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Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

imkylelambert.com

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Re: Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

#111

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

xixixao wrote: post #46
rootsudo wrote: post #43

Boy things are different in Portland where you pay people to insult sheds… But 8x10 for $20,000 just goes to show how expensive USA is for construction. There’s a point where I would review coworking space cost (not as convenient, I know) to just living and owning property abroad.

In this day and age, where material stuff is so cheap, isn’t 20K for a tiny shed crazy? Clearly it is because it involves so much work, and work is so expensive, but I can’t help but think there should be a technical solution to this. Or buildings are just not automatable? I’m amazed.

It's probably mostly labor cost. An 8x10 shed kit starts at under $US2k but if you pay someone to assemble it, including electrical, the price will go up very quickly.

I know someone who builds horse shelters that are larger than that, but a fraction of the cost, delivered. I've actually been thinking that if I wanted an outside office, I'd ask him to custom build one with the fourth wall closed (horse shelters are 3-sided) and I'd insulate and sheetrock it myself. IIRC he did our 10x30 one for about $2k, including delivery.

Around here, the cutoff for needing a permit for a "permanent structure" is 10'x12' which is a pretty good sized outside office.

Re: Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

#112

Post by titanomachy »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #56
titanomachy wrote: post #44

Thanks for taking the time to make this detailed write-up! You got a beautiful result, and I appreciate the spirit of sharing what you learned and helping people who are considering similar projects. I'm glad you measured CO2. I've recently noticed I tend to get headaches when working or sleeping in small poorly-ventilated spaces, and I'm surprised how often I encounter new structures without ventilation. I guess tig…

There isn't really any clinical evidence for CO2 levels impacting stuff beyond so called "sleep efficiency," where the effect is small (above 1000 ppm is 5% reduction in sleep efficiency) and it has the counterintuitive effect that less efficient sleep is sleeping longer, which is usually what people want. That said, placebo effects are still real.

It might be that poor ventilation gives me headaches for other reasons, and CO2 concentration is just a useful proxy that's easy to measure. The evidence seems to support this idea, whereas like you said the evidence for CO2 in isolation is pretty questionable.

If nothing else, at least a well-ventilated room expels my farts and other airborne waste products.

And people don't want to sleep longer, they want to feel well-rested. So I think higher sleep efficiency is better.

Re: Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

#113

Post by jryan49 »

benoau wrote: post #90
ryandrake wrote: post #3

For work-from-home, I can't emphasize enough how much of a game changer it is to have a physically separate building for your work, especially if you have a family with kids and noise and pets and things. Working from a spare bedroom, even one without a bed / outfitted as an office, is just not my thing. Even if your family "knows the rules" and let you work in peace. It subjectively still "feels like you're home". W…

Yeah the worst thing about working from within your house... bathroom, coffee, anything at all that necessitates going out of the room entails a major context switch for the most inane reasons and conversations.

In this case they'd still have to go inside to go to the bathroom. :/

Re: Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

#114

Post by copperx »

titanomachy wrote: post #37
sailfast wrote: post #6

Looks like a great setup! $20K still seems like a lot to get some mosquito bites walking through the yard to work. Lack of plumbing, coffee, etc (some of those are fixable of course) is a bit of a turnoff but perhaps the walk is part of the charm. I find that with kids mostly in school and knowing the rules the exterior space isn’t a requirement, but I don’t have a ton of meetings these days so YMMV. Mostly this is c…

> $20K still seems like a lot to get some mosquito bites walking through the yard to work. In some parts of the world, people consider spending time outdoors to be a positive thing.

> In some parts of the world, people consider spending time outdoors to be a positive thing.

You're going to have to break that down for me.

Re: Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

#116

Post by nxm »

zie wrote: post #100
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in pretty much every state releasing the refrigerant 'requires' a license (if it's not a DIY model). And in my state, I copy pasted what was required for a 'residential' HVAC license (idk if you meant commercial HVAC or just making money on installs).

Not Montana apparently. They don't even have an HVAC contractor license anymore that I can find.

Exception rather than the rule

Re: Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

#117

Post by kslambert »

starkparker wrote: post #108

> In Portland, I didn’t need a permit for the building because it was under the size threshold You still need a structural building permit, beyond any electrical or plumbing permits, if it's both heated and used either as a living space or "for a business". The city added the "for a business" wrinkle in 2024 and is very squirrely about whether using it as a work-from-home office counts as "for a business". It _does_…

Author of the blog post here. That new "for business" line was added in 2024, a year after I completed this build. It's good to know now though in case we sell and I want to do another build like this.

Re: Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

#118

Post by nxm »

orthoxerox wrote: post #102
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my state they require: >160 hours of education/vocational training and 2 years’ verifiable experience in the trade To get the license to install minisplits (two years experience generally means working an apprenticeship). It's no wonder install costs are so much in the US. And as you've experienced, they're hardly rocket science to install. The 160 hours training would be more than enough, I'm not sure why 2 years…

What will they do if they learn you installed your minisplit yourself?

Nothing assumes no issues. If it catches/causes a fire, good luck with insurance

Re: Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

#119

Post by blackguardx »

0xffff2 wrote: post #110
marssaxman wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you want is an office you can go to which is not in your home, it seems like it would be ever so much simpler to go live near your actual office, which your employer already pays for, than to move far enough away from everything that you can afford to buy a piece of property, build an office on it, and then have to deal with all the extra driving a remote lifestyle implies. In my opinion it's commuting to the…

Everyone has different opinions about this stuff, but I for one found _working_ in the office to absolutely be the worst part. And since Covid, my workplace has torn down old buildings and reduced square footage per employee, so if I went back to the office it would be even worse.

Do you work at Microsoft or is this a broader trend?

Re: Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

#120

Post by chasd00 »

gehwartzen wrote: post #53
mtlynch wrote: post #32

I jumped to the end and saw $2.3k for the mini split and couldn't believe it. I've installed mini splits on two homes and the quotes were always in the $15-25k range for 3-5 head units, so $2.3k for a head + outdoor condenser unit sounded implausible, but then I saw he found a surprisingly good deal: > I got a ton of quotes for installing a mini split. They ranged from $4-$7k, which was higher than I expected after r…

Honestly, I would recommend just doing it yourself. Especially if you have a contractor pull in the electrical connection for it. I installed a pre-charged unit in a much more complicated attic setup (condenser mounted to outside wall on second floor, 20' of refrigerant lines run with lots of angles) and the whole thing took 6-8 hours with no experience. Mounting it to a shed where you're basically just cutting a hol…

if someone finds out you did this yourself then can't the city put a lien on your property preventing a sale until you rip everything out and have it re-done by a licensed person? I know with electricity whether you do it per code or not a licensed electrician has to sign off before you can sell your house. at least i think that's how it is..
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