Ask HN: Have you built a house?

I've worked most construction trades and built three houses that my wife and I designed. The devil is in the details. Some machine layering out concrete like a 3D printer is something I saw in Popular Science decades ago. I always wanted to see it happen. Even with a giant 3D printer, you'd have to have people there to lay conduits for plumbing, electrical, etc. The devil is in the details and most of those details are hidden from view. Out of sight, out of mind for most people. Once you do these jobs you realize there is so much that goes into a house.

Once a house is built in a way that is "out of the norm", you'll raise a few eyebrows from inspectors too. We had that issue and it was because it was a timber framed house like someone might have made 100+ years ago - no bolts, nails screws, metal brackets, etc. It was 100% put together with joints and pegs. The inspector only walked around with his jaw on the floor. We finally sat him down to show that we did our homework and followed engineering guidelines - but they weren't guidelines that he was familiar with.

Don't put your home near place names like "floodville", "lavafornia", "poisonwell" or "mudbottom". Is surprising how many people still insist (and are allowed) on building their home inside the floodable areas near rivers. If there are very old trees or even better very old houses standing around, put a green checkmark in your notebook.

Let the floor, columns and beams to be managed by a professional. Furniture is heavy and your house will need to stand a lot of weight. You can live with a door misplaced opening against the light switch, but not with a treacherous floor.

I'm actually planning on building a cabin near Truckee, CA. I've bought a 1/4 acre and I'm working on the designs now. I want to do most of it myself. I've got the sketchup plans on github https://github.com/CacheFactory/Cabin I'm just wondering if it should be 2 or 3 floors. I don't want to bit off too much that I can't finish it.

I've basically done everything short of laying concrete foundations and putting up the frame. Not all on one house, but bits various houses.

There are a lot of things you can do yourself (depending on jurisdiction) that can save a lot of money. My old man owns several houses, and home renovation/building houses is sort of his hobby (it also makes him a lot of money, but it's not his day job). I've been helping him with renovation/construction since I was about 5 years old.

My father and I have built our own fences, painted interior and exterior, plastered (not actually so easy), tiled floors (also not that easy), laid wooden floor, laid decks, built swimming pools (we did hire a contractor to dig the pit), retaining walls (took a weekend, saved about $10,000), internal electrical wiring and fittings (you may need to get a certificate to do this), ethernet/phone wiring, installed roof insulation, built kitchens, laid driveways etc. etc.

The only things I haven't done are laying concrete foundations and erecting frames (all the houses I've worked on were timber framed).

The main problems you're likely to run into is whether you're legally allowed to do it yourself or not. You'll most likely need qualifications to do any electrical work (which my father has, although he's not an electrician) or plumbing/gasfitting work.

My suggestion though would be to start small. I've been doing this sort of thing since as long as I can remember, so I'm fairly confident in what I'm doing. If I were you I wouldn't start with trying to build a house from scratch, start with building some smaller things, like rebuilding your fence (if you have one) or building a shed/sleepout.

I really don't know how feasible it would be to make a concrete house by yourself. I wouldn't lay a concrete foundation myself, it's not a one man job to start with, and if you screw it up it's a very expensive mistake.

If this is your first experience with building a new house, which I assume it is, I'd really caution against trying to do it all yourself and biting off more than you can chew. Get an architect, get a project plan (I have no experience at all at this end), and then break down what you can do yourself, and what you need to pay somebody else to do.

Essential Craftsman is incredible!