Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Hello,
We bought property in Dubois after coming to Wyoming for a number of years. Admittedly, we kind of jumped in head first buying property. We will be living there about 8 mos out of the year and in Texas for the winter. The property has city water and electric boxes out by the street.
I read on these forums that it takes 2-3 years to get a house built? We want a small house, about 900 sq ft. We’d like to have it built and sheet rocked and then we will do the rest ourselves. Is this possible? Will builders do this ?
We’re really excited to live there and do volunteer work along with enjoying hiking and kayaking. Hoping that getting a house built won’t be too difficult though we do have an Rv we can live in for awhile.
Last edited by aamechs2; 08-11-2022 at 08:38 PM..
Reason: Cut off post
I read on these forums that it takes 2-3 years to get a house built? We want a small house, about 900 sq ft. We’d like to have it built and sheet rocked and then we will do the rest ourselves. Is this possible? Will builders do this ?
You can contract with a General Contractor (GC) builder to build out to any level of completion that you and they agree to.
But if you’ve not been through this process of a raw parcel site development through to a Certificate of Occupancy sign-off, you will be best served by contracting with your GC to have the house completed through all the building inspections and COO sign-off. The inspections are required multiple times through the construction process to verify compliance with the building codes for such work as site/foundation work, then the various trades such as plumbing, electrical, roofing, etc. which will be hidden as the construction proceeds.
It’s probably best for you to have all this work performed by licensed sub-contractors under the direction of your GC as they know the codes and are familiar with the materials/suppliers and local labor pool.
I don’t know the specifics of the Z&P requirements of Dubois, but you may have time limits as to how long you may have from a construction permit to completion of inspections to a COO issuance under your fee paid permit. As well, there may be time and occupancy restrictions for the use of an RV on the property which may prohibit residency on-site for the time of site development & construction. Your local GC will also know these requirements and can advise you, or the town Z&P department can assist you.
With a site-built home, you’ll need an architect to provide plans for approval before any work starts. You can retain your own professional, or perhaps you may find a “design-build” GC firm to work with that can take you through the process from concept to a COO completed house. Best to interview a few of these professionals and find one that is satisfying your vision of your residence at an estimated cost and completion schedule that you are comfortable with. Alternatively, you may want to explore the services of a “manufactured” home builder who can design and build modular assemblies off-site that are then transported and assembled on a prepared foundation/basement site, designed and built to meet the zoning and building codes of the location.
There are many variables in the process that must be met for the COO sign-off, such as the local roof snow and wind loads zoning requirements. Be aware that these are minimums to assure safe and proper construction, not necessarily the optimums for your site. Again, retaining the services of a local GC may prove to be invaluable to a successful project for your requirements.
Good luck with your project. Do be sure to have the construction loan/financing or financial resources on hand before you start the project. There’s so many variables and inevitable unexpected costs … such as materials … that it’s easy to get blindsided in the process and be stalled if you haven’t got your resources lined up in advance. I’ve seen more than a few projects in the area abandoned due to this issue and the properties were ultimately sold at distress prices for the owner to be able to walk away from the unfinished structure. I’ve also seen a number of houses built that met the local building codes but were woefully under-built for the local conditions, spec’ed by designers not familiar with those local conditions. The owners quickly discovered less than satisfactory windows, insulation, home heating plants, siting on the parcel, or other aspects of their project that rendered their residence less than accessible or efficient to live in. IMO, if you’re not familiar with house designs and/or siting in higher elevation climate zones, you may be well served to do a lot of research as to local houses and their features that work well for their owners. For example, I’ve seen houses built there that were gorgeous multi-story A Frame structures … beautifully executed with remarkable views, but with a western facing glass wall that was impossible to heat the areas comfortably due to the wintertime heat losses … and a solar sauna in the summer warm months that made the adjacent spaces impossible to enjoy due to the blazing sun bearing down into the house. Even with heavy insulating curtains (which defeat the view), the living spaces adjacent were essentially unlivable for many months of the year. I recall one such house with a dine-in kitchen counter seating area, which limited you to a fixed position in the kitchen/dining/living room area … it was fine for a summertime breakfast, but by Noon was a sauna and by evening meal time was unbearably roasting in the sun, even on cloudy days. It was so bad that the kitchen was unusable due to the heat. They had to build an additional porch area outside the kitchen on the east side of the house with a “summer” kitchen … bar-b-que, range top, and bar sink so they could enjoy their cooking for those months.
