Ask HN: Have you built a house?
I am toying with the idea of building a house, as autonomously as possible. I am thinking about a massive, concrete house. with basement, ground floor and upper floor.
Has somebody here experience in this area? Any useful pointers?
228 comments
[ 0.17 ms ] story [ 253 ms ] threadThe first is "House" by Tracy Kidder.
https://www.amazon.com/House-Tracy-Kidder/dp/0618001913
The second is "Renovation" by Michael Litchfield.
https://www.amazon.com/Renovation-4th-Completely-Revised-Upd...
The first book is a detailed, engrossing narrative about building an actual house (it exists). The second book is a renowned compendium of all things in home renovation.
As a quick commentary on your idea, go check out RSMean's cost estimations. It gives you a ballpark estimate of cost per square foot for, say, poured concrete with rebar. You are going to need rebar because concrete is brittle and it cannot carry tension. You are going to need steel framing because concrete floors are damn heavy. With wood, you can use much, much cheaper standard wood framing. Rebar is expensive because you need to be a metalworker to do it properly. It is likely you will not be able to do it DIY because of building codes. The rabbit hole goes on and on. Good luck with your research!
https://www.rsmeans.com/
Shocked I hadn’t heard of this before. Ordered!
Tracy Kidder is also the author of The Soul of a New Machine for which he won a Pulitzer. One of my all-time favorites.
Unfortunately, I looked at a couple of other Kidder books and, while I'm sure they were good, the subject matter just didn't grab me.
There are certain themes across the variety of site locations and designs and backgrounds of the individuals building:
1) It costs more than expected
2) It takes longer than expected
3) Project managing it yourself is extremely difficult
4) Building it yourself is even more difficult
Don't know about all concrete houses. Wet concrete is extremely heavy and you need to know what you are doing when it comes to formwork, etc. You would also need concrete pump to get the stuff to the upper floor.
You will most certainly need the services of an architect and structural engineer. The level of detail you need to get building approvals, etc is substantial. You might even need town planner, geotech and environmental consultant reports as well.
I had previously worked on a renovation project, helped a family member build a house from scratch and worked for an electrical contractor. It also helped that I had experience as a project manager on large infrastructure projects.
A few takeaways:
- Things seem simple from the outside, before you do them for the first time. They are in actuality quite complicated. Even something as straightforward as painting a wall will be hard when you are doing it for the first time. You will make mistakes if you do it yourself. Try to do it yourself only in areas where you can tolerate such mistakes.
- The more project management experience you have, the better off you will be.
- Keep things simple. If you are trying to do things non-traditionally, you are not only attempting a non-trivial task for the first time, but will also have limited or no resources to lean on when questions or problems arise. Walk first, then run. If this is your first house AND you are trying to build it autonomously, you are trying to do two things you have little experience with. Consider building your first house using traditional methods. Try to automate it when you build your 5th house.
- Why a concrete house? How will you insulate it? Do you have enough funds to do it this way?
- Learn as much as you can before you even buy a plot of land. Read about foundations, building materials, roofing, windows, exterior doors, interior doors, wood flooring, tile flooring, concrete flooring, flooring in general, wall tiles, plaster, drywall, painting, insulation, plumbing, electrical work, stairs, waterproofing basements, ground settlement, building codes, gas installation, pest-proofing, garden planning, driveways, carpentry, weatherproofing, heating, cooling, ventilation, sewers, patios, exterior finishing, fences, gates, garage doors, how heavy a truck full of cement is and whether they can access your property on the type of road that is present, liability insurance, permits, weather forecasts and what things can be done in what type of weather, dumpsters & garbage disposal, portapotties, area maps to see what is planning in your neighborhood, earthquake considerations, flooding considerations, wind and snow loads, glass & mirror installations, safes, interior and exterior lighting, and particularities of hiring crews.
In addition to the parent's advice, I would say for you to prototype/test the technique/task you are trying to accomplish before doing it in the actual part.
You will screw it up even the simpler tasks so make sure you screw up something that you don't care about before trying it in "production".
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McH3Cha7dnk - 1 minute video on priming a wall
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETRU3AxYq0w - 15 minute video on the same topic
My first build (this summer) was a playhouse for the kids, 8 square meters single story. I built it mostly like you would a real house, omitting a few details (like insulation between inner and outer walls, since it's not heated anyway). I ended up with a budget overrun of 40% and spent close to twice the number of hours I estimated up front. It turned out really nice though.
If you're thinking about building a house, I would definitely recommend doing a playhouse or a shed first.
