Why are you building your own and how are you paying for it?

Started by Jared Drake, January 29, 2008, 12:50:44 PM

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Drew

Instant gratification?  Wow, you must know a different set of contractors than the ones I did a few years back.  Nothing "instant" about 'em.  :)

I hear you on the satisfaction part, Ken.  I'm not a builder so a good part of the stuff we do is new for us, or at least the first time on this scale.  My wife gave me grief for getting so much done without her last weekend.  Think about it:  You never get in trouble for doing the dishes by yourself, right? 

kenjal

I should clarify the instant gratification part: Getting the job done in let's say 3 months instead of my time; which would be who knows how many months?  ;)


muldoon

I'll answer the question as well, although many of my reasons are echoes of what has been said before.  I believe alot of us have arrived in a very similiar place but with different events that shaped us here. 

A little background about myself, I was raised with my sister by our single mom.  I dont want to lay down a sob story, but it was hard and there were alot of times that we struggled to make it day to day.  We moved a good bit and I learned to fish when we lived in the country and learned other things when we lived in the inner city.  Most of all I learned to think for myself and to adept to change and adversity well.  I now am all grown up with a wife and two kids.  I work with technology, specifically network and telecoms for a large corporation.  Over the last 2 decades I have seen tough times and great times career wise.  I have had years where I pulled over 6 figures and had years where I was laid off 3 times in 2 years.  I learned how fragile our little worlds can be and how fast situations can change.  My goals for my property and my approach to developing it are directly due to my lifes experiences and my desire to have a place for a better life, in good times and bad.  I am not a doomer, but I do recognize the potential for social problems.  Today, my interests for the place are mostly fishing and hunting, although as things are established I see longer stays and eventually a move out there. 

I am interested in building myself because I want things done a certain way.  Specifically, I have focus on sustainability, longevity, security, privacy, self-reliance, independance, and am seeking being able to take pride in the work being done and gain further understanding of how the work is done.  Going with a builder or contractor has little appeal to me as our goals are not in alignment at all.  For them the goal is to complete the job profitably and move on expending as little effort as required.   Maybe not all have this attitude, but enough do for me to generally be turned off on the whole idea.   The last reason that is also important to me is that I want to make these memories with my children.  I have a 6 year old daughter and a 2 year old son, I believe it is critically important to impart to them a sense of living with nature, and not simply consuming it.  There is alot of little things that go into that, and I imagine most of you already know what I mean by it.

Now, how to pay for it?  Well, we have had a "no new debt" rule in effect for 4 years now at my house and I simply refuse to finance a contractor built place.  We have worked very hard to reduce nearly all of our debt (except the house) and adding more to it just isnt an option for us.  It has to be little by little as my time and budget allows.  It pretty much ensures that I wont get in too much over my head.  It also forces me to spend a good bit of time considering every phase and action. 

CREATIVE1

An interesting thread.

I would have another long answer, and what I would say has already been said many times over.  Let's say, to retire on what we have and not run out of money, we can't afford a mortgage.  So in essence we're trading money for time and time for money.

Also, I guess I don't see myself in a bland box and want to do things in that house that a builder wouldn't do.  A custom builder might, for $$$.
Just look at some of the houses posted on countryplans. WOW!!!!  Innovation is alive and well.

Nicky

We'll be paying cash when we eventually get started. DH is a soldier and our only debt is a car loan and a student loan, we don't have credit cards even for emergencies. We do have a savings account for emergencies... and insurance! Once the loans we have are paid off, we'll never finance anything else. We should be totally debt free in the next two years tops, hopefully one year. [cool]

We have 7 years to go in the army till DH can retire, but he's planning on staying 11 more years for the extra retirement funds and he's hoping to get more rank those extra four years. If he deploys again in the next couple years me and the kids will live cheap and save, save, save... if he deploys or is sent on an unaccompanied tour 3 or 4 years from now I will head back to upstate NY where we come from and buy some land and get started on this cabin thing with just me and the kids... well, kid, our oldest graduates high school next week! *sniff* We're planning on buying land in southwestern NY or north western PA... maybe PA because of lower taxes, less restrictive gun laws, and the areas look identical.

