Custom Home Design

Designed for your site

Utah runs from hot, dry climate zone 3B around St. George to cold zones 5B and 6B along the Wasatch Front and in the mountains. The same house performs very differently in each, so we start with your lot, its climate zone and where the sun travels across it.

Where the lot allows, we set the long side of the house facing south. South windows collect low winter sun, and roof overhangs sized for your latitude shade the same glass from high summer sun. We keep west-facing glass modest, because late-afternoon sun is the hardest heat to control. Views, setbacks and the street still matter, and we balance them against orientation together with you.

The four control layers, drawn on the plans

Every wall, roof and foundation has to manage four things: water, air, vapor and heat. We show each control layer on the wall and roof sections and check them with a pen test: trace each layer around the whole building section without lifting the pen. Any place the pen has to lift is a gap that would leak in the finished house.

A gap found on paper costs nothing to fix. The same gap found after drywall costs real money, and one never found shows up as drafts, high bills or hidden moisture damage.

Mechanical design from day one

We size heating and cooling with an ACCA Manual J load calculation, room by room, using your actual windows, insulation levels and orientation instead of a rule of thumb. Equipment is then selected to Manual S and ducts designed to Manual D. Wherever possible, ducts stay inside the conditioned space, and the plans include room for an energy recovery ventilator (ERV) and its ducting.

Value engineering in the design

Simple shapes with fewer jogs and bump-outs cost less to frame, have fewer corners to flash and are far easier to air-seal. We lay out framing on a consistent module, which supports advanced framing and less lumber waste. The aim is to spend your budget where it lasts: on the structure and envelope that can't easily be changed later.