I estimated 20 hours, with another 4-8 of uncertainty. The job took 43 hours. So >100% overrun on my best-case estimate, >50% over my worst-case. If you don't have experience, it isn't just estimating the time that's hard, it's hard to estimate the uncertainty too. And I'd done a couple of decks before, just never any with as much railing or a second story.
I nth everybody else's suggestion to take on a couple simpler projects first. If you've never painted, paint something non-trivial. Then build a playhouse.
Sounds typical for construction.
I'm not directly involved in that process in-industry (ended up in light fixture manufacturing), but my impression is that BIM models are usually good enough to kick out a set of drawings, but you wouldn't want to count on any information that you pull out of it electronically being accurate.
So you still have "contractor to verify quantity" notes on everything, and presumably someone going through the drawing figuring out how many "Type F 2x4' troffers" and how many faucets and how many of every other little detail that will take money or time.
It's a pretty intensive process, but given the amounts of money at stake if you screw it up, hugely important to get right.
At least that's often the case in huge organizations trying to do crazily ambitious projects (esp. given their general incompetence). I tend to consult on such shitstorms because it pays well. The scars are for life though...
Once you've built a house, you realize that every single little thing you see, and every thing you don't see because it is covered, involved a decision about technology, materials, crew, method, minor adjustments, and sometimes fixups. I mean, EVERY ONE. Each square inch. It did not get there by accident.
As for the list, the good news is that most of the knowledge and experience came from others. For most of those things, I just needed to find our enough about it to know whom to turn to, or to make a decision to NOT to do it because it involved more costs and complications (i.e. basement).
What kind of house do you want to build?
I'm an initial cleaner, a type of cleaning that takes place for new buildings.
We use a host of specialized tools and techniques, here is one tip on glass. Typically removing concrete, paint, plastic, plaster, caulk from it.
Most cleaners and builders use Stanley blades and score lovely scratches all over your expensive windows - today can be 15% of materials costs. When the sun rises you'll want to cry. The more modern or expensive your window the more surely it shall be damaged.
There are three options. 1.2 mostly works on older glass types, usually not to be used on toughened glass or low e-glass and never interior door glass or veluxes.
1.1 Protect the glass using plastic and tape. 1.2 Use this with a water soaked applicator https://www.homedepot.com/p/Unger-14-in-Window-Scrubber-with... https://www.ungerglobal.com/en/trim-10-1 1.2.1 Use plastic blades 1.3 Use applicator then red pad (special grit of buffing pad that won't harm glass) and a cream abrasive.
https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/3M-...
http://www.cifclean.co.uk/product/category/971337/creams
The construction trades are filled with a zoo of techniques that individually seem obvious - which must be why few doing DIY do it the right way ever. I subscribe to Fine Homebuilding and read their articles because I know I can't wing it on everything when I self-build - even caulking is a specialization, and few professionals seem to know how to airseal or fully flash a building.
Engineers should be aware that building has one of the lowest rates of automation. The main difference between builders today and builders half a century ago is pneumatic tools. When you think of it - all house are built by hand, and the factory built housing paradigm has tried to get off the ground and failed dozens of times, prefabs aren't much more common than they were centuries ago.
You won't automate the construction of your house and profit (the important bit - or it means you invented a kind of toy) without a giant breakthrough in AI. The nearest you'd get to automating a process and profiting from it will be gang cutting studs with a circular saw.
I am building a house for the first time (hired a GC, but making the infinite number of decisions involved and writing the checks) - I went in knowing it would be more work and more expensive than I was planning, and it was even more work and even more expensive than that still.
Painting is one of the things I do myself, in part because it's something I do often enough that I more or less know the various gotchas, techniques, etc. It's also the case that, when redoing areas that were already painted which is most of what I do these days, I can take some very timesaving shortcuts that someone I hire can't. I can repaint a ceiling without bothering with meticulously masking all the edges and corners. If I don't repaint 100% of the area it probably doesn't matter unless things are in really bad shape.
The last time I did a wall or ceiling, the crown molding had been painted so many times, it would have been nigh impossible to tape it and get a satisfactory result. But I've been living in old places.
Are you in a newer place with fewer uneven spots to tape around?
Hah. 200 years old.
I've used masking tape when I've been making changes in color or it's been around new cabinetry, windows, etc. As I say, when I'm touching up, I'm usually pretty sloppy. No crown moulding.
Nope. They either use something that looks like a trowel, or freehand it.
Learnt that lesson the hardware, I do not have a steady hand.
Also if you go the tape route, buy trade tape (in the UK it's commonly known as Frog Tape (though that's a tradename there are generics), comes off without lifting paint, doesn't suffer from creep and is brightly coloured (green) so you can see it against the underlying wall.