Well, that was "how" we are doing it... now, "why" are we doing it??? We had always talked about full time RV-ing when we retired. After researching that for a couple years we've decided it's just too expensive. It would eat too much of our retirement pay just in gas and maintaining the RV. So, we like the woods, we love ATVs, we like hard work... neither one of us knows a thing about building a house, so I'm reading as much as I can get my hands on now. Our plan is to build a small shed, or one room cabin to learn on first, then probably a 12'x16' tiny little cabin. That's plenty of indoor space for the two of us. With the way the world is going, we stay home as much as possible anyway. We enjoy each other's company. We hope to be self sufficient by gardening, chopping our own wood, hunting, getting off the grid! That's about it! Oh, and if family ever needs someone to turn to, we'll just build another cabin! lol... funny, but true. We decided a minimum of 10 acres of land... hopefully more. We'll have to see what our budget looks like when the time comes.  :)


DemianJ

Most folks have covered my reasons, as well.  I did it to save money, have it built the way I wanted, for the experience and satisfaction, and because I enjoyed building my house more than sitting at a desk to earn the money to pay someone else to do it.

My wife and I lacked the patience and financial discipline of other folks here.  We paid for about 2/3's the house using a const. loan (we underbudgeted or overspent depending on how you look at it) from Farm Credit (they also hold the mortgage on our land).  I highly recommend them for non-standard building arrangements (as well as non-standard land purchases, i.e., ours was held by multiple folks as an LLC; other banks wouldn't go near us).  They didn't have any problem with the me being the GC or the size of the house or the fact there was no central heating/AC, etc.  The rest was credit cards and cash.

FrankInWI

Muldoon, I found your post very interesting. hope to hear more from you.
I built building one (garage w/mega loft) myself (with the help of three framers for three days) because of financial limitations, a dream to do it with my son(s), and just to do it cause I can. (well, I thought I could)
god helps those who help them selves

tsmart

We just completed a house in the mountains of North Carolina.  One thing that helped a lot was Lowes. or should I say the bankers that back Lowes..... If you have good credit, you can approach them as we did.  We asked for approval on the Lowes credit card for $50,000.  The manager seemed incredulous, but after a few calls, they approved us with one year no pay no interest.  We bought our whole framing package, windows too,  and the building was closed in (shell)  on the mountain 3 months before our payment for the framing package was due.  We paid it off.  So it was closed in.  We took a break, then charged up another $25K then after another year paid that off;  went right back and charged up another 50K to finish the house.  It took us four years to do, and we did have some savings....but we built the place with other peoples money!!!!

We went to Home depot, did the same thing with the entire $11K  AC system....again one year no pay, no interest.

If you have good credit,  anythings possible.  If they did it for me, they would do it for others.  I am sure they were hoping we couldnt pay it....then they would have made a whole lot of money.  But they never made a dime on us.  One other thing, if one store says yes and one store says no, guess what, both stores will end up saying yes. 

We were originally going to get a construction loan.  But there would have been a big penalty if we could not get C.O. within 9 months.  We knew that would not be possible....so thats what made us think about this alternative.  Not for  everyone, but worked for us.

A year from now we will pay them for all the wood flooring oyeah, and the flat screen TV we got at HD......

glenn kangiser

Thanks tsmart.  A good tip for constructive financing. and w* to the forum.
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

Please put your area in your sig line so we can assist with location specific answers.


sailingseahag1968

Hi All,

I read one of your blogs about building and paying cash.  I just bought some land cash and can't wait for my condo to sell.  I work a stressful job and can't wait for the day when I can work wherever I want and be able to enjoy my job and not worry about how little I make.
The land came with an abandoned mobile home.  I put it on freecycle to give away as scrap metal.  The people who wanted it changed their mind after they realized what a big job it is.  Well they left a really big mess and I and my friend Warren have been cleaning it up for 3 weeks.  Today we uncovered the ibeams on 75 percent, hauled off another 3 loads of trash and burned all day.  It is hard work, but my idea that it is mine and I can envision the property as it could be keeps me with the motivation.  I brought in a load of crash -n run as well.  The road is clay and sloppy when wet.  I will keep working on the land and looking at the projects you are all working on for my inspiration.
Tracy

Sassy

 w* Tracy...  congrats on the land!  We have clay here too so I know what you mean...  was walking around this afternoon after it had been raining for a couple days - gets pretty mushy where it hasn't been compressed or road slate/gravel put on it. 

