Seeking opinions on house-garage-shop building.

[mjncad]

Like a lot of us, the current decession (depression-recession) has put a crimp in my wife's and my plans to construct our retirement home on the 35-acres we own.

Originally the plan was to construct a 60x40 outbuilding first to act as a non-commercial shop, materials storage and construction office while the separate house & attached garage is being constructed.

Now I'm rethinking ways to construct what we want with less monetary outlay. I'd like opinions on the latest ideas please.

1. Instead of two buildings, construct the house, garage and shop in one building.

2. Put up the building as a closed in shell that can be finished in a leisurely manner.

3. Basements are common in Colorado; but I'm less enamored with them as I get older, and wondering if we should go slab on grade. The downside of that is loss of storage space, resale value and tornado shelter. The upside is simpler construction and no stairs as this would be a single level building. The building site is essentially flat.

4. I've checked with the county zoning and building departments and they have no problem with the idea. The building department had the same concern I do with an attached shop and that is fire protection. That can be handled with proper construction techniques.

5. The assessor's office claims it won't matter tax wise whether it's two buildings or one as they'll look at usage and square footage for each use.

Thanks for the opinions!

 

[laen64]

Sir my Hat goes off to you and your wife. Me and my wife are going thru much the same thing as we prepare for our Post Military retirement home. I will definately watch this thread and learn as well.

To all with experience do assist us both.

Thanks in advance to the TBN Family

 

[kennyd]

I can only comment on #3:

3. Basements are common in Colorado; but I'm less enamored with them as I get older, and wondering if we should go slab on grade. The downside of that is loss of storage space, resale value and tornado shelter. The upside is simpler construction and no stairs as this would be a single level building. The building site is essentially flat.

My vote is a 9' basement. You will NEVER regret having it!

 

[Alan L.]

If I could have a basement I'd have one. Not a good idea here with our clay soils.

We purchased 24 acres, two years later we built (had built) a 40 x 60 building with 880 square feet of living quarters inside. We moved in and lived in the building 7 years, then built a house. We have good storage above the living quarters and still enough room for my "stuff" in the remainder of the shop.

I like it, and it serves as a very handy guest quarters now. Two others in the area did the same thing, one still lives in his building. A third neighbor didn't build a building but built a small house on pier and beam. After he moved into his new permanent house, he sold the temporary house and it was moved off the property. I don't know how that worked out for him economically. Another family built a nice little guest house to live in, and it compliments the new house now. Pretty nice, but it can't double as a shop.

Another temp solution is to put in a mobile home and live in that until the other house is finished.

We wanted to enjoy our rural property for the period of time before we could afford to build the house.

 

[aggiehortguy91]

I don't know what your winter weather is like, but we lived in IN for a while in a slab on grade home. I would never consider that as an option again. The floor (even carpeted near the center of the house) was always cold in winter. I even had one spot that stayed cool enough in winter to make larger beer! I also had problems with the outside hose bibs freezing (yes, I shut the water off and drained before winter). It was not unusual for one of our outside faucets to freeze 2' inside the house wall (the shutoff/drain was about 1' inside and there was heat tape as well). I would choose the basement, or atleast a tall crawl space with a pea gravel floor so it isn't so bad when you have to crawl in it. Radiant heat floors would help a slab, but you would be dumping alot of energy (ie - money) into the ground every winter.

As far as the shop, I'm sure that your other housemate(s) would really appreciate the seperate shop. If you are like me, your shop activities are a bit noisy, dusty, and smelly.

The moble home idea has merit. There is one in our neighborhood that in the past 10 years has been on at least 4 different properties owned by firemen. Someone buys a lot, moves the old mobile home on while the lot is being prepared. Builds their house as money permits, then sells the mobile home to another fireman who starts the process over again.

 

[newbury]

Like a lot of us, the current decession (depression-recession) has put a crimp in my wife's and my plans to construct our retirement home on the 35-acres we own.

Originally the plan was to construct a 60x40 outbuilding first to act as a non-commercial shop, materials storage and construction office while the separate house & attached garage is being constructed.

Now I'm rethinking ways to construct what we want with less monetary outlay. I'd like opinions on the latest ideas please.

1. Instead of two buildings, construct the house, garage and shop in one building.

If you think you can fill 60x40 make an 80x40 and live inside in a 20x40 space, then use the 60x40 to store and build your REAL house. If you think you need it.

2. Put up the building as a closed in shell that can be finished in a leisurely manner.

3. Basements are common in Colorado; but I'm less enamored with them as I get older, and wondering if we should go slab on grade. The downside of that is loss of storage space, resale value and tornado shelter. The upside is simpler construction and no stairs as this would be a single level building. The building site is essentially flat.

Basements also provide a climate controlled area and a good place to put the furnace etc..

 

[CurlyDave]

Presuming you are going to have a contractor build the house, I can think of a few ways to economize.

1. Strongly consider acting as an owner-builder. You will save 15-20%, and if you don't mind doing it at your own pace you will be happy with the result.

You still need to hire subcontractors for all the major phases, but looking at your profile, you are at least somewhat familiar with this type of activity.

2. Plan out what you want and then re-cost it. Two years ago when we built our retirement house, costs were at a high. Right now, independent subcontractors in the building industry are in pretty bad shape (Eddie Walker is an exception) and prices are down. In my Southern Oregon location, General contractors are working for $15/hour, and good subs are willing to work for $12. Many materials are a lot less. An 8' 2x4 which was in the $4-5 range two years ago is now under $2, and the quality is better.