For everything else it's way faster and neater to do by hand, but it takes a lot of practice to get right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulating_concrete_form
> Do you have enough funds to do it this way?
For basements they are cheaper than traditional ways, for above ground they cost more initially, but are cheaper longterm.
I'm not a home-builder but I am a home-owner. Let me add that any work you do yourself the flaws will be about 10 times as noticeable and annoying to you as if you'd hired someone to do the work and it had the exact same flaws.
For example: I re-did some grouting in my bathroom, and only after that started to notice the imperfections in other areas not by me. Bits of tile I'd seen everyday for a years, that only after I had experience grouting I realised had grout smeared over them and let to dry.
Also, if your house is in the right area people will buy anything.
https://www.ikea.com/pl/pl/catalog/products/80404078/
"Whenever you can build a shed, you've got it made"
"I'm a shed builder. If I was just left alone, I would build sheds. I would plan them at Bob's Big Boy Coffee Shop, and I would become very excited with these coffees and a chocolate shake. So, when I left Bob's, I would be racing home with plans for certain parts of a shed, right? Then, I would find the right kind of wood and I would start cutting them up with my power saw, nailing it, fitting it and working it. And I would be almost in heaven with happiness"
http://www.thecityofabsurdity.com/quotecollection/sheds.html
It was fun! Like a "hello world" for human habitats.
I'd say it's an excellent way to get a feel for what it takes to build a home. There are a TON of details, especially if you don't want it to rot.
If you intend to heat it in the winter, be sure to consider the effects of condensation. I made the mistake of building my first shed without proper ventilation, and it was like indoor rain when I turned on a space heater. For my second, more permanent shed I've followed building codes for real homes to avoid making any more big mistakes like that.
First, try to understand a process. Draw it. Imagine going through the process of building it. Draw it again. Look at your friend's house to see how it is different. Try to imagine how that one was built.
I have an interesting tale of how the patio door installer almost caused my kitchen countertops to be installed 2 inches lower. The story is a bit convoluted because many things are tied together in the house. You have levels for your foundations, sills, door bottoms, door tops, window tops, subfloors, and floors. Different layers have different widths. Wood flooring ends up being a certain width, and tile flooring another. If you want things to be flush when you're done, you need to plan everything meticulously, backwards, across months of time and different crews.
Moral of the story: pay attention to the levels of everything, across the house, all the time, in one place. Double-check this and verify all the time.
There are architectural programs that will render a 3d space to help with visualizations. Or any 3d drawing program like autocad can help as well.
Generally the linting is done manually when you ask for bids on your plans from contractors. If your plans are really poor they won't bid or they will come back with suggestions or prices that incentivize you to rethink things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_level_%28device%29
Great. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concre...
1. Most of the trees that are cut down are coming from farms. The trees were planted with the express purpose of being harvested.
2. The transportation network for traditional building materials is built for scale. Outside of the last mile, that transportation network is far more energy-efficient than transporting materials and equipment for non-traditional buildings.
Counter-points can definitely be raised:
- Tree farms use a good deal of water and fertilizer
- Natural environments have been destroyed to create and expand tree farmsWe can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Traditional building materials end up being better for the environment than concrete and many non-traditional materials.
Really? In my country trees are planted and then nature does most of the rest (apart from thinning). After 25 years, trees are chopped down, and the process repeated.
Great. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
You won't be able to build a concrete house by yourself using "traditional" methods, if you were, you wouldn't be here asking how to do it (Catch 22), but there are more than a few techniques/building approaches that were actually designed for self-builders.
Talking of concrete houses, the "working" ones are those that combine insulation with formwork.
One example is the "Plastbau" building method, usig EPS as insulation/formwork/structure and another on is the "Isotex" one combining wood and EPS, a couple of videos on Youtube, JFYI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythSGowrNcw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGuP2jp51g0
There are of course many more similar methods, but the overall idea is the same.
Using these kind of elements a house can actually be built by two/three people without particular knowledge/experience in the field.
Another possibility - often used in self-construction - is to "build" the whole house in EPS (in this case the EPS is in the middle of the walls and the reinforcing bar is on the outside) and then call some specialists to spray concrete (shotcrete).
An example here:
https://www.mdue.it/en/emmedue-panels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8juvDvSeYL8
Otherwise there is nothing particularly difficult in a concrete carpenter's job, but you need to learn those abilities.
