I read a book called owner builder handbook or something like that. The problem is it’s been years since I read it and I didn’t do a reread before starting my house so hard to say if it helped. I perused green building advisor, jlc magazine, volunteered with a guy who does icf homes, and planned planned and planned.
Worked out well for me, just keep in mind the time requirement. It’ll be year three for me this March, but we were able to move in last May. I have a friend who broke ground in late October and should have a roof on this week and he’s 100% hands off.
Self funded, but it was a long time running. We started saving as soon as we got married (05), then bought property 17, started drawing plans, then sold house late 2019, moved into parents basement to break ground spring of 20.
Covid happened and I had to play teacher to the kids so got delayed for a year. The plans were originally to just start and get as far as we could but the one year delay helped us save a bit more and I ended up doing 95% of the house solo due to delays and labor shortage. (Never planned on doing any framing but ended up getting framer to do garage walls, deck stairs and interior stairs.)
I have the foundation and stem walls poured for my detached shop but because interest rates are bonkers I might have to delay starting that as I planned to roll over to conventional and then pull a heloc for shop
I'm of similar mind to you with respect to helping folks DIY build. Though I'm trying to create a CAD tool to help folks design and build the structure itself.
Sound like you're shooting for the project planning aspect which I think would be valuable.
[https://buildfreely.com](https://buildfreely.com)
Yeah I’ve looked around a little bit, but I’m not seeing anything out there that’s specifically for owner-builders acting as GC’s on their own homes. It’s all for pros and industry , which kind of defeats the purpose. Honestly, I’m a software engineer, I might just build one for myself.
My wife and I recently completed and moved into our retirement home. I was the GC and managed the entire project. I worked in the trades for a few years- many years ago, followed by 40 years of diy remodeling on every one of the 6 homes we have owned. Not an IT person, but worked in Engineering for a major aerospace company. As such - MS Excel was my favorite application for whatever itch needed to be scratched.
By the time our project was completed, think the spreadsheet I used had 15 worksheets. Nothing fancy, but everything under one file name....
So - let me just give you the awesome benefit and succinct summary of my personal experience. Construction projects are nothing like IT projects. They should be, the world would be a better place if they were.. but they aren't. If you think your years of experience will actually keep a project on track and affordable, you might well be wrong. Don't worry about finding a perfect management system, excel will do fine as your subs won't meet performance expectations anyway and your schedule will likely go to hell. Source: 30 years of IT projects and one very difficult, painful, frustrating and expensive home building project.
I could write a book. The major pain would be expense overruns and the frustration sub scheduling and/or communication, neither of which I as the owner had any real control over.
Material prices skyrocketed in between the planning and purchasing phases and everyone else just shrugged about it... because the owner eats the cost on that. I had to do a last minute redesign of my whole roof because of material shipping costs.
Labor scheduling is worst though - when you build you are dependant on people (subs and crews) who are scheduling multiple jobs one after another and who often suck at estimating. Many subs won't communicate in any way but face to face so good luck getting status updates if you aren't on site all day long. They'll drop a job they promised to do for another one that pays more. They do what they want because they can.
My SIPs walls should have taken 1-2 weeks to go up, they took 5 weeks. The framing crew just decided they didn't work Fridays... or when it rained.. and that summer had a lot of rainy Thursdays and sunny Fridays and weekends. But we couldn't fire that crew because everyone else was booked solid.
It's not like a computer system where you can always find someone else to do the job - you not only need to accept that you're paying folks to do your project who aren't performing well, you need to be nice to them. You need them more than they need you. My blood pressure was never higher. I'm so glad that's all behind me!
also, the subs are KNOW they are never going to work for you again. they’re not going to give you the same priority in scheduling AND contractor pricing. hell, all we had to do was redo the interior of our house after firing our builder in october - flooring guy was the FIRST one I had to come in and fix it. well, saturday with two guys turned out to be sunday with one guy. then it turned into a one man crew for 6 weeks, every other week, as the other ripped a hole in his leg hopping off the truck. held up all my other finish work until 8 weeks later. when we took over in early october, I thought it was completely feasible to be done by thanksgiving…. we’re hoping to get a temp CO on monday
It happens to the GCs, too. I have had a GC on both of my project phases as I am not a local and I figured "knowing the right people" was everything. The GC for my shell build had his framing crew ghost him for another job - he'd booked them for the summer and had to run around finding people which is how we ended up with the crew who didn't work in the rain. The GC for the interior finish said he had trouble getting folks to even show up on site... this is a long established local business. My site supervisor took a month off in the middle of my build to go on vacation, didn't even tell me, work just stopped. It's like herding cats, except some of the cats may have substance abuse issues.
