(Part 2) Best home design & construction books according to redditors

We custom built a house 6 years ago. http://imgur.com/a/33bfY

It was about $160 sq. foot, perhaps a bit more when fees and everything are added in. Later on we finished our basement and that was probably only $30 sq ft to finish, making the overall price per sq foot a good deal cheaper.

We love it but I've been told our experience was incredibly good relative to the average custom home builder experience. That said, we had a lot of legs up:

• Our land was free, I subdivided from my parents, so money wasn't as huge of a stress as it is for many. We actually built a house we could afford (including making sure we could afford 40% overruns with changes; which we didn't end up needing, see below). There is no way I would have done this if I'd had to buy the land in my area unless I won the lottery.
  
  
• Building next to my parents we had a network of people to recommend good GC options. Our GC was fantastic and amazingly honest. We took the high bidder due to their honesty. To give you an idea how honest they were, it was a fixed price build and they did a no charge on $5k worth of change requests at the end of the build since they saved more money on gutter than expected.
  
  
• We used an architect b/c we wanted a unique design, but we knew an architect already from a relative. We told him we were budget sensitive and he agreed to do a limited design and hand off to the GC. We loved his first design and took it virtually unchanged. This probably cut his fee by 2/3 (I think his total fee was $15K maybe less). He billed $150/hr so avoiding the common weeks of back and forth obviously saved us a good deal of money.
  
  
• This great GC ended up having generally great subs. The house was finished in about 5 months, which was key for us due to having a baby on the way. I'm told this is an unusually fast turnaround. I met a sub later that was redoing my parent's roof and he explained that my GC always paid his bills on time, which is rare, and b/c of that the sub would happily leave a current job to start and finish the GC's job. This meant there was virtually zero down time during the build waiting for subs, which is rare.
  
  
• My wife was off work with a baby on the way, and I have a flexible job with lots of vacation. We were able to easily make meetings and check the site for work. My parents lived next door and could keep an eye on the job site as well. We did 90% of the painting and staining ourselves and saved $10-$15K. I'm not sure I would do that again, it was brutally hard work.
  
  
• My wife and I are good at making and sticking to decisions together. We probably had $15K in unavoidable or desirable CR's (like with the jerks at the power company made us move our electrical meter and caused a $4K CR). We easily said no to $40K in other CR's. We stayed within all our budgets for tile, floor, fixtures, lights etc. Most people don't do this, some people have near-divorces over fights on things like this.
  
  
• I work in a project management and billable hour related field, so the idea of scope creep and indecision blowing up a budget and schedule is not surprising to me. The GC later told us we had pretty much the smallest amount and cost of CR's he'd ever seen and fewest changed decisions or issues. I think that was part of why he freebied the $5K CR at the end.
  
  Keep in mind that custom home-building tends towards rich people building their dream house. Forums like That Home Site are rife with people who would accept nothing less than a $4K Wolf Range in their kitchen. This can skew your view on things, try to avoid that.
  
  If you don't want a uniquely designed house, you can save some money by buying a prepackaged design. Keep in mind that a lot of those designs have bells and whistles that you might not want built in, so you can usually work with your GC (or an architect for more $$$) to trim out stuff you don't want. Even with hourly fees that can save you more money in the long run.
  
  Finally, if you're like most people and you like typical houses in your area, you're probably better off just buying a house. My free land changed my equations, otherwise it's almost never cheaper to build from scratch (especially since most houses are built in bulk and the developer will get pretty big economy of scale savings on materials/equipment/labor/etc building a bunch of similar houses at once).
  
  PS. If you feel like your kitchen remodel didn't go well, keep in mind this is like 20 kitchen jobs combined. You need to take a deep look at what might have gone wrong (and what might have gone right, and why you were or weren't happy about it). There's the other risk that you actually have a good set of contractors doing good work but you incorrectly feel like you're getting screwed by things that are part of the normal process. You need to figure out how to be happy with a good job as well. I can't find the name of the book but I read one or two general books. I think one of them was this standard For Dummies book. No magic in them, but it gives you a good feel for the process and what to expect.

I found The Owner-Builder Book very helpful. There is an online community of people documenting the process here

A couple of texts:

Building Construction Illustrated

The Visual Handbook of Building and Remodeling

Also check out the building code that governs residences in your area. For instance the International Residential Code has a handful of structural details that can form the basis of your own details.

>What's are some good frugal tips for building a tiny home?

Tiny Houses Built with Recycled Materials: Inspiration for Constructing Tiny Homes Using Salvaged and Reclaimed Supplies
Ryan Mitchell
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DMQ0TEK/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title

>salvaging old campers for their propane fridge/stove combo.

