Woman Built House From the Ground Up Using Nothing But YouTube Tutorials (digitaltrends.com) 315
schwit1 quotes a report from Digital Trends: In this generation of self-starters and self-made women and men, do-it-yourself isn't just an option, it's a way of life. And if there's not an app for that, chances are there's a YouTube video for it. That was certainly the case for a woman named Cara Brookins, who is living proof that if you're willing to learn, you absolutely can. In 2008, Brookins was in the midst of a family struggle, having left a husband she called "violent and abusive." Looking to make a fresh start for herself, she took the idea of rebuilding quite literally, perhaps using the physical experience of constructing a house as an extension of her emotional and mental journey. Though she had no previous experience in construction or architecture, Brookins found a series of YouTube tutorials on building a home and got to work. Over the course of nine months, Brookins worked tirelessly with the help of her four children to build a new home for themselves. "I had rented this cabin for a Thanksgiving getaway," the mother of four told CBS News. "And driving there, we passed this house that had been ravaged by a tornado. It was this beautiful dream house and it was sort of wide open. You don't often get the opportunity to see the interior workings of a house, but looking at these 2x4s and these nails, it just looked so simple. I thought, "I could put this wall back up if I really tried. Maybe I should just start from scratch.'"
No materials then? (Score:3, Funny)
Stupid headline
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Materials?!? As Better Off Dead [wikipedia.org] taught us, all you need to turn a junker into a sleek hot-rod is a little elbow grease!
Re:No materials then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid headline
No, it's a headline that isn't meant for stupid people.
You see, language is contextual, you're expected to be smart enough to fill in the gaps by using the context of the sentence. Obviously by mentioning "YouTube Tutorials" we're talking about educational resources, not building material.
If language did rely on people understanding context it would take ages to explain a simple concept, headlines would look like legal briefs as every possible explanation is covered off to avoid any ambiguity. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live on planet of the lawyers.
Re:No materials then? (Score:4, Insightful)
You see, language is ambiguous; you're expected to be smart enough to realize when someone is exploiting that ambiguity with humorous intent, to evoke mirth in their audience.
If language wasn't ambiguous, whole swaths of comedy would be eliminated and we'd be stuck with nothing but pedants trying to explain to us how we misinterpreted a headline.
Re: No materials then? (Score:2)
ok (Score:5, Funny)
I bet she used some bricks or wood or something, too.
What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:5, Informative)
I dont know how it works elsewhere but here in Australia there are a number of jobs (electrical work, plumbing, telecom work and others) that you can't legally do unless you have the right license.
Re:What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:5, Informative)
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Just out of interest, what happens if you sell your house?
Re:What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I doubt very much you are allowed to do your or gas, electrical or plumbing.
In California the way it works is that you can do it, but you have to have it signed off by a licensed contractor before you can get it connected.
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And in a lot of places, the work just has to be overseen by a licensed professional. The professional doesn't have to be the one that does it, but he has to oversee the work.
Yes, many companies abuse this by having one licensed electrician cover a whole bunch of houses at once, but it's also a way for apprentices to get the experience they need.
Other times you do
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Well, the homeowners literally did everything but set footings and build the underfloor and the framing in this house, and while it shows in some respects (mostly in that they bought the cheapest of everything and I've had to replace a lot of light switches and so on) the house is a house and all that stuff works OK. They got water pressure restrictions very wrong, but that's not dangerous, just annoying.
Re:What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:4, Insightful)
"I doubt very much you are allowed to do your or gas, electrical or plumbing."
*Cough* Agricultural exemptions, which covers about 65% of the total USA land area...
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Most electrical and most plumbing (go look at Shark Bite) is fairly easy. Read the code, watch the videos, plan and then do it. Hire a pro to do everything from the pole to the breaker box, and to inspect the work before the city inspects it. Same principle applies to plumbing.
Natural gas, propane, and heating oil should be hooked up by pros because of the dangers involved and difficulty of testing for leaks. However, you can cut holes in advance and do things like positioning and securing a gas water heate
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Oh Jesus, not another "don't do anything yourself, you're far too stupid" person.
