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Posted by brianlanning on October 5, 2006, 6:32 pm
dpb wrote:
> > What ever happened to people living in the same house for their entire
> > lives?
>
> The Industrial Revolution? :)
>
> IF (the "big if") you can make your living in one place and be 100%
> assured of that in a changing world, maybe you can, too. It's only
> been suggested that the prospect is worth serious consideration.
I think it depends on how you structure your life. Conventional wisdom
is that your house is "good debt" and "your most valuable asset". (I
contend that no debt is good debt and your house is a liability, not an
asset.) So most people go out and get a big mortgage because it's good
for your taxes. This ties them to a certain job or area. If the
factory closes or something happens to your job, you suddenly have to
move in order to follow the dollars. Maybe you can't afford the
mortgage anymore. I'm not setup that way anymore. We have no debt at
the moment and the though of taking on a mortgage is killing us. So
we're thinking about other alternatives to the standard way of doing
things. This is just a thought exercise to see if we can come up with
an interesting house and an interesting way to get it. We're also
planning a location that gives me access to several markets. And
regardless, our expenses are low enough that I can do a lot of things
and be just fine.
> > What's the difference between comercial and residential construction?
> > (this is rhetorical, i know there's a pedantic answer) Am I not
> > allowed to use comercial type construction materials in a home?
>
> The big difference in the type of building you're speaking of (or at
> least I think you are) is that for the size to meet occupancy codes is
> going to require a bunch of openings and other modifications not
> present in the (priced) shell. I agree w/ Bob those retrofit costs are
> going to be quite a bit higer than you're estimating. (One thing that
> comes to me is the elsewhere-mentioned egress rules--
When we finished the basement in our last house, we were allowed to
make as many rooms as we wanted, but if we wanted to call them
bedrooms, we had to have the egress window. Most of the building code
seems like common sense to me. So our plan was to have normal windows
in all the bedrooms anyway, just more bedrooms. Before they're there
though, they wouldn't be bedrooms. Just open space. So there wouldn't
be a need for egress windows since there would be many other ways to
get out of the big area.
>to do that in a
> building the size you've mentioned essentially means the bedrooms will
> have to line the exterior walls, leaving a big hole in the middle.
> Granted a large family is going to need a significant amount of room,
> but the big rectangle doesn't seem to make for the best layout.)
I put together a design in visio laying out all the interior walls and
what would fit where. The bedrooms do line all the exterior walls, and
they ended up being about 12x14 which is normal for the houses in this
area anyway. That did make sort of a large livingroom type area in the
middle, but it wasn't that much bigger.
> > And knowing whether something is cost-effective relies on knowing what
> > the final costs will be. And that requires a good picture of what the
> > final building will be. And I'm still trying to figure this out. ...
>
> Well, the same thing is true on this end...without a whole lot more in
> specifications, it's essentially impossible to price materials and
> labor.
I agree. But some things should be fixed cost or easy to estimate.
Things like the well and septic or the cost of pouring the slab.
> Well, I don't know how you're going to get the taxes to disappear, so
> that's $1000 that's not going to be available...
Where we're going doesn't have the huge tax. But where we are now
does. That's why we didn't buy a house here.
> What this neglects is with a construction loan, you have the money
to
> actually build the house--where's that going to come from, otherwise,
> unless you have deep pockets?
No construction loan. We'll have to save for about a year, maybe two.
> If you've been around a.b.c for any length of time, you should by now
> have come to the awareness that the fella' that gave you the advice is
> far more astute than the average bear and doesn't respond to anything
> here off the cuff. If he has advice, you can rest assured it's based
> on real world experience.
That's probably true. But I have a number of sources contradicting
things he said. Who's right? Probably both are right depending on the
location and a thousand other variables.
> > By the way, there are millions of europeans who have bedrooms with no
> > closets.
>
> Granted, but it doesn't _necessarily_ make it convenient... :)
They just use armoires and other furniture instead of closets.
> > Why would I *have* to? I don't want to live like that. And why are
> > you assuming that no one would buy the house? You have no idea what
> > the end result will be. We're planning to do this on 5-10 acres. The
> > land will have value no matter what. With property values around here,
> > I doubt it will be long before the land is worth far more than what it
> > costs to put up the building.
>
> I don't know what "like that" means, but--
living such that it's possble to be forced to move because of money.
(snipped stuff about market values)
We're considering all the possabilities. We're just more focused on
what we want this time since the plan is to stay there long term.
> None of it is possible to really "shoot down" with hard figures as
> there is simply far too little in the way of specifications to do more
> than generalize. Bob has given $/sf numbers from his experience for
> his area. The only way to really get comparative costs is to actually
> have at least conceptual designs and essentially go through the
> equivalent of what the bid-making process would be for a contractor as
> if you were the gc.
I was hoping for things like estimates for digging wells where we are.
Or how much is concrete in lower wisconsin? How many dollars a square
for flatwork? How thick should the slab be? When are footers required
under load bearing interior walls? Did you hear about this or that
product, or see that show, or see that website about a house that's
similar? Or talk about types of insulation that would work, or what
people did in their shops. Or building manufacturers who have done
this before, or who to stay away from. Or how thick the steel should
be. Things like this. Instead I got something entirely different.
None of it wrong, just not what I was looking for.
brian
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