Personally I am forgoing RV appliances completely. If you choose to use solar power you will have to wire your home for DC and AC electric, and to use less watts choose new appliances after 1993. Once household appliance manufacturers had to disclose how much energy an appliance consumed all of a sudden the appliance use of electric was cut in half.

While I am building I plan to use a friend's yurt to live in and have an outdoor kitchen/bathroom. So possibly you could use the combo for a while after the Tiny house is built until you have the interior finished!

Keep in mind RV appliances were designed and built for a couple weeks of use a year and regular household appliances were designed to be used 52 days a year.


My two favorite youtube channels are these :

https://youtu.be/oK_MDCPFYpA he's very informative but doesn't overwhelm you.

This guy is far more detailed, he even made his own windows: https://www.youtube.com/user/danny16p/videos peanut is the cutest urbane cultured dog ever, Dan would be much more enjoyable if he didn't drink booze so much. A slimmer waist line on him he'd be buff.

In regards to buying salvaged products you don't have to salvage the material yourself: https://www.habitat.org/donate/?link=271&source_code=DHQOW1407W1GGR&iq_id=61484080-VQ6-81398378715-VQ16-c&gclid=CLiKvvmqmtECFcq2wAodXhMFAQ habitat for humanity resell store in your state, find it.



Tiny House Design & Construction Guide Paperback – Unabridged, May 1, 2016
by Dan S Louche
https://www.amazon.com/Tiny-House-Design-Construction-Guide/dp/0997288701/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483046655&sr=8-1&keywords=tiny+house+construction+and+design thats the best book as a primer. get it.


Tiny House Floor Plans: Over 200 Interior Designs for Tiny Houses Paperback – February 22, 2012
by Michael Janzen
https://www.amazon.com/Tiny-House-Design-Construction-Guide/dp/0997288701/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483046655&sr=8-1&keywords=tiny+house+construction+and+design I found the page which the floor plan outlines and the cut outs for furniture, printed them on transparencies and have it taped to my desk. If you are planning to use salvage materials have 4 prototypes planned to the hilt and have those plans in sketchup http://www.sketchup.com/download have two alternative plans that are very vague and not built to use as parts of the building you can swap out with the other 4 plans.

Most states require you to have a primary dwelling started (think septic tank and foundation for a house) then your Tiny house can be your accessory dwelling.

For wiring which might complicated if you choose to use solar: http://thetinylife.com/shockingly-simple-electrical-for-tiny-houses/ that will help.

Then another of Ryan Mitchell's books: http://thetinylife.com/cracking-the-code-updated/


I hope this helps. setting aside 2 years to plan and research before starting would be an excellent idea.

This book gets good reviews and might be worth picking up? Spanish ForThe Construction Trade

The mother of all open-ended questions.

Let's assume you're in Nuuk, Greenland and you're building a custom Yurt in the Qinngorput neighborhood. I can make this assumption since you didn't provide any useful information in your post. Well, you're only choice in Building contractors is Rasmus Rasmussen and I don't think you'll have a lot of room to haggle or get his price down. He's a nice enough guy, if a little gruff, but since he's also the CEO of Greenland Mining Services, as well as the operator of Viking Diving Company, he just doesn't have a lot of time for getting the run-around. As for materials, it's really all about what you brought in; and when the crate will arrive, so the quality is mostly up to you. I could go on about best Yurt building practices, if you're interested?

You could try providing some useful information about the proposed building (climate, soil, lot size, finished house sq. footage, occupancy, etc.) or you could try this or this or this or this or this.

>possibly a basement but I think that might be beyond my expertise in building.. not sure yet.

Can you describe your building experience, please? Are you a builder? This will help us be more focused.

If you are interested in building it yourself, I suggest a book I just re-read called The Well-Built House, which will take you through one expert's process. It is not exactly the latest but it is very practical and useful.

I purchased that and the Graphic Guide to Frame Construction years ago, at Builders Booksource. I highly recommend utilizing all your local resources, too. Bookstores can be great. Designers, builders, planners can be an even bigger help. Try talking to anyone in the local planning departments about the process, pick the brain of your neighbor, the general contractor or your old uncle, the architect. Of course, the more we know about where you are from, the more we can offer advice.

Most importantly, whether you go with a strategy to build on your own or you hire an architect, don't be discouraged. I see this over and over with clients. Architecture is a long process. It can take (and almost always does take) a number of years to complete it. Take this in stride and you will do fine.

Best of luck and please do keep us updated.

