Post by: Oleg Volk on January 18, 2006, 07:03:02 PM
Post by: Felonious Monk/Fignozzle on January 18, 2006, 07:17:41 PM
Just a guess, but I'd put money on it.
Post by: Guest on January 18, 2006, 07:23:21 PM
Post by: brimic on January 18, 2006, 07:27:01 PM
Post by: Standing Wolf on January 18, 2006, 08:58:12 PM
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Can't concrete blocks be pre-cast with channels for plumbing and wires?
I'm sure they could be; I'm equally sure pre-cast concrete would make an excellent house-building material.The problem, I'd guess, is that there's no very large market for solidly constructed houses. I know a fellow who dropped $300,000 into a frame and chip board house last summer. It's already developed warps, gaps, and squeaks. He figures that kind of sloppy construction is just inevitable. I figure they saw him coming, but I also have to figure he's the norm.
Post by: Guest on January 18, 2006, 09:26:33 PM
Post by: zahc on January 18, 2006, 09:45:07 PM
Post by: 280plus on January 18, 2006, 11:12:55 PM
Post by: brimic on January 18, 2006, 11:30:43 PM
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Each nail is a 12" spike that he must drive in with a 3 lb sledge. He can only manage one house a year.
I've helped to build a few log homes. One of the techniques is to stand on top of the logs with a drill that's 3' long and drill down through the log wall then pound a stake through to tie the logs together. Its insanely hard work.
Post by: 280plus on January 18, 2006, 11:41:35 PM
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Its insanely hard work.
+1 on thatBeautiful homes though. I want one but by the time I can afford it he'll probably have retired.
Post by: TarpleyG on January 19, 2006, 04:29:14 AM
Greg
Post by: roo_ster on January 19, 2006, 04:33:54 AM
Here in DFW, we have shifting, expanding, and contracting soils. Gets wet, it expands. Gets dry, it contracts. Even the more robust slab & concrete block commercial buildings have their foundations heave. In 20 years, a warehouse floor or any particularly large slab structure will look more like a washboard and less like a plane of glass.
The stick & drywall construction will show cracks in the drywall, but won't usually give way like a cinder block wall might. If your house foundation is pier & beam, send a tunnel rat under it with a bottle jack & some cedar shims...something a homeowner can do. If it is a slab, get ready to hire a company to dig around your foundation and THROUGH the middle of your living room to install piers to hold up the foundation...to the tune of ~$500/pier.
Large office buildings use seriously strong & resilient reinforced concrete pilings/piers sunk WAAAAAY deep.
Post by: brimic on January 19, 2006, 04:52:42 AM
Q? what does lumber cost down in Florida? Up here at least you can buy low grade 2x4 wall studs for under $2 a piece.
Another thing I can think of is that up here, outside walls are typically 2x6 allowing for a good 5" of insulation inside the walls.
Post by: K Frame on January 19, 2006, 05:34:53 AM
Post by: onions! on January 19, 2006, 05:47:02 AM
This is an interesting link
http://www.concretehomesmagazine.com/monthly/art.php?1839
I've seen others that mention a 200(!)year expected life span for a 1800sq ft concrete home.
Post by: mtnbkr on January 19, 2006, 05:54:12 AM
Quote from: Mike Irwin
Steel is making big inroads here in the central Atlantic. It's still framing, but it replaces wood with pre-engineered systems that essentially bolt together. No, or very little, cutting involved.
A friend of mine used to live in a steel frame house in Sterling. Other than not being able to easily drill into the "studs", it was just like any other house.Chris
Post by: brimic on January 19, 2006, 06:04:36 AM
Post by: 280plus on January 19, 2006, 07:04:56 AM
Post by: Art Eatman on January 19, 2006, 08:19:27 AM
Before the 1960s, generally and on a comparative basis, labor was cheap and materials were expensive. So, more rock or brick homes in the middle- and upper-middle-class homes.
The changes in relative costs for labor and materials, plus the construction concept of things like Levittown after WW II, a crew could come in, do a slab, another crew would frame and roof a house and then another crew would finish it. Stick construction meant fast construction times and less tie-up of the builder's line of credit.
If you want fairly up-to-date construction, go with R-30 foamed wall panels in steel frames. R-30 above the ceiling. Heat with a match; cool with an ice cube.