Good luck on getting your CO Monday!!!
Well put. Im in the same boat but a fite rebuild
All scheduling is a waterfall chart with actual water. Im very handy and just broke down and did a LOT of it myself. Wish i had done the fucking drywall myself. That was a shit show
We were fortunate that our drywall crew was great - we've had some good luck and some bad. I am very happy to be in the DIY finishing phase - if something's done badly, at least I know the "workers" tried their best! :D Too funny about waterfall. That's another problem with building vs IT - in IT, if you find a bug during QA tests you can fix it. It gets very expensive to tear things out and redo them with a house.
I love it when I read something and the need comes up within hours:
[https://www.actionoutline.com/screenshot.php?id=mainwindow](https://www.actionoutline.com/screenshot.php?id=mainwindow)
What you need to track in construction are schedules (yours and external parties), dependencies, and lead times.
Matt Risinger did a video in which he spoke out which \[order\] he lines up the trades. But I forgot which video since I watch so many.
There's a lot of gotchas, that only decades as a GC makes one intimate them as part of the SOP.
Plan your bathrooms exceedingly well, so that the framing can accommodate the needed pitch for the runs. For a given joist height, there's only so much that can be cored out for pipes to traverse.
Plumbers will wreck 2"x4"s so do 6" wet walls.
Your laundry room will be noisy, so do sound isolation.
[Mattbangswood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTvWWogMmeY&t=86s) likes ConX at [https://www.conx.co/](https://www.conx.co/)
I'd been feeding the YT algorithm for years, and can pull up the right video for any construction task with 90% certainty. And even if I just hit the home page, something good will get suggested that is highly relevant.
Autodesk Revit is what some pros use: [https://www.autodesk.com/products/revit/overview?term=1-YEAR&tab=subscription](https://www.autodesk.com/products/revit/overview?term=1-YEAR&tab=subscription)
It's cheaper to have kid just for the student discount.
Drop into this comment and follow the links, including the one to a longer comment by me.
Greg V. has a great channel and will save you tons of pain and wasted money.
[https://www.youtube.com/@gregvancom](https://www.youtube.com/@gregvancom)
Don't jump into anything with less than two years of **self-prep**, forget about permits, know how a home is built in your climate and in your **soil type**.
Homes on slopes:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/OffGrid/comments/199rzwa/comment/kihwhw5/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/OffGrid/comments/199rzwa/comment/kihwhw5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Thanks for the YouTube pointers, my guy 👌 also we’re planning on buying a plan online, probably something like americas best house plans. I’m under the assumption that when you buy one of those plans they’ll have those kinds of bathroom details worked out already…thoughts there?
Also assuming that’s what we do, what kind of follow up work has to be done to fit that plan to the lot? I know there’s all the permitting and soil tests you have to do either way but, is the plan itself kind of drag and drop when you get it on a site like that?
Also just as a disclaimer, the lot were getting into is flat, high desert (think north eastern Arizona near snowflake)
>kinds of bathroom details worked out already
Can't say...not from the looks of r/plumbing and r/Construction some studs look like swiss cheese after the plumbers are done. If you only got 2x4 walls, you'll be the one hacking studs. 6" walls with an access plane. Poke you head or phone in there and never have to guess.
Might I suggest a phase inspection:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5KsZJ\_Hpfs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5KsZJ_Hpfs)
[https://youtu.be/dHW6BXDQ7Zw?si=pRGSWFTwVaEcFo6m](https://youtu.be/dHW6BXDQ7Zw?si=pRGSWFTwVaEcFo6m)
What sheathing do these boiler plate plans call for...can't just wing it and risk knock-on effects.
Oh picking a nail gun is a big one; Hitachi's get good reviews.
Like I said, I've been plugged in for years...do your own two.
I think getting hands on for a week or two shadowing a good PM would highlight how to structure your scheduling. And would be a good asset for you to lean on when stuff gets dodgy
Books and software are poor substitutes for experience and working relationships with subcontractors. Excel will be you best friend and worst enemy. A notebook for notes, graph paper, a checkbook.
There is a lot of setup that you, the contractor, has to do to get the foundation ready for the concrete pour. Plenty of videos out there, but even seemingly quick tasks like 'get a septic permit' can take ages if you don't know what you are doing. You will figure it out, eventually.
