Need ideas for cost cutting for building a house

If you want quality at a bargain price, you are going to have to find bargains and buy a lot of stuff used.

I bought a lot of stuff on Ebay for our house. High end Hunter ceiling fans with lights for $60 including shipping. Delta Oiled bronze faucets for 1/2 retail. Box of 5 Schlage dead bolts all keyed the same for $5. I have even seen entire kitchens being auctioned if you can go and take it all out for dirt cheap. So, go on line and see what you can find. I have seen good buys on appliances there also.

We also bought a lot of stuff when Payless Cashways went out of business in Texas. I bought all our exterior doors for $40 each. So, look for lumberyards that are having bankruptsy sales. Check out the newspapers in the areas around where you live in "building materials" to find people that are remodeling or have excess they are selling for cheap. Check out any places that are "builder's surplus" and also auctions. One place near us has granite tile for $1 sq ft. Problem is they only have hunter green. If you like hunter green granite, it is a great buy.

Lowe's and Home Depot frequently have appliances and cabinets that people have ordered and then not wanted for what ever reason. They price them at about 50% off retail.

Labor is about 50% of the cost of a home from a builder. You might also do the insulation to save money. Doesn't require a great deal of skill. Read Consumer Reports article on windows and decide for yourself if buying expensive windows is for you.

Any chance you could complete the interior trim package yourself? If you are handy, I think this is something you could save on by doing yourself. Can you save money by staining and varnishing the trim? How about dropping the interior trim now, and install it later?
clove

Go without carpet, tile, etc for now. Paint the plywood sub-flooring a cheery color and live with it for a while. You can do that with your kitchen countertops too. I did for over 2 years. Just lay plywood over the top of the cabinets and secure and paint. Get stock cupboards and cabinets from a builder store, Menards, Lowes, etc. Have not totally neccessary plumbing/electrical, etc roughed in but wait to install till later. Go without hanging interior doors for a while.

Check out Habitat for Humanity's restores. see link. http://www.habitat.org/env/restore.html

Do I even need to say forget about any landscaping for the moment?


Kandi

Thanks for all the great replies!!

Lets see if I can remember all the questions:

:haha: Yes, we are definetly forgoing landscaping for now! Well, except for the trees I just ordered, I want them to start growing now to start blocking us from the road.

We are maybe going to have a trial run at this. We are trying to tie down the cost for our builder to build the garage first and put an apartment above it so we can stay there for awhile. I am just getting sick and tired of paying a mortage for our house we live in now, when we could be paying half of what we are now, and live on our land. So we are trying to figure out what we can do on this part ourselves, save up some money, than try the house.

There are a few things we will not "skimp" on with the house. All energy star appliances, energy efficent furnace, windows, tankless water heater, insulation....We are going to poition the house to be passive solar, and have a lot of big windows. We are going to put a large solar system in. With all the rebates NYS has, we can get a $46,000 10 kw system for $17,000. Plus NYS offers low interest loans for it.

We did the ceramic tile and vinal flooring in the house we are in now, so we know how to do that.

Right now the land is bare land. There is nothing on it.

The main house we are planning is about 2000 sq. ft. It is pretty much a box. Real basic roof line. So that part is good. We haven't priced this specific plan yet, because we are having a small problem with that. a realtor who was working with a different builder, showed us her house that she just had built, we loved it, it was exactly what we wanted. She said we could get the plans from the builder, but he said we can't buy them from him. If we like the house so much, he can build it for us, problem was, he was a total jerk. I couldn't stand him. So we are trying to go the back way to get a copy, our new builder is going to the tax person for her town and they are going to show him the plans, but he can't take them with him. So hopefully he has a good memory!

The more we were thinking about it, we might reconsider the walk-out basement. We have to raise the house anyway for the septic, sooo....

You all did give me more ideas, thank you!!

~Marisa

If time is not of the essence, and the bank is not involved, consider just having your builder put up the shell, complete- roof, doors, windows, siding. Finish the rest at your leisure.