Part of the problem with today's society is that they don't do enough for themselves. Part of the reason is scaremongers such as yourself.
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I've done all three on my houses; one center of KC, other rural. Yes, the meter was company installed, but that was because the company owned it. I ran the wire up to it. Got inspections and passed and that was it.
It's not as if municipalities just mark everything OK if a licensed tech does it. Your accusation of him failing to get inspections came from where exactly?
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In my jurisdiction, for residential properties I'm allowed to do most things myself without any professional license as long as it's not for hire. I'm responsible for following any applicable building codes, pulling permits as required, and inspections but as long as it's not for hire, it's my right to do the work.
Rules vary from location to location so contact the AHJ for what applies in your particular area.
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Well, I absolutely am. The law is quite clear on it, as the homeowner I can do all of it.
My water heater that I put in is 10 years old now, it hasn't blown up yet. I wired the HVAC system, have done quite a few plumbing jobs, installed the gas stove in the kitchen, fixed the insanity that somebody hacked up on the electric outlets in one room (seriously, somebody wired a couple outlets to one leg of a double-pole 30A breaker - absolutely nuts).
Re:What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just out of interest, what happens if you sell your house?
In every jurisdiction I know of, this type of new construction requires several government inspections to make sure it is up to code. They inspect the drains and rebar before you pour concrete. They inspect the plumbing and wiring before you put up drywall. Etc. I have seen plenty of professional contractors fail these inspections for pretty obvious deficiencies. So it is likely that her work is at least as good as theirs. What she lacks in knowledge she makes up in actually-giving-a-shit, since it is her own house.
Re:What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:4, Informative)
Lots of people, and why not. It's first fix. You run all the wires to where they are going to go, when you have easy access to drill holes through the timber framing and pull the wires. You then put up the plasterboard or potentially if you live somewhere where houses are not made from match wood, the base-coat plaster is applied to any brick/block walls, and then the whole lot is skimmed. After that you then come back for second fix which is where the cable is cut back, ends stripped and actual sockets and switches are installed. In the UK this is is standard practice, and I imagine it is in most countries.
Heck for a quality job this is almost necessary because you will need to install a support for a metal back box. Sure you can cut a hole in the plasterboard and stick one of those pieces of junk plastic ones that will break the first time the socket gets a whack when something is plugged in but that is not a quality job. A quality job has a timber support added between the timber framing and a metal back box screwed to that which can't easily be done once the plasterboard is installed.
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Who puts in wiring before fitting plasterboard? It's probably not impossible or illegal, but it is highly uncommon and not very practical.
The only time I have ever seen exposed conduit on top of a wall has been for a retrofit, or when it has been made of brick. And most of the time, that was a retrofit.
The standard way to run power from outlet to outlet in a typical modern shit shack (practically everything being built) is to just drill half-inch holes in the stud, and feed the wire through. It may have to be secured with a staple at certain points, but mostly it isn't. ISTR that you need a staple if the wire is otherwise unsupported over a c
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Here in South Africa, part of the documentation required when effecting a property transfer is an Electrical Compliance Certificate, and not every electrician is licensed to issue them. The purpose is to cover this exact situation, where the homeowner installed their own connections which may not be up to code. If the property has an electric fence, that requires a separate certificate as well. And an etymological certificate is required to ensure that the purchaser isn't receiving a home filled with wood b
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It can also depend on whether what you're doing is considered repair or installation/upgrading. I replaced my own hot water heater last year and my ex-wife and her grandmother spent a lot of time being worried about permits and such. Basically as long as I was replacing like for like it was considered repair and I didn't need anything special. If I was going to upgrades, say convert to a tankless water heater, I'd have had to pursue more.
