New Land, New Home Build

[JohnDeereGreen3520]

Congratulations and good luck throughout your adventure! My wife and I did an owner-build about a year and a half ago. We did some of the work ourselves like the scored/stained floors, ICF walls & crown moulding. We love our energy efficient ICF house with vent-less attic. We built above code to FFSL standards. We're on the gulf coast and saved substantially on our homeowners by achieving FFSL. Talk to your insurance agent about FFSL.

You've been getting lots of great advice so forgive me if I'm repeating some here. Your plans look great! Open floor plan with the island in the kitchen is family friendly. Stained concrete floors are a great way to save money and are an easy DIY. Scoring is not hard to do at all and best done on a bare slab. I'd be glad to talk with you sometime about our experience.

 

[Obed]

Awesome - I have reached out to them for information.

BTW - I finally heard from Cleary buildings today - not impressed at all - just from what I heard on the phone...

OP,
Any updates? It's been a while.
Obed

 

[extrakt0r]

Been awhile, yes. It was going to be to hard to give "live" updates on the project, so here it goes.

Pics that sum up the last few months of work. Since then we have the 1st floor subfloor down, and 100 hours of excavation work finally done. That also included building the building pad, so it wasn't to bad. We forced the walkout, so we had a TON of dirt to move.

Initial excavation took 40 hours, just to get the hole ready for foundation.

Once I had the plans final I went and got the building permit, I am my own GC. Dealing with the city has been very easy, and the folks down at the building dept have been great to work with.

Then, we broke ground. Cat 953C was brought in do prepare the site. This part of the project was contracted out to the nephew of the lands previous owner, so I got him and his equipment at a very good rate.

 

[extrakt0r]

We also had to move a small bar, and a 2000 gallon water tank which we will use to collect rain water for irrigation.

My FIL on the tractor. we built skids out of 2x10's we had laying around.

 

[extrakt0r]

Once rough excavation was done, footings were put in.

 

[extrakt0r]

Then walls. This day was very rough, got a bit of rain the day before, and everyone got stuck. Pump truck, cement trucks, it was a mess and very stressful. They got it done thou...

We also started to grade and build the road. We would till it up to soften it, then use the FEL to scoop it away. Didnt take as long as I would have thought to go down 8"

Finally I rented a Kubota Mini-Excavator to dig up over 2000' feet of trench, for power lines, water, runs to shop, etc.

 

[extrakt0r]

Once the walls were in, we did the under slab stuff:

2x Hot water lines to shop (for hot water re-circulation that will be on an occupancy sensor so we don't need a hw heater out there
1x Cold water line to shop
Compressed air line from shop
High voltage wire to shop (100 Amp Service planned)
Low voltage wire to shop (Cat 6, RG56, etc)
High & Low voltage down to where entrance gate will be
Extra empty conduit for future
Various runs to outside bar area

 

[extrakt0r]

Next was the radiant floor, and the pouring of the basement slab.

 

[extrakt0r]

Framing time.

Special engineering when into the house to satisfy the large span requirements I wanted in the basement. We went with 18" trusses to eliminate as many poles as possible. The rest were hidden in walls.

2x6 exterior walls were used as well. 1st floor gets double plywood for the flooring that will be used. L/720 deflection

 

[extrakt0r]

Last pics. Here is where we are as of yesterday, minus some cleaning and organization of the job site.

1st floor walls should start in the morning. The lot is done and graded. Black dirt piles are placed around and will be spread out later this year before planting of grass seed/sod. The shop pad is built and ready for the pole barn we will build next spring. You can see the stub ups for electrical and other services.

Comments/suggestions welcome.