A residential home designer or architect has basically four designs to choose from: the one story or ranch, the one and one half story, the two story, and the split level.
Architects today use CAD to design the floor plans of houses which allows them much more freedom and tools during the design process. CAD simplifies the design by giving the architect a wide array of tools to help with the design. A residential home designer or architect has basically four designs to choose from: the one story or ranch, the one and one half story, the two story, and the split level. Each of these individual styles has strengths and weaknesses which should be considered before making a choice. Such factors as space available for the house, site contour, climate, convenience, cost surroundings, and personal preference should all play a role in the final decision. In this article we will be discussing the advantages and disadvantages to the one story ranch design.
The one story house has all the regular living space on one level, it may have a basement depending on the section of the country in which it is built and preference of the prospective owner.
One of the chief advantages of the ranch is that it lends itself beautifully to indoor-outdoor living. Patios, porches and terraces may be added to virtually any room. With lots of glass, it is possible to bring the outdoor surroundings inside to make the house appear even larger than it is. There are also other design aspects the architect may include to give this desired affect.
Another advantage of this design is the absence of stairs, unless it has a basement. The ranch without a basement is popular with many older people because it is less dangerous to eliminate stairwells.
The ranch usually has a low pitched roof with wide overhangs since no headroom is necessary above the ceiling. The low pitched roof and short walls make outside maintenance easy. Cleaning the gutters, removing the screens and painting require no long ladders or other special equipment. Low height also simplifies construction. The low and long appearance of the ranch is pleasing to most people. The ranch may be built with a full basement, crawl space, or on a slab. Great variation is possible. The ranch lends itself to expansion and modification with ease one disadvantage is that the one story is usually more costly to build than other designs of the same square footage. This stems from the fact that the one story requires more roof area and more foundation length.
Another negative aspect of the ranch is that it requires a larger lot since it is spread out, rather than up. Furthermore, this increased area sometimes causes heating problems for certain areas of the house because of the distance from the furnace. There is generally no problem with electric heat.
Maintenance cost may be more on a ranch because of the larger roof and exterior wall surfaces. Considerable hall space may be required in a large ranch style house to provide access to all rooms. Careful planning should be done to keep hall space to a minimum. This concludes our reading of the Ranch design, its advantages and its disadvantages. If you would like to learn more about Architecture or drafting follow this linkInvention & Prototype Design Services
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