There are also methods in place in some places to have your work inspe
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That's not what he said - he said he was legally allowed to do the work, not that it didn't require permitting and inspections. The latter two are to ensure that the work that is done is compliant with the building code. As a homeowner/builder you don't get a free pass to ignore the codes, you just get an allowance to do the work yourself. If you do it wrong, the inspectors can make you tear it all out and do it over again. This is primarily a safety issue, but it's also wrapped up in saleability as, at som
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Same in the US although home owners are typically exempt from a lot of things, the paperwork alone would cost 3 out of the 9 months the article says it took with plenty of weeks in between construction where you have to wait for an inspector to come before proceeding to the next (unless you're a professional and know your schedule in advance, you have to schedule them when you actually finished a portion or risk having to pay for a second visit).
And that's if you do everything correct the first time around,
Re:What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:5, Interesting)
Same in the US although home owners are typically exempt from a lot of things, the paperwork alone would cost 3 out of the 9 months the article says it took with plenty of weeks in between construction where you have to wait for an inspector to come before proceeding to the next (unless you're a professional and know your schedule in advance, you have to schedule them when you actually finished a portion or risk having to pay for a second visit).
Ok so i actually am a licensed electrician. And to tell you the truth when you do Owner-Builder it is 100% identical to if you were a contractor. You pull a building permit(normally valid for 180 days, but you can get extensions. I have seen projects span almost 10 years) With that permit is a fee, That fee includes initial inspection of all facets of the permit. You only have to repay on a Fail. You have that 180 days to get all work done(there is a certain order) But as i said you can get extensions. And when you call your inspection in normally if youre before 4pm that day it will be handled the next business day. There is no "plenty of weeks in between construction where you have to wait for an inspector"
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Ok so i actually am a licensed electrician. And to tell you the truth when you do Owner-Builder it is 100% identical to if you were a contractor.
Procedural wise they might be the same... But I've seen so many nightmares caused by owner-builders or owner-renovators because they didn't know what they were doing. I was a general dogsbody (labourer) on building sites when I was young (good money for unskilled labour in Oz back in those days) and the sheer extent that some people screwed up, what would be a 1 or 2 day job turned into a week or more because you'd have to un-fuck what the owner had done, then do it properly. It took more time to get things
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Depends on the jurisdiction. Some major cities that are understaffed you literally have to wait for weeks for an inspection which is very literally why many people don't pull permits in those areas. Generally happens in poor cities with one or two building inspectors for 100,000 people.
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One of his comments about 'code' is building codes generally have enough margin built in to be safe for small structure like a single family house. Usual or large buildings need a structural engineer.
Yes, excellent comment. The code has built right into it that you're required to use enough lumber and enough ties and whatnot to where it probably won't fall down. You don't need to even look at a span table because the code tells you right in it what is required.
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Different parts of the US have different laws, but where I live you can do anything you want, except for running natural gas lines, as long as you have the right permits (basically you tell them what you are going to do, pay some money for the permit, and let them inspect it when it is all done).
In US, can't be HIRED to do it without license (Score:3)
In the US, you need a license to offer attorney services for hire, but you can represent yourself, acting as your own attorney. In most states, you need a license to have people pay you as a locksmith, but you can fiddle with your own lock all day if you choose. You need a license to be hired as an electrician, but you can replace a light switch in your own house.
New construction and certain types of remodeling require that the city inspector check your work - whether you're a professional or not.
Does Aus
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Here in Oz you will get in trouble if you do unlicensed electrical work on your own home. The big box hardware stores all have big signs in the electrical department clearly saying "no DIY" and warning people not to do the work if they dont have the license.
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Here in Oz you will get in trouble if you do unlicensed electrical work on your own home. The big box hardware stores all have big signs in the electrical department clearly saying "no DIY" and warning people not to do the work if they dont have the license.
Add me to the chorus of the people who say that's crazy. I get that's a bunch of dumb people out there who will screw this up, But why should we not be able to do fun stuff because there's dumb people in the world?
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In Toronto and Calgary, and I imagine other cities in Canada; you can legally do that work on your own house. You can't do it as a contractor on a house you don't live in.
