Another Choice

mtn said:

frenchyd said:

alfadriver said:

Way back- 25 years ago now- I thought I could do some of the remodel of my home.   Spending every evening and every weekend at my home while we lived in my fiance's apartment lasted almost an entire year.  All we managed to do was one new wall separating two bedrooms (so that both had real closets), putting up new drywall on damaged ceilings and damaged walls, and scraping some crappy textured paint off walls.  Oh, and refinishing the upper floor's wood floors.

Thankfully, we paid to have someone remodel the bathrooms and kitchens.

I will never do that again.  Let alone build a house.  Far better for my sanity and checkbook to pay someone to do it a lot quicker than i can.  I got the "This Old House" dream out of my system really early on.

Restoring my Miata is a totally different equation, as there's no timeline nor alternate car that I'm spending money on while it's sitting still.  

The only way I'd consider building my own home is if it were some remote location, way, way, way off grid, and could only use local materials.  And even then, I'd question my sanity.

 

The same truth is why I started building my own.  It's cheaper.  Now 31,000 hours in someplace along there I started really enjoying the work and my results. 
 

 

Only cheaper if you value your time at about $0.05 an hour dude. Most of us value it at a lot more than that. If you enjoy it, great, you're effectively getting free entertainment. Most of us don't especially because we have to live in the damn project. 31,000 hours is 10 berkeleying years of work, assuming 8 hours a day 365 days a year. berkeley that. 

 

Glad it worked for you. I have better things to do with my time, including work that I'm actually good at.

 

EDIT: And that isn't to same I'm not a DIYer. I've installed a sink, I've installed trim, painted rooms, rebuilt decks, etc. I own the tools, there are projects I'll do on my own. But I don't enjoy it, and I sure as hell am not giving up all of my free time to do it. Too many fish to catch, naps to take, hockey games to play/ref. 

 I hate golf, both times I played someone in my 4 some died. I dislike bars, live on a lake with fantastic fishing but hate it.  Watching sports on TV?  Choke choke gasp. 
You know what I really like?  Landing on an aircraft carrier in a storm. 
Vintage racing was a substitute but very expensive until I figured out a way to get others to pay for it.  
 

SVreX said:

Picture this...

Imagine a doctor who is a really good typist. He can type 120 words per minute. 

Does it make any sense for him to hire a secretary who can only type 30 wpm?

Actually, it does. Because his earning potential is vastly greater when he is performing medical services than when he is typing. 

Similarly, many people on this board have skills which enable them to earn money. Sometimes, it makes sense to pay someone else. 

I am a great supporter of DIYer efforts.  I think it is awesome when people accomplish things with their own 2 hands. I just think it is important to know when to draw the line. 

31,000 hours is an enormous amount of time. If your earning potential is $10 per hour, that’s $310,000. 

The average salary on this board is about $30 per hour. That would be nearly $1,000,000.

Thats amazing. 

 

BTW, skilled timber framers make about $45,000 per year. 

I really hope parts of your life are about things other than math.  I only use the numbers to attract interest.  Yes I saved money doing it my way, but it darn sure wasn't about just the money because every dime I saved I put back into the house.  
It's not about doing it my way, any more than it's an art project but while there is truth to both it's not the real reason I did this. 

As usual I once again see no point to this. "I saved money" then pointed out that no you didn't. "OK not really but I liked it". Pick one. stop moving goal posts. 

bobzilla said:

We built our house the way we wanted it. Our house as a cookie cutter would have been cheaper than paying a good custom home builder to do it for us. You can have your house your way and not spend 24 years doing it. 

Maybe, just maybe it's what I wanted to do?   Do you bill yourself on a per hour basis to play golf? Go to a bar? Watch TV? Work on your cars? Whatever you want to do?  
When you do all those things, Golf, Bar, TV whatever, etc  what will you leave when you are gone?  
It's not about a memorial or anything like that but that's a nice little perk. 
It's not really about saving money because I put the savings right back in.  
Maybe it's about achieving something you've wanted to do since you were a young boy laying on your back looking up in the barn?  
That's not all but it's part of it. 

bobzilla said:

As usual I once again see no point to this. "I saved money" then pointed out that no you didn't. "OK not really but I liked it". Pick one. stop moving goal posts. 

