Building Your Own Home For Dummies

Design your house to accommodate any new technology by providing tubing (conduit) and cubbies that give you general access points to rooms in the house. Mark the access points clearly so you can always add things where you want them. Make sure you

Obviously, having instructions when building a new home is essential. However, because a house is a complex structure made of many different systems, your instructions (or plans) need to include many different drawings. A typical set of plans will include 30 to 50 pages of specific instructions on how to build your house.

In our experience, putting off the shopping for materials until the end of the project is the No. 1 reason for projects going over budget! Spend time at the beginning to make the decisions or pay your architect extra money if you’re using one. You need to pick out every hinge, fixture, and appliance before you get price estimates for your project.

These prelims consist primarily of three basic elements: Floor plans (see Figure 6-1): Each floor of the house has a layout that shows the following: • The location of each room • The placement of each door and window • The location of other amenities, such as stairs, fireplaces, closets, and major fixtures such as kitchen cabinets and showers Site

You can also choose from a growing number of talented home designers who aren’t licensed architects. They offer you the possibility of significant cost savings in the design phase of building your new home. They don’t have the architectural training or certification, so they bill at a lower rate than architects. These designers may draft the house

Get the facts from the architect and conduct your own research. The more you take responsibility for educating yourself and making some decisions upfront, the greater chance you have of eliminating problems, saving some money, and getting the home you’re looking for. Use your architect as the high-paid consultant that he is and make sure to set a r

Just because they handle both design and build aspects through one firm doesn’t mean you can reduce your investigation for finding the right partners for your project. Design-build can be something of a conflict of interest because it doesn’t involve any competitive bidding in the process. Not only that, but the project’s ultimate quality is tied u

Wood versus Steel By far, the most popular home construction technique is conventional construction, which uses vertical studs to create the home’s skeletal system of both exterior and interior walls. Choosing conventional construction allows for a wide range of styles; the studs are simply the basic ingredient. The studs in your walls will be eith

The more square footage you build, the more the house will cost, so efficiency is important. At the same time, skimping on rooms can reduce utility and make for unpleasant living. Here are some minimum recommendations for typical room sizes to give you a general idea of what you need: Bedroom: 100 to 200 square feet Dining room: 100 to 300 square f