Lots of good ideas here 8)
http://glennkathystroglodytecabin.blogspot.com/

You will know the truth & the truth will set you free

glenn kangiser

Welcome to the forum, Tracy.  The old MH's are a lot of work to remove.  I gave away an old motor home to get rid of it without tearing it apart or paying dump fees.  It could have been usable but no longer worth it.
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

Please put your area in your sig line so we can assist with location specific answers.

speedfunk

For us like others mention Independence and the ability to live the rest of our lives with real security that we don't have to store in paper (ie: money lol). Why are we building it ourselfs?  It's always been something I wanted to do in life.  We are also building a unique house and someone who is a builder would not complelty understand it .  Another reason is simply money, we would rather have time then money to do things like build.

A bit of background:  Our thought is that we can design a house that is as efficient and simple (lack of electric powered adaptions, ie water pump, pressure tank, furnance etc).  We are 29 now and we both work part time .  I work 2 days a week (10 hours) in IT and she works 3 days in programing.  Simply living has it's perks ,we have around 10 Grand saved up and should have another 7 Grand by July.  .  We have land all ready purchased and paid for in cash.  We owe a bit of cash still on our current home (60k) but no other debts.  The land we are building on has 14 acres of wooded land, very close to a city in southern tier of NY State.  The land was picked b/c we be attempting to build a completely passive solar house.  There is a great southern exposure.  The land has a spring above where we are building that flows 20-25 gpm.  With an addition of a small holding tank to increase the pressure ( only 20' drop to house),we will have pressurized water for our home with no need for any electric powered system.

The house will basically be a earth-bermed drystacked block house, think one story basement with roof.   Due south has windows and there will also be passive solar collectors ( not PV) outside the house that will attach to dry,insulated earth below our house.  This will allow us to harvest the solar rays of dead summer OUTSIDE the house so we won't over heat but can still use that energy ( an attempt to fix the flaw i see with conventional earthships).  John Hait has written about energy storage in the earth around your house and this is the system that we have adapted (and twisted a bit ;).   Again simplicity and low maintenance being key!  No pumps or furnaces if we can help it.  We will also have a wood stove as a back up. 

Power is tricky, we have a spring that connects with another spring and runs down the hill around 180 ft drop.  So there is really good potential for a water turbine.  this will most likley wait till after house is built.   Also an option becuase we are on top of a hill is wind.  We have a high spot of the top of our land that sits in bedrock that would be perfect for a tower.  The wind maps also say it's good site ..I think it averages 12-14mph winds .  So one or the other, or maybe both down the road.

We are currently in the permit process!  We have an excavator scheduled to start the end of the week leveling the spot for the house and making a small pond.

We are living in the firstday cottage we built to sell (we ending selling our other house before our firstday cottage so we moved in ) right now and will most likley be until summer 2010 when it will go back on the market and we should be complete with the new and put the firstday on the market and we will be debt free plus ++++++++++ :) happy dance

Sorry for long post!  Good thread!

Jeff

harry51

Hi, Jeff! Sounds like a great project.  [cool]I'd like to hear more about the spring/tank water system. How will the tank increase the water pressure to the house without a pump? Will it be set much higher than the house to gain more pressure by gravity? If so, will you use something like a hydraulic ram to move the water up to the tank, or? http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/equip/ram.htm
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson


glenn kangiser

Great to hear from you again, Jeff and looking forward to seeing your new project.  The water ram Harry mentions could help with your pressure issue.  80 feet elevation would get you up to about 32 lbs.  20 feet gives you a bit over 8lbs.  .433 lbs per foot of elevation.
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

Please put your area in your sig line so we can assist with location specific answers.

speedfunk

HI harry!  Hi Glen !  Thanks for yer comments.

