The original plan was to add a 34 by 22 L shaped room above the garage and master bedroom to be the home of the new layout. I had the money, but then the house would not have been updated, and my wife would not have the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen she wanted. This would also raise our tax responsibility, so this plan was dropped for a revised one.
In all reality, 11 by 22 is probably about the right size for a layout that is to be operated by myself and built to the detail I want in the time I have left.
This came with compromises. Maximum train length can only be 12 cars. Minimum radius was cut drastically. All areas of open running are gone.
The upside is that I have found ways to include EVERY single feature that was on my “Must-Have” list. Also, I avoided all structural modifications to the house and do not need any changes to the existing HVAC system.
In the end, I have become comfortable with the compromises I made to the final layout plan, and expect to be happy with the final layout. I am certain as time goes by, and the layout gets built, this will be proven.
My observation is that 10’x20’ is “enough” space for an enjoyable HO layout.
We fit two continuous running loops, an 11’ yard/staging area and two reversing loops with a connecting track between the continuous running loops. A folded dogbone connected to a simple 9x5 oval. One loop of the dogbone sits on top of about 1/3 of that oval.
Two trains can run continuously while you work the yard with a third locomotive. And that’s just with DC block control and three powerpacks. With DCC you could run as many trains concurrently as your brain will allow.
The way ours works with the connecting track allows trains to meet and pass as they run along the front side of the yard while moving from one loop to the other. This can be done without stopping either train. Exciting stuff. With three operators the yard doesnt even have to stop work while this goes on.
Florida has the “Save Our Homes” (AKA Homestead Exemption) rule that limits how much property taxes can be raised each year so residents do not get “taxed-out” of their property.
If I were to add a second story, or an under-truss addition to the main floor, that could trigger a full reassessment and increase my property taxes. Since I do not want to go to back to work, this is a concern.
Working within the current floor space under HVAC and truss will not remove SOH protection.
Given the skyrocketing house values right now, a full re-assessment outside SOH exemptions could increase the taxable value of my house by $200,000.00 or more.
That’s pretty typical, it seems to me. Here in Illinois, if you improved your property by adding a second story, or a first floor room addition, or a finished basement, for example, you would get reassessed and wind up paying higher property taxes.
The most important thing for me would have been including everything on your ‘must have list’!
When I designed my layout I had a double crossover high on my list and I was very upset when I couldn’t find a code 83 double crossover that would pass my Rivarossi Cab Forward with large flanges, my favorite locomotive and it was a no go.
I went with a single crossover unhappily for many years until I built my own double crossover, now I’m very happy with my layout. It has everything that was on my ‘must have list’.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
Kevin, that’s life, isn’t it? It happens in marriage, in all friendships (but, I repeat myself…), in business, at parties…anywhere people meet and try to come to terms with each other over a common goal. In this case, you have a very excellent life-long friend whom you value tremendously, and whom you wish to keep contented. It would be my aim as well. If that means giving in and compromising, so be it. You’ll be richly rewarded even if just in knowing you were able to give in and be kind. I have done this, and you know you must as well. So, good for you there.
As far as the givens and druthers, I always manage to get what I want, although actually crafting a decent version of it is often a big challenge for me. There are surprises, some of them unpleasant. Like the time I ran my Trix GG1 through
Bob Hollowel’s nice truss double-track bridge and found the pantograph snagged, wheels spinning and grinding, on a brace at the upper corner of the aperture at the end of the truss. I had to cut them off. But, I got my generous curves, a must for me, and I got my mountainous terrain with water features, and so on.
Funny thing is, I have my wife to thank for the space. While I drove my father down to Indio from Vancouver Island, she hired our contractor to partition the garage and build me a train room. It was a surpise. It was very generous, too, because I now have a 9X18 space with the folded loop plan, this time double-tracked.
