Home Building Kits?

[djberg]

Does anyone have any experience with building a home from a kit? I'm researching for an article about the process and will mention ShelterKit, Inc., FirstDay Cottage Kits and Wilderness Cabin Company. Do you know of anyone who has built a home or cabin from any one of their kits? Or, can you recommend any other manufacturer's?

Thank you very much for your help.

Don


Don Berg
The Country Home Journal

[ErinP]

THere are a couple of people on the Country Plans forum who have built First Days...

You might consider posting this question on that board also.

[heather]

We built a Deltec, which is different than the others you mentioned, but a kit none-the-less

We wouldn't do it again, because the cost was identical to stick built & much more than modular
There were other factors as to why we wouldn't do it again, but that's just us

Don't get me wrong, we love our home, but it was crazy!

[Dexter]

Here in Canada Home Depot has panelized kits. They look good to me but I am still in the research stage.

[djberg]

Thank you.

Erin, I'll check out Country Plans.

Heather, Deltec homes are cool, but I've always heard that they were expensive. Did you do a lot of the work yourself? Was the cost a surprise after adding site work, heat, plumbing and such? I worry when some kit manufacturers sell just the shell and don't explain enough about everything else that's necessary for a complete home.

Dexter, Best of luck with your project.

Don

Don Berg
The Country Home Journal

[heather]

Originally Posted by djberg

Heather, Deltec homes are cool, but I've always heard that they were expensive. Did you do a lot of the work yourself? Was the cost a surprise after adding site work, heat, plumbing and such? I worry when some kit manufacturers sell just the shell and don't explain enough about everything else that's necessary for a complete home.

Let's see -

Nothing was a surprise, per se

We were told up front by many people to figure everything to the very best of our ability & then add 20-30%
We did that & still went above it
I think trim was hard to price (even though we made a lot of our own)
We upgraded some things (like solid wood doors, faucets, showers, etc.)

We hired a contractor to put the shell together
Hired others to do plumbing & electric
If you could do most of the work yourself, you'd be in good shape

If we had it to do over again, we'd still do a Superior Wall foundation and put a modular on it - it would have been ready in a fraction of the time & cost a lot less money

Photos of our project are here
We're still not finished! LOL

[StatHaldol]

Originally Posted by heather

Let's see -

Nothing was a surprise, per se

We were told up front by many people to figure everything to the very best of our ability & then add 20-30%
We did that & still went above it
I think trim was hard to price (even though we made a lot of our own)
We upgraded some things (like solid wood doors, faucets, showers, etc.)

We hired a contractor to put the shell together
Hired others to do plumbing & electric
If you could do most of the work yourself, you'd be in good shape

If we had it to do over again, we'd still do a Superior Wall foundation and put a modular on it - it would have been ready in a fraction of the time & cost a lot less money

Photos of our project are here
We're still not finished! LOL

Beautiful home!! We were thinking about building one. I'm glad I ran across your post.

Did you look at modular home companies? Which ones ones did you like?

[djberg]

Heather,

Nice home. Does the cluster of windows face South? It looks as if you doubled your living space by building your home half into the ground. That had to be a big savings in cost per square foot.

I agree with you about modular homes. You can't beat the cost and the simplicity of the process. I had a tour of the Chelsea Modular Home factory in Marlboro, NY and was very impressed.

Don

Donald Berg
The Country Home Journal

[heather]

Originally Posted by djberg

Heather,

Nice home. Does the cluster of windows face South?

Actually, no, they face NW
I WISH they were South-facing, but hey, you have to deal with the hill you have!

The modular "sales" company we looked through was http://www.riverviewhomesinc.com/
Pleasant Valley

[shelleydar]

We built an Expidition Log Home - got it as a package...not sure you would consider it a "kit"? My husband and I built it ourselves and in hind sight could have built it with a lot less money. Glad to share our learning experience if anyone is interested.

[Nevada]

Originally Posted by shelleydar

We built an Expidition Log Home - got it as a package...not sure you would consider it a "kit"? My husband and I built it ourselves and in hind sight could have built it with a lot less money.

That's my take on kits; they are a lot more expensive that just building with materials sourced locally. I built mine from a plan.



I built it with this general plan.

http://www.storageshed-plans.com/cot...planc120bb.htm

It's small, but I've already added in a 12'x5' bathroom.

[Freeholder]

We built a kit house a long time ago. I can't even remember the name of the company now (we started on the house in about 1983, I think). But I did figure out that we could have just bought the materials locally for about a THIRD of what the kit cost!! There wasn't much saving of labor from buying a kit, either.

Kathleen

[djberg]

Shellydar,

Please let us know!

Nevada,

That looks as if it will be nice when you get it sided. Please keep us up to date with photos. I know the designer, Charles Kirkland. I'm sure that he'll be glad to know that his plans were of some help.

