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Ask HN: Have you built a house?

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Re: Ask HN: Have you built a house?

#51

Post by megamindbrian2 »

koliber wrote: post #6

I've built a house, in the sense that I was working as the general contractor and hiring out crews and tradespeople to do the actual work. My involvement differed anywhere between hire-a-crew and pay them when they are done down to doing certain things myself 100%. A few takeaways: - Things seem simple from the outside, before you do them for the first time. They are in actuality quite complicated. Even something as…

Nice list, this seems like one of those GitHub projects with a bunch of resources linked in the readme.

Re: Ask HN: Have you built a house?

#52

Post by ghaff »

koliber wrote: post #6

I've built a house, in the sense that I was working as the general contractor and hiring out crews and tradespeople to do the actual work. My involvement differed anywhere between hire-a-crew and pay them when they are done down to doing certain things myself 100%. A few takeaways: - Things seem simple from the outside, before you do them for the first time. They are in actuality quite complicated. Even something as…

>Even something as straightforward as painting a wall will be hard when you are doing it for the first time.

Painting is one of the things I do myself, in part because it's something I do often enough that I more or less know the various gotchas, techniques, etc. It's also the case that, when redoing areas that were already painted which is most of what I do these days, I can take some very timesaving shortcuts that someone I hire can't. I can repaint a ceiling without bothering with meticulously masking all the edges and corners. If I don't repaint 100% of the area it probably doesn't matter unless things are in really bad shape.

Re: Ask HN: Have you built a house?

#53

Post by [deleted] »

megamindbrian2 wrote: post #51
koliber wrote: post #6

I've built a house, in the sense that I was working as the general contractor and hiring out crews and tradespeople to do the actual work. My involvement differed anywhere between hire-a-crew and pay them when they are done down to doing certain things myself 100%. A few takeaways: - Things seem simple from the outside, before you do them for the first time. They are in actuality quite complicated. Even something as…

Nice list, this seems like one of those GitHub projects with a bunch of resources linked in the readme.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Have you built a house?

#54

Post by oflannabhra »

Nelkins wrote: post #18

I have no affiliation with this YouTube channel, but here's a guy who does an entire in-depth series on how to build a house from scratch[0], from surveying the land, to getting permits, to pouring the foundation, and so on. Good way to spend a few hours on a weekend. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn4L_aJ1rV4&list=PLRZePj70B4...

I came in to link this exact series. OP, if you are interested in building a concrete home, this guys videos on concrete should give you enough detail about all the things that can go sideways to dissuade you of that idea.

Re: Ask HN: Have you built a house?

#55

Post by jm_l »

openfuture wrote: post #7
koliber wrote: post #6

I've built a house, in the sense that I was working as the general contractor and hiring out crews and tradespeople to do the actual work. My involvement differed anywhere between hire-a-crew and pay them when they are done down to doing certain things myself 100%. A few takeaways: - Things seem simple from the outside, before you do them for the first time. They are in actuality quite complicated. Even something as…

Could you recommend resources for the topics you mention as good to learn?

My landlord's son-in-law was telling me about his adventures building a house. He seems very capable and takes on a general philosophy of "this is actually not that hard" which makes everything seem more accessible. He's been blogging about it at http://www.savingsustainably.com and you can see the whole process up until now (house is still under construction, I believe).

Re: Ask HN: Have you built a house?

#56

Post by ghaff »

javiramos wrote: post #8
wallflower wrote: post #2

No, I have not built a house. However, I highly recommend you take a look at two books before you move earth. The first is "House" by Tracy Kidder. https://www.amazon.com/House-Tracy-Kidder/dp/0618001913 The second is "Renovation" by Michael Litchfield. https://www.amazon.com/Renovation-4th-Completely-Revised-Upd... The first book is a detailed, engrossing narrative about building an actual house (it exists). The sec…

House looks like a fantastic book! Tracy Kidder is also the author of The Soul of a New Machine for which he won a Pulitzer. One of my all-time favorites.

I really enjoyed House because I bought a 200ish year-old fixer-upper about the time the book came out. I had read Soul of a New Machine and, in fact, joined Data General and knew many of the people in the book quite well.

Unfortunately, I looked at a couple of other Kidder books and, while I'm sure they were good, the subject matter just didn't grab me.

Re: Ask HN: Have you built a house?

#58

Post by ricardobeat »

oneshot908 wrote: post #46

In 2007, I had an architect design the outside both for aesthetics and to smooth negotiating with the Santa Cruz mafia planning department, but his floor plans were abysmal, and I would have hated life, stubbing my toes daily. So I took over that task, drove my girlfriend at the time absolutely nuts iterating over it, then one day showed her something she said was bleeping perfect. We built that plan relying on a nei…

What do you train DL models for? That’s a lot of power.

Re: Ask HN: Have you built a house?

#59

Post by abraham_lincoln »

oneshot908 wrote: post #46

In 2007, I had an architect design the outside both for aesthetics and to smooth negotiating with the Santa Cruz mafia planning department, but his floor plans were abysmal, and I would have hated life, stubbing my toes daily. So I took over that task, drove my girlfriend at the time absolutely nuts iterating over it, then one day showed her something she said was bleeping perfect. We built that plan relying on a nei…

So 4 player local netplay of GTA V at 8k?

Re: Ask HN: Have you built a house?

#60

Post by ars »

koliber wrote: post #6

I've built a house, in the sense that I was working as the general contractor and hiring out crews and tradespeople to do the actual work. My involvement differed anywhere between hire-a-crew and pay them when they are done down to doing certain things myself 100%. A few takeaways: - Things seem simple from the outside, before you do them for the first time. They are in actuality quite complicated. Even something as…

> Why a concrete house? How will you insulate it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulating_concrete_form

> Do you have enough funds to do it this way?

For basements they are cheaper than traditional ways, for above ground they cost more initially, but are cheaper longterm.

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