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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3004 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 23, 2025

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Anyone here have experience custom building a house (in the US)? How was the process?

I'm starting to look at buying but the housing stock in areas where I'd want to buy is largely fugly, so I'm thinking of maybe just buying a plot of land and building something custom. I'm in California so I'm particularly concerned about permitting nightmares, but that varies a lot from city to city as far as I can tell.

The NAHB (National Association of Homebuilders) regularly conducts nationwide surveys on the cost of building a house. The latest such survey is available at this link. tl;dr: For the average 21,000-ft2 lot and 2600-ft2 house, the cost is 4.4 $ per ft2 of land plus 220 $ (including overhead and profit) per ft2 of structure.

Obviously, these numbers will vary very widely depending on your house's location and other specifics. Personally, within the past few months I have (1) purchased a 7600-ft2 lot in a small urban area in Pennsylvania for 3.9 $/ft2 and (2) obtained from an architect the following estimates (including overhead and profit) for a 940-ft2 one-story rectangular house in that area:

  • Slab: 190 $/ft2

  • Crawl space: 230 $/ft2

  • Basement: 270 $/ft2

That's helpful reading. Congrats on the purchase, hope your construction goes well!

Thoughts on slab vs crawlspace? Slab seems like a maintenance nightmare if you ever need to replace wiring or plumbing that's in the slab.

I don't know about the slab headaches, but crawlspaces definitely have them. Rodents may be hard to keep out since it needs to "breathe" (or at least mine, built in the 70s, does). They love to eat wiring and insulation and can find their way in to the house proper.

Slabs are less creaky and stronger, so if you want a gym/giant fish tank/to invite yo momma over, they may be a better choice.

I'd only put a gym in the garage which is basically always on a slab as far as I know. I think it is possible to encapsulate crawlspaces these days to keep the rodents out. Not sure about costs or downsides there.

Creakiness is a good point.

Have replaced plumbing in slab before. On the one hand, not fun. On the other hand, doable.

If you're running wiring through slab you really want electrical conduit - and also pullcords preinstalled, if possible.That being said, pay very close attention to electrical code.

Also, take far more photos than you think you need prior to pouring the slab, with measuring tapes in the shot. Yes, things do shift somewhat during the slab pour, but it's still a much better starting point than you'd otherwise have.

Slab seems like a maintenance nightmare if you ever need to replace wiring or plumbing that's in the slab.

Wiring goes through the ceiling, not through the slab. But regarding plumbing I agree wholeheartedly. I currently live in my mother's house, which was built on a slab in the 1950s. Every winter, my mother is deathly afraid that the pipes will freeze, so she leaves all the faucets dripping on cold nights. It's a bit of extra stress.

Thoughts on slab vs. crawlspace?

I personally can't justify increasing the cost of construction by an entire one-fifth just for a crawl space. After all, the pipes under my mother's house haven't burst in the 70 years since they were constructed, and under-slab plumbing technology presumably is even better today than it was in the 1950s.

Note that crawl spaces may be cheaper in areas that don't have radon. In areas that do have radon, a slab needs to be constructed under the crawl space, according to the architect that I consulted. The EPA publishes an official radon map.

Freeze resistant plumbing is much, much better today than it was in the fifties- modern supply lines are made with pex, which has enough expandability to take short freezes(what you’d be worrying about in California, unless you’re way up in the mountains).

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