DIY Again

[Scuba_Dave]

One of the best parts of the area is the 24x30' garden for veggies
Due to the water table I had tomato plants grow over 8' tall
I need to build a lattice system out there & overhead support

You keep dreaming & being jealous there guy
We are not flipping this house, we are keeping it
The fact that YOU are not competent to build what I can build is just a fact you will have to live with

I figured you as a teacher, those who CAN'T....teach

And I made OVER $100k on the sale of my last house Thanks
You really need to pay attention to the facts I have stated in this threads instead of pulling out little tidbits to make yourself feel better

 

[Scuba_Dave]

Oh, I also have a huge Halloween & Christmas display every year
This year was smaller as I was spending all my spare time on the addition

 

[Sponsor]

 

[JWelectric]

One of the best parts of the area is the 24x30' garden for veggies
Due to the water table I had tomato plants grow over 8' tall
I need to build a lattice system out there & overhead support

You didn’t get those seeds from a man named Jack did you? He had some powerful beans also.

You keep dreaming & being jealous there guy
We are not flipping this house, we are keeping it
The fact that YOU are not competent to build what I can build is just a fact you will have to live with

I am not a bit jealous of any person on this earth and don’t have to boast on my accomplishments in order to make myself feel good. I might not be very competent but I did build every building on this farm but of course I did have help. I just am not enough of a bear to raise 200 pound trusses up on a 36 x 120 foot barn all by myself but then again……….

I figured you as a teacher, those who CAN'T....teach

I think you have this a little off kilter here. Those who KNOW teach and those who don’t know rely on the inspector to keep them straight.

And I made OVER $100k on the sale of my last house Thanks

It has gone from $75K to $100K which leads me to think that you are full of manure and the truth does not live in your mind.

You really need to pay attention to the facts I have stated in this threads instead of pulling out little tidbits to make yourself feel better

I am trying as hard as I can to pay attention to the facts but your facts keeps changing from post to post. I don’t need to pull tidbits out of anywhere to make myself feel better. I feel just fine where I am at and with what I already have.
It is you who are reaching for the stars and trying to make everyone who reads this thread think that you can do anything short of walking on water.

Now I leave you to your own self praise and hope that it doesn’t cause you to have some sort of complex

 

[Cookie]

Dave, this is my neighbor's house at Christmas time, every year! You ride in a circle around the house and can view it from all sides. It really is spectacular to see. That is there hummer all done in lights, lol.

 

[Cookie]

Good people to do this and the electric bill I hear is very high during the season.

 

[Cookie]

I think what you did with your house was wonderful. I loved the round stone design. Keep up the good work, your family is lucky to have you.

 

[Frenchie]

Sunroom that I built, and showing the snow from the last storm

FYI, Dave, you have a venting problem, or an insulation problem, on that roof in the picture above - those icicles. Might want to make that next on your list, if it hasn't been taken care of since you took the pictures. You're either paying to heat the outdoors, or facilitating rot in your roof, if you leave it like that.

I work solo a lot, so - for the record - I have absolutely no doubt you did all the work yourself. With the right equipement, anything's possible. I am curious how you handled a couple of things. First would be, how did you get the 200lb beams up alone? That's one bit where I'd have definitely hired some help. How did you handle it? I'm always willing to learn new tricks. The other one is, what's your system for tilting up walls, working alone?


It's clear to me that you could contribute a lot of useful information to this forum.

 

[Scuba_Dave]

We've had one snowstorm after another
Just had another 4-5 inches dumped last night & still snowing
Freezes, thaws icicles everywhere. That was the worst day for my house after the big storm so I wanted to take pics. The neighbors house is older & poorly insulated - they have icicles all the time
Every roof in the area has had icicles

The sunroom is unheated at this point - only about 40-50 out there right now. Once I take the wall down fully between the kitchen & sunroom I'll have heat installed. I'm going to put down radiant floor heat with tile. A ~6' baseboard will go along the peninsula that will border the kitchen. I did radiant in the bathroom (no radiator) & the hallway & it works great. At some point a solar array will go on the new addition roof. It was designed with a long slope facing South just for this purpose

New Master bath on the 2nd floor wil also have radiant floor heat
The exisitng 2nd floor bath will have a towel heater ~600w as a heater. Going from the old R7 roof insulation to R38 I don't expect to need much heat up there. I used to shut off the bedroom at my last house & let the Temps dip to 50. But the wife sorta objects to that

I wasn't sure how to the tackle the LVL beams
So I started with the smaller set of 11 7/8" for floor support
Garage walls were all built & tied together
I used an electric hoist to pull the long 24' wall shown - the 1st wall thyat I started around Oct 5.. I left the cable in place to hold the wall, I also added a heavy duty rope at a 2nd point
I lifted one end of the LVL up & walked it up a ladder onto the opposite the existing house. On the other side I had 2x scrap laid out. As I pushed/pulled the LVL up onto the wall the scrap fell between the LVL end & the foundation. This prevented the LVL from slipping back down. In addition 2x scrap was on either side of the wall so the LVL could not slide sideways down the wall

I then went to the opposite side & walked the LVL up the other side
The supports were all built in advance, the outer wall had a "pocket" built where the LVL would "slide" in. Once the LVL was up (flat on the wall) I then tilted it up & the far end slid into the pocket. It actually worked MUCH better then I had hoped. If you have handled LVL then you know they are a royal pain to move around. I would not suggest to anyone to try this alone, but I'm stubborn. I did have friends who volunteered to help on weekends. But this is my "job" & I hated the idea that they woudl need to give up a day on the wekeend to help me

 

[Leejosepho]

DIY Perspective

I'm a big DIY person
My latest project - 3 story addition ...
I'm saving over $75k in construction costs ...

