Building a home

[The Mad Monk]

NM.

[Asher]

Week 3: Foundation

[Dinner]

Just be happy that your development doesn't require tile type roofs. That could add 30-50k to the price of construction.

I have tiles on my house. Yes, it costs more but when the wild fires were blazing it was nice to know I had a fire proof roof so none of the embers could catch my roof on fire.

BTW stucco looks way better then that tacky sidings you find in the low class neighborhood.

[Dinner]

It depends on where you live and how much money you're willing to spend.
In the south us, most building code requires cinder blocks or concrete due to insects.
In the midwest, most houses will have a front made of brick or a brick facade and the rest of the house will be simple wood covered with aluminum or some other type of siding.
If you have big bucks, brick all around.
In the southwest desert, stucco is the exterior material of choice.

More and more houses are now using metal studs instead of pine.

Here in earthquake country you want to build with wood framing (with the joints covered by metal joinings) because brick and even rebar reenforced concrete has a high structural failure rate during earthquakes while wood framing just sways instead of suffering structural failure. Also aluminum (and even vinyl) heat up to much in the sun requiring to much energy usage for heating or cooling even with normal amounts of insulation thus stucco is the preferred finish on houses. The only thing I don't like is no one builds houses with basements out here; it's a dry area so it isn't like they're worried about the water table or seepage and instead that's just the builders being cheap.

[rah]

in any area that is near sea level, basements are rare.

[Asher]

Week 4: Weather has gotten in the way of construction, but the weeping tile and basement wrap are on, and utilities hooked up.

[Asher]

Week 5: Backfill complete, gravel layer below soon-to-be poured cement basement & garage floors. Also, we have steps.




Week 6: Framing has begun!

[Flubber]

in any area that is near sea level, basements are rare.

I think your statement is overbroad . In Atlantic Canada, homes within 100 feet of the ocean routinely have basements. The rocky soil makes for generally excellent drainage

[BlackCat]

I really don't understand you yanks/canucks. You have lots of land so space must be dirt chap, but still you build housings so close. Why ?

[Asher]

The land around major urban areas is certainly not cheap. Land in the middle of nowhere is cheap because no one wants to live there.

Calgary is already massive in terms of land area (726.50 km^2). The population density (1,360.2/km^2) is not sustainable for a large city.

Sure, it'd be nice to have a huge yard. But the lot I have there is $200,000 just for the land. It's 11m by 36m. There are bigger lots in the area (outside of the neighbourhood), but the land alone is over a million (for example, people aren't spending $2.1M for a bland 1900sq foot house).

[Flubber]

LIke Asher says, its location-- pretty obvious reeally

For my cabin we spent about a quarter of a million for 5 acres (wooded flat land) -- There are places between the city and myt cabin where 5 acres would be far less but you would not be as near skiing, lakes etc etc

[Asher]

You should post pictures of that.

We're about 10 years away from buying a vacation home out in the mountains.

[Asher]

The lot I have is actually one of the biggest in the neighbourhood (excluding some enormously overpriced pie lots with ravine/mountain views).


Many of the lots are 7m wide (1.2m space between the walls of each house also, giving you about 4.6m to build your actual house...), and 30m long.

[BlackCat]

Well, that of course makes sense, but that prices is pretty high. Even here in Copenhagen you can get way more land for 200 k$ than 400 sqm. - at least the double.

[BlackCat]

Many of the lots are 7m wide (1.2m space between the walls of each house also, giving you about 4.6m to build your actual house...), and 30m long.

That sounds like duch mediveal city housings