The Owner-Builder Book 376
| The Owner-Builder Book | |
| author | Mark and Elaine Smith |
| pages | 314 |
| publisher | Consensus Group, Inc. |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Jeff Lewis |
| ISBN | 0966142837 |
| summary | How to save money by being your own general contractor. |
So a few years latter when I decided that I could afford a new home, I asked my friend how he had built such an amazing house for so little. He pointed me to "The Owner-Builder Book." When I saw the subtitle to the book, I was a little suspicious: "How you can save over $100,000 in the building of your custom home." I had seen a few too many infomercials making similar promises, but my friend had done it, so I figured that I could too.
Now, a year later, I have completed building my $550,000 home for $320,000. Much of my 41% savings can be directly attributed to this book:
Chapter 1: You Can Save $100,000
Chapter 2: Learn The Wealth-Building Secret
This is the pep-talk part of the book written to give you incentive
to read the next 300 or so pages. This chapter talks about how custom
homebuilders know and use the ideas in this book all the time. Ever seen
an ad for a "builder's own home"? Why are they always the upper-end
homes? Hmm.
Chapter 3: Contractors Aren't What You Think They Are
Chapter 4: You Can Manage Better Than a Contractor
Chapter 5: You Will Profit By Building a True Custom House
These chapters dispel myths about contractors. Hint: A contractor is
very simply a project manager, and usually not a very good one at that.
Among other things, they rarely shop around for better material prices.
They usually use the same lumberyard that they have always gone to. I
saved over $20,000 just by telling my framer that I was going to purchase
the materials from a different lumberyard, all he had to do was give me
the list.
Chapter 6: Conquer Details Room By Room and Save 20%
Chapter 7: How to Get the Subs on Your Side
Chapter 8: How to Build a Budget That is a Powerful Miracle Tool
Chapter 9: Commando Shopping Techniques
Chapter 10: How to Schedule the Work at a Savings
These chapters talk about how to actually save money: The key points are
planning, getting down the details of exactly what you want, (i.e. I want
two phone outlets in every room with two strands of cat5 and coax.), and
make sure to shop around. As an example, I had bids ranging from $5,000
to $15,000 for my electrical. One would assume that with 5G's you would
get less than with 15G's, right? Not necessarily: for $5,000 I got
everything that I wanted, plus I was able to add a bunch of outlets that
I hadn't thought of at the last minute for free cause the subcontractor
was a nice guy. Now I love that TV above Jacuzzi tub.
Chapter 11: How to Make Your Lender Swoon
Chapter 12: Paperwork Before You Begin
Chapter 13: Six Months to Victory
These chapters help you get the paperwork ready that you will need
throughout the process. Remember contracts with liquidated damages and
lien release forms! I only had problems with one subcontractor that my
wife had been responsible to get fill out our contract with and had never
done it. But, luckily their own contract, which my wife had signed with
them, covered most of what we needed. I even got to keep an extra $2,000
dollars because they didn't have time to come back and stain the stairs.
Let's see, $50 in stain and supplies, 3 hours time. Yeah, I'll take the
$2,000.
Chapter 14: Smooth Execution Saves Money and Improves Quality
Chapter 15: Mistakes You Can Avoid And Successes You Can
Achieve
These chapters drill into your head what planning and details mean. I
had one major problem over the course of building my home. The truss
company built my trusses wrong. It took them three more tries and fourweeks to get me a completed set. Because of my contracts and planning, I
cut the cost of the trusses by almost half, but the time hit was the most
damaging. My total time to completion was 7.5 months. I had planned for
6.
Chapter 16: If You Decide to Use a Contractor
The final chapter discusses how to choose and work with a general
contractor if you decide that being your own general is too much for you.
Conclusion
Don't leave with any illusions: this book will not build a custom home
for you. By planning and following through on the information in this
book, you too can build your dream home.
The first page of each chapter is available online at: http://ownerbuilderbook.com/book/Ch1.cfm, and a free CD-ROM with software templates for budgets, contracts, the entire book in MP3 format, and a previous edition of the eBook in PDF format is available. You can purchase The Owner-Builder Book from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit yours, read the book review guidelines, then hit the submission page.
