There's definitely an appeal to engineers in building your own house from scratch. As an example, I built an 8x12' shed (details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/2kof5x/i_built_an_8x12... ) several years back. All it took was a few months' worth of weekends and a few trips with a borrowed full-size pickup and I had it together. Obviously you'd put more effort than that into making a house (you need insulation, utilities, and more interior construction and layout), but the point is, it's all within your grasp. And it was nice working with my hands for a change given that during the work week all I'm engineering is software.
And at 96 sqft, that's well within the range of the homes being discussed in the article. If I were doing it to live in rather than as a shed, I'd build a 12x16 or a 16x16, for 192 or 256 sqft. 16' is the maximum length of dimensional lumber you can typically find at a hardware store, so the advantage there is that the house has structural members extending the entire length of the house, which means it's super sturdy. 8' and 12' are also common lengths of dimensional lumber, hence the size of my shed. Also no surprise that the height is simply 8' (uncut lumber) minus the height of the floor.
You probably know that you can find longer dimensional lumber at a lumber yard instead of a big box store. I am building my own 2-story 2-car garage, and was surprised at how many independent lumber yards there are tucked away around town. I needed long 2x8s for my rafters, no problem finding them up to 20'. And engineered lumber comes even longer.
I'm making the upstairs into a finished living space with kitchen and bath. Everyone who sees it asks how I learned to do it, and it's the same as anything else. It's all out there on the internet if you want to take the time to read and watch. I've done everything except pour the concrete for the slab, and install the roofing. I'm currently finishing out the bathroom, then I'll lay the hardwood flooring and it'll be done. It's been very satisfying.
True. The nice thing about 16' lumber is that you can still just barely haul it in a full-size pickup by weighing it down, strapping it in, and putting a flag on the ends sticking out. Once you're talking about 20' plus you probably need to pay them to deliver it -- which realistically is the better option anyway if you're talking about doing a whole garage, as that would be a lot of trips in a pickup truck. A shed is small enough it's easily manageable with just a pickup truck.
The one thing the big box store had, that I wish I had gone to a lumber yard for, is PT 4x8' 3/4" plywood for the floor. I ended up using non-PT and painting it to seal it, but it still probably won't last as long. At least it's a couple feet off a bed of gravel, which should help.
You can also get yourself a ladder rack for your truck -- once you're putting the the lumber over the front of your truck, you can balance it better, and of course then you don't have lumber sticking waggling out 10 feet behind your bumper.
Generally not - contractors (their main business) order enough for a house but then on the last day call in 2 sheets of plywood because they didn't estimate something right.
I'm guessing the first order (a whole house!) was more than large enough to cover the cost of an extra free delivery though. This is about relationship management at that point, which won't be the same for a hobbyist only doing one smaller project.
The point is hobbyiests don't visit often enough to be worth figuring out how to charge for shipping.
Note, at a real lumber yard you need an account. They can accept cash sales but they would rather not. They won't talk to you if someone else with an account is there. Once you have an account (which is free) you have passed the initiation and they love to help.
Speaking for myself, it helped a lot to have another pair of hands for much of it. I enlisted my dad a lot and my friends a little bit. Anything involving moving a whole sheet of plywood is tough, especially when going from ground level to attaching to the structure.
I did all the smaller stuff myself, including framing, putting together the roof trusses, and roofing (minus the sheathing itself). You can easily manhandle around dimensional lumber by yourself; it's long but skinny easily to easily handle, unlike sheets.
There are parts of framing that are safer and easier with 2 people, but there are a few places that I used a block and tackle to haul stuff around by myself. The only days that I really needed extra hands was setting up the posts & beams (most buildings now don't have these but I liked the idea), and setting the roof ridge beam, a 27' long pair of 2x8s that needed to be put 25' off the ground and 15' above the floor decking before any of the supporting structure was in place. Sheathing the roof would be smarter to do with 2 people but I didn't.
I modified them to add a full size staircase in the corner, change the window and door layout, and add dormer windows upstairs. I got a permit and had the plans approved by the city. Once the slab was poured I just started framing the walls and went from there. I'm working mostly on weekends, so during the week I'll research the next few things coming up. YouTube is the best resource for fiddly things like how to solder a pipe, how to lay tile, etc. Websites with diagrams and pictures are more helpful with technical things like how to lay out window framing, how to properly vent drain pipes. I know I'm working much slower than a pro, but I don't mind, and I get to have things that would normally cost a ton extra for just the cost of materials.
Also a note since full-sized truck has been mentioned a few times, I have a compact truck (2005 GMC Canyon) and it has carried all of my supplies after I had the main lumber order delivered. A compact truck with full length bed is perfectly capable if you are working alone or with 1 helper. The amount of drywall I can hang in a weekend is about what I can carry in the truck. I have a bed extender that was less than $100 so I can carry 16' materials no problem, 20' if it's a short drive.