I'm glad you all commented it made me formalize my thoughts a bit.  My plan is to create the water holding tank as a resivor by the spring.  Then running 2" High Density Plastic Pipe to the house.  From the house out the sizes would change a bit depending on need.  Like for instance 1/2" to toilet, maybe 1" to 2" pipe going to showers and sink.  On the clothes washer use whatever pipe is the largest size that would attach to it and if it fills a bit slower I'm ok with that.  In the shower use a large surface area shower head (maybe a 1' in diameter) with lots of holes to take advantage of the volume and have it directly overhead so it doesn't need the pressure to SHOOT it into you.

The holding tank would increase the time I could sustain a higher volume of water flowing though the pipe.  By using larger diameter pipes in the key areas It would reduce the frictional losses and remove the standard 1/2" bottle neck typical with high pressure type systems. 

This is my thought process on how to compensate and adapt to what I have in  a simple way  d*  d*  .  I would love to hear anything you all think could be an issues...  i want to make sure the system has the best chance of working i can.

I will definitely start up a project thread , b/c I really want to contribute in someway. 
Jeff


glenn kangiser

Looking forward to the thread, Jeff.  I just put in a solar powered livestock watering system using a Flowjet 12v water pump - It takes 84 watts and pressures to 50 lbs - 2.9 gpm  I put a 12v battery and 2 - 40watt panels to provide water at 50 PSI day and night.  Just a low cost pressure system idea - no tank needed - the pump has it's own switch.  You could add a bladder tank for larger quantity but it all adds cost

I think your reasoning is sound on the large diameters for low pressures.

There are free wind turbine plans on the net also.

Thanks for thinking of the rest of us. :)
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

Please put your area in your sig line so we can assist with location specific answers.

speedfunk

oh... neat glen.  If if need an extra boost ,I do like that idea alot.   I like sound thinking ..sometimes my theories seem to involve plantary alignments to work out :)

SansPlans

My reasons for building:
1. I hate the machine of debt and government control that has enslaved my ancestors back as far as I know their names.

2. I recognized early in my adult life that a mortgage is the primary mechanism by which our populace is controlled and contained, and that it is what keeps people from doing what they want to with their lives.  Anytime I hear someone say "I'd like to do such and such", their reason for not doing it boils down to their mortgage payment. People aren't even able to protest the horrible injustices that occur occasionally in this country because they can't take time off work because they are home-owned instead of home-owners.

3. I am not the property of a bank or the state. I don't want anything from them, and I wish to deprive them of as much of the fruit of my labor as possible. They wish to make me into their property and treat me as a farm animal to be milked for all the value they can extract from me before I die.  They wish to use that money to further oppress me and future generations. There is already so much we have to pay The Machine by force under threat of violence or imprisonment, it seems ludicrous to voluntarily pay even more via participating in the mortgage mechanism. Paying on a mortgage with interest, to me, plays right into their plans for my life for them to own me and my children. I am wired such that I could never have any peace of mind trying to live with a mortgage.

4. When I realized how vast the multitude of scoffers was, I knew that I had to build my own house so that they would realize they are in the situation they are in because of choices they make, and because they are too lazy to do anything about it, not because it is their unchangeable fate to drown in debt and live an insecure life, raising their children as children of slaves instead of free people.  We live in a somewhat free country, but what good does it do if everyone throws it away by purposely engaging in debt-slavery? Slavery is slavery, whether it is under the lash, or under debt. Look at the current mortgage crisis. The people have been fattened for slaughter, and their mortgages have become a plunder for their oppressors. Not my idea of a good time.

5. I thought it would be much easier than it actually is. Had I known how hard this would be I probably would have just bought a bigger RV :)

How I'm paying:
Cash. I work two jobs currently but haven't done that the whole time, just for about a year.  I recommend the two-job thing to anyone who has free time but is whining about not having enough money. The 40 hr work week is an invention of man, not something you have to limit yourself to if there is a driving reason to do otherwise.  I know a lot of people who spend beyond their means and then whine about their economic situation, but refuse to give up their hours and hours of TV every evening to go make themselves more productive in order to bring their income in line w/ their spending.  Of course when the house is done I'll quit one maybe both jobs. It isn't something I'd want to do forever but it is a relatively straight forward and risk free way to solve the money problem to get cash for building. 

glenn kangiser

Quote from: speedfunk on November 23, 2008, 11:09:16 AM
oh... neat glen.  If if need an extra boost ,I do like that idea alot.   I like sound thinking ..sometimes my theories seem to involve plantary alignments to work out :)

The low pressure could work fine but it is nice to have other ideas just in case, Jeff.  I forgot to mention that the Flowjet is about $85  Solar panels about $400 Regulator $17 Battery about $100 for this stand alone system for water from about 9 feet below the pump maximum - but the low pressure feed would be great. 

