NW WA Meet / BS Thread

Here is status for the ones near Greenwater...
https://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/mbs/home/?cid=stelprdb5150571

 

We've taken on the project of building our first home. Its been an interesting process to say the least, but its been fun. We are finally get close and on track for our march start date. Still planing out all of the small details and finishes.

 

Pretty much everything closes, except green dot roads, and even then green dot roads in elk wintering areas are closed.

 

Are you building it or having it built?

 

We are building it ourselves, its crazy how much it costs to have a contractor build it right now.

The nice thing is my dad and my wife's dad are both contractors.

 

Nice. We've been considering building our own in the next few years. Kind of leaning towards having someone build a shop with small "apartment" to live in and then be able to sort of build the actual home after that. Plus would give a spot for friends/family to stay when visiting.

 

My old german toy. Kleemann headers, tune, custom exhaust and some exterior mods.





I wouldn't mind a track toy 996. I saw a 996 turbo on BaT for less than 40k in decent shape and was quite tempted.

My only issue is modding german cars you're always paying german tax. Long tube headers for a c63 cost ~4k. Japanese cars are so cheap to mod...thinking about trying to track down an old Starion turbo.

 

We wanted to go that route as well, its hard to get a bank to loan for a shop house or a shop with living quarters in it. Most require like 40% or more down because they don't look at it the same as a home.

I would shop around if your planning on having someone to build. We got a quote from one local builder and he was $150 a sq for basic finishing (formica, standard boxes, linoleum, etc) its closer to $200 a sq for a nicer home. So I'm assuming over in the seattle area its going to much higher. When it came to framing we again found a local guy that wanted like 60K to frame it which is crazy, that's over $14 a sqft. We have a friend that's an independent framer that only charges like $6-8 a sqft. All of these prices for a custom home, I'm not sure if your going that route or looking for a tract style.

 

We just finished up a major renovation on our home that might as well have been new construction. After what we dealt with, I'm definitely in the "never again" camp for doing a home project that large. I fired our contractor after electrical and framing got signed off and finished it myself with some help from my dad.

Having had a couple 996s, I wouldn't recommend one for a track toy. They're great street cars, but things get really expensive really quick when you do much besides HPDE events. If I were going to build a German track toy, it would probably be a B5 A4 or S4. The 2.7T makes more power than the 1.8T (obviously), but they like to understeer. The 1.8T is a really stout motor and is easy to get some extra power out of and work on when things break. Plus, they're cheap.

 

We wont be building in the Seattle area and most likely not even in WA state at all.

ive heard the plans to buid a large shop with living can be a bit harder. Thankfully we should have quite a good deposit for a loan. We might also buy the land, pay it off, then go next "phase" to keep costs down.

We havent really decided on exactly the house we want to build outside of our "wants" list lol. We've definitely talked about hiring out the plans (would have to do) and then doing a bit of contracting out and doing our selves. Like obviously foundation work will be hired out for the most part. Same with sheet rock will more than likely be hired out (least the tape, mud, texturing). more than likely we will end up with a custom home just from things we want.

 

Initially it's a concept difficult to understand UNTIL that first service ($550 for transmission drain and fill).

Purchased the RS6 7 after 7 years of depreciation at $33k with $3K aftermarket warranty; it's still a $97K car with $97K car maint costs.

You can pick one up for $10k-$13K right now, but there is $5k in transmission work and $3k in brakes and $2500 in tires and the DRC suspension is clapped out.
I could do most of the work myself but dropping the engine or trans were NOT in my skill set nor did I have a location to do that.

 

Nice, that's basically what we've done/doing. The nice thing is if you buy the land first, most banks can use the value of the land as your down payment so you don't have to put anything out of pocket. This is at least what we've been able to do from our lender.

We are hiring out the same things, foundation, digging, mud/texture. Doing it this way we can build our "custom" 3000sqft house at around $110-$115 a sqft, and the appraisals when finished are coming in around $200 a sqft so its nice to walk in with equity.

One tip I would give is find you a good drafter, and skip the architect. We had a few meeting with our architect and their typical price is 20% of the build. So we used our drafter to finish out the plans and it only cost like $2700 for the house plans and around $1000 for the shop plans.

 

yeah the semi-plan...well more of talk between us (and depends the the land) would be to move and either buy a cheap investment house or rent iniatally. Buy the land. Then buy a tractor/backhoe (used) and do some of the land clearing and grading work ourselves. Perhaps some of the digging for foundation work too. Lots of just talking right now though. Since its still 2-3 years out hwo knows though. But we do plan to have tractor at some point though so might be benifical to be able to cover some costs by getting it early on

Good to know on the drafter. I know when my parents had their home built they went with an architect but rather it being "custom" for them, it was a custom home pre designed by the architect so it was basically just purchasing the plans.

 

I designed a deck with a free CAD program (https://freecadweb.org/). I had no problem getting the building permit. The biggest problem with a house would be getting the plans printed on large paper. Everything about span of joists and whatnot was online on the city's permit website. I'd not hesitate to design a house.

 

It's a bit more complicated than having proper joist spacing for an entire house. You need calculations about window area and heat loss, energy usage, shear wall engineering, drainage, and all sorts of other stuff.

That said, designing the house yourself wouldn't be a big deal if you're up for it, but you'll definitely need to consult with a drafter/engineer to make sure all the proper hoops are jumped through.

 

That's why I liked my C55. It was a simple 5 speed auto, no air suspension and the brakes were just OEM 4 pot brembos. I did rotors and pads myself but all aftermarket parts were an arm and a leg. My header/tune was 3k installed. An aftermarket intake is like 1.5k, and few other mods were not worth it. Made more sense to buy a c63 and tune it and you're already at over 500hp without any other mods. I looked around for a while but couldn't get myself to take the depreciation hit again on german.

 

If, and that is a BIG IF, I were to purchase another C5 RS6, it would already have the 6 speed transplant and KW V3's.

 

Why does my kitchen sink have to go tits up right before Christmas?

 

Well tornado hit the town I live in. Don't get to say that to often Oo

 

I was surprised to hear that too.
My brother called me saying he heard all the wind and houses crashing down in port orchard.