8-plex, two stories

Preliminary design

Eight homes on two floors. It is a preliminary design.

Concept render of a two-story building with a walkway along the second floor, a stair at one end and doors on both floors. — Concept render of the preliminary 8-plex design, with its second-floor walkway and stair.

Concept render of the end wall of the two-story building, with the owner door, a bank of electric meters and outdoor heating and cooling units on pads. — Concept render of the 8-plex end wall and owner door. The notes do not yet place the meters or the outdoor units.

Colors, the lot and the planting are picked for these pictures, and so are details the preliminary notes leave open.

Specs in our current drawings

Eight homes on two floors, four on each floor.

Building footprint 44 ft by 30 ft, outside the walls: 1,320 square feet a floor, 2,640 square feet on the two floors
A 5 ft walkway runs along each long side of the second floor, with a stair at the end, so allow at least 45 ft by 40 ft of ground for the building, walkways and stairs
First floor: about 270 square feet per home, including bath, kitchen and closet
Second floor: about 300 square feet per home
1-hour fire-rated floor and ceiling between the two floors
Gable roof of engineered trusses, with standing-seam metal
One 50 gallon electric water heater for each home
Every home has its own front door and one window, in the front wall. Upstairs, that window is sized as an emergency escape window. The building official still has to confirm this layout.

Status. Preliminary design. A licensed structural engineer and architect must complete it before any permit. A soil test, local zoning approval and final engineering are still needed.

Where the utilities go

Our preliminary notes put the utilities in an owner spine down the middle of the first floor.

Each home has its own 50 gallon electric water heater on its own electric panel, and its own manifold of hot and cold water lines.

The second floor has no hallway. Its plumbing and panels drop into the spine below.

The spine has its own mini-split heat pump, on the house meter.

Walk through it in 360

Drag to look around, and use the buttons under the view to move between spots.

Concept render, not a photograph: outside the preliminary 8-plex design, by the walkway. The two-story 8-plex with its second-floor walkway and stair, seen from the walk.

The spine view puts each item where the preliminary drawings and our October 21, 2026 notes place it. They place no lights or water service, so the two ceiling lights are added only so the room can be seen, and the cold water line is drawn overhead as a sketch.

Walk around it in 360 Mini 2-plex 4-plex All buildings

Every spot as a flat picture

Here is each panorama laid out as one wide picture, for anyone who cannot use the viewer.

The two-story 8-plex with its second-floor walkway and stair, seen from the walk. — Concept render, not a photograph: outside the preliminary 8-plex design, by the walkway.

The end wall of the 8-plex with the owner door, electric meters and outdoor heating and cooling units. — Concept render, not a photograph: the end wall of the preliminary 8-plex design, by the owner door.

Eight water heaters in drain pans along one wall, one for each home, each with a board of red and blue water lines above it, the unit panels on the facing wall and an owner door at each end. — Concept render, not a photograph: the 8-plex owner spine, drawn from the preliminary notes.