I am looking to build a ~1600 sf home, and a ~1200 sf garage. I originally was looking at site built versus pre-fab. I seemed to find that the pre-fab cost about 75%-80% of the site built. However, I like the design opportunities of a site built home versus a pre-fab.

This got me to thinking of ways to save cost on a site built home. I think I would feel comfortable serving as the GC, and even doing some if not most of the work, being handy with tools, comfortable with wiring (plumbing being another story…), and not particularly in a hurry. This is when I started looking at all the tightly packed trees, and wondering if I couldn’t save some materials cost by using my own wood.

I have read that both TF and SIP are more expensive than homes built with dimensional lumber. I was hoping though, that I could get some of your opinions on the potential for cost saving with TF and/or SIP construction, by doing some of the work myself, using my own wood, etc. Also, is the potential for an owner builder to do the work themselves less in a TF or SIP home compared to a home built of dimensional lumber.

I am thinking of doing as much of the design as I can, even the working drawings, and just have an architect and engineer review them instead of doing the drawing turnkey. Would this save me any money?

Working with the county to get all the permits and such, should save me some money rather than paying a GC to do that for me, right?

I wouldn’t touch the foundation work, but is it common to find any contractors that would let me help out? Would this save me any money? I know my father did that on his own house with the framing a such, and saved a lot of money.

How about the wood? Would using my own trees save me a lot of money? How about cutting the timbers myself with a chainsaw jig, is this feasible for the buildings I am planning? I have time, but would this be unreasonably slow?

I am pretty handy with a chisel and a saw, and am willing to take some classes to learn how to cut the joints, how much would this save me? Would the cost savings be enough to cover the cost of the classes? Are the TFers out there that would travel to my site to cut the joints?

While I am experienced running large projects, none of my projects concerned life threatening situations, so I would prefer someone else run the raising. Is this ever done, where a TF company would raise a frame built be someone else?

In short, I guess I am asking how much design/drawing, wood, milling, cutting joints, electrical/plumbing/HVAC, raising, contribute to the cost of a home.

Any input would be appreciated.
Thanks
Jim

On the surface, my experience has been that I saved money by building my timberframe with my own wood that I logged myself. However, if you were to look at all the risks that I took and tried to buy insurance to cover those risks, the savings would quickly evaporate. Then, if you were to throw in the "opportunity cost" of my time (i.e. what if I had a real job), it surely would have been cheaper to pay someone else to do it.

I think the best reason to build (or even just "design") your own home is that it can be one of the most rewarding experiences you've ever had. (Much like growing your own food) You also won't have to spend years discovering all of the imperfections in your house - you'll know about 10,000 of them the day you move in.

-Thomas

our timberframe

I'm my own GC and it's definately saved me money, there are times I wish I had that experienced person who knows the codes and the local subcontracters but learning has it's own rewards.

Here in CT I had the choice of using ungraded timbers from a known sawmill or milling my own and paying an engineer to OK them for use, check with your local building official on what their policy is. I opted for buying most of my timbers from the local sawmill, but I did mill some of my own timbers on my Logosol M7 sawmill (Stihl 066 chainsaw powered mill) the actual cutting speed of the mill is far less of a factor than the material handling time.
Logosol makes a very nice chainsaw attachment called a Timberjig with it you can go from a tree standing in the woods to a 30' timber laying in the woods in about 1.5hrs and produce a nice firewood & rough lumber bonus.
You'll need some way of transporting the timbers so there may be an equipment investment there but depending on what you find it may have a life after the construction or sell for close to it's original purchase price.

I started with a mostly complete frame which I 'picked up on eBay' for very little money and added to it. I actually made the purchase well after the auction had ended and several conversations with the owner/builder which helped me decide if I wanted to risk buying it.
Including the money spent on assistants for the raisings and one recently graduated Heartwood apprentice who helped cut joinery I'll have spent ~$20k for a raised frame worth >$50k.

I did all my own drawings and paid an engineer to review them. What I paid in engineering fee's is roughly what the architect I spoke to wanted for just a down payment. I'm sure we'd have a very different house if we'd gone with the architect and probably wouldn't like it quite as much. We could never have afforded the number of changes I made during the drawing process and it would certainly feel less like mine. In fact by the time I started cutting I knew the frame so well I only looked at the drawings a half dozen or so times during layout.

I paid Foard Panel to supply and attach the SIPs as well as raise the office portion of my frame (which they appear to have done for no additional charge). I could have saved some money here buying materials to 'wrap and strap' the frame but the time element and lack of assistants made that less feasible.

Plumbing and electric are being handled by one local company and they have no problems with me acting as plumbers assistant and roughing in as much of the wiring as I have time to...

I milled my own siding and a good deal of 2x material for framing interior partitions and am doing all the enclosing and interior work myself. As is typical we are building slightly more house than we can comfortably afford but it will be more house and better quality materials than we'd have gotten paying for a turn key zip together and far less than a turn key timber frame home. I'm still a month or so away from being able to calculate my actual savings.

If you are comfortable running (or learning to run) a backhoe a good deal of savings can be realised by doing your our site work and 4wd backhoe can also double as a log skidder. I subbed this out as well as the concrete foundation, Steel roof, and chimney.
The chimney and roof are two places where theoretically I could have saved some money by doing it myself but the results would have been different; shingles or shakes vs. steel on the roof.
The chimney is still in process and I'm getting the 'working mans special' from our local stone mason so I'm really not saving much over doing the job myself and I'd be forced to do it differently. The chimney's brick core came it at less than half of my lowest estimate for a basic brick chimney and at just about the material cost of Duraflu triple walled pipes and enough cultured stone to imitate the field stone being added to our brick on the first floor. I'm more than happy to invest my personal labor savings into paying for real native stone professionally installed.

Hope this helps more than it confuses

Look at my post under "Costs" from 5/3/06. We built our timber frame home using sips and lots of custom extras for about $61 sq.ft. We got most of our general building supplies from Lowes or Home Depot at regular costs. I look at things differently I guess, it is all sweat equity, the difference is how much you pay for that sweat equity. You either do the work yourself and give out sweat and time or pay someone else a lot more and give out your "sweat equity" at a job to pay for it. I have to agree that building your own house is one of the most satisfying experiences, I look around and still can't believe that my wife and I created our little wood paradise.