Overall this is a great site for discussing the owner-builder process, and it has been a great asset to me in the building of my home. Thanks to everyone who contributes directly and indirectly to keeping this site interesting and helpful. Bill from Baltimore, MD

April's Forum Posts: 12
Journal Entries: 4
Interview Answers: 65
Average Forum Rating: 4.27



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You get what you pay for...

Posted to Ingram-Fleming-ICF-Home by April in Plant City, FL on 11/29/2007

I can't believe it has been so long since I updated! Time really passes fast when you are building your own home. Whew! 

We learned a very valuable lesson... you get what you pay for. Due to the delays with the county and the rain, our schedule was falling behind and decided to sub out the footer/slab forming. We received several bids and signed a contract with the lowest bidder. I really knew better. Lowest usually isn't the best and this particular bid was several thousand dollars less than the next highest bid, but because we hadn't budgeted for subcontracting the dig/forming we were going to be over budget already.

To start with, they overdug the footers by quite a bit. The estimate for concrete needed to pour the slab was 89 yards (yep, that's a lot of concrete at $115 a yard). Overdigging the footers was going to add another 10 yds at the very least. I made them come back out and fill in the footers. The next day I went out to check the forms for square and found that they were 1 1/2" out and 1 1/2" too low. An 1 1/2" out either way is very bad. So back they came to raise and square the forms. Again, I checked the forms and now we were missing an inch in the garage. So back out they came again. (Found beer bottles in the footers this time. Hmmm. Now I see why they can't get it right.) At this point I am ready to murder someone. They finally squared the slab (within 1/4") and were ready to pour.  

The day of the pour... we are about halfway through... and it rains. By rains, I mean it came a downpour. They were able to rescue the slab for the most part, but it is not pretty. I guess during the panic a form board was laid in the wrong place and the garage apartment ends up 11" short. (I believe I had a minor coronary upon learning this news). So, a week later the guys came back out and poured 11" in the garage.  (It is the ugliest thing I have ever seen). 

These are just the major problems we had with the sub. I left out the minor problems so as not to bore you to death. Moral of the story... you get what you pay for. 

Here are pics of the slab...

Photos

The morning of the pour...	Sunny and nice in the morning...	They later had to fix this area because the beat up the edges so badly.
This is after the downpour... as you can see, I have a pond where my dining room will be. Think they might be a little low here?	At least I have a slab now...

Posted by S.A. in Grass Valley, CA on 12/1/2007 S.A.'s Forum Posts: 2 Interview Answers: 1 Randomly Selected Image 12/1/2007

Ooh, this doesn't sound good. How deep did they overdig the footers? When they backfilled, what type of material did they use, and did they vibratory compact it in layers, no more than 6 inches at a time? If the soil was not sufficiently compacted, your footings will settle, and your whole house will follow. You could expect cracked concrete floors and walls and other problems. On the other hand, a cracked floor could alleviate your dining room pond problem. :o(

Rain and Headache Powders

Posted to Ingram-Fleming-ICF-Home by April in Plant City, FL on 9/26/2007

I had intended on posting more often, but a few weeks ago I pulled my 15-year-old out of the local high school and began homeschooling. Schools in the area are just awful. So that has taken up any spare time (as if I had any). (Headache powder number one)

The building permit...

The land alteration permit, not so affectionately referred to as a LAL, which is submitted with your building permit application, is where the county tells you what you can do with your land (or in truth what you cannot do with your land). Apparently this is where permits are sent when they want to discourage owner-builders. 

A "wonderful" person at the land alteration department decided that because a house a half-mile away was in a wetland... ours must be too. So off to the EPC I go, where a truly (and I really do mean this) wonderful woman help us get a rushed wetland delineation. (This can be a rather lengthy process). Yep, 1/16 of the back corner of our land is now wetland. Oh,well. It doesn't effect anything we are doing and it's actually very pretty back there... Time frame: four weeks (Headache powder two)

Again with the LAL, three pine trees (the only ones on the land) nowhere near where we are going to build... at the very back corner... not in the wetland... are rotting and/or dead. (There are over 20+ trees total) On the LAL permit they were marked to be removed (you have to list every tree). The response from the county.... why? Our response... they are dead? Their response... we will just see about that that when the inspector comes out. Our response... never mind, we will just leave them. Time frame: two weeks. (Headache powder three)