And you will need a "supporting" technician, i.e. besides designing the house, do the calculations and whatever else needed to get a construction permit, the project needs to be made by someone that believes in the self-construction approach and that simplifies/adapt the design to the construction method chosen.
http://www.monolithic.org/homes
Construction work is amazingly easy to underestimate.
Houses in Ontario are getting crazy expensive (as an example - a friend of mine was able to get land + house for ~800k when the going rate of a prebuilt house in the neighborhood was around a mil).
Also, if I am spending so much and plan to put down some roots - I like to have a house based on my designs rather than a cookie cutter bs that most contractors have.
EDIT: I also plan on using concrete (and rebar).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mass_heater
Unfortunately I live in a cookie-cutter suburb so it's not feasable right now, but someday...
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn4L_aJ1rV4&list=PLRZePj70B4...
He shows the clear experience of a lifetime of craft, yet there's something about his persona that's so reflective of people starting out, and his early days. Humility can't hurt either.
As an aside, the ratings on his videos are unbelievable. On YouTube, in 2018, his videos frequently hit 99%-99.5% thumbs-up. I'm shocked that's even possible.
I'm at the house after every trade leaves to ensure things are done correctly. I've had to ask for dozens of things to be redone because it was just wrong. Doors were the wrong size (and installed anyway, despite having written on the door the correct size), the wrong color, outlets were missed, the stairs had to be moved (!!!), the tub was backwards, etc.
Additionally, even though it's a custom house, I already regret some design decisions, but it's impossible to fix them now.
My point is, building a custom house is a lot of work, even when you're not the one swinging the hammer.
Not a self build, but I have just completed the first phase of a renovation. For me the main struggles were getting it wind and water tight especially in a location with bad weather.
Renovation is a gamble, people have said it makes it easy and hard at the same time. Easy in that you have a clearer vision of what you want to do (fix up, restore etc), but harder in that you are constrained by whatever the existing structure is there e.g. (concrete weaknesses, old cladding, planning permissions).
I tried to tackle it pragmatically like a piece of software, I didn't want to get too far ahead of myself in case I ran out of money or something catastrophic happened.
It is interesting how building problems are similar to software problems. For example connecting two types of waste pipe from a sink and washing machine to an older specification of waste pipe, was just like solving an API integration issue (minus the tape and coupling I had to hack together)
Now that the place is wind and watertight, I can now focus on planning the internals over the winter period and then come back to the property next summer with energy.
Since my place was in a remote location, I had to factor in costs of transportation. Which looking back, ate about 10% of my total budget.
Tradesmen unreliability is another thing to factor in, which caused about 2 months total in delays.
In summary, my experience is no different to any other engineering project. I have been tempted to write up about it, however I am more focused about getting back to work as I am near enough broke now :)
Here's a photo of the end result - bearing in mind it didn't have a roof and all the windows were broken / smashed
https://pasteboard.co/HBisuqe.jpg
Feel free to ask any questions, I am from the UK so it might not be relevant in some cases.
Also check for "free" money; as in grants for insulation, solar panels etc.
"Pure Living for Life" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChhBsM9K_Bc9a_YTK7UUlnQ
Permits are interesting to navigate. I recommend engaging a local contractor for advice as it would help you significantly
https://www.domegaia.com/how-to-make-aircrete.html
Might be worth it to reach out to him. He's a woodworker, so it's not exactly a massive concrete house.
Before I was allowed to get a computer or enroll in comp sci, my father made sure that I learned to work with my hands a little too, so I had to be Junior GC..
Strategic Lessons:
- If you're interested in building a house, it might help to hire a GC who builds a regular house for a percentage fee to manage the build, learn from them, and then build your own. Most will be very happy to teach. You get 2 tries at a house on fit and finish.
- When building new, getting a closed shell (foundation, framing, walls, roof) is the most urgent thing to allow inside work to commence regardless of weather. If this gets missed in a shoulder season and you plan on building through the winter, it will present challenges.
- You have to build relative to the neighbourhood value, not what you can afford to build due to managing it yourself. Exception is if you're going to live there for 20 years.
- Lining up and managing trades is the name of the game. The more you look out for trades to get in and out easily, and care about their work, their quality of work goes through the roof.
- I would start with remodeling / extending an existing house before going through a new house. New builds are cleaner in some ways, but you will get a taste if it's for you.
- Alternative building methods (concrete walls, 3D printing) can be expected to have unintended side effects to traditional house building you should.
- Be strategic where you can save and do things yourself, vs have things done. There's often enough margin in just helping with prep and cleanup along the way plus doing a few easy things.
- Build to sell - build in extra entrances that are separate for basement suites, etc.
