Anyone in the Remodeling Business??

76BBSub · June 21, 2001

My dad had his own building and remodeling company for many years, but has been retired a long time.

I am considering an addition to my house, and am trying to get a VERY rough idea of cost per square foot. I know this is virtually impossible without more details, but I plan to do alot of the interior work myself. I mainly need a slab and some framing, brick, siding, etc done. It will involve a kitchen relocation, so there's a drain line in the slab but the hot/cold water comes via galvanized pipe in the attic which I will run myself. The slab will be approx. 1300 sq ft. Any estimates on cost per item, per sq foot, whatever, would be appreciated. I'm just trying to figure out if this is cost effective enough to contact a local professional and get a real estimate.

Thanks!!!

Jeff

Shaners · June 21, 2001

New construction in Western PA seems to be about ?-? per square foot... That is for a stick built home on a basement. This price is for new construction and would include all plumbing , wiring, carpeting, kitchen, baths, etc...

I'm not a contractor, but a friend of mine is going to have a custom home built for him and these are the figures he's been getting from contractors... (2000 sq ft -- 140-150K$) (land not included)

(Edited by Shaners at 6:47 am on June 21, 2001)

76BBSub · June 21, 2001

Sounds about right, that's the same as around here (Houston).

What I'm thinking is that it will be a little less per sqaure foot since most of the "infrastructure" is already there, underground sewer, water and gas service, etc. But I will have to add the lines in the slab, and run an additional electrical service box to support the addition, since the existing box is maxed out already.

I will do alot of the work, especially interior work, but as I mentioned, there is a new kitchen involved which will be pretty expensive...

I'm going to guess about ?/sq ft, since I'm doing alot of the work myself, but will be using higher quality materials than most of our local builders.

Jeff

mblrds · June 22, 2001

? - ? per square foot for new construction (basic, nothing real fancy) sounds about right. Start adding stuff like crown moulding, maple hardwood floors, custom (shop built as opposed to plant manufactured) cabinets, etc., and the cost will go up.

The more you do, the less it'll cost. As a rule of thumb, 70% of having a house built is in labor cost!

I'd say you'll be looking around ? - ? per square foot if you're able to do about 90 - 95%.

Some words of advice! It will always cost more than you thought and take longer than you thought! Some ways you can save is to go to a contractor yard and see if they have any special orders (windows, doors, shingles, etc.) that were either unclaimed or unaccepted or the salesman oops. You usually can get stuff for way below cost. Go to a truss plant (where they manufacture trusses) and see if they have any oops that they'll let you have for next to nothing, and build the addition to the truss size.

That's all I can think of for now.

(Edited by mblrds at 11:35 pm on June 21, 2001)

76BBSub · June 22, 2001

Great advice!

As a side note, I used to work with a guy (he was a subsea equipment designer) who built his own house, actually two different houses. When I quit Oceaneering he was working on a duplex that was designed around standard remnant carpet sizes and other standard items that he planned to build SUPER cheap and rent out. Since all the stuff was to be standard or left-over material he could easily remodel if one of the tenants tore it up. I wonder if he is building it yet?

Jeff

mblrds · June 22, 2001

Yep, your ex-boss man definitely sounds like a engineer!

"Subsea equipment designer", sounds pretty cool!

76BBSub · June 23, 2001

Actually, he was the designer and I was the engineer. He started out in the shop, when I was still in junior high probably. I hear that he kept his tool box spotless, and was the best hand in the shop. He went to school to learn AutoCAD, they brought him into the office, and he was definitely in the top three of designers I have worked with. The other two were degreed engineers who got sick of the bull$%& and went back to being just designers, which is the fun part of the job. The four of us cranked out an entirely new topside control system for a subsea drilling control system in record time...it was awesome! It's now Cameron's standard drilling control HPU setup.

Anyway, he was better than 90% (or more) of the engineers I know.

Jeff

If you want to see more about drilling controls, here's a link...

http://www.camerondiv.com/cgi-bin....evel1=3