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How to build a house alone [video]

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Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#121

Post by agumonkey »

vinceguidry wrote: post #114
agumonkey wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Him and Mathias Wandel (woodwork shop) have some tangible zen effect on my mind. It may be subjective but crafting with simple material, and mostly your hands * is extremely satisfying to watch and also very tempting to do. Society creates a distortion in which every pleasure sits behind some door but here they do tons of fun stuff outside just like that.

Other channels in that vein: Wranglerstar - https://www.youtube.com/wranglerstar Pure Living for Life - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChhBsM9K_Bc9a_YTK7UUlnQ Paul Sellers - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc3EpWncNq5QL0QhwUNQb7w Not quite the same aesthetic but still interesting: Steve Ramsey - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBB7sYb14uBtk8UqSQYc9-w

Thanks I think I knew .. none of them. :)

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#122

Post by dsego »

narag wrote: post #23

In my hometown it was very common for people to build their own house twenty years ago, ignoring all kind of permits. A lot of people worked in construction or were plumbers, painters... they worked patiently in the weekends and with a little help from friends, only sprinting at the moment of the concrete injection. Even if the houses were illegal (there's an interesting background on why people takes that risk) the…

Haha, same in croatia (and other ex-yu countries), and there's plenty of infrastructure problems as a result. Just look at these 'favelas' in my town.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.5222778,16.4766439,3a,75y,23...

Or this guy in Bosnia that built a two-story house on top of a residential building.

https://www.fokus.ba/vijesti/bih/kako-je-safet-na-zgradi-u-z...

Ah, it's the Balkans after all.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#123

Post by whatusername »

philipps wrote: post #60
bitexploder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US building standards are pretty good for our wood frame houses these days. These houses can withstand pretty much anything but tornado or earthquake. Proper maintenance of the external facing structures of the house (roof, paint, siding, windows) mean it can last a very long time (100 years). We also insulate houses more or less depending on where they are. New homes are quite energy efficient.

I grew up in Germany and 100 years does not sound like a long time for a house to last. Maybe that’s they main difference: expectation of longevity. Which is surprising because while my hometown Cologne is in fact more than 2000 years old, many of its buildings were destroyed in various wars. I’m not sure where the cultural expectation that houses should last forever originates.

Americans think 100 years is a long time; and Europeans think 100 kilometers is a long distance.

(As an Australian - we completely fall on the American side of that remark)

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#124

Post by matte_black »

hulahoof wrote: post #72
Xuper wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe for the better. With current divorce law mess loosing something you have built yourself would ramp up male suicide rate even higher then it already is.

Why all the downvotes? We have serious social issues for not taking male mental health seriously.

It was a rapid cynical contrast to the rest of the discussion.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#125

Post by dakna »

coinerone wrote: post #9

Its fascinating how different building Houses is in USA and Germany. The typical US Woodhouse is easy and fast to build. In Germany it can take a Year to build a "Massiv" House: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlnUVxqAzDU

It evolved from German/Dutch/British building techniques brought over from early settlers. Most houses were built with Timber Frame construction ("Fachwerkhaus" in Germany). Over the years this was adapted to have more ready-made materials available and spend less time on the building site. Saw mills delivered wood posts (studs) and boards, and eventually everything converged to standard sizes and become modular. Lumber is/was available everywhere. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(construction)https://...

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#126

Post by toomanybeersies »

kafquaesque wrote: post #49
mrleiter wrote: post #16

Back in the 50s, my great grandfather built the house where my mother and my grandmother grew up in all by himself. It took him 6 years, but he had no help. He started digging into the ground with a shovel. He was a carpenter and bricklayer and used his spare time and skill to do it. This house is still standing and my grandmother still lives in it. This is him with his wife, my great grandmother: https://i.imgur.com…

Cool to see this! Most people will never build their own home these days (even with the cost savings).

My father's hobby is property investment. Well, it's a bit more than a hobby, he owns around 10 houses.

He does as much work as possible himself, or when I was living at home, by getting me to do it for free (well, I get inheritance one day).

The amount of money he's managed to save by doing his own work is staggering. We saved at least $10,000 by building a retaining wall ourselves. We mixed up over 6 tonnes of concrete in a 200 L concrete mixer.

Every fence on his properties he's put up himself, I've helped out with about 5. You're probably saving $5000 per fence (for a timber fence, 6 foot high). He does a lot of his own painting and drywall work as well. He does a lot of his own electrical work as well since he's qualified to do it, which saves boatloads of money.

We even installed the pool at the family house on our own, saving 5 figures (he did pay for a earthmoving company to dig the hole though).

He's probably managed to save several hundred thousand dollars by doing his own work. He basically spends any time that he's not working at his day job working on his properties.

Building your own house from scratch isn't really worth it these days though. It's cheaper to get a frame preassembled, then trucked in and erected. Doing your own concreting isn't really worth it either, same for bricklaying.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#127

Post by toomanybeersies »

coinerone wrote: post #9

Its fascinating how different building Houses is in USA and Germany. The typical US Woodhouse is easy and fast to build. In Germany it can take a Year to build a "Massiv" House: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlnUVxqAzDU

Coming from an earthquake prone country, looking at how that house is constructed is making me very nervous.

Structural masonry is a really bad idea in seismically active areas (which evidently Germany is not).

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#128

Post by dqpb »

kafquaesque wrote: post #49
mrleiter wrote: post #16

Back in the 50s, my great grandfather built the house where my mother and my grandmother grew up in all by himself. It took him 6 years, but he had no help. He started digging into the ground with a shovel. He was a carpenter and bricklayer and used his spare time and skill to do it. This house is still standing and my grandmother still lives in it. This is him with his wife, my great grandmother: https://i.imgur.com…

Cool to see this! Most people will never build their own home these days (even with the cost savings).

If the economy is working properly there shouldn't be cost savings by doing it yourself. That's the whole point of division of labor.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#129

Post by toomanybeersies »

bitexploder wrote: post #29
adventured wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has, for practical purposes, an unlimited supply of cost effective, renewable timber (domestically + Canada). It makes tremendous economic sense. Also consider the renewable + cost + timber supply factor, when it comes to population. Germany's population has barely increased since 1970. The US population has increased by ~55% in that time, adding over 100 million people. Rarely building new structures for a st…

US building standards are pretty good for our wood frame houses these days. These houses can withstand pretty much anything but tornado or earthquake. Proper maintenance of the external facing structures of the house (roof, paint, siding, windows) mean it can last a very long time (100 years). We also insulate houses more or less depending on where they are. New homes are quite energy efficient.

Wooden framed houses tend to survive earthquakes better than any other construction technology, as wooden frames are flexible, especially as they're constructed with nails, which lend the frame a lot of give.

Wooden houses can (from experience) survive magnitude 6-7 earthquakes.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#130

Post by glenneroo »

dharma1 wrote: post #41
chrisseaton wrote: post #5

It looks like the entire thing is made of chipboard and planks of wood? Is it a temporary building? How long does that last?

Timber frame houses will last a long time if properly maintained. The main source of decay is water or condensation getting into the structure and causing rot/mold - if you make sure that doesn't happen, the houses last for 100+ years

Don't forget about Termites! Whenever I fly into LA with friends from Europe, I have to explain what all the striped "circus tents" are.
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