I had the house before I had the wife and where I have the layout is a space where the area could be doubled quite easily with the removal of a wall which was the plan. Many things developed in a short period of time that changed the plans so today my layout is in a 15’ x 24’ space and is about half the size I had envisioned but all things being equal I now feel I would not want anything larger.
The space I have has a large opening, a large window, three doors, and a fireplace to deal with and it took some head-scratching to come up with a track plan that could accommodate the geography of the room.
How would they know if you finished the basement? [;)]
Of course the was rhetorical, but around here lots of interior remodeling goes on without permits, and honestly, the inspection department is happy to turn their head to most of it.
They don’t have the staff or the budget to handle it all. And unless you are completely gutting the whole house at once, nobody is likely to turn you in or pay any attention.
But an addition is clearly another situation…
AND, the way the codes are written here, “repairs” don’t require permits.
And I mean even serious repairs.
Before we sold the Queen Anne, the porch needed some work. We took up and replaced the floor, replaced the 20 columns that hold it up, reworked the drip endge on the roof and repaired the built in gutter system, removed and reinstalled the railings.
That work legally did not require a permit in our county.
I can take apart anything that is worn, damaged, deteriorated or otherwise failing and replace it in kind and that is a repair - no permits - indoords or outdoors.
You can replace windows, doors, siding, roofing, HVAC equipment without permits.
Even those of us with larger spaces willing and able to build larger layouts make compromises because of reality.
I know to some this will sound silly, but:
I did not have enough room to meet my other goals and have 48" radius as my minimum on the mainline, so 36" it is. That goal might have fostered more interest in scale length passenger cars, which is another reality. I am too invested time and money wise into the selectively compressed passenger cars I have now, and its a bunch of them.
Because I know I can build benchwork quickly an effectively, benchwork square footage is not a factor in my mind.
But I did work to limit the number of turnouts, and to balance my desire for deep scenery with reasonably good access to all trackage.
While it may or may not be apparent when viewing the plan, once you get away from the freight yard/urban area of my new layout, much the rest is is just the double track mainline running thru some large deep scenes.
Again the reality of not adding unnecessary complexity.
When we were house shopping two years ago, I walked away from several houses with train spaces twice the size I have now. The house above was too big, and I knew I did not need or want to build a layout that big.
Even the new layout plan is only as big as it is bcause of deep scenes and 36" radius curves. Compromise some of that and you could do it in 1000 sq ft or less.
My under construction layout is quite a bit smaller than what I had first planned. The original design was a 10’ x 22’ folded dogbone with a walk in. My current layout is a 5’4" x 12’ double track oval with an eventual 2’ x 9’ yard. Reach in is not an issue because almost all of the track is less than 30" from the fascia.
The original plan became impossible as my back deteriorated so I gave up on the idea of having my own layout for several years. Eventually I decided that any layout would be better than no layout so I came up with the oval plan. It has lots of operating features, and perhaps most important (as all of you already know) it tilts so I don’t have to crawl under it.
Medical issues have delayed work on the layout but I should be back at it soon.
Permits are not required for house repairs here, but any changes or additions that involve structural work do. Same for decks that are attached to the house.
That is such an excellent question Sheldon and I felt safe behind that kind of sound reasoning for so many years.
An excellent question deserves a good answer. For every foolproof scenario there’s an exception to every rule.
Back when they were converting from the old school meters to digital wireless readers, homeowners would write down the usage numbers on every months water and gas bill maually. They were asking homeowners to comply to let a HVAC technician into their house to install these new digital meters. I and other neighbors refused to let them in which is your constitutional right that you don’t have to let someone into your house. I wasn’t the only Pea in the Pod that smelt a rat.
That worked for quite a while until court papers started arriving in the mail. A very wealthy customer of mine advised me that I could fight this and win but it would cost my pocketbook a pretty penny. Or I had the option to hire my own technicians on my own dime which I would still have to do if I didn’t let the city’s people in anyway.
