Affordable Home Design: Efficient Floor Plans

The cost of building a new home depends on many factors: geography, size, complexity, quality of materials, design aesthetics, etc. But one thing is a constant: the size and complexity of the home have a direct correlation to the cost to construct and maintain it.

In our previous post, we reviewed external site elements and discussed cost-effective benefits of good site planning. In this post, we are going to explore another cost-effective design strategy in building your home: Designing Smaller, More Efficient Floor Plans.

Designing smaller, more efficient homes just makes sense.

All else equal, a smaller home will always be cheaper to build and maintain than a larger home of the same type.

Less square footage = less material usage during construction.
Less square footage = less space to heat/cool and thus, lower utility bills.
Less square footage = less time/money to clean and maintain

BONUS: Download the Affordable Home Design Guide to help you plan and design a cost-effective home. It has the best tips and strategies to save you time and money in the home design and construction process.

Why Design Smaller, More Efficient Floor Plans?

There are many benefits to designing a house with an efficient floor plan. We’re not talking about designing a tiny home here. We’re talking about creating a home that is a comfortable size for you and your family. We’re also talking about only designing it to be as big as you really need it.

Building a house with a lot of unused space is just a waste of money. Spending time during the design phase to fine tune your space requirements and efficiently organize your spaces will help you eek out a few more square feet here and there and save you money in the long run. Here’s how:

Lower Construction Cost

The more compact the layout is the less linear feet of exterior perimeter walls. This results in less material to buy and install, a cost-savings for you. Given the option to build a 2-story house or a 1-story ranch home of the same square footage, the 2-story house will most likely be cheaper. Why? Because even with the same amount of livable space, you have a smaller footprint. A smaller footprint has lower foundation costs and less roofing costs.

Compact System Design

An efficient floor plan also has compact mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems. There will be shorter runs of ductwork, piping, and wiring. During construction, this results in less material costs. During occupancy, you’ll have more efficient systems because there are shorter runs which mean less hot/cold air is lost as it travels through the ducts. With longer duct runs, the air temperature might change several degrees by the time it leaves the furnace until it reaches the register.

Similarly, the shorter your water piping runs are, the better the efficiency of your water system. Reducing the amount of piping from your water heater to your sink or shower reduces the amount of heat lost in the water as it travels through the pipe.

Lower Upfront Costs & Utility Bills

A home design with less square footage usually enables you to have a smaller mechanical system. Heating and cooling the temperature of the air takes energy, so the less square footage you have, the less energy you need to heat/cool the air, which most likely means you can have a smaller furnace or alternative energy source.

Smaller homes also need less artificial lighting and wall outlets. Upfront costs are reduced because you are buying fewer light fixtures and wall outlets. At the same time, the energy load needed to power the lights and outlets is reduced because you have less of them, thereby lowering your electricity bill.

Lower Maintenance Costs

The smaller your home, the less upkeep you need to do to maintain it over the long run. Exterior siding usually needs regular maintenance. The amount of siding or exterior finish on your house is directly related to the how much it costs to have the house cleaned, repainted, or replaced. After a few decades of repainting and cleaning, this definitely starts to add up.

If we consider the interior of the house (because it needs regular cleaning, too), who enjoys cleaning the house all the time? If you have less house, you have less sweeping, dusting, and vacuuming to do. If you can save time and money on cleaning, you’ll have more to spend on other more fun activities.

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits of designing a smaller home, let’s look at ways to reduce the square footage of your home design so you can reap the savings during construction and in the long run.

How to Design Efficient Floor Plans

To successfully design a home with a smaller footprint, you need to spend time examining how much space you really need and use. Then, optimize the design accordingly.

There are many design strategies to create enjoyable smaller homes. Here are just a few that specifically focus on reducing square footage. The key is to find ways of using spaces wisely and creating an efficient layout that eliminates the unnecessary.

Get rid of redundant spaces

Think carefully about the spaces you want. Are they all necessary? Do you really need the breakfast nook AND the dining room AND the kitchen counter AND the kitchen table? Do you really need a living room AND a family room AND a sitting room? Probably not. Consider eliminating spaces that serve similar purposes. For examples on how to create a floor plan with only the necessary spaces, check our these minimalist floor plans for inspiration.

Consider multi-purpose spaces

Do you need separate rooms for each of your space requirements? Finding ways to eliminate interior walls and circulation spaces will cut down on wasted floor area. Your exercise room could have a desk and bookshelf in it to double as an office. Your laundry appliances can be behind closed doors in a bathroom.

Try creating spaces that can adapt to different functions or have flexible features. Why not combine rooms and save space? Your office could also become a guest bedroom. It could have a couch with a pull-out bed, a futon, or a Murphy bed that folds up and out of the way. The hallway could have bookshelves on one side to eliminate the need for a separate library. Or try eliminating the hallway altogether if possible.

There are also creative ways to find more usable space in otherwise dead spaces like under stairs, in the attic, and above appliances.

Reduce the need for a lot of storage spaces

Let’s face it, we all have stuff. But do we really need all that stuff? The more stuff we have, the more space we need to store it. Whether it’s attic space, basement space, closets, pantries, or built-ins cabinets, all that space adds up. And it’s not even usable space, it’s just space for things to sit until we need them once a year. Is all that space and all that stuff necessary?

Instead of building a bigger, more expensive house, consider getting rid of some of your stuff. Purge those things that clutter and take up space. Those things you never use or wear, donate them. Those weird Christmas gifts you never opened that are stuffed in boxes in the attic, try selling them on Ebay or donating them.

It’s important to remember that you shouldn’t just hack away at your floor plan – removing rooms here and there for the sake of reducing square footage. That’s the wrong approach.

You want to think strategically and carefully trim out space. If you really want to successfully create a more space efficient and compact floor plan, then find small ways to reduce square footage like we described above. Think about how you intend to use your spaces and where you see inefficiency or waste. Then, strategically remove those wasted areas and shave down your square footage until you are happy with its size.

Designing smaller, more efficient homes just makes sense.