Realistic budget ? (house, construction, price, plan)

[Sorel36]

Hi,

I am planning on building a house by myself a few years from now. For two reasons : I want to learn the skills, and to save money. I will do most of the work except the roofing and the plumbing. I estimate it will take 2 years.

I saw this video about this programmer who built a cob house by himself to save money, it took him 3 years and the house looks great :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXmAwx8Imxw


So far I came up with this budget for a 2000 sqf structure (does not include land or paperwork) :

-5K for foundations
-5K for cob / straw bale walls, I'm planning to get the cob from the land which should be over 15 acres
-13K for the roof frame and the tiles provided I manage to make the tiles myself out of free clay from the soil
-10K for doors and windows

So that's 33K not factoring in the electrical and plumbing. The finishes should be plaster, how expensive can that be ? I don't want to use painting. Let's add an extra 10K for the finishes and renting the tools.

So is a 43K budget realistic, without plumbing and electrical ? Thanks for your help.

[T. Damon]

You have 13k for the roof frame and tiles but you do realize that straw bales are not a load bearing structure do you not?- (also, roof tiles are heavy and bring a whole new level of structural requirements)- most straw bale homes are of post and beam construction, allowing easier placement of window and door openings, but it is amongst the most expensive type of construction framing - especially if you allow it to be exposed and the increased connector detailing that that requires for an aesthetic punch. And there is a tricky detailing between the foundation and straw bales a few inches up to ensure no water intrusion there.

If you are a skilled builder, and a jack of all trades, (expert plastering over the straw bales ain't an easy task) and have an exceedingly simple design, few corners, simple roof design, few (but large and smartly placed) openings- windows and doors (and forget about custom), back to back plumbing or no long runs, standard heating system (unusual for a straw bale- more typically one would find/design a thermal mass floor with hot water tubing or some passive (with active air handling) solar heating system), and run-of-the-mill lighting, millwork, fixtures and hardware, I would say you would be lucky to get an actual finished structure built for less that $150k, but then I design in a hyper-inflated market with very stringent code/structure/energy efficient requirements.

I am especially intrigued about straw bale construction, it has only been recently accepted in some parts of this county, I would be interested to hear about how it goes for you and wish you the best of luck- but it will take a laser honed focus and patience of Job to achieve what you are describing.

[Sorel36]

Originally Posted by T. Damon

I am especially intrigued about straw bale construction, it has only been recently accepted in some parts of this county, I would be interested to hear about how it goes for you and wish you the best of luck- but it will take a laser honed focus and patience of Job to achieve what you are describing.

Thanks for your remarks. All remarks that will help me realize the extent of this project are welcome. I am still learning, getting my ideas from forums and videos. I will probably build all walls with cob, except the north wall. That one would be cob doubled with straw bale on the outside for insulation, so as to use the thermal mass to radiate solar heat back inside the house. The floor would be made of cob also. Thick cob walls should give the structure sufficient load bearing capacity.

The climate I will be building for is very dry, excessively sunny, moderate to warm temperatures during the day to close to zero at night, or below zero in winter.

Back to back plumbing is definitely a cost saver. I will not have septic, but a combination of incinerating toilets and a compost system. I have seen videos where people treat their grey or even their black water using plants.

Millwork I would buy that used. I don't need much of it, probably. The hardware could also be had used. I looked up doors and window prices, they don't seem that much expensive on home depot.

I wil not start building now, it's a long term project. When I do, I will keep people posted.

[smarino]

Roofing and plumbing are some of the easiest things to do. I would recommend hiring out the electrical to a pro though, unless you know someone or have experience w/ this. This is the part that could get your average home builder into trouble (as in burning down the house, or having to have it rewired all over again if it wasn't done to code). If you're building off grid and solar, you can probably do it yourself because the voltage is very low, but again, make sure it's to code no matter who does it. Speaking of codes and permits and such, make sure you understand those fully before starting any construction, especially on the human waste aspect. The permitting process can be a major PITA, they are different in different areas, and often different county by county.

You might consider adobe if you live in a dry area. I loved the homes in New Mexico when we lived there, and you can either do slump adobe bricks, or what I would do, simple adobe mud (like plaster) over chicken wire on a wood frame, and use whatever sort of insulation you wish to go in there. Adobe homes really work well for the type of weather conditions you mentioned, and the technique has been used successfully for a long, long time. I also saw a rammed earth home constructed in Las Cruces that looked very sound proof, fire proof, and it might be something a home builder would be able to do themselves w/ some additional help. Your actual building site, and the orientation of the home on that site, should dictate the type of construction. You can buy windows used and save a lot of money. Look for at least double pane, and triple is better but a lot more costly. When we did a remodel of an old home, I simply put vinyl double pane windows inside the home and left the original single pane windows in place outside, and this did a lot to mitigate noise and heat/cooling loss. It was cheap too. It also avoided the codes, which would have required me to use hurricane rated windows (expensive!) on any outside window replacement on the Gulf Coast. If I hadn't done that, we were looking at close to $20,000 to replace all of the windows in a 2 story w/ bay windows, and this was at prices 10 years ago. Make sure you get the insulation factor and site and home orientation right if you're having those sort of temps at night. A row of trees can be handy to block northerly winds, but make sure they don't block the sun too.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Straw bale can be interesting because you can carve the straw bales into lovely curves.

In my area, it's about $20,000 for permits and systems development fees. $5,000 for a water meter, $30,000 for a well. $6000-$30,000 for a sewer hookup, $6,000-$30,000 for a septic.

Electric meter runs about 5 grand as long as power is to the property line, otherwise the cost is outrageous to bring a line even a short distance.

Dont forget site development and the cost of a driveway and perhaps drainage control.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

By the way, I'm pretty sure that plaster needs a coat of paint to protect it.

[Sorel36]

Update : I found out the house in the video cost 25K in 1990 to build. That's 46K in today's money according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This price does not include the well and the septic system.

[East of the River]

You can take a look at Mother Earth News lots of stories of low cost DIY homes over the years. I would question the 5k foundation cost, with excavation that would be much higher at least here in New England. Lots of the other costs depend on what materials you select.

[Robyn55]

The first thing I would do is find out the legal requirements where you're thinking of building. Robyn