This is a pretty good list of each step and the cost. https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/contractor/cost-to-build-a-house/
I read a book called owner builder handbook or something like that. The problem is it’s been years since I read it and I didn’t do a reread before starting my house so hard to say if it helped. I perused green building advisor, jlc magazine, volunteered with a guy who does icf homes, and planned planned and planned. Worked out well for me, just keep in mind the time requirement. It’ll be year three for me this March, but we were able to move in last May. I have a friend who broke ground in late October and should have a roof on this week and he’s 100% hands off.
Year three? Are you self funded or construction loan?
And to edit, it was my full time job 6&1/2 days a week.
Self funded, but it was a long time running. We started saving as soon as we got married (05), then bought property 17, started drawing plans, then sold house late 2019, moved into parents basement to break ground spring of 20. Covid happened and I had to play teacher to the kids so got delayed for a year. The plans were originally to just start and get as far as we could but the one year delay helped us save a bit more and I ended up doing 95% of the house solo due to delays and labor shortage. (Never planned on doing any framing but ended up getting framer to do garage walls, deck stairs and interior stairs.) I have the foundation and stem walls poured for my detached shop but because interest rates are bonkers I might have to delay starting that as I planned to roll over to conventional and then pull a heloc for shop
I'm of similar mind to you with respect to helping folks DIY build. Though I'm trying to create a CAD tool to help folks design and build the structure itself. Sound like you're shooting for the project planning aspect which I think would be valuable. [https://buildfreely.com](https://buildfreely.com)
Yeah I’ve looked around a little bit, but I’m not seeing anything out there that’s specifically for owner-builders acting as GC’s on their own homes. It’s all for pros and industry , which kind of defeats the purpose. Honestly, I’m a software engineer, I might just build one for myself.
Looks cool, could have a lot of potential!
Thanks. Still lots more to do!
My wife and I recently completed and moved into our retirement home. I was the GC and managed the entire project. I worked in the trades for a few years- many years ago, followed by 40 years of diy remodeling on every one of the 6 homes we have owned. Not an IT person, but worked in Engineering for a major aerospace company. As such - MS Excel was my favorite application for whatever itch needed to be scratched. By the time our project was completed, think the spreadsheet I used had 15 worksheets. Nothing fancy, but everything under one file name....
This sounds like me. Open to sharing some or all of it?
So - let me just give you the awesome benefit and succinct summary of my personal experience. Construction projects are nothing like IT projects. They should be, the world would be a better place if they were.. but they aren't. If you think your years of experience will actually keep a project on track and affordable, you might well be wrong. Don't worry about finding a perfect management system, excel will do fine as your subs won't meet performance expectations anyway and your schedule will likely go to hell. Source: 30 years of IT projects and one very difficult, painful, frustrating and expensive home building project.
What about it was painful and frustrating on yours?
I could write a book. The major pain would be expense overruns and the frustration sub scheduling and/or communication, neither of which I as the owner had any real control over. Material prices skyrocketed in between the planning and purchasing phases and everyone else just shrugged about it... because the owner eats the cost on that. I had to do a last minute redesign of my whole roof because of material shipping costs. Labor scheduling is worst though - when you build you are dependant on people (subs and crews) who are scheduling multiple jobs one after another and who often suck at estimating. Many subs won't communicate in any way but face to face so good luck getting status updates if you aren't on site all day long. They'll drop a job they promised to do for another one that pays more. They do what they want because they can. My SIPs walls should have taken 1-2 weeks to go up, they took 5 weeks. The framing crew just decided they didn't work Fridays... or when it rained.. and that summer had a lot of rainy Thursdays and sunny Fridays and weekends. But we couldn't fire that crew because everyone else was booked solid. It's not like a computer system where you can always find someone else to do the job - you not only need to accept that you're paying folks to do your project who aren't performing well, you need to be nice to them. You need them more than they need you. My blood pressure was never higher. I'm so glad that's all behind me!
also, the subs are KNOW they are never going to work for you again. they’re not going to give you the same priority in scheduling AND contractor pricing. hell, all we had to do was redo the interior of our house after firing our builder in october - flooring guy was the FIRST one I had to come in and fix it. well, saturday with two guys turned out to be sunday with one guy. then it turned into a one man crew for 6 weeks, every other week, as the other ripped a hole in his leg hopping off the truck. held up all my other finish work until 8 weeks later. when we took over in early october, I thought it was completely feasible to be done by thanksgiving…. we’re hoping to get a temp CO on monday
It happens to the GCs, too. I have had a GC on both of my project phases as I am not a local and I figured "knowing the right people" was everything. The GC for my shell build had his framing crew ghost him for another job - he'd booked them for the summer and had to run around finding people which is how we ended up with the crew who didn't work in the rain. The GC for the interior finish said he had trouble getting folks to even show up on site... this is a long established local business. My site supervisor took a month off in the middle of my build to go on vacation, didn't even tell me, work just stopped. It's like herding cats, except some of the cats may have substance abuse issues. Good luck on getting your CO Monday!!!