Re:Fall Down (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not enough phone lines? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Fall Down (Score:2, Informative)
If you build your own home you don't need to worry about it falling over, because that's what a building inspector is for. He makes sure you do everything right.
Living through it right now (Score:5, Informative)
I am in the process of building a custom home at this time. Here are some things I've discovered along the way...
The primary job of an architect is to add design features to your home. In other words, they charge you money to make your house more expensive. You almost always DO NOT need one.
Instead, I recommend a good structural engineer. Start out with a pretty good idea of your budget, and a pretty good idea of what you want for a house (look through the $5 house plans magazines and books and free sites on the web until you think you are going to be sick).
The structural engineer will take care of the rest.
We started with an architect. $25,000 later we had house plans that we couldn't afford to build, and didn't even have the structural engineering done yet. Everything that the builder and subcontractors and permit process need are provided by the structural engineer, not the "architect".
After abandoning that approach, we purchased house plans from one of those house plan books. Only to discover that it couldn't be 'stamped' for the state we live in (Ohio) and had to be completely re-engineered anyhow. Another $1,000 wasted.
Once we got this part of the process right - the structural engineer cost us about $4,000 (to do everything).
I read a bunch of books on being your own contractor. Indeed the job description is basically that which we in IT call a project manager. I figured I'd make a go of it myself.
Then I discovered the next issue - every single material supplier and subcontractor had higher prices for me, than they did for a full time general contractor. 'Contractor Pricing' was often 1/2 of what they would charge me as an independent general contractor.
On top of that I had a really hard time finding a bank willing to do a construction loan without a trade contractor involved.
Lastly, I found the government inspectors to be very grumpy and skeptical about dealing with an independent contractor.
Therefore I was able to actually save money, as well as many headaches (there are enough already) by hiring a general contractor.
This is how a nerd approaches his house (Score:3, Informative)
And when I moved into my starter home (town house, actually) I was fully on the DIY kick. I pulled down wallpaper, put up dry wall, changed and added light fixtures, and painted, good lord how I painted!
Now we're planning on adding a deck in the backyard and we spoke to different contractors. After getting the used-car-salesman "what can I do to make you sign the contract today?", the run-around, the week-to-week price change, and the shady "we'll drive around in my truck and I'll point out the one's I've done, you don't NEED references!"- I've decided to build it myself.
For a savings of $1,500-3,000 USD (depending upon who's estimate you believe).
So this book is right up my alley!
new homes (Score:2, Informative)
NEVER buy a new home unless you plan to live there the rest of your life. Why, you may ask - They don't appreciate in value. It's simple as that. Usually it take a generation for a home to gain in value (above and beyond inflation and interest rates). This is because the new neighborhoods are designed very poorly and gain no real character until the trees are grown and people begin to take down or modify neighboring homes. My advise if you absolutely have to have a new home: buy one outside the city on a few acres and, yes, build it yourself. That way the land will appreciate greatly as the city grows outward. If you ever decide to move, you then have the chance to make out nicely. It's not that easy, though, so be careful. You are better off buying in an up-and-coming neighborhood that is older. Somewhere closer to the downtown (commute times are beginning to be very important to home values). You will then have to put a little time and money into the home - maybe upgrade appliances and add on. But the rewards in terms of value will be immediate, allowing you to move into an even larger/better home sooner. What I advise:
(1) Never buy a new home in a new development (there are exceptions - like downtown condos, which tend to appreciate greatly in good economies i.e. not in the current Seattle situation).
(2) If you have to have a new home, buy/build it somewhere that the land will have a chance to appreciate.
(3) The best thing to do is buy a home near the city, in a neighborhood that is beginning to revive itself (i.e. you don't have to worry about getting shot). Do some upgrades on the home and you will immediately see appreciation.
Re:New Home Construction (Score:2, Informative)
And this isn't about DIY construction, it's about DIY General Contracting (mostly). General Contracting is simply project management - you get all the trades to come in at the right time relative to the other trades, work with inspectors and make sure money gets passed around appropriately.