Very fast construction time. Inert materials, from a weather and termite standpoint.I was 60 when I built my present house. I know my son isn't interested in living in Terlingua, so why build for a long, long lifespan for the house? Stick frame. RufTex panelling inside and out. 2x6 studs for the west and north walls; R19. Full length porches, east and west sides, so little sun load. R30 above the ceiling.
I ran the foundation job. I hired a guy to build the basic box; five men dried it in in eight days. I then took over. Five months of my labor; one month for BossLady. House, separate garage, 14 acres surveyed for the "lot"; water system; furniture and appliances: 1,400 sq ft at $33/sq ft. Not bad for an Old Fart.
If it lasts another ten or fifteen years, I'm golden.
, Art
Post by: stevelyn on January 20, 2006, 03:29:06 AM
Post by: Art Eatman on January 20, 2006, 05:18:49 AM
Quite a few house are now being built of hay bales. Concrete slab, steel supports for the roof structure. Coatings over the hay are the same as for adobe. I haven't checked as to the R value, but it's high.
Art
Post by: Neophyte on January 20, 2006, 03:26:51 PM
Advantages over stick homes: higher strength, better noise reduction, better insect resistance, better fire resistance, (maybe) lower costs depending on your location and available building supplies and labor, and greater energy savings (due to the preexisting insulation and reduced air infiltration)
Possible disadvantanges: costs (see above), greater planning needed to avoid airflow problems and condensation, all utility passthroughs should be planned carefully before the pour (although you can cut holes after the concrete's set, it's still a pain), usually a smaller pool of contractors familiar with ICF buildings, and possibly lower resale value since it's non-standard (again, depending on location).
There's lots of sites on ICF out there - a Google search led me to QuadLock's FAQ. They've got a good overview of the process (and, of course, why you should buy from them instead of the others
).If I were to build a house from scratch I'd look hard at ICF, but that's just me.
(And no, I'm not a builder or financially involved or anything, I'm just interested in it.)
Post by: Harold Tuttle on January 20, 2006, 09:14:50 PM
Nice and sturdy and very well insulated
ya just gotta make sure the mice stay out
Post by: Fjolnirsson on January 20, 2006, 09:40:46 PM
http://www.grancrete.net/grancrete_overview12.htm
Sounds neat.
Post by: 280plus on January 21, 2006, 03:38:02 AM
Post by: Art Eatman on January 21, 2006, 09:04:04 AM
Drift: The feds called for bids on subsidized housing in Santa Fe, New Mexico. One builder submitted plans with the use of adobe. His bid was among the low ones, but the D.C. Beltway Bandits didn't understand anything but brick or wood. They queried the bidder about durability. In response, he sent them a photograph of the Taos Pueblo, a multistory apartment complex which has been continuously occupied for over 500 years...
Art
Post by: 280plus on January 21, 2006, 09:45:14 AM
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In response, he sent them a photograph of the Taos Pueblo, a multistory apartment complex which has been continuously occupied for over 500 years...
Hah, I LOVE that. It reminds me of me trying to sell radiant floor heating. The usual response is about how it's new and they don't like new stuff. I love to tell them how the Romans used to heat their floors. They did it a bit differently but nothing is new about heating the floor.
Post by: Matt G on January 21, 2006, 10:24:42 AM
Frankly, it's easier to do it that way, and usually stronger.
One of the neater houses I've ever seen was the Pratt Cabin in McKitrick Canyon in Guadalupe National Park, where the original settler built a house at the end of that distant place with local flake stone. It's amazing:
note that even the roof is stone. It was built in the 40's, and stands unchanged (now locked) with virtually no maintenance. I'd love to do that.
Post by: Tallpine on January 21, 2006, 12:00:30 PM
Some nearby friends built a porch addition onto their ranch house using straw bales.
About the only good thing that I could see about it, was the great insulation value and the fact that they already had the straw bales.
The amount of labor involved is atrocious! Of course, just stacking the bales doesn't take much time, but then they had to painstakingly apply the chicken wire and stucco (two layers, inside and out) plus a bunch of hardware to tie the bales together (little cables, clamps, turnbuckles, etc). My two daughters helped them with mixing and applying the stucco. The only advantage is that all that labor is pretty much totally unskilled - you don't have to be able to even read a tape measure or swing a hammer.
