Re: OT Building my own house

Posted by Texasmark1 on February 04, 2012 at 07:35:17 from (67.142.164.23):

In Reply to: OT Building my own house posted by Case e on February 04, 2012 at 06:49:08:

I built mine in 1979 and didn't hire any crews, except 1. Wife young kids and I did all except for a neighbor who came over and helped set the 36' trusses and one of my boys chose not to help so the $1000 he would have received went to some drywall boys and was a good investment....I don't like to do it.

Work was slack at the time and I had 30 days vacation. Took a 30 day LOA (60 calendar days) and built the house to the point where we could move in in 45 working days. The initial house was 1440 sq ft which I have increased to 2490 doing that work myself also.

I had 2 things that needed correcting after finishing: a light switch malfunction which turned out to be the switch and one connection between PVC and the brass faucet for one shower had a drip. Not bad for a guy who never built a house before.

Used a Readers Digest "how to" book to get ideas on things I didn't know about but was savy to most all of it.

Now here's the kicker.....did it for about $10,000.00 and it got me out of town. There was a local Buy Sell Trade guy in town that just happened to have plywood, insulation, electrical wiring and fixtures. Plumbing was from a lumber yard going out of business. Built pier and beam and poured the footings on the spot using old utility poles for pilings. Like others said, the framing went really fast. Finished some of the interior and some moulding after moving in. Still in it.

Bad news is I deliberately built it in August as we usually don't have any rain. It rained 3 times on it before I could get it weathered in. Put insulation below the sub flooring and it had a vapor barrier which filled up with water. Had to crawl under the house and slit every one of the batts at about 6' intervals to let the water out. Apparently all the wood getting wet didn't hurt anything.

So, if you really want to build your own house, are pretty good with tools and understand some construction basics, including beam loading stresses, go for it. May be the best thing you ever did.

My Uncle built his house when I was a young lad. His was cinder blocks and slab floor. Don't know any particulars, but he built it and lived in it till he died.

On having someone come back and clean up your dry wall mess, the problem that they have is that you have to know how to put it up to minimize the taping requirements and not be afraid to grab a fresh sheet of material.....no little bitty pieces causing them to have to do a lot of taping.

HTH,
Mark

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