The Advantages of Self Build Homes

Would you believe that there was once a time when it was the norm for people to build their own homes? That's right, and quite often an entire extended family would get involved in the project, or neighbors would share labor. They would take turns helping one another with their barns, outbuildings, and homes.

It's the same with a lot of things that people are getting back to doing themselves again, although self build homes do tend to be among the more labor intensive of all of them. Even so, now that they come in kits, the task of completing this type of project is made far less complicated.

You see, if a home building project is looked at in its entirety, it can seem like a far more daunting task than it actually is. Yes it is a labor intensive job, but if one isn't afraid of the word “labor”, it can be very rewarding. Just the same though, once you understand that home building is really a series of interconnected smaller projects, it becomes a far more realistic goal.

In fact what most first time home builder find, is that the cement foundation is actually the biggest of all the interconnected tasks. Digging the footings, and setting the forms can take up to three weeks and there's little margin for error. Then there is “pour day”, which many first timers tend to recall as “hell day”.

The nice thing about the next stage after the foundation has cured for a couple of days, and the forms stripped off, is that one of the advantages of a self build home is that walls come pre-framed. This means that all the windows and doors are precisely where they should be, and it’s just a matter of locating, and standing them.

The next project after wall standing is bolting them to the foundation, bracing them off, and then it’s on to setting, or what carpenters refer to as “rolling” the ceiling joists. Once again, the advantage of a self build home is that all the joists are pre-cut to length and they come with a map, so there's no confusion as to where they all go.

After the ceiling joists are all set, and nailed in place then it's time to sheet the second floor with OSB, “oriented strand board”, or plywood. Now this is a pretty straight forward task, but it’s important that you remember to leave 1 ½ inches of overhang at the top of the stairwell when you trim off the edges.

Once that's done then it's time to set the top floor walls in place, brace them off and get ready to stack the roof trusses. Now if you have never walked on top plate on a two story home to set roof trusses in place, then you will be well served if you take an afternoon off to rig up some temporary scaffolding. Then it's just a matter of nailing the trusses in place, sheeting the roof, and your frame is done.