I worked for a guy that renovated his own house (stripped it down to the walls, left just enough to keep it as a reno instead of a new house) in the evenings and weekends. Other than needing a structural engineer for blueprints, he did it all himself.
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The only plumbing I do, is the stuff that requires cutting/joining copper pipe or stuff inside the walls. Anything with a threaded fitting, I do myself. It really isn't that hard.
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The only plumbing I don't do, that is.
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Also called regulatory capture - monopolies enshrined by law. Take HVAC for example - pretty impossible to purchase a unit without a license due to the laws against the use of CFCs - despite the fact that new units don't use Freon, but other gases. No reason not to allow someone without a license to install it,
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Well, here in California where everyone likes to cry about regulatory overreach of the CARB, it's completely legal for the homeowner to go forth and buy a heat pump, and install it themselves. You can even buy one with quick disconnects so that you can make all of the connections yourself. The only place you'll need a licensed professional involved is when it comes time to connect your electrical circuit to the panel. It's perfectly legal to do everything else yourself. And frankly, the penalty for doing th
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I think I'm technically suppose to have a builder's permit (like $20 from the local courthouse) which would have an inspector come out and approve the work before I put the sheet rock up.. but since it's not visi
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I'm sure it varies by locale, but where I'm at specifically that only applies to people doing business in those fields. The owner of the property can do whatever they are comfortable with so long as it will pass inspection.
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Building codes in the U.S. vary by jurisdiction (State, County, City). In many places, a homeowner is allowed to do his own work (given that the proper permits are bought), subject to inspection by local authorities upon completion.
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I dont know how it works elsewhere but here in Australia there are a number of jobs (electrical work, plumbing, telecom work and others) that you can't legally do unless you have the right license.
For the electrical you can certainly do that yourself in the US with proper inspections / permits. Electrical work is not all that difficult to do properly. The utility companies usually require that you pay one of their employees to hook up the electrical mains and run the final xxx feet from the main line to your breaker. The rest you could do yourself if you demonstrate a proper understanding of the codes associated with that work. The rules are usually similar as far as who can do the work for sewer
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I dont know how it works elsewhere but here in Australia there are a number of jobs (electrical work, plumbing, telecom work and others) that you can't legally do unless you have the right license.
At least in my neck of the woods in the Northeast US, you can do the job yourself, but you have to have it inspected. I do my own electrical work, and the difference is obvious who did what to the inspector. Probably most people should leave that to the pros, but just because the pro is licensed doesn't mean you'll get pretty work.
Re: What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:5, Interesting)
I originally had the idea that I would build a house with craigslist free materials, but gave up quickly on the idea because it was taking a long time to find the parts I needed...though I'm certain that it could be done. It's not a tiny house either.
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When you do your own electrical and plumbing, not only do you not pay for the bulk of their hours, you also don't pay their jacked up rates for materials.
Re: What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:4, Informative)
If you've had a physics class and can read the building codes (not easy to find), you can correctly size the wire and do everything else without much difficulty. Let the electrician do the final connections at the breaker box. That's a few minutes of work. Hanging the fuse box and getting the wires to all fit in neatly is a PITA and takes a long time, but not a job you can screw up unless you break the shielding, or have enough shielding extending beyond the strain reliefs, or not having strain reliefs. Stuff you can pick up through a few hours of study.
Re: What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:5, Interesting)
something you can give to an intern to do at $25/hr vs your 25 years experience $75/hr
That's a great example, since fixing interns' mistakes has made my years of experience very profitable.
Sure, an intern can write the software spec, unless he doesn't understand the difference between a Widget and a Wotsit, and doesn't even realize that there are two different things. With sufficient minimal skill, he can flub his way through a basic review (often done by other intern-quality folks) and get the spec published, then be long gone with his credit and job offer once the complaints start coming in.
