Building Your Home w/o A Mortgage

Also from their site: "Note that doors and windows are provided by customer".

From the looks of it, they provide the frame and the siding. This is about the cheapest part of a house even though it appears to be a large part of a house. You can put up one wall with about $100 worth of material.

The big money comes in the form of the finishing touches. The windows, plumbing, electric, etc.

You also have to factor in the foundation and getting permits.

And when you go to sell the house, it is questionable whether you could list it as a modular, a prefabricated home or a construction built home. The price for the former on a resale is usually much lower.
 
Polished Concrete is virtually impervious to the weather. If you do polished concrete, you can expect your structure to outlast you by multiple generations. You've seen it at some athletic buildings in the locker rooms, probably. That glass-smooth shiny concrete that is slippery as hell when it gets wet. These days with modern concrete dyes, they can be made to look nice, too.
 
Kluge said:
That's pretty nifty--wish they had pictures of what the houses look like though.

This one: MacArthur » 1080 sq ft, at $18,790 is affordable enough to buy as an in-law suite and plunk down on your property.

macarthur-steel-home-kit-plan.jpg
Click to expand...

I know, right? I was just amazed at how little you could pick up a 3,000Sq/Ft house.
 
Icymudpuppy said:
Polished Concrete is virtually impervious to the weather. If you do polished concrete, you can expect your structure to outlast you by multiple generations. You've seen it at some athletic buildings in the locker rooms, probably. That glass-smooth shiny concrete that is slippery as hell when it gets wet. These days with modern concrete dyes, they can be made to look nice, too.
Click to expand...

This is what I plan on doing (with the floor at least). I would really like to use concrete for the walls. I'm just wondering what the options and cost are for making it look decent as a living structure. Basically I don't want it to look like I live in a basement. I know there are molds that you put inside the forms to give it a styled look but I have to look into it a little more.
 
roho76 said:
http://www.budgethomekits.com/plans

Found this earlier while poking around the net. The largest unit they make is the Texan (of course, right?) 3,000sq/ft $39,000.
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But really, that's not all that "budget" when you can buy used mobile homes.

Buy 3 14X70s for $10,000 each and put them together. There's your 3,000 feet, for $30,000. And you don't have to do all the work and have all the trouble of essentially being your own general contractor putting together one of these kits. No construction know-how necessary.

And if you do have construction know-how, then instead just buy the trailers that need work for $5,000 or less.

This is not as romantic as the other ideas on this thread, I know, but it's far more practical.
 
This stuff is so interesting and definitely a pet project I'd like to pursue at some point.

A good buddy from NOLA with no construction experience bought, gutted, and rebuilt a shotgun by himself after Katrina. Really left an impression on me.

Are there any good forums dedicated to this kind of thing? I've done a bit of Googling but haven't found any that active.
 
roho76 said:
This is what I plan on doing (with the floor at least). I would really like to use concrete for the walls. I'm just wondering what the options and cost are for making it look decent as a living structure. Basically I don't want it to look like I live in a basement. I know there are molds that you put inside the forms to give it a styled look but I have to look into it a little more.
Click to expand...

My floor in my bedroom is polished concrete. The former owner was a contractor so he did it himself.

Basically the floor is just the poured concrete on the foundation. He then painted the floor a dark brown and then cut large grooves with some sort of saw to make it look like the floor was just a bunch of 3' tiles.

It looks pretty good but my wife complains constantly (for good reason) about keeping the floor clean. I have 3 dogs and she has to first use a vacuum to pick up the big stuff then go over it again to get the dog hair, then mop it. Then from there she still has not figured out how to get the shine to come back right other than buying lacquer and redoing the floors every once in a while. The best way that the shine could be done would be with one of those buffers you see at the grocery store. We do not have one of those. It literally takes her about 3 hours to do the 600 sqft floor.
 
Actually, in another part of our ground floor I plan on pulling up the vinyl fake wood and doing this:

 
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Bump.

I am going to start designing my new energy efficient home. The wife basically forced me to. I'm trying to do everything without a mortgage. Piece by piece.
 
Lacquer absolutely does not belong on concrete!..

To get a serviceable shine that's fairly easy to maintain use plain old paste wax for furniture/floors.

If you ever put lacquer or polyurethane on concrete you'll loath the day you need to strip it...

Elwar said:
My floor in my bedroom is polished concrete. The former owner was a contractor so he did it himself.