Re:DIY (Score:2, Informative)
My experience:
- It says right on the plans "Run a quad phone line and Cat 5 cable to the office". They forgot both. I should have checked every wire before the insulation when in and the drywall went up.
- Our spiral staircase was delivered. It was suppose to be antique white. We came home one day to find a BLACK spiral staircase installed in the wrong location. 2nd staircase comes in and it's just dropped on our front lawn for 3 weeks AND it's the wrong color (bright white) and is very scratched up. We come home one day and the staircase is missing from our lawn. We open up the front door and it's installed (but still the wrong color). After much arguing we get then to come in and paint it the proper color.
- Our neighbor came home one day to find the wrong kitchen cabinets installed.
- Same neighbor. Double door installed so crooked that it won't close.
- Us AND our neighbor: When nailing the plywood shear walls to the studs the building code says that the heads of the nails cannot penetrate the surface of the plywood. The inspectors HATE THAT. It reduces the structual integrity of the wall. You would think that getting rejected once would be enough for a contractor to learn this lesson. But both of our houses had the framing rejected for the exact same reason.
Just ask anyone who's had a major remodel and you'll hear the same stories. It's up to YOU the owner to catch these mistakes and make sure that they get fixed correctly. So if you're already doing that job then what are you paying the contractor for?Also, don't forget the value of sweat equity. The original reviewer mentioned staining the staircase. That's a good example of a job you can do yourself. Interior paint (especially if it's just solid colors) is another good example. Even if you're having custom faux finshing done you can certainly do the primer coat on the drywall yourself.
And yes, pizza and beer go a long way.
Re:Amateur vs. Professional (Score:3, Informative)
Related to your comment about the community of contractors in an area, there's the issue of building inspectors. In the US, these are local government employees. They are supposed to both enforce building codes setting minimum standards, and see that whatever is in the plans is what actually gets built. Their "fees" for doing this are several thousand dollars on a small house around here - I'm sure the inspection office is quite a profit center for the county. But the main problem is that they often forget to check on anything unusual in the contract (some other poster mentioned a lot of cat 5 wiring that wasn't installed), and depending on the inspector their interpretation of building codes can cause more trouble than it saves.
The building codes are pretty subjective - also, in most jurisdictions the law just refers to _copyrighted_ and very expensive publications by building industry groups. (There's something fundamentally wrong about a copyrighted law...) Some of the inspectors are pretty good, but some are arseholes who like to throw their power around, with no understanding of the reasons for the building codes. And the chief inspector in this county just doesn't like do-it-yourselfers, and will hunt through the code for a way to make you tear it out... If you have a contractor, he'll probably be able to get his buddy in the office to pass the work. That's not always to the good, either...
Beware: you can get into trouble really quick (Score:4, Informative)
By the way, I bought a house rather than building my own, dispite being in a family who is in the construction business. Partly I did so because building your own house is a serious time commitment (you don't think that $20-80K savings comes for free, do you?), and partly because where I live (Los Angeles), the only available buildable lots are located tens of miles away from where I live. (The closest lots I could find in my price range were located about 30 miles from the Glendale/Pasadena/Burbank area where I worked--while the house I live in is in Glendale--I can see the downtown skyline from my front yard.)
Anyways, the two most common mistakes that I've seen are (a) overbuilding what you can afford, and (b) not settling on a design before beginning the construction process.
In the first problem, many people who try to build their own house try to "overbuild"; that is, they try to build a much bigger house than they really can afford. It's not that they can't afford the shell of the house; they just can't afford to put stuff in it, and plant the lawn, and pay for the cooling costs and everything else associated with house ownership. Sure, perhaps at $70/sqft you can afford to build a 4,000 sqft house--but all those rooms are going to look rather stupid if you don't have any money left over to buy furnature. Likewise, if you are paying all your money into making the strokes on your house loan, how are you going to pay for electricity, water, gas, sewar?
My parent's advise is to always build smaller than the biggest thing you can afford. Instead of building a 4,000 sqft house which maxes out your monthly budget (and omits property taxes, utilities, that extra T-1 line from the equation), build a 3,000 sqft house but then decorate it nicely.