Similarly, an amateur electrician can screw things up in ways that aren't obvious, like pulling wires through conduit roughly enough to strip insulation. Sure, it's working fine now, but in a few years, it could very well be a fire risk. Another particularly egregious example from my own experience is seeing a ground wire attached with an eye terminal with a nylon washer (instead of a star washer) on one side and a painted (instead of conductive) surface on the other. The connection at the terminal's edge was enough to make a connectivity meter happy, but in an emergency that poor connection could have been lethal.
[Grunt work] takes a long time, but not a job you can screw up unless...
...you don't have the experience to know that what you're doing is wrong.
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Thus the "Master" and "Apprentice" system - we re-piped a house, the "Master" did the sales and billing work, and nodded at everything the "Apprentice" did, "Master" also took about 75% of the money for himself while "Apprentice" did 95% of the sweating (both pipe joints and his body.)
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During my training as an electrician I was advised to never sign off on an amateur installation. Refuse the job and walk away - the liability is just not worth it. We were shown some quite grisly photographs of the aftermath of untrained DIYers trying to cut corners on cost by cutting out professional work where it is most needed. They all thought that they were being rather smart and saving money.
Don't play around with electricity - get a proper professional to do the job.
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This is a bullshit attitude. If the amateur made mistakes, point those out and fail them based on that criteria, not just some blanket refusal.
Or is it that you rush the inspection because you don't want to check all of it and just assume the professional did it correctly, which you can't assume with the amateur?
Re: What about electrical, plumbing etc? (Score:5, Informative)
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None of the above. It's an attempt to close off private work and coerce the use of pro or union labor. And one cannot assume the pro did it correctly so there's no more danger than with final inspection on a professional installation. If it passes it's right.
I have to laugh at thi sidea that the pro is opening themselves to liability. When I have done electrical work on my place, I have to shake my head at the slipshod work that was done by the "professionals" Nicked wires, excessive insulation removal, badly routed wires. My own work looks more like the server cabinet porn we see on Imgur every so often. I run through conduit whenever possible - though not so easy in a 60 year old house.
Now this isn't to say that everyone should do this, and there is a lot
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It is so simple a monkey could do it, yet you've seen professionals mess it up?
It is so simple a monkey could do it, if you color coded all of the connections. (If you spend enough money on equipment, it will come that way.) But professionals can mess it up if they don't give a shit. Also, professional only means "getting paid", full stop. People who think that it means "did a good job" are stretching the definition beyond recognition. The Professionals often do a crappy job, because they don't care about your shit shack and they are unlikely to be penalized even if they sign off on s
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No, it's an attempt to stop people who don't know what they are doing from endangering the lives of others by causing death by electrocution or fire (at least the lives of the fire department).
Since not all wiring issues are necessarily visible without ripping things apart I can understand the reluctance to sign off on work done by an amateur given the potential for liability.
Any electrician worth his salt won't sign off on anything he can't inspect thoroughly. With no drywall in place, no wire in conduit that he didn't witness being pulled, and no outlets / switches / light sockets screwed into their boxes, any competent electrician should be fine with inspecting and signing off on any DIY job that was done correctly and to code. For residential electrical, (perhaps with the exception of the main panel and any pony panels), there is no need for certification to do the job. Ther
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Right. Real professionals all have x-ray vision, so that the wiring through the walls and floors can be easily inspected.
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When one wires/rewires a house there is an inspection step before the wall is closed up. No one will ever sign on on electrical work that wasn't visually inspected.
Friend of mine that is a contractor says having the drywall guys put up the drywall before the electrical is signed off is good for a laugh. Because they have to tear it off. Wait for the inspector to reschedule[1]. Then after the inspection put up new drywall, again.
[1] How does Wednesday a week from today work?
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And yet with 30 years experience in electrical engineering, I have to deal with licensed electricians who don't understand the finer details of electricity installation, like the monkey who hid a GFCI behind a cabinet in my house that I'm currently trying to locate. If I had done the installation on this house (It was built in 2000), I would have made the GFCIs accessible.