Learn the local supply shops, even just a quick brush up so you can run for parts fast. knowledge of pipe and valve sizes, type of pipe and valves, this depends on the site, could be schedule 80 pvc, could be steel, could be copper.

learn the local coffee shop, and how to take orders. xl black coffee creams and sugars on the side is a safe bet.


remember that safety can be your largest priority, some sites you can be fired for not wearing gloves, a hard hard, or safety glasses (even just walking out of the job shack) make sure you know the rules of the site and each site will be different. This will be a large change from residential.

pad of paper and pen at all times. home depot and few places have side holsters for tape measures / pens, best thing ever. small pocket flashlight if working indoors the lights can go off randomly or rooms can be unlit.


depending on the type of construction, industrial ammonia can be a lot of watching a welder work (fire watch) and helping them setup. learn everything you can and make there job easy.

ive worked on construction of industrial ammonia cold storage buildings, and ice arenas, as an apprentice.

Depending on the area you work in, watch out for job tool boxes. leave minimal tools on site overnight unless work provided. those things love to walk off.

Congrats on the new job, let me know if you have any questions.

book on refrigeration, if you want to brush up on theory it covers everything.
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Refrigeration-Conditioning-Andrew-Althouse/dp/1619601990

I kid you not this book is worth every penny. It's like a carpenter educational manual, but it also describes the process of building a house from scratch. Also, consult a construction manager, engineer, consultant, it is well worth a few bucks if you are interested in 100year designed lifespan. Buy this: http://www.amazon.com/Carpentry-Floyd-Vogt/dp/1133607365 / lightweight home. Or if you want a brownstone with two garages, buy an old one.

I think a good first step would be to read a general book like this one: That will give you a solid, fact-based, overview of all the main welding and cutting processes.

After that you could buy a high quality stick/buzzbox/SMAW welder for $300-$400, it will last forever and allow you to weld a fairly wide range of steel things. The downside is that stick welding requires a certain baseline skill level and can be frustrating for a beginner.

MIG welding is the easiest and probably most common welding process, though you will have to spend a bit more to get a decent one. When people describe welding as a "hot glue gun" MIG is what they're referring to.

Many community colleges have basic welding classes, "Maker" places too, otherwise find that guy in your neighborhood who is always working on cars. Most people don't use their welders all that often and like a chance to get them out and stick some metal together.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1133607365/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1494077420&sr=1-4


Carpentry 6th Edition by Floyd Vogt, just pulled this book (4th edition) out last night for reference.

Track down a copy of the Civil Engineering Reference Manual. Some libraries have it, and most established engineers have a copy. Everyone uses it during the PE exam, and for good reason. It's a great summary of everything from undergrad. They have books that specialize in structural too.

University of Michigan uses this book for our undergrad concrete design course (CEE 351). There are pdf versions available online.

Also, Dr. Wight of Michigan wrote this book, but I haven't used it in my coursework yet.

Creo que deberian darle una leída a lo siguiente:

Esto

Esto

Esto Por las similitudes de tamaño.

Esto

Esto

Esto checate las diagonales

Esto esto es sobre cualidades de la madera

Esto para algo ya muy formal.

First of all congratulations!

second here is the free part of the list of resources i give my guys

Johnstone University - https://go.bluevolt.com/johnstonecontractor/Catalog/

GreyFurnaceMan - https://www.youtube.com/user/grayfurnaceman

HVAC-Talk.com http://www.hvac-talk.com

a very handy book
https://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-Professional-Reference-Master-Enhance/dp/0977000389/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1493690012&sr=8-9&keywords=hvac

Ask your boss if he can sign you up for classes at your local supply house.


head over to /r/HVAC

I'm not an expert by any measure but I've found Richard Finch's Welder's Handbook to be aptly named.

https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Building-Sauna-Cheap-Experience-ebook/dp/B01MUKM2MY/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1523067434&sr=8-4-fkmr0&keywords=build+your+own+sauna+kit

The Eurocode series.

Ah but really, I quite like this: Reinforced Concrete Design

This is supposed to be quite good:Dynamics of Structures: Theory and Applications to Earthquake Engineering

I used to love this book, but I wonder if there is an updated version for eurocodes, will have to check it out

And of course it always depends on your field of interest, for instance I particularly like this book: Theory of Shell Structures

Also, this is supposed to be a classic: Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down


I now apologise if you don't live or work in Europe.

Thanks for the help.

I have started to just do a basic review of reinforced concrete columns and steel columns for now because it has been a few months since looking at them.

I had also thought about drawing the strain diagrams for the sections, but was unsure how the extra steel member in addition to the rebar would change the diagrams. Basically, my advisor wants me to create a program (either in Matlab or Mathcad) by the end of the semester that will calculate and draw the interaction diagrams for the columns when given the properties.