Wiring is easy, I used a couple of books as references and wired my one BR house and barn. I hired an electrician to do the service entrance because in my case it was a bit tricky. It passed inspection with flying colors.

Plumbing confuses me, and after living in a house with incorrect venting, I wanted it done right. My neighbor's son-in-law (who had just gotten his Journeyman's license) did the work for me as a side job for under $900, materials included. Normal price for the job would have been 3x that.

HVAC and any gas lines should be installed by a licensed contractor, IMO.

Drywall- Any idiot can learn to hang sheetrock. It will give you a workout, but it's not hard to learn. I would suggest hiring a finisher to tape and spackle if you value your sanity. It's not as easy as it looks to achieve a smooth finish.

Of course you can prime and paint your own walls. Use a 5 gal bucket and screen rather than those PITA roller trays. Don't skimp on paint quality, it ain't worth it!

Consider painted moulding over stained, and paint it yourself before it's installed. Stain grade moulding is at least 3x more money. You should probably hire someone to install it.

Check online pricing for flooring. We bought laminate from www.profloors.com, free shipping, free pad- and saved probably 40% off what we would have paid locally. If you're not good at building things, you might want to think hard about trying to install your own hardwood floor. It's too expensive to screw up!

Check out E-bay! I got great deals on bathroom fixtures and a bathroom fan/light combo.

Know what sizes you'll need for everything(doors, cabinetry, etc) and bargain shop for everything! I got several lights off the Home Depot bargain rack, and a $129 vanity top for $35 from the Lowes discount table. I also got 2 interior doors for half price at Lowes because they were "discontinued"- identical to the new model, just the trim wasn't pre-primed. Watch for Home Depot's "Special Buys" on entry doors if you're looking for fancy on the cheap.

I'm sure I'll think of more...

What constitutes an economical house design?

Look at the trash pile. If the cutoffs are typically almost a foot long, or if you see much ripped plywood in the pile, you have inefficient use of materials.

Some have already touched on these points, but let me reiterate:

1. Plan everything so as to eliminate waste in framing, and sheathing. More gables = more $$. More frillies, more "architectural detail" = $$.

2. Plumb back-to-back when possible, and eliminate long plumbing runs.

3. Never buy the best grade of plumbing fixtures, or lights. Buy decent quality, contractor grade.

4. Cabinets, and countertops in a kitchen can kill a budget. Have your cases carpenter built on-site, and then install cabinet shop doors. Much cheaper for an expensive look.

5. Look for good paint on sale. Sears recently ran their 15 year interior flat for $7.99/gallon. If you want to get by even cheaper, I have a friend who has 50 rent houses - he buys mis-mixed paint from the local Lowes for $2/gallon. He brings it home, seperates it into like colors, and "boxes" it in 5 gallon containers.

I've got a few more ideas, but I need to do some painting of my own this morning.....

wanna cut cost - read ken kern's book "owner built home/homestead" - pay attention to concept rather than specifics

We just finished a major addition on our house that is 30 x 20 feet which includes a new bath, mudroom, laundry and kitchen. We saved cost by:

1. My husband assisted the plumber and electrician. Cut the time in half=half the cost.
2. We did all of the framing,roofing, subflooring and drywall. We did hire out the drywall finishing, foundation and grader work. We offered to hand out business cards for the grader guy for a discount. He accepted and has since received business from our friends.
3. We did all of the windows, metal roofing and vinyl siding ourselves.
4. We did all of the painting, shelving and trim work. We hired someone to lay the vinyl flooring.
5. The electrician and plumber are friends of ours, so we got a discount to start with.
6. Our cabinets were made at a cabinet shop for almost half the price of what Lowe's and Home Depot wanted. We went with formica tops, it's unbelievable the range of colors they come in now.
7. We really compared prices on everything, and I mean everything from nails to lumber to piping to fixtures before we bought.

We saved enough that we could finally afford to put central heat and air into our early 1800's farmhouse. By the way, the heat and air guy was a family friend also.