 

Why?  Is it possible like most people I'm complex?  With multiple reasons and goals?   Oh, we haven't talked yet about having something nice that I liked.  
The same reason most people want a home rather than renting. 

frenchyd said:

bobzilla said:

We built our house the way we wanted it. Our house as a cookie cutter would have been cheaper than paying a good custom home builder to do it for us. You can have your house your way and not spend 24 years doing it. 

Maybe, just maybe it's what I wanted to do?   Do you bill yourself on a per hour basis to play golf? Go to a bar? Watch TV? Work on your cars? Whatever you want to do?  
When you do all those things, Golf, Bar, TV whatever, etc  what will you leave when you are gone?  
It's not about a memorial or anything like that but that's a nice little perk. 
It's not really about saving money because I put the savings right back in.  
Maybe it's about achieving something you've wanted to do since you were a young boy laying on your back looking up in the barn?  
That's not all but it's part of it. 

then you start with that and not "it saves money" because, as I have already pointed out, it does not for everyone. You want to show off your house and brag about it do that. Don't try and sell us that is was because you saved money. 

bobzilla said:

frenchyd said:

bobzilla said:

We built our house the way we wanted it. Our house as a cookie cutter would have been cheaper than paying a good custom home builder to do it for us. You can have your house your way and not spend 24 years doing it. 

Maybe, just maybe it's what I wanted to do?   Do you bill yourself on a per hour basis to play golf? Go to a bar? Watch TV? Work on your cars? Whatever you want to do?  
When you do all those things, Golf, Bar, TV whatever, etc  what will you leave when you are gone?  
It's not about a memorial or anything like that but that's a nice little perk. 
It's not really about saving money because I put the savings right back in.  
Maybe it's about achieving something you've wanted to do since you were a young boy laying on your back looking up in the barn?  
That's not all but it's part of it. 

then you start with that and not "it saves money" because, as I have already pointed out, it does not for everyone. You want to show off your house and brag about it do that. Don't try and sell us that is was because you 

If you don't have to pay someone to do something you can do what do you call it?  A lot of people can do a whole lot more than they think.  
I never messed around with wood because a teacher flunked me in wood shop. Then someone told me I could build a grandfather clock.  

You know what? He was right!

In reply to bobzilla :

Most homes in my neighborhood cost many times what I've spent so far. My new neighbor for example has spent $2,650,000 plus overruns  for his place.  It's nice that he gave a nod  to timberframing at least on his entrance.  

In reply to frenchyd :

Different people value different things. And it's perfectly OK for people to value different things.

Like you said, you don't like bars and watching sports. My better half and I love to go out to new, and existing favorite places, hang with friends, meet new people. I'm huge racing and NBA nerd. Even though we have an NBA team in town, I can't afford to buy tickets to all 41 home games, and then I still miss the 41 away games. I definitely don't have the time and money to go see every F1 race live.

Somehow you don't seem to realize that living in a construction site for 30 years isn't everyone's dream. And it has nothing to do with willingness to work hard, ability to push themselves to achieve new things, nothing like that. It has to do with wanting a home to live in that isn't a constant project.

You spend a lot of time touting advantages to building a house then belittle the people that choose not to. But your own words to a bad job of convincing people it's a dream come true. Especially the long hours and lack of saving money in the end. By your own admission your house about sunk you, financially. You spent every penny you had to hang on to it. In addition to spending all your time on it.

There's an opportunity cost to everything. You working 100 hours a week kept you from spending time with your children as they grew up. I spend dozens of hours a week with my kids and would trade that for nothing in this world. You chose to spend it looking at a saw and that was your choice, but do you really say it was the right one? I have revenue producing hobbies that make me about $50/hour, gross. If I spend 31,000 of my hobby hours building a house that's $1,550,000 in labor I've spent, PLUS I've lived in a construction site for 30 years, PLUS I've had to pay to live somewhere else for at least some of that time. Not really a great deal.

I bet your neighbor whose house cost you somehow know to three significant digits feels like he got a good deal compared to spending 30 years building it.

And all this comes from someone that DIYs about everything I can. I'm living in a beautiful 6,000sf house that I bought as a falling apart foreclosure and fixed up. But I know better than to try to build something like this from scratch. And I definitely know better than to claim I made the only good decision in doing what I did. Some of my friends have 800sf houses that they bought already fully renovated, and I think - man that's a good way to live. I don't spend any time harping on them how they should have done it differently. I Think, they know what they want and went for it. Great for them.

dculberson said:

Somehow you don't seem to realize that living in a construction site for 30 years isn't everyone's dream. And it has nothing to do with willingness to work hard, ability to push themselves to achieve new things, nothing like that. It has to do with wanting a home to live in that isn't a constant project.