That is about what we have at the system above - maybe 20 feet head pressure incoming from the spring, pumping 64 feet elevation 150 feet distance uphill.  The pump shuts off at 50 psi and the float in the stock water tank simply floats closed shutting of the pump until the horses drink, whereupon the pump automatically starts.  Full tank takes about 5 hours - battery is good for ten hours and the solar is enough to run the pump without the battery in the day time.



The pump motor has a heat sink on it that I made from corrugated aluminum roofing - just to increase pumping time and decrease cooling time.  The pump is available in another special order model somewhere with a heat sink but my Mickey Mouse one works well.
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

Please put your area in your sig line so we can assist with location specific answers.


Mike 870

             I have a plan that I hope will allow me to "retire" at age 39 after 10 more years of work.  I am 29.  I have refinanced my home to a 10 year fixed rate mortgage.  I also have some disposable income that goes into a savings account towards the purchase of land and eventually for building my house.  I have about 30% of my house paid off right now (it would be about 40% if home values hadn't dived).   I have enough savings to buy land now, but I may keep saving so I can buy better land.  I just recently lost out on some property that someone beat me to. 

   During the next 10 years I hope to save money and acquire the resources to start up my future business, buy and build with zero overhead.  I plan to keep my house in the city which is in a yuppie neighborhood with great schools and rent it out.  This rental income will be a cushion if my business turns out to be minimally profitable.    I have narrowed my business down to 3 areas I really enjoy but am having trouble deciding on which to pursue.

   Some of the most influential factors in coming up with my plan were as follows. 

1) I downloaded an amortization schedule on excel and it just blew my mind.  I ended up starting at it and crunching numbers for hours.  I kind of became a huge geek with it and have my finances mapped out to 2020 (with a lot of very conservative assumptions).

2) I have always loved building things ever since I was young.  I used to build with blocks non stop.  I am really going to get a lot of enjoyment out of building my own house and then living in it. 

3) I have been reading a lot of Gene Logsdon, and really appreciate his tips on life and his outlook on finances.  I strongly suggest anyone look into him.  I think people on this forum would especially appreciate his take on things.

4) I really do not enjoy my job and can't imagine doing it much longer.

Sassy

Good plans SansPlans & Mike 870...  I never really thought about a lot of those things when I was younger...  just trying to survive, raise my kids, have a good paying job...  Glad that I did go back to school & get my degree in nursing - good paying, flexible, lots of variety...  so it has helped me become more independent - with both Glenn & I - we're on our way to being debt free - not there yet, but hopefully I'll have some money left in my Thrift Savings Acct (TSP) the federal gov't 401K - to pay off the one mortgage we have in the valley unless we sell the place... 

We are pretty independent/self-sufficient here at the Underground headquarters, tho... 
http://glennkathystroglodytecabin.blogspot.com/

You will know the truth & the truth will set you free

bkiller

Hello to all i have been doing alot of reading on here and its nice to see so many on here with some smarts . i lived in the city for 22 years and then move to nw arkansas to live what i  call a free life . i gave it up and moved my wife and i back to the city bad move . now all we think about is getting back to the lake area in nw arkansas , so here i am trying to get back to the free life by building my home on my own land . we are trying get some land with cash and get a loan to build a 20x34 . 


any help would be awsome

glenn kangiser

w* to the forum bkiller.  We collect up the smart people in the world and ask them to post here.  Hope things work out for you. :)
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

Please put your area in your sig line so we can assist with location specific answers.

Okie_Bob

bkiller, welcome!! I believe with the economy in the shape it is now that I would NOT borrow a dime from anyone for anything. Debt is bad and going to get worse before it gets better. My advice is to pay off everything you owe and save up and pay cash instead of borrowing. I know that is not the American way but, it is the smart way and a damn site less stressful. To be able to say not only did I build it myself but, its all mine, free and clear. What a wonderful feeling that is.
Okie Bob