My Custom Home Build. All done. 061722

Yep. He mentioned lumber prices being outrageous across the board. Can't avoid it on the home, but the shop may end up being a full metal building! lol.

CHRIS
Your insurance with a full metal building will be cheaper than a wooden one, so in the long run you'll save money.
 
My gf is pricing coordinator at the local lowes. A 2x10x16 has more than doubled in price in the last 6 weeks
 
I’m hoping prices drop this winter and into next spring after the election and Covid goes away. We’re trying to build my son a house on some property behind my shop and nothing has been cheap to do! Survey, driveway, testing, nothing!
 
I’m hoping prices drop this winter and into next spring after the election and Covid goes away. We’re trying to build my son a house on some property behind my shop and nothing has been cheap to do! Survey, driveway, testing, nothing!
prices have to drop. the economy should have collapsed months ago. people have houses they have not made a single payment on for nearly 7 months now and are not able to be foreclosed on. the houses will eventually have to be taken back by the bank and the demand for new houses will fall and prices will respond accordingly.
 
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We should have snatched up one of the many starter homes that were on market when we started this journey. $80k-$100k move in ready places were what we were planning on buying as a transition home during the build. Something to use for rental income later on.

$160k is the new $80k around here now. Bad timing on our part.

We’ve kick started our home sale and brought the price down from “Sultan of Dubai” level to realistic appraised pricing. We’ll be buying up some sort of transition home in the near future.

CHRIS
 
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We should have snatched up one of the many starter homes that were on market when we started this journey. $80k-$100k move in ready places were what we were planning on buying as a transition home during the build. Something to use for rental income later on.

$160k is the new $80k around here now. Bad timing on our part.

We’ve kick started our home sale and brought the price down from “Sultan of Dubai” level to realistic appraised pricing. We’ll be buying up some sort of transition home in the near future.

CHRIS
Buy a camper and move it to the building site. Sell it when it done.
 
The GC met me on site today and we staked off where I’d like my shop and he marked off the rough septic and drain field area. Well and septic permit for the shop are being submitted this week. :)

I asked that he plan on an RV hookup along with the bathroom and washing machine in the shop. Health Dept said that wouldn’t be an issue. They said that they are running on about a three week lead time these days.

CHRIS
 
The GC met me on site today and we staked off where I’d like my shop and he marked off the rough septic and drain field area. Well and septic permit for the shop are being submitted this week. :)

I asked that he plan on an RV hookup along with the bathroom and washing machine in the shop. Health Dept said that wouldn’t be an issue. They said that they are running on about a three week lead time these days.

CHRIS

Who are you using for your well and septic?

We just put both of these in and I have recommendations who to use and not to use if you need them.
 
$160k is the new $80k around here now. Bad timing on our part.

My brother is considering relocating here. He asked, “What can I get for $150k?”

I said a double wide in a sketchy neighborhood!

Where he’s coming from $150K buys a nice 3bed / 2bath ranch on a nice lot in a good neighborhood.
 
Pooper test holes dug. Waiting on county guys to come out and give it a look-see. They're 4+ feet deep.
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My shipping container is coming along. It has off-grid solar power, an LTE modem setup, and a CCTV/DVR with 4 cameras all running now. I can live stream critters from home. lol.
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The survey is done and filed. Existing property line markers were all found and good except for two that were near trees that fell over.
Our hay guy also came over and planted fescue and a little clover with his fancy new drill seeder. Things are slowly moving along. :)
CHRIS
 
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Pooper test holes dug. Waiting on county guys to come out and give it a look-see. They 4+ feet deep.
2TIYOJX.jpg

NYcMlMx.jpg


My shipping container is coming along. It has off-grid solar power, an LTE modem setup, and a CCTV/DVR with 4 cameras all running now. I can live stream critters from home. lol.
qwC1xYL.jpg

itQCFuN.jpg


The survey is done and filed. Existing property line markers were all found and good except for two that were near trees that fell over.
Our hay guy also came over and planted fescue and a little clover with his fancy new drill seeder. Things are slowly moving along. :)
CHRIS

Holes are not big enough. I could fill those with poop in a good weekend. :D
 
Still waiting on septic and well inspection from the County.

I am also at the point that I can request an E911 street address from the County. I did that yesterday.

Also yesterday, the Duke Energy engineer for my area met me and my builder at the property to talk about options for getting power on site. His quick estimate was that it was going to be $16k-$20k to trench and bury the line from the street to a central point, to install a transformer, and to pull from transformer to the temp power poles. They do credits though depending on what the usage will be. He said that a shop or outbuilding like I have planned is only a couple of thousand in credits. He said that if I could request the service for the house first that there is about $20k there that he as to work with...if the sq/ft is 2601+. Any cost over the credits come out of pocket.

