Building Small Home?Forums

[karoc]

Guys I am looking to kinda educate myself on building bout a 1200 sq ft home with the pier beam construction. I built my house where I live now and built my garage few yrs later so its not new to me. But that was 35 yrs ago and on slab. Since this build will be my retirement home for just wife and I with small shop to be added later. I want to get it right and not make mistakes like I did on the house I live in now cause there is no rm for mistakes. In order for me to afford this I have to do most of the work myself,but will contract out other parts of it. It be just a plan house nothing fancy but want it to have little style. So looking for forums that would help me educate myself on whats new in building world. I did find one site Contrator's Talk but its only for contractors but in their rules says no questions on how to do something. So that knocks me out,asking that question. Here's pic of of pier beam construction which is just an example and my first question is how to insulate it and how keep out rodents. So looking for good forums suggestions that will offer a DIY home building for single floor 1200 sq ft living space,give or take little. Thanks

 

[3onthetree]

From what I've found
- DIYChatroom gets a lot of forum traffic and good solving of issues and how to's from many pros.
- Houzz has a lot of forum traffic and good opinions from designy pros and HGTV-type members.
- Fine Homebuilding forum has little traffic but has good reference articles.
- JLC is great for reference articles.

 

[matt_i]

So many hinges in that design.

Your location is pretty important, can you please edit your profile and put it there?

My personal opinion is you'd be much farther ahead as far as comfort with a grade beam perimeter, insulated slab and then stick frame.

This does require you to start with an accurate set of drawings down to rough plumbing rather than cobbling it later but I feel like that's worth it in the end product.

 

[karoc]

So many hinges in that design.

Your location is pretty important, can you please edit your profile and put it there?

My personal opinion is you'd be much farther ahead as far as comfort with a grade beam perimeter, insulated slab and then stick frame.

This does require you to start with an accurate set of drawings down to rough plumbing rather than cobbling it later but I feel like that's worth it in the end product.

Profile has been edit,but I'm building in East Tx. there are no inspections other than sewer system if I should increase sq footage. But I'm not, in the pic that type of pier and beam construction is typical for houses that are not on slabs. Lots of good points Matt,which is reason why I'm asking first before I ever get started. I do have pic of house that we have in mind if we go that route.Other plan is metal bldg with living space and shop space under one roof. I have good ideal of the cost for metal bldg and slab but wanting get ideal of cost for a shell having it done vs me doing it myself. Which regardless of either I will be doing most of the work inside.
3ontree thanks for those websites going to check them out for some ideals.

 

[nadogail]

IMHO, Every home and garage is a work in progress and a compromise between dreams and reality.

Reconsider your assets and your abilities. Consider the differences between Needs and Wants. Perhaps reorder your priorities.

Sleep on it, then create a vision. Once you have a vision communicate the vision to your team, make a plan and a path to your vision. Then assemble your team, communicate your vision, provide the team with the tools and abilities to accomplish the vision, empower the team to accomplish the vision, provide feedback and encouragement as you and the team make it all happen.

 

[pgray007]

From what I've found
- DIYChatroom gets a lot of forum traffic and good solving of issues and how to's from many pros.
- Houzz has a lot of forum traffic and good opinions from designy pros and HGTV-type members.
- Fine Homebuilding forum has little traffic but has good reference articles.
- JLC is great for reference articles.

I second Fine Homebuilding, especially their videos.

Family Handyman also has good instructional articles and videos. DIY.stackexchange.com is also OK although some items require a grain of salt.

There are also very good trade-specific forums for tile, plumbing, etc. that can be found with some googling.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[AZ Pete]

I bought and lived in a 1,400 sq ft ,pier beam, ranch style house for 9 years. I was the first owner. There were no issues with the stability or comfort. The floor was uninsulated.

The house was located in Northern Arizona at 4,300 ft elevation. Average high was in the mid 90's, average low 30. to give you some comparison.

Never had any problems with rodents in the crawl space either, not sure why since there were healthy populations of field mice, pack rats and ground squirrels there.

 

[MushCreek]

The forums at countryplans dot com is mostly DIY types building small homes and cabins. Not as active as it used to be. I also recommend greenbuilding talk to learn all you can about energy-efficient building. A lot has changed over the years. I designed and built our small, ICF home, mostly single-handed. It's incredibly comfortable, and I use small mini-splits for all of my HVAC needs. The smallest central HVAC systems are much too big for our 1400 sq ft home.