AGAIN with the LAL. Oops... the building department office that we took our permit application to copied the site survey from 24"x36" to 8 1/2"x11" and sent it to the main office and they couldn't read it. DUH! So I took another 24"x36" copy to the main office. I was then told that septic layout was not "properly represented" on the new copy. Off to the septic department for a "properly represented" copy of the septic permit. Oh yeah, and by the way, please show where the road intersects the highway over a mile away on the another new copy. Oh wait, even though we have a copy of the letter from the wetlands department stating you are building nowhere near the wetland on your property... bring us another new copy of the site plan with the wetlands shown. Time frame: four weeks. (Headache powders four, five, and six) 

Structural department: No Problems. (Whew)

Graphics department: Great guy at building department told exactly what we needed to give him. Got it to him the next day. Done.

So after over six weeks (it might have been more) we finally have a building permit! YAY!

This was two weeks ago... in Florida it rains... and rains... and rains. We have all of our dirt delivered. We managed to get it moved around and leveled a bit before the rain began. Since we work on weekends, and that is seems to be when it rains, we have a very nice patch of mud at the moment. (At least I can watch the race on Sunday. Go Stewart!)

Floor Plans and other stuff

Posted to Ingram-Fleming-ICF-Home by April in Plant City, FL on 8/22/2007

John, thanks for the comment!  I had thought about adding the floor plan, but wasn't sure that was allowed, but I'm going to add it anyway and if I need to take it back off... well I'll just do that.  We had considered adding a mother-in-law apartment to the house we had before we moved to PA, but that was during the building boom and couldn't seem to get anyone to give us the time of day.  The challenge with adding the apartment now was just as John stated... when you try to add livable space... the square footage jumps up quite a bit.  Thankfully, my Mother doesn't require a huge amount of space because she'll also have the "run of the main house" as well.  The floor plan I came up for the apartment has a walk-in closet.  Storage was the main priority so she would have plenty of room for her "stuff".  This is how the sq. ft. worked for the house:  1st Floor Main House - 1,914  2nd Floor Main House - 1,147,  Apartment - 419  Garage - 412  Porches - 1,222.  Total - 5,114 not including ICF walls.  (5,203 with). 

The original plans I drew up were a bit smaller.  After deciding to go with the ICF construction, the choice then needed was how to accommodate the width of the walls in the new plan.  There were several manufacturers to choose from.  Most have relatively the same dimensions - 48" long x 16" tall x 11" deep for a 6" concrete core.  A couple were 11.25" deep instead.  We could either increase the sq ft of the footprint so that the interior dimensions remained the same or keep the original footprint and reduce the interior space.  We choose to increase the footprint to keep the interior dimensions.  I spent months researching before I decided on BuildBlock.  The reason - BuildBlock's attachment points are 6" on center.  In my opinion more attachment points will be important when we start hanging siding and drywall.  Also, the more webs the blocks have, the more reinforced they are when you are pumping concrete.  There were a few more reasons, but those were the primary ones. The price of the ICF were obviously a consideration as well. 

We will be installing the ICF blocks ourselves. The first floor will be ICF and the second floor stick built.  Both BuildBlock distributers in our area had individuals we could hire for a day or two to get us started, show us what to do and answer any questions.  What we are saving by putting the block together ourselves will more than pay for a couple of days of instruction and we will still save a ton.  I found a reputable and experienced company to pump the walls.  All things said and done the price of the ICFs were comparable to concrete block (due in part to labor costs in laying concrete block).  Also, the insulation factor with the ICF construction (somewhere in the R-30 - R-40 range) was significant in our decision.  We won't have the cost of insulating the exterior or furring the walls for siding or drywall.  All those little things add up quickly.  After they pour the concrete slab, install and pump the ICF walls, we will be under $30,000. 

OK... I need to go back to work.  Truss bids are coming across the fax as we speak.  I hope it is good news...