Worth mentioning that when I was talking about full-size truck, I was specifically referring to the size of the bed. If it can carry a full sheet of plywood or drywall then you're good. Hell, even a shorter bed (like say 6') might be fine if the tailgate opens up flat and you can secure a load sticking out the back properly.
I have been remodeling a house for the past 7 months. It is a pain. However, I feel like I could start a construction company with my knowledge. I had to purchase several books describing different concepts and work is done up to code.
Now, when I visit newly renovated homes, I see so much corner cutting, work that does not meet codes and sometimes is unsafe.
Plus, the stuff does not change as quickly as software. If you learn framing, you should be able to construct a house for many years to come. Also, much of the building codes is just common sense and most of the time makes sense. Software is just so abstract compared to physically building a house.
Seriously. I bought several books too, checked out more from the library, and also watched a ton of YouTube tutorials. It's all pretty easy if you pay attention, and makes intuitive sense, e.g., king studs carry the weight of the top plate (and thus roof/second floor), jack studs carry the weight of the header above the opening, and cripple studs carry the weight of the header below the opening, i.e. carry the weight of the window itself. Incidentally, cripple studs need a better name ...
The building inspector was impressed with my shed when he examined it. He said it was really sturdy, and superior in construction quality to off-the-shelf purchased sheds (which also cost a lot more than I paid for materials!).
That is awesome, I also had a similar experience with a inspector.
My parents house kept getting water in the basement because of soil being sloped towards their house. Neighbor was too high and their house was too low. I ended up designing a solution, which was a retaining wall and french drain system. The last inspection, two inspectors came out and asked if I do that professionally because they have been impressed by the drawings submitted and the scope of the job seemed unreasonable to be tackled by a home owner. The older inspector said I should do it for a living and he thought there was no way we would complete the project.
I had a similar problem (land sloping towards the house) with a much simpler solution. I got a free dump truck load of fill dirt from Craigslist and then graded the foundation correctly. Took an incredible amount of work by hand as I didn't rent a bobcat.
Fortunately the land was overall flat, other than the problem with it sloping in towards the house, so that was sufficient to solve the problem. It sounds like you had worse issues with your terrain.
Yeah. There was no way to slope away from the house because the house was built too low. We actually ended up draining the system into the city sewers under the street. So, I had to work with their contractors to connect it.
We removed a few tons of dirt by hand lol.....I regret not renting a bobcat.
> I could start a construction company with my knowledge
> when I visit newly renovated homes, I see so much corner cutting
You could do construction with your knowledge. But starting a construction company means deeply understanding the economics of every little thing, which leads to corner cutting.
There are people who will pay you to build a good house, but most people just want it cheap and looks like the magazines.
Nice build! Not sure what all the Reddit people are gushing over—you used pretty standard construction techniques and materials. Mine’s identical (only 12x6) and only took a couple of weekends too. I had never built anything like that before trying it. Basic wood construction is not hard at all. You just need to measure well and cut straight and take your time. For tools all you really need is a quality circular saw and framing hammer.
There's a lot of really shitty construction projects posted to /r/diy. It's a popular past-time there to point out all the things that were done wrong based on the submitted photos. There's been entire posts (usually of decks and the like) where the consensus is "That thing is so unsafe it needs to be torn down and started over from scratch." We're talking such fundamental inadequacies as not building a foundation, or not consulting load charts to determine spacing or lumber size. To give you an idea of how bad it was, I used taller floor joists, on shorter spacing, and with less than half the span, of some of the worst deck construction projects posted on there. Here's one example; unfortunately the photos have rotted away: https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/1da2rg/i_finally_built...
If you simply do the research and follow it, which is will within the capabilities of almost everyone posting here, then you should be OK. The mistakes you'll make will be relatively minor.
I keep trying to find an excuse and space on my property to build a little shed. I think it is the engineer in me, indeed. In my case the biggest driver is, the main house will always be imperfect and too cost-prohibitive to fix. A small shed on the other hand, can realize my dreams for the main house.
And at 96 sqft, that's well within the range of the homes being discussed in the article. If I were doing it to live in rather than as a shed, I'd build a 12x16 or a 16x16, for 192 or 256 sqft. 16' is the maximum length of dimensional lumber you can typically find at a hardware store, so the advantage there is that the house has structural members extending the entire length of the house, which means it's super sturdy. 8' and 12' are also common lengths of dimensional lumber, hence the size of my shed. Also no surprise that the height is simply 8' (uncut lumber) minus the height of the floor.