Don
The Country Home Journal

[shelleydar]

Well, a lot of it goes along with what Kathleen said. Most of the materials we could have purchased locally at a lower cost. Our package was WAY over designed - the inspectors that looked at the shell couldn't believe how close the rafters were spaced and that we used 2 X 12 instead of 2 X 10 even though it's a 10/12 pitch roof. I think the companies over design them to limit their liability. If you're looking at saving as much as possible LONG TERM my strongest suggestion is to build small and insulate well. Check Craig's list for people who have left over building materials. Start accumulating materials in advance. Know you're plan forward and backward. Think through what you're going to do before you actually do it - you catch a lot of mistakes that way. Go over your plan with someone else. Two eyes looking at it will catch a lot more and save you a lot of headaches. Rent or borrow equipment you won't use again instead of buying it.

We have what they call an insulated log which is basically stick built with logs on inside and outside - we like to call it a log sandwhich. Before we put the logs on we had the entire shell sprayed with foam and then cellulos (sp) in the spaces between the studs. Now imagine 6" of log on the outside and inside...well, lets just say they had to cut a whole so we would have some air exchange for the furnace. We also used geothermal and had an efficient log fireplace installed. The inspector thought we could heat it with a candle. Guess we'll see since winter in just coming on.

I'm not dissapointed with the Expidition package (my husband and I are actually dealers) but if your biggest priority is saving money I don't think a kit would be the way to go.

Don't be afraid to do it yourselves. I was really sceptical but we had to make it work. The plan was that one of the boys was going to build it with him but he bailed out at the last minute. We had already purchased the package so we had to do something. We were both working full time and my husband's employer agreed to let him go to 4 days a week. I lost my job in April so that allowed me more time too. My husband and I are 53 and 46 respectively and we built almost the entire thing ourselves (I don't get on the roof so the boys helped him with the metal and we hired someone to do the dirt work, concrete, stone work, and floors). We also finished the inside of a pole barn to live in while we finished the house and rebuilt the foundation under the old barn that was here. It was old field stone and the animals had dug under the foundation so one end of the bank barn was starting to lean really bad. It had to be made level and I thought he was crazy to think we could salvage it, but as usual, he was right. It's now solid with a new concrete floor (we did this one ourselves). Just need to patch the hole in the siding and it will be finished. We got all this done in the last 18 months on time of just the day to day taking care of things. PM me with any specific questions. I'll ask my husband if it's something technical

I'll try to post some pictures later.

OK, let's see if this works... http://www.flickr.com/photos/3224990...7608718550075/

[Nevada]

Originally Posted by djberg

Nevada,

That looks as if it will be nice when you get it sided. Please keep us up to date with photos. I know the designer, Charles Kirkland. I'm sure that he'll be glad to know that his plans were of some help.

Don

Funny thing about Charles, I sent him a dozen or so photos of the project and asked if he was interested in a joint promotional web site. He replied saying that if I hadn't built my cabin yet that I really should buy one of his plans.



Evidently he just took my email address and put it on his promotional mailing list, since I still get promotional email from him.

Actually, I only used his plan as a general guide, but it was still well worth the $20 purchase price. I added stairs instead of the ship ladder, I changed the window dimensions to match what was in stock at Home Depot, and I did a post foundation instead of a concrete block foundation.

[Nevada]

Originally Posted by shelleydar

OK, let's see if this works... http://www.flickr.com/photos/3224990...7608718550075/

You've got a beautiful home shelleydar! There's no way I could have done that and remained mortgage-free.

[shelleydar]

Well, our intent was to end up mortgage free but it didn't end up that way We had another home to sell and thought we would break even but then the housing market fell apart, the house sat on the market for 18 months and we ended up selling it at a lot less - ended up with a mortgage that was about the same amount we lost (from our expectations) on the sale. It's the only money we owe and our goal now is to get it paid back ASAP - if anyone has ideas about what we can do with 40 acres to make money I'm open to it!!!

Navada, your place may be smaller but you put yourself in it with your own two hands. You should be very proud. Not a lot of people have the courage to jump in head first like you did. I know I would have NEVER done it if we hadn't been left with no other option - well, I guess when all those building supplies showed up we could have just let them rot

[jhambley]

Here's our small cottage home built using ideas from a few different plans we saw. I really liked the cottage plans at:

http://www.robinsonplans.com/craftsman/WW/Default.htm

[shelleydar]

the cottage is so cute! What's the interrior floor plan?

[djberg]

Shellydar,

You have a beautiful home - inside and out. I think that most home building projects are traumatic, if you build yourself or by a contractor. I remember in architecture school that there were some crazy stats about how many couples got divorced during home construction. You and your husband must be very proud of what you went through and what you accomplished.

Don

The Country Home Journal