You spend a lot of time touting advantages to building a house then belittle the people that choose not to. But your own words to a bad job of convincing people it's a dream come true. Especially the long hours and lack of saving money in the end. By your own admission your house about sunk you, financially. You spent every penny you had to hang on to it. In addition to spending all your time on it.

There's an opportunity cost to everything. You working 100 hours a week kept you from spending time with your children as they grew up. I spend dozens of hours a week with my kids and would trade that for nothing in this world. You chose to spend it looking at a saw and that was your choice, but do you really say it was the right one? I have revenue producing hobbies that make me about $50/hour, gross. If I spend 31,000 of my hobby hours building a house that's $1,550,000 in labor I've spent, PLUS I've lived in a construction site for 30 years, PLUS I've had to pay to live somewhere else for at least some of that time. Not really a great deal.

I bet your neighbor whose house cost you somehow know to three significant digits feels like he got a good deal compared to spending 30 years building it.

And all this comes from someone that DIYs about everything I can. I'm living in a beautiful 6,000sf house that I bought as a falling apart foreclosure and fixed up. But I know better than to try to build something like this from scratch. And I definitely know better than to claim I made the only good decision in doing what I did. Some of my friends have 800sf houses that they bought already fully renovated, and I think - man that's a good way to live. I don't spend any time harping on them how they should have done it differently. I Think, they know what they want and went for it. Great for them.

It's almost like the proselytizing is endless because he's trying to convince himself.

bobzilla said:

As usual I once again see no point to this. "I saved money" then pointed out that no you didn't. "OK not really but I liked it". Pick one. stop moving goal posts. 

 

We have had this thread before.  Not sure why I even bother clicking on it- it's kind of like click bait.

Next think you know, a new investment thread will start.

I think your home is really impressive, and I have a lot of respect and admiration for you making it with your own hands. There's an unbelievable amount of time and labor there. It's clearly a labor of love.

A big reason that it's impressive is that most people can't or won't dedicate so many resources to a single endeavor the way that you have. The notion that it makes sense for anybody else to do the same, for practical or financial reasons is silly. Whether it's a home, vehicle, work of art, etc someone who creates something as a labor of love doesn't need to justify it as anything else. You dedicated so much to this endeavor because you were able to, and because you wanted to, not because it made sense.

Story time:

They sold 3 empty lots down the road from me over the last 2.5 years. Two of the lots have homes that were built by custom builders and the third has a home being built by its owners. The homes built by the builders were both occupied within 6 or 7 months of breaking ground. The home being built by its owners is still unoccupied and is now entering it's second winter with nothing but a roof and foam insulation on the outside walls. The people that paid to have their homes built are now enjoying them while the third house won't be lived in for many more months at the earliest. Just like project cars, some people build because they enjoy the journey and others just want to be able to enjoy the the end result. I hope the people building their own place get more satisfaction out of doing it themselves than they would've gotten living in their house for the last 2 years.

In reply to STM317 :

I happen to agree that not everyone should attempt to build their home. 
To be fair not everyone should attempt to fix their car. 
but some should. 
Some have.  

Maybe  a home is too big an endeavor.  But a garage?  Especially a stick built garage.  
 

But there are other ways, some are easier ways.  Which is what this whole posting was to be about until I got distracted by the Neh sayers. 
 

ICF's, SIP's, Sod, Hay bails, Adobe, Stone, Timber, Log,   Rubble, Etc.  Some I've done, some I've researched, a few I know nothing about but hope to learn. 

PS; regarding professional builders.  
Not all are fast.  The new house in the neighborhood was sold and the final hurdle cleared  2 years ago February.  Construction started that spring and they still are working on it.  
It's about typical size for the neighborhood  and the most recent was started in July of this year and is closer to closing  than the nearby one.  Which has over a year's head start. 

alfadriver said:

bobzilla said:

As usual I once again see no point to this. "I saved money" then pointed out that no you didn't. "OK not really but I liked it". Pick one. stop moving goal posts. 

 

We have had this thread before.  Not sure why I even bother clicking on it- it's kind of like click bait.

Next think you know, a new investment thread will start.