Welcome to the club OP! I am in my 2nd year of building near Dubois. We roughed in a 28x40 garage last fall, and just completed the house foundation pour this week.
The few local builders are in varying degrees of long term booking. If you ask them off-the-cuff, all 3 will give you the 2-3 year build timeframe. If you send plans and are willing to sign a contract, then you may well cut that time. And I know of one of the 3 builders who just lost one customer when the customer pulled back on their plans. So it is a fluid situation. With a small 900 sq ft build, then you may get an earlier slot or may not. You just have to approach the builders with real plans to see what they can/will do. They are small firms, with crews of just 3 or 4 guys total, so things work on a small scale.
There is another builder coming to or already in town, Panacea. But their interest in small home building is not known by me. They have made some big claims but it remains to be seen what they can and will do.
As far as approvals, if you are outside the Dubois city limits in Fremont County, there are no general approvals and no zoning requirements and no code enforcement and inspections. The only approval and inspection is for septic, and that is generally handled through the excavator. Any well has to be permitted through the WY State Engineer's Office. And even inside the City limits, the approvals are minimal. So that is not any real issue for you.
You don't need an architect, or and engineered foundation or structure, in the Dubois area, but you can certainly elect that route. I am designing and building to IBC (International Building Code), but much of what I design to is for the local conditions, which is for very high winds in our exposed location.
I am building myself as I have done it before, but it is a tough row to how in Dubois.
- There are a couple of good excavators in the area, but there can be time delays; sometimes they can get free for your next phase of work and sometimes not.
- Concrete contractors are the biggest problem here. I have ended up doing both my garage and house foundation pours myslef with ICF's to get the job done.
- Transportation costs are high due to the remoteness.
- Getting good subs takes some time, and can be expensive. I goy a quote to wire up the garagea that was $25k....!!!! and that was with me digging the 300' trench. I did it all myslef.
So the whole process is slow here. I have watched a small house build ((maybe 1200 sq ft) by the Wind River east of town; this is being done by one of the local builders. Excavation for the crawl space was in April and right now in week 1 of August, they got the shell closed in and roof sheathing up, and windows in.
Thank you both for lots of good information! We are in Dubois Heights, so in the city limits, there is city water but no sewer. We were told that we can stay in our Rv if we’re building. Right now we will come up for a few months in the summer to get electricity and sewer in then proceed with the building process. We are both mechanics and pretty handy so we may end up doing more ourselves then we thought
OP, you may want to check out the townofdubois.org website and their Building Dept site planning requirements and permits, along with the Water Dept tap fees and required equipment for you to connect to the muni water system. Your site may also be subject to town sidewalk requirements.
Dubois appears to not have building code inspections or the issuance of a certificate of occupancy requirement. But bear in mind that if you need financing and homeowner's insurance, a lender or insurance underwriter may require proof of the quality of construction and IBC codes compliance for the structure to be able to do business. Such proof may require that the applicable work (plumbing, electrical, fire safety construction, site prep/foundation, roofer, etc) have been done by a licensed contractor in a workmanlike manner to the IBC specified codes. As well, your residence structure will likely need an architect's professional signed off building plan; ie, you can't simply "wing it" to build something that looks nice and you believe is suitable for occupancy and looks OK to you in the absence of your own qualifications to design and build a structure that meets codes.
The town building department construction permit does require that you have a realistic build budget based upon your plat and planned structure to be able to issue a Residential A building permit; ie, the permit fee is based upon the anticipated cost of construction. I wouldn't be surprised to see them figure on a cost per square foot of not less than $150 to base your building permit on. Water tap fees will be in excess of $3,000 in your location and the costs of the required connection gear and water meter will likely be a lot more than that. Bear in mind that there will be a minimum monthly service fee for the muni water tap even in the months when you're not in residence, as will also be for your other utilities.
A septic system installation will likely require a Wyoming State Engineer permit for a properly designed system for the site. Again, there are hidden costs to get the permit (such as an engineer's survey and report) and then the cost of doing the excavation and installation of the equipment to be anticipated. It's unlikely that this type of work will be within the scope of your skills and equipment ... again, this is one of the major points of the development process best left in the hands of an experienced contractor. You really want this done right so that the system doesn't contaminate your home site and works properly for your household generated waste disposal. Local soils and underground flows can create problems that you don't want to have to address after the fact. I've seen more than a few improperly done systems back up into basements or crawl spaces, which is more than a minor inconvenience for your residency.