After those digital wireless meters were installed it was interesting how everyone who had finished basements had their taxes go up significantly enough to where you knew where it came from on your next years tax assessment. It was also interesting how the water and gas bills went up significantly as well after you had no idea where the cutoff was with the numbers of usage anymore.
I had originally planned a larger around the wall layout, that used the 11’ x 22’ south half of our basement, but I compromised and built my current layout that uses less than half of that space, approx. 11’ x 8’, as this will not be our finall retirement home. Too many stairs.
I’m glad I did, as I was able to finish the layout in a about 3 years, and it provides all the train operations that I wanted.
We had the new electric meter installed. Our provider of gas and electric did the work, as it’s up grading their equipment. It was all done on the outside, at the meter socket, no one needed to come in house, and the guy was there for less than 5 minutes, with no interuptions. I wish I would’ve been went and watched. I expected to have to set the clocks on some of the appliances, but I had to do nothing.
Our water meter was changed to digital as well, wich required a village employee to be in our basement.
I would have no problem with Sheldon’s way of thinking. Sort of what I’m doing at our place in the WI north woods.
That is such an excellent question Sheldon and I felt safe behind that kind of sound reasoning for so many years.
An excellent question deserves a good answer. For every foolproof scenario there’s an exception to every rule.
Back when they were converting from the old school meters to digital wireless readers, homeowners would write down the usage numbers on every months water and gas bill maually. They were asking homeowners to comply to let a HVAC technician into their house to install these new digital meters. I and other neighbors refused to let them in which is your constitutional right that you don’t have to let someone into your house. I wasn’t the only Pea in the Pod that smelt a rat.
That worked for quite a while until court papers started arriving in the mail. A very wealthy customer of mine advised me that I could fight this and win but it would cost my pocketbook a pretty penny. Or I had the option to hire my own technicians on my own dime which I would still have to do if I didn’t let the city’s people in anyway.
After those digital wireless meters were installed it was interesting how everyone who had finished basements had their taxes
They wouldn’t. Let me tell you an interesting story. My subdivision consists of somewhere between 400 and 500 single family homes. Every time we see one up for sale, it has a finished basement.
A few years back, I was considering appealing my reassessment. My basement is unfinished. I was comparing assessments of my home to similar homes on the assessor’s list of homes in our subdivision. Only one home had reported a finished basement, apparently by filing for a permit.
Kevin, I can certainly understand your situation, having been there 4 times.
My last two layouts (may they rest in peace) were limited to the 11 x 15 1/2 spare room, which was about half of what I really wanted. But the reality was ever present, and I spent a lot of time on the design.
I had a list of “have to have’s”, and ended up being to realistically (IMO of course) include most all of them in the latest layout. What I had to leave out was a reverse loop, a coal mine industry, and of course a long main line. I did build in a lower level for staging and that was a huge plus. I had 6 tracks, but wish I built it for 2-4 more.
You and I are “lone wolf” guys, and frankly anything much more than 11x22 could eat your lunch maintenance wise. Of course the key is to go slow and test, test, test to minimize future problem areas.
I think you could be very happy with a layout that size, perhaps a dogbone with staging or a convoluted oval with the dreaded duck-under.
So now that you bring it up, we appealed the assessment of the Queen Anne shortly after we bought it. They had two fireplaces and a finished basement listed on the assessment - it had none of those things.
At some point some drive by assessor assumed it was old, it had two chimneys, it must have two fireplaces.
Actually the house was not built with any fireplaces, because it was built with central heat in 1901. It had a coal fired boiler for steam radiators, it had a coal fired cook stove, and two coal fired “parlor” stoves as backup hea
My layout is 10 x 20. While I would like it larger, like you space constraints kept it from being any larger. It does give a decent amount of space for running and since the era I run is from my childhood, the locos that I run are 4 axle, save one SD40-2, so the tighter curve radius isn’t an issue for me. Also the rolling stock is shorter as well.
So don’t worry, you will be able to get a good running railroad in the space you have.
