Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to build a house alone [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 292 posts

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#91

Post by agumonkey »

ryan-allen wrote: post #56
Jakob wrote: post #4

Impressive! Of course technically he’s building it not by himself but with the help of a lot of technology. ;) This man is building a house including the tools you need to build that house completely by himself: Primitive Technology: Tiled Roof Hut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P73REgj-3UE

That guy is amazing. I've watched all of his video many times over. For the new to the channel, he does all commentary via subtitles so if you want explanations of what he's doing and why turn them on! Some people seem to like watching them without the commentary as it's relaxing, others want to know what and why. I watched 5 videos before I realised there was explanations. I hope he goes back to his furnaces and met…

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.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#92

Post by willyt »

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

Timber framed houses are common in Scandinavia. They are also pretty common in the UK, but you wouldn't know it because they often have a non-loadbearing brick or blockwork outer skin which relies on the timber frame for stability, i.e. to resist wind loads. A timber structure will last as long as a masonry structure if the main structural timber frame is kept dry. Timber cladding, like they have in the US and Scandinavia, does need to be kept painted and parts will need to be replaced occasionally.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#93

Post by lotsofpulp »

megaman22 wrote: post #80
bufferoverflow wrote: post #19

He isn't even wearing a hard hat. That's an OSHA violation. I watch the video about him installing the stairs, and I cringed half the time. The guy is very close to injuring or killing himself.

OSHA is ridiculous, nobody actually does everything it stipulates. It's a CYA set of regulations. Under perfect circumstances, with money and manpower and equipment, and time enough, you could follow all that garbage. But most of the time, you don't have any of that, and shit needs to get done, so you do what you can, as safely as you can, and accept a little risk.

I like that there is an attempt to provide construction workers with more safety. The only problem would be insufficient enforcement allowing some contractors to underbid for projects causing a shortage of money and manpower. The other alternative is a race to the bottom where desperate people choose between taking unnecessary risks to put food on the table or not work. This would only seem to benefit the wealthy.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#94

Post by narag »

rospaya wrote: post #32
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…

I see you're Spanish, but it was the same in Croatia. People built houses over a few weeks. In the 70s it was fairly normal to get some friends, call in some favors and build a summer house - illegally of course. The old generation of houses has been legalized so the government got a fast influx of money, but a lot of them are ecological disasters and still stand.

That sounds so familiar. Except houses built weren't summer houses but primary homes and it was happening very recently, maybe it's still happening?

Legalization in our case is still a hot topic. There is a local party for people with illegal houses.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#95

Post by netzone »

megaman22 wrote: post #75
adventured wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A house like that will easily last over a century if you take care of it and do routine maintenance. Obviously that's assuming it's not destroyed in a direct hit by a tornado or a once in a century nearby massive earthquake (such a risk applies to a super tiny fraction of all US housing). A friend of mine purchased a hundred plus year old wood house. The standards back then were non-existent, boards placed wherever,…

The thing old houses like that have in their favor is that the timber they are built out of is usually better quality than anything you could possibly buy today. Consequently a lot of things could be significantly overbuilt in a way you can't do today. My house is 1880s vintage, and it's sorta post-and-beam, with 10x10 beams making up the frame, and double layers of 12" to 30" wide pine floorboards. You can't even be…

Well, you could probably find it. You definitely had more of the really large trees in North America as far as I know, historically anyway.

Today, building something with massive sturdy timber would likely not be much cheaper (if at all) than just building a concrete box.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#96

Post by lotsofpulp »

purplezooey wrote: post #17

This is completely badass. Construction is so overpriced and hard to get done. He's just jumping in and doing it. Good for him. Probably would cost $500,000 to build.

It's not overpriced. I've never heard a parent tell their child to grow up and become good with their hands and work in construction. If you're smart, you're filtered out to doctor/lawyer/programmer/engineer, who are getting paid six figures for office work.

If you want talented people to work with their hands, in the heat and cold and rain, risk injury that could cause them permanent damage or render them unable to work, all without nice health insurance benefits and the reliability of a steady deposit into their bank accounts every two weeks, then you have to pay for it.

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#99

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: How to build a house alone [video]

#100

Post by icebraining »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #87
icebraining wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem is that you can't get a mortgage to build it yourself. Being cheaper in the end doesn't help you if you don't have the money right now.

As I think about it (not in depth, though), does it matter? If you're building it yourself, you can't go that fast. The amount of building materials you can buy each month with what would amount to a mortgage+taxes+insurance payment each month would be just about what you could use up. So it would probably work out OK.

Land alone is often pretty expensive; can you get a regular mortgage to buy it?
Post reply on HN