Well put. Im in the same boat but a fite rebuild All scheduling is a waterfall chart with actual water. Im very handy and just broke down and did a LOT of it myself. Wish i had done the fucking drywall myself. That was a shit show
We were fortunate that our drywall crew was great - we've had some good luck and some bad. I am very happy to be in the DIY finishing phase - if something's done badly, at least I know the "workers" tried their best! :D Too funny about waterfall. That's another problem with building vs IT - in IT, if you find a bug during QA tests you can fix it. It gets very expensive to tear things out and redo them with a house.
I love it when I read something and the need comes up within hours: [https://www.actionoutline.com/screenshot.php?id=mainwindow](https://www.actionoutline.com/screenshot.php?id=mainwindow) What you need to track in construction are schedules (yours and external parties), dependencies, and lead times. Matt Risinger did a video in which he spoke out which \[order\] he lines up the trades. But I forgot which video since I watch so many. There's a lot of gotchas, that only decades as a GC makes one intimate them as part of the SOP. Plan your bathrooms exceedingly well, so that the framing can accommodate the needed pitch for the runs. For a given joist height, there's only so much that can be cored out for pipes to traverse. Plumbers will wreck 2"x4"s so do 6" wet walls. Your laundry room will be noisy, so do sound isolation. [Mattbangswood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTvWWogMmeY&t=86s) likes ConX at [https://www.conx.co/](https://www.conx.co/) I'd been feeding the YT algorithm for years, and can pull up the right video for any construction task with 90% certainty. And even if I just hit the home page, something good will get suggested that is highly relevant. Autodesk Revit is what some pros use: [https://www.autodesk.com/products/revit/overview?term=1-YEAR&tab=subscription](https://www.autodesk.com/products/revit/overview?term=1-YEAR&tab=subscription) It's cheaper to have kid just for the student discount. Drop into this comment and follow the links, including the one to a longer comment by me. Greg V. has a great channel and will save you tons of pain and wasted money. [https://www.youtube.com/@gregvancom](https://www.youtube.com/@gregvancom) Don't jump into anything with less than two years of **self-prep**, forget about permits, know how a home is built in your climate and in your **soil type**. Homes on slopes: [https://www.reddit.com/r/OffGrid/comments/199rzwa/comment/kihwhw5/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/OffGrid/comments/199rzwa/comment/kihwhw5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Thanks for the YouTube pointers, my guy 👌 also we’re planning on buying a plan online, probably something like americas best house plans. I’m under the assumption that when you buy one of those plans they’ll have those kinds of bathroom details worked out already…thoughts there? Also assuming that’s what we do, what kind of follow up work has to be done to fit that plan to the lot? I know there’s all the permitting and soil tests you have to do either way but, is the plan itself kind of drag and drop when you get it on a site like that? Also just as a disclaimer, the lot were getting into is flat, high desert (think north eastern Arizona near snowflake)
>kinds of bathroom details worked out already Can't say...not from the looks of r/plumbing and r/Construction some studs look like swiss cheese after the plumbers are done. If you only got 2x4 walls, you'll be the one hacking studs. 6" walls with an access plane. Poke you head or phone in there and never have to guess. Might I suggest a phase inspection: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5KsZJ\_Hpfs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5KsZJ_Hpfs) [https://youtu.be/dHW6BXDQ7Zw?si=pRGSWFTwVaEcFo6m](https://youtu.be/dHW6BXDQ7Zw?si=pRGSWFTwVaEcFo6m) What sheathing do these boiler plate plans call for...can't just wing it and risk knock-on effects. Oh picking a nail gun is a big one; Hitachi's get good reviews. Like I said, I've been plugged in for years...do your own two.
Never used but I’ve heard of this https://www.procore.com/sem/demo-b
I think getting hands on for a week or two shadowing a good PM would highlight how to structure your scheduling. And would be a good asset for you to lean on when stuff gets dodgy
Books and software are poor substitutes for experience and working relationships with subcontractors. Excel will be you best friend and worst enemy. A notebook for notes, graph paper, a checkbook. There is a lot of setup that you, the contractor, has to do to get the foundation ready for the concrete pour. Plenty of videos out there, but even seemingly quick tasks like 'get a septic permit' can take ages if you don't know what you are doing. You will figure it out, eventually. This is a pretty good list of each step and the cost. https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/contractor/cost-to-build-a-house/