I figure I could have built that addition with lumber and plywood in a weekend.
The thing that most folks don't seem to realize is that the wall materials are going to only be about ten percent of the total cost: foundation, roof, windows, doors, plumbing, fiixtures, wiring, etc are going to be about the same either way. Just like a yacht - the accomodations cost more than the hull. So even if you save half on the cost of the walls, that is only 5% of the total cost.
I went through this years ago with some folks who wanted me to cut and stack logs on their land so they could build a cabin. Their trees were mostly worthless for that purpose, being short, branchy, and tapered a lot. But they thought they could save so much money using trees from their own land. I finally got out of that one when I discovered that they could not even show me their exact property lines
I'd love to have a stone house (a little castle tower, maybe...?) but hopefully we will live in this place (frame/wood siding) for the rest of our lives. I'm getting too old and worn out to build now. But we did build a little 3-sided log shelter for our horses using wind and ice damaged trees from our land. All it cost was a few spikes and chainsaw gas. We even scrounged the metal for the roof (but we had to buy some screws).
If I had an easy and cheap source for some flat rocks, just for fun I would like to build a "beehive" shieling (cottage) on our land.
Post by: 280plus on January 21, 2006, 01:04:03 PM
Post by: Smoke on January 22, 2006, 04:43:29 PM
Smoke
Post by: MillCreek on January 22, 2006, 07:13:10 PM
Post by: 280plus on January 23, 2006, 02:21:53 AM
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The same house, 10 miles south of me, would go for $ 425,000 in the Bellevue-Redmond area.
Location, location, location...
Post by: Art Eatman on January 23, 2006, 06:04:53 AM
Art
Post by: Leatherneck on January 23, 2006, 06:24:54 AM
TC
Post by: ...has left the building. on January 23, 2006, 09:20:40 AM
Quote from: Smoke
Try to get an interim construction loan for anything but "conventional construction".
Smoke
Smoke is right on.
Smoke
Post by: Art Eatman on January 23, 2006, 12:17:02 PM
Art
Post by: brimic on January 23, 2006, 04:31:26 PM
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Unconventional houses are hard to sell, and there are too many of them that get repoed and then written off at a loss.
There's a house down the street from me that looks like it was designed by a schizophrenic architect. It has 3 different types of roof lines of the styles of Dutch colonial, Cape Cod, and Tudor. Its porportions are all wrong, and to top it off, its two toned, with the main part of the house being baby blue and the 3 car oddly shaped garage being yellow. The house is 6 years old and has been for sale for 5 of those years and is for sale now.
Post by: K Frame on January 23, 2006, 08:07:43 PM
It's a big place, probably going to run 3,500-4,500 square feet.
All steel construction.
Post by: Oleg Volk on January 23, 2006, 08:09:18 PM
Post by: K Frame on January 23, 2006, 09:45:42 PM
Underground.
Tornado resistant?
Poured, rounded concrete.
Post by: hso on January 24, 2006, 12:24:32 PM
Quote from: Oleg Volk
Why hardly anyone in the US, even those with luxury homes, get flimsy frame houses instead of brick, stone, reinforced concrete, etc? Sheetrock isn't exactly the most classy wall material, though cheap. Can't concrete blocks be pre-cast with channels for plumbing and wires? Seems that sturdier materials would resist hurricanes and tornados better...
The short answer to your question is that it's an economy of scale issue. Stick build houses are infinately flexable in disign, the materials are inexpensive, properly built they are durable and resistant to even extreme weather and will last a hundred years (if they don't burn). The reason block isn't used with channels set in them for utilities is that you'd end up with a large 3-D puzzel requireing block layers to align the channels for every block (slowing the process and increasing labor costs). Blocks with channels configured to preclude alignment errors would be expensive to produce and would not compare favorably with stick or standard block or brick.
Properly done sheetrock produces a stable and attractive wall. To be properly done though requires good installers and an excellent "mud man" (plasterer) to produce a finished surface as nice as lath and plaster. It also provides fire resistance that paneling does not.
Post by: 280plus on January 24, 2006, 01:26:35 PM
And when did we go from Canadian Sheetrockers to Mexican ones anyways??
Things that make you say hmmmm...
Post by: Firethorn on January 24, 2006, 05:51:44 PM