If you build your own house, how much per square foot, roughly speaking?
06-13-2009, 03:58 PM
#21
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Necessity is the mother of all invention. My wife & I built our house for 30k. It is a small 1400 sq ft pier & beam foundation house. It is what we could afford at the time with the location/acreage we wanted.
It was hell, we worked non stop for 4 months. No one touched our house but us. It was hard to do the concrete, septic, electical, plumbing, & I hated the drywall.
We had to find someone to sign off as our contractor to get the constuction loan too. We spared no effort in saving money. As an example we got 15k in interest free credit from home depot. We bought all of our materials minus lumber from them. We did not have to pay interest for 6 mos. Then we payed them off after we mortgaged the house saving the interest we would have payed on the construction loan.
It was hell, we worked non stop for 4 months. No one touched our house but us. It was hard to do the concrete, septic, electical, plumbing, & I hated the drywall.
We had to find someone to sign off as our contractor to get the constuction loan too. We spared no effort in saving money. As an example we got 15k in interest free credit from home depot. We bought all of our materials minus lumber from them. We did not have to pay interest for 6 mos. Then we payed them off after we mortgaged the house saving the interest we would have payed on the construction loan.
06-13-2009, 04:06 PM
#22
If I could have poured it myself probably not much more. But it is hard for us to pour much bigger than 14 X 20 foot by ourselves. We also built a 1600 sq ft shop with a slab foundation but we did it in small section which I would not be good for a house.
Since I was just learning how to plumb it was much easier to do with a crawl space basement. I also ran all of my electrical & data lines down there.
Since I was just learning how to plumb it was much easier to do with a crawl space basement. I also ran all of my electrical & data lines down there.
06-13-2009, 07:35 PM
#23
Yeah the foundation is one of the largest portions of money you will spend on your home and you want to get someone who's done it before as pouring a small area and a home foundation are a lot different trying to make sure it is as level as possible and the right equipment to spread and finish the surface with. Cost me @45K for the foundation on the house in the pictures and probably more if you factor in some of the dirt work that I did myself etc...
06-13-2009, 11:23 PM
#24
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Well I work in a family construction business and we do custom homes. My house is around 2100 sq ft with the garage and I did as much of the work as I could the electrical, trim, and vinyl, my house was around 60k and it's all brick with low e windows and tile and all that. Course when Hurricane Ike put 20 inches of water in it, it took around 27k and a lot of my labor to put it back together. With building on your own you could probably save 10 to 20k depending on the builder, but if you make a mistake or have problems with contractors it could cost you more than that. So if you don't have experience with it or know some people in the industry that could help you out I don't think I would try it. Same reason I didn't assemble my motor, I'm a carpenter not a engine builder. I've had a few projects that were a little over my head that I made a couple mistakes on and had to spend money to correct it.
