4 ms·

My family built our house. It was while I was in highschool. We did everything except pour the foundation, the septic system, and stuff required by a certified

My family built our house. It was while I was in highschool. We did everything except pour the foundation, the septic system, and stuff required by a certified folks like some electrical work and building code stuff. Unless you’re building in an un-zoned area with no permits required you’re not going to be able to truly “build it yourself”. We had the benefit of having big equipment available due to our family business. Also received a lot of help from a few friends. Real bonding experience. It is still one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, though it was tough at the time. There is a lot we didn’t get right the first time, and had to fix in subsequent years. Nothing that affected livability. To that point. Concrete is difficult to re-work. It’s not very sustainable either, if that is a concern of yours. Our house is made of straw bales. (It’s a thing). We visited a bunch before building. But straw bale houses are a lot like concrete houses. Once built difficult to re-work. Great for insulation. Horrible to re-work. I would not suggest concrete, from that perspective. Anything that can cause you legal trouble or that would be expensive to re-work, pay a professional. Otherwise, have fun. Do it. You’ll be glad you did.

Jedd 8y ago
> But straw bale houses are a lot like concrete houses. Once built difficult to re-work. Great for insulation. Horrible to re-work. Environmentally-focused / permaculture types tend to like concrete floor + strawbale. It solves a lot of heating / cooling problems, but naturally the benefits there depend on the climate you're in and local costs of materials. Anyway, to your point. Strawbale housing comes in two broad forms -- infill or load-bearing. Infill was the most popular way of doing this a few years ago, but seems to have lost favour (I don't know why). Load-bearing is definitely more difficult to modify, and that may be the variety you've got experience with. Infill is where you build a (say) structural metal pre-fab shed on a slab, and then tie down bales to embedded threaded bar in the floors to make the walls - filling gaps at the top with looser material. Non-trivial to change your mind later, but at least can be done without affecting the roof / infrastructure.
- patagonia 8y ago
  Yeah, load-bearing. With gunite (concrete) exterior. I guess my point was more to the OPs situation, that a concrete house would be difficult to re-work. Which matched my experience with our house.
  - Jedd 8y ago
    Yup, I noted in a separate comment that re-work (or any kind of maintenance, let alone mind-changing) with concrete is a significant con, at least beyond the slab. I'm likely to use in-fill, as load-bearing just seems too much effort, too time-constrained in terms of dealing with random weather events, and too difficult to effect subsequent design changes. I'm assuming the gunite mixture allows some breathing? I thought concrete mixes were typically avoided for this reason -- most people I've heard of that do these (I'm in AU) use a natural mix, mostly clay-based, IIRC.

Jedd 8y ago

> But straw bale houses are a lot like concrete houses. Once built difficult to re-work. Great for insulation. Horrible to re-work. Environmentally-focused / permaculture types tend to like concrete floor + strawbale. It solves a lot of heating / cooling problems, but naturally the benefits there depend on the climate you're in and local costs of materials. Anyway, to your point. Strawbale housing comes in two broad forms -- infill or load-bearing. Infill was the most popular way of doing this a few years ago, but seems to have lost favour (I don't know why). Load-bearing is definitely more difficult to modify, and that may be the variety you've got experience with. Infill is where you build a (say) structural metal pre-fab shed on a slab, and then tie down bales to embedded threaded bar in the floors to make the walls - filling gaps at the top with looser material. Non-trivial to change your mind later, but at least can be done without affecting the roof / infrastructure.

patagonia 8y ago
Yeah, load-bearing. With gunite (concrete) exterior. I guess my point was more to the OPs situation, that a concrete house would be difficult to re-work. Which matched my experience with our house.
- Jedd 8y ago
  Yup, I noted in a separate comment that re-work (or any kind of maintenance, let alone mind-changing) with concrete is a significant con, at least beyond the slab. I'm likely to use in-fill, as load-bearing just seems too much effort, too time-constrained in terms of dealing with random weather events, and too difficult to effect subsequent design changes. I'm assuming the gunite mixture allows some breathing? I thought concrete mixes were typically avoided for this reason -- most people I've heard of that do these (I'm in AU) use a natural mix, mostly clay-based, IIRC.