Posted by April in Plant City, FL on 8/25/2007 April's Forum Posts: 12 Journal Entries: 4 Interview Answers: 65 Average Forum Rating: 4.27 Image from April's blog 8/25/2007	"The pour the concrete slab, install and pump the ICF walls, we will be under $30,000.  " April, Is it $20,000 or $30,00?
Posted by April in Plant City, FL on 8/25/2007 April's Forum Posts: 12 Journal Entries: 4 Interview Answers: 65 Average Forum Rating: 4.27 Image from April's blog 8/25/2007	30,000.  Sorry about the earlier typo.
Posted by Grant in Blacksburg, VA on 8/11/2008 2008, 2009 Merit Award Winner Grant's Forum Posts: 363 Journal Entries: 20 Interview Answers: 164 Average Forum Rating: 4.05 Grant's Selected Image 8/11/2008	BuildBlock is on my short list to possibly use, and I'd love to hear how that went for you... Any chance of getting an update on how your O-B project went???

And so it begins...

Posted to Ingram-Fleming-ICF-Home by April in Plant City, FL on 8/20/2007

Back in March, my wonderful future husband decided that we were going to move back to Florida, after a 1 1/2 year stint in Pensylvania.  After a lot of conversation, we decided to build a home instead of buy.  We needed a rather large home to accommodate two kids and my mother.  Buying a house that size was going to cost a fortune; building ourselves seems the best way to get what I want and the size we need.  The catch... I am building the house.  Bob (the wonderful future husband) is going to be working full time, so I am in charge.  My family owned a construction business, so I'm not new to the ordeal, but this will be my first house solely on my own.  Bob and I will be doing most of the work ourselves and subcontracting out a few things like the roofing and concrete work.

The first step was to relocate and find a piece of land.  I rented a house in Zephyr Hills big enough to store everything we own (which was no small feat).  Finding a piece of land however was a greater challenge.  I wanted trees and country.  Just outside of Tampa is not the place to look for country.  After quite a bit of looking, I found the perfect piece of land.  1.26 acres on a dead end road with beautiful mature trees!  We closed at the end of June.  We secured owner-builder financing through IndyMac Bank (good Lord was that an ordeal in itself!).  Understanding that building the house ourselves would take longer than if we subcontracted everything, we decided on the 18-month term to build.  The interest rate was a bit higher but it bought us more time if we should run into problems.  (It's already a good thing we did)  During this time, I had designed a floor plan for our new home.  I took that floor plan and started searching the Internet for similar floor plans.  I found one that was almost exactly like it. 

Now for a tip!  Most engineers or draftsmen don't want to touch those plans you buy on the Internet!  Because we are in Tampa, I knew whatever plan we settled on would have to be brought up to code for Hillsborough County.  I searched high and low and finally found Jody Willis at Trinity Drafting.  What a great guy!  He took the internet-bought plans and fixed them right up.  There are a few things I wanted changed as well as having the plan engineered for ICF.  In no time, he had everything just right! 

The next step was permitting.  Now I could go into detail about the permitting process, but we are still waiting for our permit and if there a building official lurking out there, that could set us back again... so we'll be waiting on that. 

In the meantime... here are pics of the property and what the house will look like.  Total under roof with porches and garage is 5,203 sq. ft.  There will be an apartment over the garage for my mother. 

Photos

Posted by John in Lake City, FL on 8/21/2007 John's Forum Posts: 28 Journal Entries: 2 Interview Answers: 132 Average Forum Rating: 4.10 Randomly Selected Image 8/21/2007

April, I just wanted to applaud you on your beginnings.  We built a house with a mother in law suite back in 2004.  It seems to be a more common thing now then when we did it.  It was quite a challenge, but it was well worth it.  We have since sold and are renting in Lake City.  We want to do another OB project with a mother in law suite.  I would love to see your plans.  I drafted something up myself and it is in the 3,400 sf living range.  When you add another family person other than your kids, it creeps up there in size. I would also like to know more about your ICF.  I thought about going this route, but the contact for the ICF I called gave me a quote of roughly $49,000 for a 5,000 sf house.  I thought this was way up there.  I am now exploring options for a poured in place concrete wall.  Again, I wish you well and I know it is worth it.  I would appreciate any information you can share, and I'll do like wise. Sincerely, John K