Not having to pay someone else for labor is not the same thing as actually saving the expenses of getting things done. I have never paid anyone to get any work done on my house, but my son-in-law and I still have to be fed and provided with an occasional shower, laundry services and so on. So then, a bit of clarification here would begin with something like this:

What did it cost you to be able to show up and provide the labor for your own work? To report an actual saving, that amount would have to be deducted from what you might have had to pay someone else.

I'm sure a lot of people believe [they save money by doing work themselves], not saying your not saving any money, just most people don’t realize the cost of doing something wrong either.

Scuba_Dave does not seem to have that problem of costing himself time and money by having to re-do his work ... but yes, that is a caution nearly everyone should at least consider.

Rough framing alone was going to cost over $45k on the addition
Probably another $20k on the sunroom, another $20k on the dormer

So how much do you charge for yourself to work on your own house? I mean, your time is worth something, so what did the framing by doing it yourself cost you?

Nothing ...

Once again: It is not realistic to say it costs us nothing to work on our own homes when in fact we must either spend or otherwise benefit from someone’s money in order to remain alive and be available for doing any work at all.

[“Nothing” is] a cop-out answer.

No, it is merely a short-sighted one.

So, if you weren't building your house, what would you be doing with that time? Whatever that would pay, that's what it's costing you to provide your own labor, and has to be subtracted from the 75k in savings.

Not necessarily, and someone else has clearly addressed that matter.

The real issue there would be about determining or discovering an actual value or personal gain achieved by providing his own labor, and that could be done by subtracting all actual hard-cash expenses (for materials and consumables) from the sale price if he ever sold the house. The remainder, then, would be his own “value added” or the amount of his personal contribution in the form of labor ... and he could then compare that amount to whatever amount he might have earned elsewhere to see whether or not he really came out ahead at the end ... and of course, all of that is even still relatively subject to his sense of personal pleasure or accomplishment in having done whatever he has done.

 

[Scuba_Dave]

Notice the cupola in the other picture
I sort of inherited from someone who's neighbors made fun of them
The neighbors joked that airplanes would be landing if they put it up on the house. I was happy but a little worried to take it. It's HUGE & barely fit in the back of the truck. I used the 20' long rafters as a ramp. The chain hoist pulled the cupola up the ramp onto the great room floor. Then once the attic floor was completed I repeated the process
The next step will be onto the roof

Someone else gave me the double Anderson doors for free
I bought a 3rd door ro make the triple door "wall"
That was the last lower wall to go up - not counting the gable walls
With the snowstorms I'm on a forced "time off"
I've switched to inside projects - remudding & painting the front entrance after a new door/window were installed

Here's another pic of those icicles - they only lasted 2 days
There is probably some heat leaking up into the ceiling as the drywall has not been mudded yet. The entire roof has ice shield due to the skylights. It was actually water tight before I roofed

 

[Scuba_Dave]

I've never had to redo my work Thanks
I build & insulate to surpass code
The money that I save by DIY I put some back into better materials

 

[Frenchie]

Thanks for the answers, Dave.

The LVL 'walk up" is pretty ingeneous... I can very much relate to the "too stubborn" part!

So the icicles are just from freeze/thaw outdoor temp swings... that's cgood. Especially if you've got I&W on the whole roof: that stuff is vapor-proof, you need to make extra-sure there's no humidity getting to the roof deck, or if there is that it's really well vented.

How long's the tyvek been out in the sun? Careful with that, it degrades under UV exposure. There's other housewraps - vapro is one - that are more UV resistant. I don't know about easyguard, I'm not familiar with it. Push comes to shove, replace when the time comes for siding...

Pretty impressive work. Kudos.

 

[Scuba_Dave]

The tyvek will need to be replaced, too long outside
But I needed to protect the plywood
I "lost" a year due to a broken rib
And it wasn't construction related really
They had poured the foundation, taken the forms off
I put a plank across from the back patio to the new foundation & was measuring to calculate the garage floor, walls etc
Either I slipped or some dirt gave way & I fell

I would have been fine...except for that plank
I landed right on it - side 1st - broke a rib
I ended up in the area dugout & walled in between the new foundation & the old patio - no way out. I thought I just knocked the wind out of myself. So I struggled up & managed to crawl up the side

5 days later my wife made me go to the Doc & have an X-ray
Nothing really they could do, but that ended construction for that year
This past summer I twisted my knee out by the pool, so the addition is 3 months behind

I'm getting to old for this
Thankfully this is the last major construction
Wife has agreed (insisted?) the Great Room wil be unfinished until the rest of the house is done

Kitchen remodel including the new sunroom
Finish 2nd floor dormer inside
My main interest is getting the garage ready to go - floor poured
Then the new driveway
Then reside the house
At least then from the outside it will look done

I put a lot of hard work into this house
So I guess I'm a little touchy when people seem to tear into me on it

 

[Terry]

I know a lot of people that build their own homes this way.
When I broke into plumbing, ones of the other guys, Merlin Blue, used to take throwaway ABS fittings and take them home. He would split the pipe out of the fittings in his spare time, and then used them in his home that he was building.

