17 ms·

I bypassed trades and engineering licensing to build my house, which is usually only legally possible if you do basically everything yourself ( at least in my s

by ty6853 2y ago

I bypassed trades and engineering licensing to build my house, which is usually only legally possible if you do basically everything yourself ( at least in my state diy work and even owner/builder amateur structural engineering is exempted from licensing since there is no compensation involved). End results, costs <30% of anything comparable offered commercially.

spicyusername 2y ago
How much of that 30% is just labor costs? If you total up the time you spent doing the work, and multiply that by what you could have been paid working doing something else, how does the savings change? People should definitely build their own houses. Its custom fit to you and you get the satisfaction of doing it. But its also a lot of work, requires considerable time investment, and requires quite a bit of specialized knowledge.
- ty6853 2y ago
  Not sure. I lost about 4 months of work, rest was time where I didn't have other work offered to me so the opportunity cost was 0. But consider if I hired someone, I would lose 30% of my earnings to taxes. And then 50% of what I pay others goes to insurance/licensing/taxes/transportation etc. So really your labor costs should be about 30% if you bill your own time since it is tax free both ways and no overhead.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  Back in the day (this century) I was an under the table laborer for someone building their own house. He said it costs less than half as much and takes 4x as long. I.e. the majority of that 70% savings is not from labor.
Aurornis 2y ago
When I was on Reddit I browsed the /r/DIY subreddit every once in a while. It was amazing to see all of the self-built decks, sheds, and unpermitted home modifications that were death traps. I’m sure you did your homework and did everything by the book, but I’ve seen enough both online and in my experience with old houses (commonly modified without permit) to have an appreciation for licensing and permitting requirements. A few years ago my friends’ landlord tried to rebuild the house’s deck until it got shut down by an inspector driving by. I thought it was outrageous until I walked over and saw what was being built, which was a laundry list of engineering and design failures. After that I was thankful that the inspector noticed and stepped in. Licensing (and permitting) doesn’t exist for the ideal case where people practice perfectly without licensing. It exists for the average case, where people like to guess and improvise. > End results, costs <30% of anything comparable offered commercially. If you did the work yourself I’d expect similar savings. I think this is an example of DIY labor, not the cost of licensing.
- ty6853 2y ago
  Codes and inspection were eliminated for owner/builders (but not landlords) decades ago in my county. None of the apocalyptic predictions came to fruition. It was mostly licensing contractors building death traps, not people that intend to live in something they build themself. And a death trap is often better than being homeless in any case, or coming short in healthcare/food/education.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  Mundane things aren't interesting. And this is representative. Reddit loves to circle jerk about how licenses, government permission and paying professionals. Therefore the "crazy stuff" is what you wind up seeing it.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  Mundane things aren't interesting. And this is representative. Reddit loves to circle jerk about how licenses, government permission and paying professionals. Therefore the "crazy stuff" is what you wind up seeing it. Since you brought up a stupid anecdote I'll bring up my own stupid one. A friend of mine was out, mid thunderstorm, fixing the drainage ditch by the road he lives on as it was having problems and trying to go over the road. The state equivalent of the EPA happened to drive by and shut him down. Well, the road wound up getting washed out and the water found a new path of least resistance and caused tens of thousands of dollars of damage. Because the matter was on the state's radar everything took forever and more money to get fixed. To this day he regrets not handling the situation more aggressively.
- marcus0x62 2y ago
  > It was amazing to see all of the self-built decks, sheds, and unpermitted home modifications that were death traps. /r/DIY loves to harp on that kind of thing, but most of the "death trap" critiques I read there are for things like decks 12" above grade. People need to get a grip.

by ty6853 2y ago

spicyusername 2y ago

How much of that 30% is just labor costs? If you total up the time you spent doing the work, and multiply that by what you could have been paid working doing something else, how does the savings change? People should definitely build their own houses. Its custom fit to you and you get the satisfaction of doing it. But its also a lot of work, requires considerable time investment, and requires quite a bit of specialized knowledge.

ty6853 2y ago
Not sure. I lost about 4 months of work, rest was time where I didn't have other work offered to me so the opportunity cost was 0. But consider if I hired someone, I would lose 30% of my earnings to taxes. And then 50% of what I pay others goes to insurance/licensing/taxes/transportation etc. So really your labor costs should be about 30% if you bill your own time since it is tax free both ways and no overhead.
potato3732842 2y ago
Back in the day (this century) I was an under the table laborer for someone building their own house. He said it costs less than half as much and takes 4x as long. I.e. the majority of that 70% savings is not from labor.

Aurornis 2y ago

When I was on Reddit I browsed the /r/DIY subreddit every once in a while. It was amazing to see all of the self-built decks, sheds, and unpermitted home modifications that were death traps. I’m sure you did your homework and did everything by the book, but I’ve seen enough both online and in my experience with old houses (commonly modified without permit) to have an appreciation for licensing and permitting requirements. A few years ago my friends’ landlord tried to rebuild the house’s deck until it got shut down by an inspector driving by. I thought it was outrageous until I walked over and saw what was being built, which was a laundry list of engineering and design failures. After that I was thankful that the inspector noticed and stepped in. Licensing (and permitting) doesn’t exist for the ideal case where people practice perfectly without licensing. It exists for the average case, where people like to guess and improvise. > End results, costs <30% of anything comparable offered commercially. If you did the work yourself I’d expect similar savings. I think this is an example of DIY labor, not the cost of licensing.

ty6853 2y ago
Codes and inspection were eliminated for owner/builders (but not landlords) decades ago in my county. None of the apocalyptic predictions came to fruition. It was mostly licensing contractors building death traps, not people that intend to live in something they build themself. And a death trap is often better than being homeless in any case, or coming short in healthcare/food/education.
potato3732842 2y ago
Mundane things aren't interesting. And this is representative. Reddit loves to circle jerk about how licenses, government permission and paying professionals. Therefore the "crazy stuff" is what you wind up seeing it.
potato3732842 2y ago
Mundane things aren't interesting. And this is representative. Reddit loves to circle jerk about how licenses, government permission and paying professionals. Therefore the "crazy stuff" is what you wind up seeing it. Since you brought up a stupid anecdote I'll bring up my own stupid one. A friend of mine was out, mid thunderstorm, fixing the drainage ditch by the road he lives on as it was having problems and trying to go over the road. The state equivalent of the EPA happened to drive by and shut him down. Well, the road wound up getting washed out and the water found a new path of least resistance and caused tens of thousands of dollars of damage. Because the matter was on the state's radar everything took forever and more money to get fixed. To this day he regrets not handling the situation more aggressively.
marcus0x62 2y ago
> It was amazing to see all of the self-built decks, sheds, and unpermitted home modifications that were death traps. /r/DIY loves to harp on that kind of thing, but most of the "death trap" critiques I read there are for things like decks 12" above grade. People need to get a grip.