There's so many trades and work involved to a completed habitable structure from a raw site that it will appear to be a never-ending project for quite some time. Be prepared for the unexpected and the finances needed to reach your project completion or you will be setting yourselves up for a lot of disappointments. It is nowhere as simple as it all seems when it's still just a concept or partially completed. You've mentioned that muni water and electricity are to the site edge ... I'd be focused on the rest of the building process and the septic install before working on getting the water and electric hooked up from road to structure. Even grading and finishing out a driveway to the house site from the road may be a more important issue than the utilities for your first steps in the construction process. If you're wanting to have electricity available for tools/equipment, or to power your RV, a temporary "construction" service box at the site should be sufficient for your needs for quite some time. Your water hook-up, if intended to supply an RV on-site, may be a bit more problematic with the required water meter and fees and a hydrant available to deliver water to your RV. It will not be as simple to do this as you may envision ... best to check with the local contractors and the town about doing this on an uncompleted residence site.
There's so many trades and work involved to a completed habitable structure from a raw site that it will appear to be a never-ending project for quite some time. Be prepared for the unexpected and the finances needed to reach your project completion or you will be setting yourselves up for a lot of disappointments. It is nowhere as simple as it all seems when it's still just a concept or partially completed.
Just ask these guys --- they've been trying to finish a home in Dubois since 2017 and have finally given up.
Their unfinished house has been on the market for almost a year:
This is on the order of me, as a 40-yr shop owner/tech specializing in high end German, Italian, and British cars, suggesting to a car owner that he is fully capable of doing a complete and correct engine overhaul and full restoration of his car to save on the costs of my expertise and experience (not to mention having tooling and shop equipment) and industry suppliers contacts and sub-contractors connections & supervision, and my ability to diagnose and efficiently correct any problems that might arise in the course of the project.
The OP mentioned that they are mechanics. While there are a lot of household finishing projects that will well fall within the talents of motivated craftsmen to create a workmanlike finished product ... they are not of the order of building a house correctly from a raw site development.
As Villa points out, there will be moments of frustration in being your own GC. Given the expense of dabbling in this arena, I'll humbly suggest that playing at being a GC on a one-off project could lead to some very expensive mistakes and only yourself to point the finger of blame at.
As well, a project of this order is highly dependent upon the sub-contractors in the area being available to perform the work. At this time, there appears to be a shortage of qualified subs in the area. Who ya' gonna call to do the work if nobody is available?
Septic in Dubois is handled through the City or County, not the state engineer's office. BTW, septic systems around here are mostly designed to standard forms by your installing excavator. If the percolation test results are out of certain bounds (high or low), or in certain areas like a flood plain, then it has to to be an engineered septic system. That is an engineer who specializes in septics, not any state office. And some of what goes on with septics here is outside of their control; it gets so cold that though the tank contents don't freeze, there are some cases where the 'bugs' in the tank don't survive the just-above freezing temps in the tank in some winters. (This is more of the case outside of Dubois, not in-town.) So the process stops and you may have to pump a few times and re-start the system in spring. (I never heard of that before coming here either!)
It sounds like you have spoken to the City already OP so you are on the right track. If you don't have it yet, here is their site page for a good place to start. https://townofdubois.org/2175/Building-Department
I'll disagree with a few things mentioned so far. I would not worry over insurance. There is no formal code like IRC in Dubois or most of Fremont County and new homes get insured all the time. If there is no code enforcement, then there is NO ONE to perform and sign off on and prove any compliance to IRC or any other code. (BTW I said IBC earlier, but it is IRC for residences.) So there is no way for any insurer to impose the idea that the home has to be code compliant. The insurer could inspect if they like; I am not aware of such a thing. Besides, state regulations and state and Federal FAIR plan acts assure you that you can get insurance somewhere.
And financing may not be standard for a self build, but people out here build and improve structures and homes all the time, a LOT more than in the average are in the US. I have built for myself before, and had no problems getting a construction loan, with a guarantee of a mortgage later, by laying out a decent set of plans drawn myself and showing knowledge of the process.
Folks are going to laugh around here at the notion that you HAVE to get an architect or engineer to sign off on your drawings. Now if you don't know what you are doing, then it IS a good idea to have someone else figure it out. BUT, the weather conditions, ground freezing depths (5-6' deep is common here), and snow loads in Dubois are somewhat unique and vary widely within a matter of fraction of a mile. Freeze depths and the freeze effects due to moisture or dry soil will change how you put in a foundation around here, and honestly, the local builders and excavators here will know more about the real conditions and what works (and fails))here than many or all architects and engineers outside of the area.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