Keep in mind that "McMansions" are no longer in style, by the way, but smaller (but cuter) "bungalo" houses are all the vogue nowadays. Your profits after reselling your house will be higher, and your enjoyment of your house will be greater, if you build under what you can afford, so you can live in your house comfortably.
The second mistake many people make, which eat up that $100K promised savings faster than an OC3 connection, is not to plan every detail of their house before pour the foundation. Meaning they will often decide, after the foundation is poured, that perhaps they really want a 9 ft. plate line instead of an 8 ft for higher ceilings, or maybe that downstairs bathroom should be moved over two feet so they can have a bigger closet. Granted, each change doesn't seem like it should cost that much, and often you think of things that didn't come to you in the planning phase that you really wished you had. But take it from someone who has seen a couple of folks driven to bankrupcy (literally!): creeping featurism in the house can suck your wallet dry.
Part of the problem is that a house is a complete system: each change you make can have consequences farther down the line which you didn't account for. For example, making the ceiling taller may only take an extra few thousand in framing costs--but it can have consequences on the plumbing of the second story, or the exterior windows, or the amount of siding you need: in short, that one change can seriously affect your budget in other areas in unexpected ways.
Further, unless you plan right down to the fixtures from day one, you may find yourself doing stupid things like throwing in the $800 sink instead of the planned $80 sink in the bathroom, or upgrading the kitchen cabinets, without realizing these things can quickly eat an additional $30K real fast. (When I redid the bathroom in our house, we upgraded the fixtures and cabinets. The price difference in that one upgrade (four prefab cabinets, two sinks, one toilet and one bathtub) was around $5K--for one 7x9 bathroom! We did it knowing the price, but some people just start writing checks without keeping track of their budget, and quickly blow their budget out of the water.)
Oh, and on finding the right subcontractors: I would seriously talk to the archetectual drafter or designer in your area for references. You'd be supprised the number of contractors out there who simply don't bother to show up at the job site, or who flake out, or who are completely incompetant.
And my other advise: learn how the framing schedule and the standard framing details work, as well as how siding should be applied and how wallboard should go up. (Pick up a book at your local "do it yourself" hardware store such as Home Depot.) You'd be supprised at the number of guys out there who will cut corners and use structurally unsound framing or construction techniques in order to cut corners or to use hardware he happens to have in the truck rather than going out to buy the correct fastener or the proper nails.
Just my two cents worth.
Re:Amateur vs. Professional (Score:4, Informative)
Veeck vs. SBCCI [uscourts.gov]
sPh
Re:Not enough phone lines? (Score:3, Informative)
If you are planning on doing this kind of work, do yourself a favor and do some research on the national and local code, the practicalities, and your options.
Generally speaking, you are going to want to use riser rated (not plenum rated) cable in conduit and firestop all ends of the conduit.
But again - either hire someone fully qualified in this area, or do the detailed research.
sPh
Re:Not enough phone lines? (Score:3, Informative)
Plenum cable is more expensive and is required when cables, instead of being run in conduit, are run in areas, like heating/air-conditioning ducts, where air that is breathed by building occupants passes through. It is designed to give off less in the way of toxic fumes in the case of a fire.
There are different types of conduit. Some of it made of metal, some of PVC, and what is required or allowed depends on what the local code says. The reason you don't have to use plenum-rated cable inside conduit is because, although the conduit system probably isn't perfectly airtight (a little leakage at the outlet boxes, etc.), there's very little airflow in it under normal circumstances, even if the building is on fire, so the cable inside is less likely to catch fire or melt in the first place and less likely to be able to fill the air where the people are with fumes if it does get too hot.
All that said, if you're building from scratch, find out what kind and size of conduit you can legally use and consider it strongly. Then when Extended Expanded Cat 5 plus extra sooper-de-duper cable is considered ancient, you can use it as a pull cable to install whatever the not even invented yet state of the art thing is at the time. For example, if you had built a house 25 or 30 years ago and put in oversize conduit for the phone lines or the TV cable to all the rooms, you could wire up for Ethernet now (a concept-a home computer network- very few would have forseen back when the Watergate break-in was just hitting the news) with very little trouble.
Re:Unemployment is _25%_ (Score:3, Informative)