has anybody ever built their own home.

thanks guys for the info/advise. more info the better

 

I inspect them for a living.

Started out when i was 19 years old doing commercial construction including interior / exterior steel stud work / layouts, drywall, suspended ceilings, installed EIFS (Drivit, etc) exterior 'stucco-like' siding materials like seen on the outside of Walmart, etc., residential construction including installing insulation professionally in new and existing (retrofit) homes, installed flooring materials and installed roofing for a while...

Training for my current work as a licensed Home Inspector, self employed, with about 9 years of experience.

Other than that, i don't really know anything about construction...

 

I built a log home 14 years ago. Most of the outside was constructed by the log home company, most of the inside i did myself. I also did the exterior finishing. I built an addition on 4 years ago. For the addition I decided to use board and batton. I have a friend that had a band saw mill and trees. I helped saw the lumber and with some help built the addition on to the house. I will try to post a pic of my house in a few days. My best advice is don't build too small and build for the future. Build as if you are 90 years old, make the house convient, consider keeping it on one level. Another thing I did was put all my electrical services, cable, phone etc under ground, this was a plus for me. Oh, get marriage counseling before you start.

 

Finished my parents new home back in October. the bank required the foundation be designed by an engineer and inspected pre pour and post pour. this basically alows them to offer a warranty. I subbed out the entire house I used an individual inspector (pre pour, elec. plumbing, framing ans final inspection) the state required a rez check and energy check. all said and done I saved them roughly $60,000 after all the upgrades and change orders.took six months start to finish

 

I live in North Carolina and bought mountain land in Virgina in 2003 and spent 4.5 years building a mountain house on it (second home/weekend home)…built on weekends and vacations since I have a full time job. Absolutely had a blast building it (got final certificate of occupancy for the upstairs, then got a 'remodel' permit and I'm now still finishing the basement into 2 bedrooms and a bathroom).

I already had some experience with building a few sheds and light electrical and plumbing…did a ton of research on the internet. And scoured the building codes book.

Things I hired someone to do: excavate the foundation and pour footers, put up the concrete block walkout basement, pour the concrete basement floor, septic and water, crane for roof trusses and HVAC.

Everything else I did myself (with help from my dad): framing, electrical, plumbing, roof, insulation, drywall, etc.

Had it inspected of course, didn’t run into any problems there, the inspectors were great to work with, and answered whatever questions I had on the phone.

I have a ton of pictures, here’s a few.


With the concrete block basement built



Initial framing done



Roof trusses pre-built and put up by a crane, start of roof underlayment



Side picture



This is a picture from the end of the 3 full weeks I took off to get as far as I could, pretty much dried in



With windows and doors



Picture of kitchen (which is open to family room)



Picture of the fireplace...our favorite part of the house

 

wow brad! thats pretty sweet. great job on the kitchen/fireplace.

 

Thanks. Definitely think this is something you could do...does take a lot of research and planning though. But if you like working with your hands you get great satisfaction from it. I work on a computer all day, so building the house for me was a blast. Would love to do that for a living but I'd go broke because I'm too slow/particular about everything...family would go hungry.