In some ways I like a shop connected to a house, especially in winter, when I need to be warm, but an awful lot of shop activities need a separate building. We resolved this by building the main house with two garages, one for the cars we drive and one for my tractor/mini shop. I still plan on building an outbuilding for the really heavy-duty stuff.

When we were building our house, we lived in the motor home we had used to scout potential retirement locations for about two years before and during construction. It was cramped and hard to do, but we made it. The big problems were that it was a 30' class C, and at least 10' was taken up by cab and engine. OK for vacations, but not a long term proposition.

Think about putting up a steel building on a slab ultimately destined to become your shop, and then put a trailer inside as temporary living quarters. Being under shelter, the trailer doesn't really need to be weatherproof (cheaper), and you will have a lot of weatherproof storage outside the trailer, but inside the shop. This makes living in a small place much easier.

Don't even think about moving in until you have power, water and septic. We did and I spent a lot of time hauling water and gas for the generator.

If you can use your spare time to oversee the construction of you new real house, you are living right at the site, and will be able to be sure it is done right.

The key to choosing subcontractors in this environment is references. Take a week or so to check out references for each one, visit previous customers and look at the quality of work he did and get comments from those customers. Try to get customers to give you names of other customers the subcontractor may not have given you. You want the bad as well as the good.

I would go for a basement. If basements are traditional in an area, there is a reason. No one spends extra money he doesn't have to.

 

[EddieWalker]

Like a lot of us, the current decession (depression-recession) has put a crimp in my wife's and my plans to construct our retirement home on the 35-acres we own.

Originally the plan was to construct a 60x40 outbuilding first to act as a non-commercial shop, materials storage and construction office while the separate house & attached garage is being constructed.

Now I'm rethinking ways to construct what we want with less monetary outlay. I'd like opinions on the latest ideas please.

1. Instead of two buildings, construct the house, garage and shop in one building.

2. Put up the building as a closed in shell that can be finished in a leisurely manner.

3. Basements are common in Colorado; but I'm less enamored with them as I get older, and wondering if we should go slab on grade. The downside of that is loss of storage space, resale value and tornado shelter. The upside is simpler construction and no stairs as this would be a single level building. The building site is essentially flat.

4. I've checked with the county zoning and building departments and they have no problem with the idea. The building department had the same concern I do with an attached shop and that is fire protection. That can be handled with proper construction techniques.

5. The assessor's office claims it won't matter tax wise whether it's two buildings or one as they'll look at usage and square footage for each use.

Thanks for the opinions!

Every building starts out as a basic box, or I tend to think of them as a rectangle. Anyway, you start out with a rectangle and then start adding money to it. The more you stick with the rectangle, the less money it will cost you. Unfortunatley, simple isn't pretty.

The cheapest square footage is going to be a wood post pole barn. Aint no way to build a permanent structure any cheaper. Not knowing your area, labor costs, fees or materials, I'd say that $20 a sq ft for a water tight shell is a reasonable number to start off with. If it was just materials, it would be less then half that, but you can use $10 for just the building. Then there are the metal buildings, which have a big advantage in their clean span and ceiling height. Materials are actually pretty close, but the foundation is gonna be more. I'd estimate $25 a ft for a metal shell.

Second floors and basements are always going to be more per sq ft to build. If you have the dirt, it's always cheaper to build out then it is to build up or down. Simple math. If you have to go down for your footings, then it makes sence to incorporate that into a basement. If you don't, then it's a big expense comparerd to spreading out for the same footage.

One building having the same square footage as multiple builidings will be less money, but it's allot bigger hit. If the budget can handle it, you'll save money going this route.

Even if you build a conventional stick framed house, the real money comes int the finishing touches. It's real easy to turn an $80 sq ft house into a $120 or more house just on what materials are used. I've installed plenty of $300 doorknobs and then had the client tell me they are having to cut corners because they are running out of money.

Decide what you have to have, then add everything that you'd like to have. Figure out what the difference is and what you can afford. It's always simple math for me, but for my clients, it's a struggle based on what they want and think they want. Most of the time, with some talking to them, I can figure out what they think they want based on something that has nothing to do with what we are doing. When we realize this, they almost always lose interest in that must have item.

Dave makes some good points about materials. Prices are at the bottom, and have been for about a year now. It's a good time to build.

Labor seems to be in two groups. Those who are working for less and less, and those who are very busy and doing well. I'm looking for help, but of those that I'm seeing who are looking for work, I don't want anything to do with them. I'm of the opinion that you get what you pay for. Guys who can't get work and are will to work for less have probably burned their bridges and with fewer people hiring contractors, it's become too competitive for them to keep busy. Then there are the guys who ARE busy and maintaining their rates. I think that says allot about them. People are paying them what they want when there are cheaper alternatives out there.

Eddie

 

[mjncad]

Once again I thank everyone for their opinions and suggestions as your experiences give us something to think about.

 

[LeadPoison]

My family did something similar over 15 years ago. We did everything ourselves with the exception of the concrete work.

We poured a 45X70 slab.
Fabricated a steel building the size of the slab and erected it. (grandfather had a welding shop at the time)
Built a raised house underneath. Just use some pyramid blocks.
Closed the sides of whole building with heavy gauage panels.

It looks like a a giant steel building, but inside there is a four bedroom, three bath 1850 sq ft house. It made it through the 100 mph Katrina winds with zero damage.

You don't have to worry about an expensive roof on the house either as it is underneath the sheet metal. We just have the roof decked with several layers of 30# felt tarred in.

I would spray foam the entire home.

Plumbing is a lot cheaper to run on a raised house.

You can place the house upfront and maybe create a decorative front so it soesn't look so industrial. The back of the house can actually just open up into the garage.

Just some things to think about.