In summary, it is going to be better to request power to our house first then the shop...even if they aren't built in that order. That is very good to know. lol.

As soon as I get a street address he wants me to call and he will get everything rolling. He said that it is about 4-5 week lead time on work like this. He was also tired as F from doing line repair triage for the storm that blew through.😴

CHRIS
 
Lol. Maybe. He may have ran over my little burn barrel too. Haha.
He seems easy to work with and is going to help me through the process...if indeed it was Dan. :D

CHRIS
 
Got our initial quote from the GC for a turn key shop. Holy crap!
Anyone know a good pole barn or metal building guy that I could call? 🤣

CHRIS
 
Have your forestry guy put the timber up for bid. The prices that you are quoted will vary quite a bit, as I learned when I was selling about 20 acres of timber a few years ago. Good luck!


This. My father in law was offered $9000 for some timber by an individual. Put it up for bid and ended up selling for over $40,000. Go with the sealed bid deal.
 
Still running numbers and scenarios. The quote for my building shocked me and threw my timelines out of whack. I’m getting clear span steel building quotes from some companies now.

I really want to take advantage of the Duke credit for the line install so I have to get all my ducks in a row before I make the request to them. Home power request needs to go in first before the shop request so that I meet their requirements. I was given the info for a local ME that will modify house plans for you. I’ll start messaging him next week so we can get our home plans finalized.

I hope more of the building manufacturers get back to me. They’re being a little slow.
CHRIS
 
My brother is considering relocating here. He asked, “What can I get for $150k?”

I said a double wide in a sketchy neighborhood!

Where he’s coming from $150K buys a nice 3bed / 2bath ranch on a nice lot in a good neighborhood.
My daughter and SIL went house shopping in Chapel Hill 2 years ago. They told the realtor that they wanted to see everything in the $300k range. She asked if they’d like to see the trailer that was located in town.
 
12/04 update.
I'm still getting numbers for a shop build. The GC had a really high number, but it was for an absolutely turn key shop. I'm not sure I need to go that route. I'm coming up at around 1/3 of the cost if I am the GC and schedule everything. I'll probably go that route.

Septic and well inspection for the shop has been extended "for a long time" due to Covid crap at the local health department.

I have our floor plan with mods sketched up sent to a local guy to draw up. He's on a backlog as well. He said that he'd be able to look at it mid-December.

I'm still in a holding pattern on all fronts.

CHRIS
 
01/07
Waiting on home plans to be done. I need that piece before I can start with the power request. Septic and well for the shop have been approved via email. Some paperwork is going to be mailed out at some point. Covid stuff again. If I do the GC work for my building I can have it all done for about $50k. I'll just have to deal with the contractors myself. Not sure if it is worth paying the real GC a hefty fee to take care of it.

Working with the forestry guys now on a controlled burn of about 70 acres to clean up the years of needles and undergrowth. We will be paying a little fee to have that done. We are hoping it will be done in the next month or so.

Happy New Year to you that are following this looooooooooong process.
CHRIS
 
The NC Forest Service came in yesterday and did the prescribed burn. It was cool. The area under the pine burned up quickly. Like 2 hours and they were done with it. That was 90% of the acreage. The other 10% took another 2 hours. It was under hardwood and along gullies. They left me a couple of really nice fire breaks that will be trails for us. I'm very happy about that!
Some pics.
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They staged at my connex so I got some cool video of them doing their test burn and then transitioning into the full burn. I'm trying to figure out how to download it remotely. I'm getting aspect ratio problems currently. I'll post vids when I get it all figured out.

CHRIS
 
The NC Forest Service came in yesterday and did the prescribed burn. It was cool. The area under the pine burned up quickly. Like 2 hours and they were done with it. That was 90% of the acreage. The other 10% took another 2 hours. It was under hardwood and along gullies. They left me a couple of really nice fire breaks that will be trails for us. I'm very happy about that!
Some pics.
RNU48hl.jpg

jJBjLpS.jpg

7H1EVYS.jpg

hqnexMy.jpg

They staged at my connex so I got some cool video of them doing their test burn and then transitioning into the full burn. I'm trying to figure out how to download it remotely. I'm getting aspect ratio problems currently. I'll post vids when I get it all figured out.

CHRIS

Very cool. Things seem to be moving along well.
 
This month's update. April 4th was the two year anniversary of us purchasing this property. The following day we accepted an offer on our old listed property that we have for sale. Holy crap this is taking a long time. lol.

So, our old house is under contract. We got our floorplans back from the engineer a couple of weeks ago. It took a while for that to happen too. But my wife and I are happy with the modifications that were made. We moved completely out of our old house and are staying in a rental in town until our custom home is built. It's going to be a while longer yet, I suppose. I'm going to reconnect with the metal building/shop guys and get some updated pricing. That will be our next step at the homestead. Other tasks are actually getting my tools and shop stuff into storage somewhere. I guess I misspoke earlier...we are still using the old house for storage right now. That has to change fairly quickly.