Reality:
- You have to be around all the time. Always when you're not planning to. Plan that in your commute and coming and going. Always better to build as close as possible to where you live. If not, where work.
- Clean as you go. All the time. Trades behave better on a site that's meticulous.
- Finishing is 60% of the value of a house. Keep that in mind. Everything can become more affordable when building on your own because labour savings are there.
- Managing your project schedule and budget every few days as a first timer will help a lot.
Get a copy of A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
* Buy extra materials than what you actually will need. If it's your first time doing a specific task, mistakes will happen, some will be costly, some, minor.
* Ensure you are building up to code. Make sure you read what your local residential building code specs are. Having things "not up to code" can be costly and fail inspections.
* Buying equipment over renting equipment: This is a personal preference, but I have exceeded the rental time limit and ended up paying more than to actually buy the actual equipment. This does not apply to all equipment. Preferably, it would be better if you know someone that owns the equipment. You won't have issues reselling used equipment.
* Don't be cheap on electrical wiring or water piping. Water or fire damage is obviously costly.
* Personal Tip: Consider space for a backyard and landscaping. Landscaping can be the best cost-to-return investment you can do in a property.
* Get a "contractor membership" at your hardware store of choice. You can end up saving some money with its discounts.
_Take my pointers with a grain of salt, this has been from personal experience and lessons learned the past 2 years._
hire out a reputable builder for the structure. and perhaps polish the floors. get a proper rough in for electrical and plumbing. order cabinets and such for kitchen and 1 full washroom.
things like flooring, paining and other small finishing work are learnable skills. be prepared to take extra time or redo work as part of the learning curve. Keep the design very simple, reduce or remove finishing as possible. if you can get a livable structure built in short order you can spend the months or years building it to your needs and tastes over time.
Basements are also generally preferable to crawlspaces, because they're (semi)conditioned and can be dehumidified/sealed as necessary to prevent mold/water issues to the framing. Crawlspaces are not typically sealed, and issues (mold/rot/leaks) can often go unnoticed, because nobody wants to crawl around to inspect. If you use your basement for storage, you'll likely be down there frequently enough to notice any growing issues.
On top of all that, many people finish their basements to add additional living space. This is typically very easy to do (DIY), because tapping into a few ducts and power is all right there.
We did a bunch of manual labour and finishing work. But used contractors for everything else. We did that mostly to get things done quickly as we didn’t have a stable place to stay, had a two year old and my wife was pregnant with our second.
Your project sounds quite different but I think the biggest takeaway I can offer is to have a large contingency in your budget. Particularly if you mean autonomous as in building with robots or some new technique. The second is to find good contractors we got very lucky with the people we hired. Reykjavik is going through a construction boom and it’s often the less reputable people that are free to work.
We’re pretty glad we did it now we can look back on the stressful memories. It’s definitely Type 2 fun.
Our next big project is to build a shed-cum-office in our garden for us to work from. Probably next summer. With less time pressure and an easier problem I’ll probably build that myself with help from family.
So I took over that task, drove my girlfriend at the time absolutely nuts iterating over it, then one day showed her something she said was bleeping perfect. We built that plan relying on a neighbor who was a general contractor at the top of his game (early 40s). I still live in that house, but the girlfriend and I broke up mid-project, oh well.
General observations:
1. The town will extract maximum value from you for the tiniest changes so get as much as you can in the 1st draft (e.g.: another $5000 to authorize making windows openable at floor level vs not)
2. Get a contractor you trust, things can go non-linear if you don't, and even if you do, you'll get some flakes. Do not be nice to flakes. Flakes suck.
3. Rent a nice place elsewhere during the process. If you don't have the $$$ to do this, you probably shouldn't be doing this at all. It will break you. The movie "The Money Pit" is IMO mostly documentary and only part comedy.
4. I have 10 Gb/s Cat 6 hard-wired Ethernet in my walls. Local contractors didn't even know that was possible in 2007. Do your research. This serves me well when I train DL models in my house.
The next project for me is a solar power system to power all my DL servers. Since they each eat ~1.5 KW, I'm going to need 10 kW overall for all 4 servers plus household requirements (but don't call it a datacenter or NVDA will audit you, call it "A House of Ill Compute"). To that end, I have nicknamed my home as the house of 200 TFLOPs (16 Pascal GPUs across 4 servers). It's about to become the house of 2 PFLOPS (RTX 2080TI GPU upgrade pending).
Congrats for managing to create buildable plans!
I hope you used metal/plastic conduits to pass wires between the floors/walls (so they could be theoretically upgraded with fiber or something better).