Hello,

My girlfriend and I are planning to buy some land and build a house
ourselves. I really don't have the skills of a handyman but am willing
to learn. If I went that route, will I be saving money as opposed to
buying a built house? How big are the savings (apporximate % number)?

If someone here built a house all by themselves, how long did that take?
Are there any FAQs for people like me to learn and build a house?

Any information, help and advice is appreciated.

Thank you in advance.
--
SR

Please remove SPAMBUSTER to reply via email.

wrote in message
...
In misc.consumers.house Subba Rao
wrote:
Hello,

My girlfriend and I are planning to buy some land and build a house
ourselves. I really don't have the skills of a handyman but am willing
to learn. If I went that route, will I be saving money as opposed to
buying a built house? How big are the savings (apporximate % number)?

If someone here built a house all by themselves, how long did that take?
Are there any FAQs for people like me to learn and build a house?

Any information, help and advice is appreciated.

Thank you in advance.
--
SR

Please remove SPAMBUSTER to reply via email.

As a somewhat self-taught veteran of the remodeling wars, I would
suggest gently that your posting here quite underestimates the skills
required, those skills being primarily cognitive rather than physical.
Even with a fair background of experience in construction from my
youth, I find that house construction is quite challenging. Trying
to "booklearn" these skills, something I heartily applaud, is
not going to be easy or quick or especially effective without
some applied experience. And, starting on a whole house project
is setting the bar awfully high. Finally, let me gently chastise
you: You are naively presumptious to think that reading a few
FAQs would make any significant dent in ignorance about house
construction. True, it's not rocket science, but believe me,
carpenters, plumbers, etc. really do "know stuff."

Some suggestions: 1) There are some "build your own house" classes
I have heard of. My recollection is that these were something like
one or two week full-time classes. 2) Hire someone to work with you
on the project, such as an experienced carpenter/builder/etc., who
will be the brains of the outfit. Unless you have a pre-existing
friendship with such a person, though, it may be hard to find
someone willing to take on supervision of someone completely
new.

How much would you save? Well, one place to start would be to imagine
that your inexperienced labor would be worth $25/hr., which I think
is generous. Suppose that you could afford to put in 4 months at
40 hour/wk. over the course of the year. This would be $16,000.

Rather than think in terms of doing a whole house, I would suggest
you might be better off thinking in terms of particular aspects
of the whole project you might do. For example, I have known
people who did their own electrical work on a new house, which
is quite legal in many places. (The advantage to this is that
residential electric is more amenable to booklearning, in my
experience, than some other skills, and it is a high-value
($50/hr. in my locale) contribution to the project.)
On the other hand, things that require considerable hand
skill, such as drywall finishing, are things that a neophyte
can do, but the efficiency is likely to be so low that you
will end up making $5/hr. Choosing what to do and what not
to do is a skill I am still learning.
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=
Mike Lacy, Ft Collins CO 80523
Clean out the 'junk' to email me.

i'll second this. i had a house built. i hired a contractor to do all the
bids/contract/chasing subcontractors as i didn't have 2 years of my life to
put on hold to get this done. however, my wife and i did the painting and
tile/stone work, saving thousands of dollars.

do what you can do. hire out what you can't.

In misc.consumers.house Subba Rao wrote:
Hello,

My girlfriend and I are planning to buy some land and build a house
ourselves. I really don't have the skills of a handyman but am willing
to learn. If I went that route, will I be saving money as opposed to
buying a built house? How big are the savings (apporximate % number)?

If someone here built a house all by themselves, how long did that take?
Are there any FAQs for people like me to learn and build a house?

Any information, help and advice is appreciated.

Thank you in advance.
--
SR

Please remove SPAMBUSTER to reply via email.