The rental is cool. We live in city limits and have neighbors and are 4-wheeler distance from in-laws. My boy get to play with his cousins a lot now. Even if it takes a while for the house to be built, we are in a good spot now.

CHRIS
 
We have a couple of weeks until closing on our house that is for sale. That means I'm running out of time to get my crap over to the storage container! 😆 My son has been helping me load up bins and haul them over. Today we did one trip using my little mower trailer.

This is a typical trailer load. We've been filling the back of the Xterra up and doing little trips like that but today I decided to use the trailer, which made it like taking three Xterra only trips.
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My container and pasture as it looks today. We have a little bit of grass over there now.
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View from the horse trailer looking out over the destumped pasture area. My shop will go in the red circled area. The four stakes marking the 40'x40' sure looks itty-bitty in the middle of that big ol' field.
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Status of the 40' high wall container. It's doing pretty well. Still have plenty of room for my lathe and it's tooling bits plus the several plastic totes I still need to haul over. I'm happy with that purchase 100%.
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There's nothing really expensive in there. Mostly my "dude" stuff for shooting and my wanna-be hoarder collections of junk. My off-grid solar has been working well since I installed it. I have the 4 hardwired closed circuit cameras plus two extra Blink outdoor cameras all around the container. My DIY fixed wireless setup runs a consistant 20-30 mbps. I can go "live" eyes on at any moment and have notifications set up for movement in certain zones. That solar system was another good purchase.

CHRIS
 
On a side note. I've been getting current prices on my 40'x40'x14' shop.
The metal building, with three 12x12 roll-up garage doors, two people doors, ceiling insulation, and installation is going to run about $35,000.
The reinforced concrete pad, base layer, and vapor barrier has been estimated at $7500 to $8200.
Concrete staining and sealing is going to be a few thousand from what I can tell.
Permit with the county is going to be $230 I think. County guy said permits are running about 4 weeks currently.
I need to have the future bathroom stubbed up and inspected before the concrete is poured. I may pay someone to do that to make sure it is correct. Probably a few hundred for it.

Power, septic, and well will be done at a later date.

CHRIS
 
What about the cost of power to and in the building?
 
What about the cost of power to and in the building?
Duke will cover trenching power in, setting the transformer, and running it to the shop and our home temp power pole (when it is installed) if I wait to make the request until after I pull permits for the shop AND house. I have to do it in that order or I have to pay out of pocket.

I’ll pay a local sparky to mount the 200 amp panel in the shop for Duke to connect to. I’ll run the branch circuits myself. Probably at least a couple to three thousand for how I want it set up. That will be later. I’m just needing more secure storage for our tractor and implements for now.

CHRIS
 
I spoke with our county permits lady again yesterday and she got more info from me about the steel building. Being that it will be for farm use and that we have a farm tax ID there will be no permits or inspections required. I will require an inspection when it comes time to install electric, but a permit will not need to be pulled. Ag/Farm exemptions for the win!

So, my timeline for the building has gotten better...in theory. No 4 week wait on permit to start work. No scheduling plumbing and slab construction around "working from home" inspections. I'm a happy boy.

Our part of closing on the house that sold is done. We are waiting on the call from the lawyer to let us know that the check it ready and that ownership has transferred.

CHRIS
 
Our old house is officially SOLD. :D Money and title has transferred. We paid off the couple of credit card balances that we had and put the rest aside for our home and shop build.

We had a meeting with a custom home builder this morning. He looked over our floor plan, made some recommendations, asked a lot of questions, and took a bunch of notes. His ballpark price was very close to what my wife and I were thinking and we decided to move on to the next step. A formal quote. He is doing what he can based off the drawings and will come out to the build site next week some time to see what kind of earth work needs to happen. He said that groundbreaking to turn-key house has been running about 10 months recently. Add another month to the front end to handle permitting and logistics. We walked away happy with the meeting.

I also placed a deposit for the steel building on EDIT: 6/4. After payment was completed my sales rep has gone offline. Not answering my emails or calls. They sell the buildings, but don't manufacture them, so they assign the sale to a manufacturer. The contract states that I will have followup in two business days to confirm drawings and such. I'm coming up on two weeks without that followup. I sent an email to the actual manufacturer and I was told that the order entry lady may have my order, but has been out sick and they are running behind. Not getting a good feeling on this one. I'm giving them until the end of next week and I will do a charge back on my card and find another company. I can't get concrete or plumbing started until these fools get back to me with drawings.

Good times. lol.

CHRIS
 
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