In 1989 I added on a back wing to my mothers home, from plans I had drawn when my father was still living. The big beam across the back was an 8x20 and twenty feet long. I rented a jack lift, that worked with a lever, sort of click, click, clicked it up there.

I always pay someone to pour my concrete though. They earn it.
And the electrical. Wayne Ramsey did that for me.

 

[Scuba_Dave]

The walls were prebuilt in place before being raised
Process varied by the wall, but I drilled a hole at the base of one stud in the wall. I then ran a steel cable to the far side & secured around whatever structure made sense

On many of the outer walls you can see blocks nailed in
These blocks depending upon their location either prevented the bottom of the wall from kicking out, or prevented it from going "over" - a bad thing. In addition I had a heavy duty rope that I tied to the top of each wall before being raised. The top rope also prevented the wall from going over

Wall is framed out, then the top is raised up on 2x scrap so I can grab the wall & lift it up. Wall is sheathed & raised up more - maybe 3 scraps of 2x. Tyvek & windows are installed. Then I lift up each end & raise it stuffing 2x scrap under each side in turn. You can only go so far using this method. 2x braces are attached to each side - & they can swing down as the wall is raised further. I lift the wall, braces swing down & hold the wall up. Secure wall, next set of longer braces. You get to the point where the wall is angled at a 45 degree angle - critical mass. I put more 2x bracing up, then I nail 2x scrap into the floor. As I push the wall up, the braces slide over each succesive 2x. Sort of like a ladder on the floor. Once each brace slidesd over a 2x on the floor the wall can't slip back. Eventually the weight shifts & the wall can be "easily" raised upright

Again, this is not an easy task - but it's how I did it
2 people would make it MUCH easier. The wife did "help" me with 2 sections. The front 16' wall/window was the heaviest. But she would make noises at every creak that scared me
And I would have to wait for the weekend. So I came up with the bracing method

 

[Scuba_Dave]

My last house was built in 1905 & was a mess
It had been added onto, changed & no attention paid to how things should be done. I found a 2x inside a wall that wasn't even nailed in !!
I went to school to be an Architect many years ago. But it was just too dang hard to design anything on a PC back then. So I fell into PC work which did well up until Y2k. I've been building since I was a kid, my dad was an (electrical?) engineer. Me & my brother were the (non-paid) help. Running electric, build a pantry, finishing the basement. The basement work was a bonus - my brothers room. That meant I had my own room - so we didn't mind
Moving back to MA after the blizzard of 78 (missed it) I finished the new basement on my own - Dad was the inspector. I did the walls - drilled & bolted into cement (PT should have been used), I used what my dad supplied. Insulated, wired & sheet rocked. As a side note its not a good idea to use a power saw to cut drywall...in the basement...with smoke alarms all wired together

The building Depts at both Towns were surprised that I did my own plans, and that they were very detailed

My last house was rewired by "someone". Live wires in a box behind the baseboard. Live wire in the yard (lawn mower detected it) that used to go to a shed. Multiple live wires in the crawlspace. Wires in the bathroom that were never connected

I redid what I had too, but it was basically just outlets. The biggest was a 30a dedicated circuit for a 24k wall AC

After buying this house I decided to formally train myself in electric
Funny - we can pull our own permit here for electric - not sure on plumbing. I'm under the impression we can't do plumbing. I've replaced leaking faucets, but not much more

I bought the 2005 NEC handbook, its the only book I have for wiring
I've been on another DIY site for maybe 4+ years now. I've learned more in 4 years then I have the rest of my life. I don't rely on "hand-me down" knowledge, I double check everything I am told
#1 rule for me is electricity can kill you

I looked into DIY concrete garage floor - definitely agree not something I will try

 

[WayneGretzky]

Another thought to a long thread that seems pretty simple.
He is a stay at home dad, that is his job.
If it took 20,000 hrs to build what does it matter? If those hours would have been used to watch t.v. and take naps on the couch during the daytime, he has still saved that money.
If a person took holidays from a wage paying job, then one could figure that part out, but he is a stay at home dad and maybe the child care wasn't what it could have been but he did save that money.
Maybe i am looking at this wrong? I don't think i am but correct me if i am wrong.

 

[Leejosepho]

Maybe i am looking at this wrong? I don't think i am but correct me if i am wrong.

No, you are not wrong since almost anything is better than paying somebody else to serve as your own child's parent.

 

[CodeOne]

WOW most views and replies on the electrical side!

 

[Leejosepho]

Reading and asking questions is a great way to learn!