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The only time I have dealt with an electrician was when I had a piece of machinery installed, and the electrician proceeded to waste half a day trying to decide which sized cable to use for the current capacity (this was a external run of about 2m). When I finally checked his work, I found he had overrated the cable by about 3x the machine's cable requirements spec (I don't think he bothered to read it) and well beyond what was protected by the breaker (at least he fitted the right one), and the stiffness o
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Call me a cynic, but...
- Some building codes make sense. Some are just braindead stupid. Most, frankly, are arbitrary: varying from town to town, as often as not put into place by local building companies through friendly local politicians, trying to secure some competitive advantage. There's nothing particular special about them, and they can and should be taken with a large grain of common sense.
- Government inspections are graft: a way for the local government to levy yet another useless fee. In too many
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- Anyone buying a house *must* have it inspected by their own inspector. Even if the house is brand new (see the previous point). For an older home, you never know what has happened during the life of the building. On top of that, inspect the house yourself. Trust-but-verify.
Fun fact from my experience:
We bought a brand-new tract home that someone else had spec'ed but their financing fell through. We got a very good deal because the builder wanted to get rid of it, and they were still building out the neighborhood so most people preferred to pick their own options. We wanted something ready to move in, so it was a win-win.
We hired an independent inspector, and were promptly mocked by both our sales liaison and the construction project manager. After all, not only do they
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You're not a cynic, you're just someone who thinks cynicism is the same thing as critical thought.
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Additionally, the code is typically the minimum standard to meet. I know a guy who was a certified electrician who added a room to his house and wired it himself. The inspector failed him because it didn't meet code--because it greatly exceeded code and the inspector didn't recognize it.
Sometimes you just can't win.
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Nobody inspects quality, everybody inspects price.
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"australia: yeah we don't even trust our kids to cross the road" Uh, duh? They are likely to run into about 50 deadly insects/reptiles/mammals while attempting that!
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Not really.
An electrician may be required for the electrical service (connecting the breaker box to the meter) and to charge the HVAC (I'd ignore that and just charge it - it's really not complicated to evacuate the system with a vaccuum pump and then fill it with refrigerant), but you can usually do the work on your own home and then get the local inspector to check it out and sign off providing everything is up to code. The trick is to find out where local codes are more strict than national building code
I've got some domestic violence too (Score:2, Insightful)
I definitely have had a "violent and abusive" husband and I have 'nothing' too. But I am unable to build a house. I am not really sure which part I am missing. May be I need more sob stories to fasten the planks?
Reddit 2X Forum Posting?... (Score:3)
So /. is now getting article submissions off of Reddit these days? Sad...
Used to me common (Score:2)
I have pictures of my dad building my parents house. Not single handed and of course not the part that needs heavy machines, but the brick walls were build by him and his friends.(and help from his dad, who was the actual crafty guy)
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Most of the work on my parents' house was done by themselves, only the stuff requiring heavy machinery and brickwork, stuff like underfloor plumbing and the like, was done by professionals.
It really isn't that hard, if you think about what you're doing and don't rush into it.
9 months or 9 years? (Score:2)
The article talks about them doing it in 9 months then about where Youtube was at 9 years ago.
As someone in the middle of their own self taught renovation project I'm interested in the details of the build. Unfortunately I can't find anything beyond photos of her posing in the finished house and adverts for her associated book.
Free Help! From the government??? (Score:2)
https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/dow... [usda.gov]
Yup. Quite handy. You can get a hard copy from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Wood-Fr... [amazon.com]
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I built my own house. It's not exactly rocket science - and I was a rocket scientist IRL.
It is, however, one HELL of a lot of work and the difficulty level is far, far beyond what most people can do. As an engineer working on complex systems like rockets, you really ought to have the skill yo put together a house. For someone untrained, it's especially impressive.
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It is, however, one HELL of a lot of work and the difficulty level is far, far beyond what most people can do.
It's considerable work, yes. The difficulty level is mentally low, but physically significant. I'd want to be buying pre-built trusses, because coming up with a good surface upon which to construct them is difficult.
Follow instructions to follow code (Score:2)
Some people are good at music, some people are good at math, some people are good at following instructions.