The original goal was to talk about alternate construction. Something other than Stick building. SIP's ICF's log, Timber, hay bale, stone, slip form, rubble, Adobe,  etc.  

but I got distracted by the Neh Sayers.  
Although there were some nice stories at first about how people saved money on projects.  

z31maniac said:

In reply to frenchyd :

Different people value different things. And it's perfectly OK for people to value different things.

Like you said, you don't like bars and watching sports. My better half and I love to go out to new, and existing favorite places, hang with friends, meet new people. I'm huge racing and NBA nerd. Even though we have an NBA team in town, I can't afford to buy tickets to all 41 home games, and then I still miss the 41 away games. I definitely don't have the time and money to go see every F1 race live.

 

 

 

Vacations visiting new and exciting places is the thing the wife and I do. We've been to Hong Kong before China levels it. I've seen the parthenon with my own eyes, touched the stingrays in Grand Cayman, been to every state in the US, participated in 4 Solo nationals and got hooked on One Lap because Tim is a bad influence. I wouldn't give up a single one of those to live in an apartment while I spent 6 years of all that free time building a house. IF this is what you wanted, great. Good for you. It's not for the rest of us. 

Life's too short as it is to tell someone else how to live it. 

In reply to frenchyd :

I've already done plumbing, wiring, drywalling, cabinets framing, laying concrete blocks roofing, painting, insulating, windows, doors, etc etc etc. I have the skills to do most things well enough. I do a lot of the stuff around the house. Cuttng up trees that fall down, maintaining the yard etc. 

I've done it. I know how to do it. I choose to spend my time on something more entertaining to the wife and I. 

dculberson said:

Somehow you don't seem to realize that living in a construction site for 30 years isn't everyone's dream. And it has nothing to do with willingness to work hard, ability to push themselves to achieve new things, nothing like that. It has to do with wanting a home to live in that isn't a constant project.

You spend a lot of time touting advantages to building a house then belittle the people that choose not to. But your own words to a bad job of convincing people it's a dream come true. Especially the long hours and lack of saving money in the end. By your own admission your house about sunk you, financially. You spent every penny you had to hang on to it. In addition to spending all your time on it.

There's an opportunity cost to everything. You working 100 hours a week kept you from spending time with your children as they grew up. I spend dozens of hours a week with my kids and would trade that for nothing in this world. You chose to spend it looking at a saw and that was your choice, but do you really say it was the right one? I have revenue producing hobbies that make me about $50/hour, gross. If I spend 31,000 of my hobby hours building a house that's $1,550,000 in labor I've spent, PLUS I've lived in a construction site for 30 years, PLUS I've had to pay to live somewhere else for at least some of that time. Not really a great deal.

I bet your neighbor whose house cost you somehow know to three significant digits feels like he got a good deal compared to spending 30 years building it.

And all this comes from someone that DIYs about everything I can. I'm living in a beautiful 6,000sf house that I bought as a falling apart foreclosure and fixed up. But I know better than to try to build something like this from scratch. And I definitely know better than to claim I made the only good decision in doing what I did. Some of my friends have 800sf houses that they bought already fully renovated, and I think - man that's a good way to live. I don't spend any time harping on them how they should have done it differently. I Think, they know what they want and went for it. Great for them.

Your statement is filled with your prejudices. With regard my personal life, you have no idea so again your prejudices are showing in your statements.  
This is not the place to discuss such things so I'll skip ahead.  
 Trying to encourage others to think outside the box is not the same as making disparaging comments about others.   
I started by talking about the work in a typical house. I also mentioned how The time involved in building a typical house.  No place in any of that did I say people should emulate me, Well except to point out my lack of prior experience. And what a complete newbie achieved 
 

Someone came on and mentioned professionals and asked if my house was up to the work of professionals. That's a good subject. Can any amateur  do professional quality work? 
IMHO many on this site meet and exceed professional quality. Granted a lot of it's working on cars  but more than a few have shown work on their homes etc that I believe meets and exceeds professional quality on their homes and garages 

bobzilla said:

In reply to frenchyd :

I've already done plumbing, wiring, drywalling, cabinets framing, laying concrete blocks roofing, painting, insulating, windows, doors, etc etc etc. I have the skills to do most things well enough. I do a lot of the stuff around the house. Cuttng up trees that fall down, maintaining the yard etc. 

I've done it. I know how to do it. I choose to spend my time on something more entertaining to the wife and I. 