So far, my general steps that I have come up with are:

1. Determine properties of steel (Structural and Rebar) and concrete
   
2. Determine location of the centroid of the structural steel relative to the centroid of the concrete column
   
3. Solve for the stree/strain curves using a relative thickness of 1"(basically making the curves sort of stepped instead of smooth curves)
   
4. Solve for P, M
   
5. Solve for and plot interaction diagrams
   
   And my list of variables so far includes:
   
   
6. Steel Shape, size, and material obtained from AISCM
   
7. Rebar size and material (stirrup/tie sizes)
   
8. Bar spacing
   
9. Concrete (f'c, unconfined vs. confined)
   
10. Distance between centroid of steel shape and center of concrete column (both x and y directions)
    
    And I am assuming that:
    
    
11. Ec = .003
    
12. Clear Cover = 1.5"
    
    I will definitely print out that chapter as a reference. I don't currently have the money to buy that book, but I do own this book, this book, and this book and have access to everything in my university library. I'll check and see if it is there.
    

This was my first year text book. I always suggest it to friends interested in woodworking.

Woodworking by Nancy MacDonald http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BWBDVFW/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_apa_vc-jxbB0GYM49

‪You could get this ebook for free on Amazon today. It offers an overview of smart building technology. ‬
‪https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QK44BFM‬

‪#smarthome #homeautomation #homenetworking #digitalconstruction #BuildingInformationModeling‬

Mike Holt's exam prep, Dewalt Electrical Exam Prep, NEC Flashcards (app) and Leviton Captain Code - Code Changes (app) are great resources and a good starting point.


Stallcups Illustrated Code Changes 2017 can also be beneficial for test prep.

If your jurisdiction / testing center allows you to use your own book, inquire if they will allow for it to be tabbed, and if they allow tabbing, I highly recommend having it tabbed for quick reference.

Just my two cents.

Haven't taken my final written yet, as I'm short on hours, but I have finished all of my apprenticeship courses and am going to start preparing to take my final apprenticeship 'mock journeyman' test once I finish up my powerplant written & oral/practical exams in June.

https://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-Electrical-Licensing-Exam-Guide/dp/1337271381

I used this to pass my Journeyman test very recently. Did it over and over, front to back. Practiced the exams more frequently as the test date came closer. This should help you learn how to navigate the code quickly and accurately. Finding the keywords in the questions to look for in the index is very important.

https://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-Professional-Reference-Master-Enhance/dp/0977000389/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=dewalt+hvac+book&qid=1571893202&sprefix=dewalt+hvac&sr=8-3

This book helped me a lot when I was starting out. It has a troubleshooting section that will list the first things to check depending on what the system is or isn't doing.

https://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Construction-Trade-William-Harvey/dp/0764135880

You could also use Caterpillar App and upload a movie like En Construccion.

Hope that helps.

Structural Engineers Pocket Book

It's for the UK as all design codes are in BS (and some EN) but I think (and please correct me if I'm wrong) standard steel sizes for UB's and UC's are the same in the US. Its quite a useful book to have at hand. The structural steelwork section has tables with standard steel sizes for UB, UC, PFC, EA, UA etc etc

https://www.amazon.com/Well-Built-House-James-Locke/dp/0395629519

>the reason that you are seeing so much variance in member sizes is likely due to people not actually designing the members. They’re just shooting from the hip and trying to make themselves feel comfortable.

Heh. This book is apparently by someone who started one of the first timber framing companies in North America, and founded and instructs at a vocational school that specifically teaches timber framed construction.

So he's supposed to know what he's doing, but apparently doesn't, by what you're suggesting.

For comparison, this guy keeps writing technical explanations of why structural members are sized the way they are, and his company goes around looking at buildings that collapse and identifying why they collapsed (inadequate fastening of two members intended to act as one, inadequate bracing, bracing to the truss when the truss isn't designed to account for the lateral load from the column, etc.) and adjusting their practice standards to account for all of these lessons learned.

> If you were mimicking the cookie cutter design completely, then depending on where you live and where the design was intended to be used, you may be fine.

Yeah, that's not happening. I'm not sure if I'm actually creating new, unique engineering problems—kind of like how the first sailboat was built by people who knew how to make windmills, knew how oars worked, but had zero experience with what kinds of loads a mast on a ship dragging along the ocean surface was really going to face. In those kinds of situations, you always face increased risk: you have plenty of theory to work it out, but no real-world lessons learned about the particulars of the specific problem, and so odd and unexpected things can happen.

I know I'm building a bit more than your typical tool shed, though.