The High Cost of Building a House

[Joe_W]

We are building a new house, and the original plans called for a 2nd story. We decided that the two of us didn't need the extra room, so we deleted the upstairs. We cut out about 1/3 of the square footage of the house, but retained the original roofline, and the price only came down by about 20%. Doesn't seem logical until you watch them building it, and then you see how little you reduced their work and materials.

Joe W.

 

[webbmeister]

Thanks for all the information everyone. I used quite a bit of what you've had to say when one of the two possible contractors visited tonight. I got the price down a little, but it didn't really come down a lot until I gave up my shop. Even then it was more than we are willing to put out, and to be truthful, I love woodworking and I'm not ready to give up my shop. So, back to the drawing board, literally.Thanks again. You guys are great!

 

[GlueGuy]

Have you considered building some of it yourself? It's a great way to reduce the cost of labor. A friend hired a contractor to do a remodel of his house and a new garage. The price came in too high, so he had them just pour the slab for the garage, and he & I built it. Not too big of a deal, and I think the quality of the construction was first rate. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[MDNick]

Mark,

I have heard of lots of barn raisings, but that is the first House Raising I have ever heard of.

Saw on TLC or Discover over the weekend, a habitat for humanity house that they were going for the record time in building a full sized ranch home. 4hrs 35 mins I believe. They started from the foundation and slab. The framing, roof, drywall, electrical, trim, paint, carpet, etc. done in that time. Something like 300 people total. I wondered about the drywall, how they got that done, used something called 20 minute mud. Sandable in 20 minutes. 4 inspectors on the job, claimed to be to the quality of any standard framed built home. Don't know the square footage, but that's a lot of work in 4 hrs and 35 mins.

Nick

 

[Robert_in_NY]

They would probally have used ezsand 20. It sets up extremly fast and you can sand it and paint it in 20 minutes just don't mix too much or you have a lot of fun cleaning up your equipment. We use ezsand 45 as it gives us more play time in case we run into any problems.

 

[kiphorn]

I'm preparing to start construction on a log home next month. Over the last several years I spoke to several people that saved some money by having a contractor erect the shell of the house and they completed the interior work themselves. If your handy and know a plumber, electrican and heating contractor that will work cheap this could save you $$$.

I considered this option but my wife wanted to get in the house right away. It would have definitely taken longer because I could only work on the house evenings and weekends.

Good luck, don't give up on your dream yet!


Kip

 

[hwp]

When we bought our current house its was just a shell. The exterior was sided but there was no interior finishing- just insulation and vapour barrier. I was fortunate to be able to be able to arrange my work schedule to get a lot of time to work on the house. A friend who is a carpenter helped me. I had tradespeople do all the techincal stuff - wiring, plumbing, heating, etc. but we did every thing else. We moved into thehouse three months after we bought it. I never priced it out but my guess is that we saved at least $50 000 and got much better quality because we took the time to do things right.

 

[Thomas]

When I built my home back in late 70's it cost $55.oo a square to have a contractor to build it.
After talking to many others I decide to built it myself.
I did about everything except the drilling of the well,septic,cement foundation,dozing.
One honest contactor did tell me 2/3 of the cost having a house built is labor,and I could pound nails as good as the next guy,and if I wanted to take a break it wouldn't cost me anything.
I'm not sure what it would cost far as square foot to have a house bulit,but do what ever you can by yourself to save.

 

[shade2u2]

I've been piecing things together for the past 2 years for building our house. Originally, I planned to contract myself while doing some of the work myself, but determined that it wasn't the best way to go for me. I finally put a deal together with a good local general contractor to build our dream house -> 28X32 2 story - 2 car attached garage - 24X32 barn. The house (1792 sq ft) comes out about $52/sq ft /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif -including the garage in that price. A buddy(w/trac-hoe) & I are doing the drive, utility hookups, & septic. The contractor seems great so far... I think that my patience has paid off. This is just a basic farm house, but with the important items (large footers with inside & outside drains, poured walls, walk out basement, 8' deep(X32) front porch, 2X6 walls, tyvek, just 6/12 pitch, layered shingles, cedar look vinyl, chimney & extras that we wanted - not a fancy mansion to most... but everything that we want. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[DVerbarg]

The cost of builing a house is a rather sore topic around here. We started a house building project estimating the cost around $100/sq ft. After 9 months of changes, upgrades, etc we ended up moving into the house 95% done but at a cost of over $120/sq ft /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif and we still have some expenses left (gutters, landscaping, basement electrical) that will drive that up even more. This was after doing many things ourselves. Saved over $40k in labor costs!

We fell into the "were doing this once, so do it right" trap and as a result will take 12 years to pay off instead of 4. Ooops! But we enjoy the house and will enjoy it even more once we finish! /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif