cost to a less convenient time.
Security camera infrastructure
I didn't have a complete security camera plan when I designed the house and I wish I did — not because security is a pressing concern, but because the infrastructure (wire runs, mounting locations, power) is much easier to plan during construction than after. Having thought through the camera positions and run the infrastructure would have left me more flexibility than I have now.
Small rooms with exterior doors
Any small room with an exterior door and a relatively airtight interior door to the main house creates a pressure differential when the exterior door is opened — the room acts like an airlock and the interior door fights you. This is manageable, but it's slightly annoying every time. The fix is either a large door undercut or a small transfer grille that allows pressure equalization. I'd design this in explicitly next time rather than discovering it after move-in.
Shared children's closets
I gave the children's bathrooms shared closets and individual closets in each bedroom. The idea was that shared closets would be managed communally, take less total space, and let the children work more like the master suite where they can go in and come out fully ready for the day. I'm not ready to throw in the towel on the idea yet, but time will tell.
Commercial microwaves
We destroy regular microwaves. They last 9-15 months and then they are done. I have started buying a commercial microwaves. They work extremely well and handle the number of door open/close cycles easily. (That's what kills our microwaves) It is also really loud. The cooling fan that keeps the electronics alive is significantly louder than a residential unit and stays on significantly longer. In a quiet house, the microwave sound carries. I don't regret the choice, but I'd think more carefully about where to locate it.
"The decisions that stay uncertain are usually the ones where there isn't a right answer — only tradeoffs that suit different families differently."
These open questions are part of what I bring to client projects. Not settled conclusions, but active thinking — awareness of where the real uncertainty lives and what questions are worth sitting with longer than they typically get. A designer who has answers to everything may not have thought hard enough about the questions.