The various building codes are quite thorough, specifying the measurements and everything needed for safe construction. A typical construction site isn't a bunch of geniuses, it's a bunch of average people who more or less know how engineers and predecessors decided their job should be done (in terms of safety). Electricians refer to a table of wire gauge vs length - a set of instructions. (If they
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It's quite safe, actually. The codes may be voluminous but they are designed with a HS education level in mind. A basic house is actually quite easy to build if you dedicate the time required to understand how the parts go together and have good instructional materials.
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What you say is largely true about the people in the minimum wage sector of society, but you should have read the article before ranting.
She and her children are obviously smart and hard working. Having BOTH these characteristics is the advantage she has over those who will never get out of their situation.
I cannot understand what is wrong with you that you would say "but she didnt pull herself up by anything, by definition, because she had time and money to build a fucking house." Your statement is contrar
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Well you'd know the answer to that if you Read The Fucking Article.
You know, kind of like what she was doing.
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Blasphemer!
That's certainly my preference (Score:5, Funny)
> Fuck females
I certainly prefer that to the alternative.
I suspect that your subject line may be something you have little experience doing, though.
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That might not be true. He could of watched a Youtube video.
Re:Fuck females. (Score:5, Insightful)
I never really understand comments like this. My mother was smart and handy. Growing up she taught me lots of useful around the house skills. Painting, plumbing, electrical work.
Must be kinda sad being threatened by competent women all your life.
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Now flush! [youtube.com]
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I don't even use restroom without watching a YouTube tutorial about it first.
Need a tutorial on bidets? You'll like this, I think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: Pffff (Score:5, Funny)
That's not the point of the story. It's about child labour and the great things you can achieve with it (as the chinese have proven gazillion times).
Re: (Score:2)
It's not child labor when they are your own children you are forcing to work from dawn to dusk. It's called parenting.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In 2008, Brookins was in the midst of a family struggle, having left a husband she called "violent and abusive."
So not only the fact that she's a woman matters in this story, it's also important to throw some suspicion on her story of domestic violence.
Regardless of her gender or personal situation[1], what she did (which I assume is true, I haven't RTFA) is nothing short of brilliant. This woman has a great future ahead of her if she learned and executed all the skills necessary to build a house from scratch.
Very few people can do that.
[1] Both are irrelevant.
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This woman has a great future ahead of her if she learned and executed all the skills necessary to build a house from scratch.
I've called around to all the local lumber yards, and no one has scratch, so I guess I'm dead in the water for my home building project. I'll check at the grocery store too, since I understand you can make pies from scratch as well.
But to the point of the article, one of the most useful things on Youtube is those instructional tutorials. I use them all the time to eliminate a lot of guesswork and unneeded disassembly when working on my cars or motorcycle, or various work around the house or in radio. I
Re: Sexist (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sexist (Score:5, Insightful)
So not only the fact that she's a woman matters in this story, it's also important to throw some suspicion on her story of domestic violence.
I think so - domestic violence very often leaves the survivor with little self-confidence, and the fact that she has managed to not only pick herself up and leave a violent man, but had enough pluck to take on a demanding challenge like this, is remarkable - and perhaps inspiring to others in her situation too. Perhaps what she did was just the right thing; doing practical, hard work can be a real therapy, and the sense of achievement is pure gold. Any engineer knows this.
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The fact that banks lend money over such a long span of time, also it means again there is a carte blanche to inflate even more the prices.
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Yes we still have not returned to correct prices post housing bubble. A basic house is about a 4-6 weeks with a 4 man full time crew and another few specialists call is half a man year at about 1000 man hours.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, calculate your cost to build your house. Take off work for the several months required, along with 2 your buddies. Pay all of their salaries plus benefits. Buy all of the materials. Rent or buy all of the tools.
By my eye, her house looks like a 24x48 two story, or about 2200 finished square feet that took 9 months of construction time. That kind of house, with careful shopping, could be contracted out for about $200k in many Arkansas markets, not including land but including service installation (wate