As a somewhat self-taught veteran of the remodeling wars, I would
suggest gently that your posting here quite underestimates the skills
required, those skills being primarily cognitive rather than physical.
Even with a fair background of experience in construction from my
youth, I find that house construction is quite challenging. Trying
to "booklearn" these skills, something I heartily applaud, is
not going to be easy or quick or especially effective without
some applied experience. And, starting on a whole house project
is setting the bar awfully high. Finally, let me gently chastise
you: You are naively presumptious to think that reading a few
FAQs would make any significant dent in ignorance about house
construction. True, it's not rocket science, but believe me,
carpenters, plumbers, etc. really do "know stuff."

Some suggestions: 1) There are some "build your own house" classes
I have heard of. My recollection is that these were something like
one or two week full-time classes. 2) Hire someone to work with you
on the project, such as an experienced carpenter/builder/etc., who
will be the brains of the outfit. Unless you have a pre-existing
friendship with such a person, though, it may be hard to find
someone willing to take on supervision of someone completely
new.

How much would you save? Well, one place to start would be to imagine
that your inexperienced labor would be worth $25/hr., which I think
is generous. Suppose that you could afford to put in 4 months at
40 hour/wk. over the course of the year. This would be $16,000.

Rather than think in terms of doing a whole house, I would suggest
you might be better off thinking in terms of particular aspects
of the whole project you might do. For example, I have known
people who did their own electrical work on a new house, which
is quite legal in many places. (The advantage to this is that
residential electric is more amenable to booklearning, in my
experience, than some other skills, and it is a high-value
($50/hr. in my locale) contribution to the project.)
On the other hand, things that require considerable hand
skill, such as drywall finishing, are things that a neophyte
can do, but the efficiency is likely to be so low that you
will end up making $5/hr. Choosing what to do and what not
to do is a skill I am still learning.
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=
Mike Lacy, Ft Collins CO 80523
Clean out the 'junk' to email me.

"Charles Spitzer" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
...
In misc.consumers.house Subba Rao
wrote:
Hello,

My girlfriend and I are planning to buy some land and build a house
ourselves. I really don't have the skills of a handyman but am willing
to learn. If I went that route, will I be saving money as opposed to
buying a built house? How big are the savings (apporximate % number)?

If someone here built a house all by themselves, how long did that
take?
Are there any FAQs for people like me to learn and build a house?

Any information, help and advice is appreciated.

Thank you in advance.
--
SR

Please remove SPAMBUSTER to reply via email.


SNIP

do what you can do. hire out what you can't.

The above is very good advice.

What gets wearing when you try to do too much yourself is the constant
calling, scheduling, planning for subs who don't show, materials that don't
arrive, lost bits and pieces which have to be replaced and thousands of
details which have to be handled on a "right now" basis. Building anything
takes much, much longer than you would expect even when you know what you're
doing or have a builder involved.

When I started a new house in 2002, one of the books that I found helpful
was, "Houses Are Designed by Geniuses and Built by Gorillas" by Bob Johnson.
It's light-hearted, but full of practical information.

There's one other thing. Unless you have the money in hand, you'll be
stopped short by your lender who will want to know who is doing the work,
how long it will take and other little details. The lender will also show
up at the site to check the progress of the work and release money only if
the work is progressing according to plan.

But, should you decide to go ahead anyway, take a look at pre-cut home
packages. At least you'll get all the pieces, help and advice when needed
and a good chance of getting a completed home that you can live in and sell
when you want to.

TKM

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 22:26:07 -0500, someone wrote:

My girlfriend and I are planning to buy some land and build a house
ourselves....

Aren't you the same person who has been posting a whole lot of newbie
Q's about house buying? And now you get this new bright idea. Back
off, buy a house.


I really don't have the skills of a handyman but am willing
to learn.

A "handyman" is someone who performs small fixit jobs, not someone who
builds houses. Buy yourself a house and learn to be a handyman on
your own house, before you try to learn every construction trade PLUS
a GC's coordinating and management skills, on you very first "job".

How many years do you have to do this? Will this take time away from
some other money earning activity of your? If you have other wealth,
don't work, have nothing to do, no place else you ant to go, well ok
its your $. But since you are talking about how much you will save
and (if I recall correctly) whether certain things in other posts were
good deals, I don't think that is your situation.

-v.