I think your credentials are well established. How you and your wife choose to use your time is and should be up to you.  
I hope my dislikes weren't somehow trying to tell you what you shouldn't like.  
If you think so, then clearly I need to correct that. 
 

z31maniac said:

In reply to frenchyd :

Different people value different things. And it's perfectly OK for people to value different things.

Like you said, you don't like bars and watching sports. My better half and I love to go out to new, and existing favorite places, hang with friends, meet new people. I'm huge racing and NBA nerd. Even though we have an NBA team in town, I can't afford to buy tickets to all 41 home games, and then I still miss the 41 away games. I definitely don't have the time and money to go see every F1 race live.

 

 

 

If you took my dislikes and preferences as something I think everybody should dislike, then clearly I need to be more clear that those are my preferences.  Not what others should like or dislike.  

I spent 10 years of my life volunteering full time with Habitat for Humanity.  They build all over the the world. 

Part of what they need to do is assess the best and most cost effective techniques  in various parts of the world.  They have an entire department whose job it is to work with varying techniques called the Appropriate Technology Department. 

The job of the Appropriate Technology Department is to identify techniques that utilize locally available resources- labor, materials, etc. 

I worked in that department for a long time. That means I built with a lot of strange stuff. I’ve used ICF's, SIP's, Sod, Hay bails, Adobe, Stone, Timber, Log,   and Rubble. I’ve also used hand made blocks, compressed soil bricks, clay tiles, slate, waddle and daub, thatch, and several really weird ones like glass bottles, hand made cement tiles, tin cans, tires, soil roofs, and fly ash. 

In Papua New Guniea we carried a sawmill 30 miles into the jungle on foot and built houses on stilts from lumber we timbered directly on the site  

We also got donations from various manufacturers who wanted the exposure of highlighted their products. Residential metal studs, truss wall, and all kinds of variations of siding and finish products. Octagonal houses, Yurts, tree houses.

I’ve even done timber framing WITH Tedd Benson!

I really doubt there are very many people who have been exposed to more building methods than me. It’s been a thrill ride, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. 

But I wouldn’t recommend almost any of these techniques to the vast majority of people.  Simply not a good fit.

Unless you live in the jungle! 

BTW...

Money IS a resource. So is labor. And time  .  And skill.

The more you have of one resource, the less you need of another.

I don’t need to use labor saving devices in the Dominican Republic.  A locally available resource is unskilled labor.  And time.  

But the money to buy a machine, or the skill to maintain it is not a locally available resource.

Therefore, it makes sense to do things the hard way, including making their own blocks, and hand mixing the concrete for their roofs (for hurricane resistance).

On this board, money is a resource for many.  So is credit.  Time is limited.  So it makes sense to pay people to do labor intensive work.

You sure built a nice house and I don't blame you for wanting to show off the results of your efforts. This should be a safe place to do that but it seems not to be. I build my first house pretty much. But trying to juggle that with raising three kids and running a business was not ideal. I still remember my sister in law coming in and looking around and asking my wife how we could live live this.(in a construction zone). But that house was paid for when we sold it and I tripled my money. The next one we paid to have built in the interests of preserving my marriage and I will have a mortgage (death tax) forever. So now with the kids pretty much grown I am back to doing everything I possibly can myself. Immense personal satisfaction and savings, but I won't build another house.

In reply to bearmtnmartin :

Plus there is a matter of age. I started at 52 and it's gotten harder the past few  of years. Ever since my fall. 

SVreX said:

BTW...

Money IS a resource. So is labor. And time  .  And skill.

The more you have of one resource, the less you need of another.

I don’t need to use labor saving devices in the Dominican Republic.  A locally available resource is unskilled labor.  And time.  

But the money to buy a machine, or the skill to maintain it is not a locally available resource.

Therefore, it makes sense to do things the hard way, including making their own blocks, and hand mixing the concrete for their roofs (for hurricane resistance).

On this board, money is a resource for many.  So is credit.  Time is limited.  So it makes sense to pay people to do labor intensive work.

 

 

Fair enough,  even I used some help when putting timbers  in place etc. I was skilled in Telehandlers, cranes,  Forklifts, etc  but simply could not be in two places at once. 
      I used a couple of church buddies. One a theater lighting director. The other a math teacher. Neither with any construction experience. 
They were fabulous.  Enjoyed working on the timbers, called themselves Timber monkey's.  
 Later  the same church provided me with a Janitor to help me do some work on the roof.   I operated  the equipment, he did the work.  Again no prior experience.