Basically the floor is just the poured concrete on the foundation. He then painted the floor a dark brown and then cut large grooves with some sort of saw to make it look like the floor was just a bunch of 3' tiles.

It looks pretty good but my wife complains constantly (for good reason) about keeping the floor clean. I have 3 dogs and she has to first use a vacuum to pick up the big stuff then go over it again to get the dog hair, then mop it. Then from there she still has not figured out how to get the shine to come back right other than buying lacquer and redoing the floors every once in a while. The best way that the shine could be done would be with one of those buffers you see at the grocery store. We do not have one of those. It literally takes her about 3 hours to do the 600 sqft floor.
Click to expand...
 
Something to consider... there is often little or no property tax implication for "temporary structures" with wood foundations like pole barns.
 
roho76 said:
Bump.

I am going to start designing my new energy efficient home. The wife basically forced me to. I'm trying to do everything without a mortgage. Piece by piece.
Click to expand...

how off grid / energy efficient are you trying to get?

may i suggest a passive solar, bermed earth home. i have seen a version of this built using rammed earth as the main walls. they had a solar hot water heater and ~2200 watts of solar panels, and were net zero. [wood stove for heat, propane for cooking/backup heating]

depends on your location and heating/cooling needs.
 
presence said:
Something to consider... there is often little or no property tax implication for "temporary structures" with wood foundations like pole barns.
Click to expand...

It has always been suggested to me to pull the permit for a pole barn with dirt floors so it doesn't add to the square footage and therefore being taxable then after having it inspected pour cement then pull the permit for the concrete right before you sell, if you ever do. I'm sure most places you could argue that you're never going to sell it so the city doesn't need to make future tenants safe through building codes. I'm sure after you die the people who purchase the property must tear it down before they can occupy (???) but who knows. You also probably find a few city inspectors who'll go the full distance and take you to court and blah blah blah wasting tax payer money, ect. But they have the guns, right?
 
This is Very common in Europe. Many families build their own homes. A cousin may know drywall. Another may know electrical. Another may do plumbing. They all help each other build each others home. 3 yrs usually. w/o relatives, 5 yrs seems reasonable
 
Heard negative reviews regard earth. Though earth covered concrete domes seemed so far so good.
 
Kelly. said:
how off grid / energy efficient are you trying to get?

may i suggest a passive solar, bermed earth home. i have seen a version of this built using rammed earth as the main walls. they had a solar hot water heater and ~2200 watts of solar panels, and were net zero. [wood stove for heat, propane for cooking/backup heating]

depends on your location and heating/cooling needs.
Click to expand...

I'm assessing this right now. I just finished filling my house with LED lights and I'm monitoring electricity usage as we speak. I know the average home requires tons of energy consumption so I'm trying to gauge whether it's realistic. The draw from an oven, refrigerator, washer, dryer is enough to make it damn near a deal breaker financially but I also account for the safety from outside threats as well. Power outages are no more (if done right). I'm hoping that the savings from building it myself will offset the costs of the system and if I can get the draw from the house down then it might be reasonably priced. Solar water heating will also be used.

As far as the style/materials/efficiency standpoint, The house is going to be basically a trapezoid box made from ICF concrete walls (This will be the most expensive part of the house), concrete floor with radiant heating, and a sloping ceiling made out of insulated roof panels that starts high in the front and maybe 10' in the rear of the house, I scored a bunch of 15' foot beams from the Louisville Paper Company building in downtown Louisville, KY while I was down there the other day for $50/each. I plan on using earth up against the back of the house for the thermal mass and I will develop a grey water collection system from the sloping roof for watering the garden.


I was standing outside looking at my air conditioner run the other day and I was puzzled that the A/C unit was on the south side of the house that received the most sun all day long in the summer. Why wouldn't they put it on the north side of the home where it would be in the shade therefore for more efficient? I still don't have an answer (unless I want to start going down the energy company/building association conspiracy road).What I would like to do is make a home that can be built by anyone that is open source and available for free. Kind of like the low energy libertarian modular home model that is free and open to the public and anybody can build it.

In my opinion I don't know why it needs to be any more expensive than these $200,000 cookie cutter boxes we living in today.


EDIT: I'm also reading everything I can get my hands on that deals with passive homes. If anybody has any links to info I would much appreciate it.
 
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