Constructing an Owner-Built Home in Greater Victoria - Personal Experience

It has been a while since the August update!  I've been crazy busy with work and haven't had much time to work on the home.

We've moved in and getting occupancy was a bit of an annoyance but we got it done.  We've put in the driveway and now that winter has set in I've left all the exterior projects for spring.  Over the winter I have a number of interior projects lined up starting out with sprucing up the garage.

Video commentary #31 (Shower tray) - https://www.youtube....h?v=_VJLaEQTaZg

#32 (Security system partitions) - https://www.youtube....h?v=4XjbHss6-qg

#33 (Occupancy challenges) - https://www.youtube....h?v=bmr_7GrLYwY

#34 (Garage surfacing) - https://www.youtube....h?v=c4u_9-cSoGw

Exterior work is on hold until the spring 

Current interior project I am working on is the garage.  I've tiled it, now working on tile baseboards, installing a car charage (tesla?), and trying to find a garage cabinet set that will feet accordingly between the windows.

This transition piece took forever to find!

I'd put in one of these.

Very smart to go with 3 car garage. Congratulations what a beautiful home! 

So what's the date of the party?

Who says you'll be invited

I'd put in one of these.

A little to retro for me, I was thinking about something like this? Finding something that won't block the windows design wise is a tad tricky.

Edited by MarkoJ, 22 November 2015 - 08:09 PM.

Who says you'll be invited

I was going to bring the fruit cake...

Just curious, have you totalled up your total costs per sq.ft.?  What value would you put to what you did?  Just curious to know where current construction costs are.

Just curious, have you totalled up your total costs per sq.ft.?  What value would you put to what you did?  Just curious to know where current construction costs are.

I haven’t bothered to add up the receipts on my owner-build but I am guessing probably around $115 to $130 per square foot; however, I had a lot of calculated factors on my side and a bit of luck too.

1/ My house is not in the municipality of Victoria; therefore, less BS bureaucracy to deal with and cheaper to build. Calculated factor.
2/ No tear down and all services in place (sewer, water, storm, gas, underground power, underground telecom, etc.) at lot line and pre-paid connection fees which is a little unique for 1/2+ acre lots.  Calculated factor.
2/ I designed a home that fit/worked with the land so the excavation cost me less than $10,000. Could have easily been $50,000+ in earth work if I designed something that required blasting.  Calculated factor.
3/ At 5,000 sq/ft the cost is spread out and the per square foot price drops. Calculated factor.
4/ I start construction in the summer of 2014 and 90% of the home was done before we started seeing major upward pressure on construction costs this spring/summer. Total luck.
5/ I am pretty savvy, or so I like to think? just various random stuff….for example, for my suite kitchen I purchased a $15,000+ showroom kitchen (cabinets, quartz, sink, faucet, etc., etc.) from the Duet condo development in James Bay for $1,000.  There is probably another 100k in various “savvy” savings I will call it.  Calculated factor.

If you take out those factors you are probably looking at closer to $200 per sq/ft to build.  Construction costs, both materials (because of the weak $) and labor have gone up significantly.  I would say a $165 per sq/ft build in 2013/2014 will be a $200 per sq/ft build for 2016.

Mr Juras

   Congratulations on taking up residence within your new home.

   It has been quite fascinating to watch this process from the technical point of view. Even more fascinating to me are the social aspects of your dialogue with other posters and the transparency with which you have indulged us all. As an outsider with an evolving interest in Victoria I thank you for this informative, entertaining, and rewarding experience!

   Best wishes to you and yours.

Chef-eth

Edited by Chef-eth, 04 December 2015 - 02:04 AM.

I appreciate your sharing the details during the construction process. I have learn  a lot now  and will pick up many usefully idea for my older box reno project coming up soon~

Working on all the accessory stuff for the house now...sprinklers, landscaping, improving lighting with dimmers, etc....

If I could go back would have gone with a gas stove and gas dryer in my rental suite.  With the Tesla charger my panel is totally maxed out (I also have two sub panels but my max load is approaching 200 amps too).

With the popularity of electric cars my suggestion to everyone building new is go with gas for every possible appliance to allow room for electric car chargers.  Other option is 320 or 400 amp service but apparently those need a mechanical room and a bunch of additional safety upgrades; therefore, cost prohibitive and not great where space is at a premium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETaFgQwAWMU

If you have gas running a range and dryer, don't you still need to account for those appliances as electric in the event they get switched back to electric later?  ie, you still need a 40A breaker for a gas range, no?

I love the message of this video... if you don't have enough amps, use lots of gas so you can charge your electric car.  

If you have gas running a range and dryer, don't you still need to account for those appliances as electric in the event they get switched back to electric later?  ie, you still need a 40A breaker for a gas range, no?

 

I love the message of this video... if you don't have enough amps, use lots of gas so you can charge your electric car.

I would still run all the wires and breakers.  Worse case scenario is electric inspector wants you to pull the breakers and take out the plug for the purposes of the load calculation? (You'll still have the wire in the wall if needed).

For example, on my house I have a plug behind my gas dryer.

I thought my "load up on gas....." was a funny catch phrase but you are right.  Does it make sense to have an electric car but be using all this natural house as a result? What is the impact of natural gas use in a home? I thought it burned fairly clean.

I guess you can always go 400 amp service and solve all environmental problems

It's a good thing our electricity comes from waterwheels and not coal

Shocked to see this development -> https://www.hpo.bc.c...ers - June 2016

Awesome, let's pile on more useless legislation. Obviously they don't have enough to do around the office at the HPO.

You have to study the topic of framing? The framing contractor I hired on my house (20 years experience) didn't know what some of the brackets the structural engineer specified were, but somehow having the owner builder do a 100 MC exam will help with the quality of the build?  You can't frame a home in any municipality in Greater Victoria without having a structural engineer designing the framing and doing 3 to 5 site inspections.  City inspector also inspects as well....

Having gone through the process of owner building a home personally this is an idiotic move in my opinion that will discourage owner building even more.

From my personal real estate travels I would say on average the owner builds are better in terms of quality compared to your average builder home. I've yet to see a spec home builder future proof a garage for proper electric car charging, for example.

Edited by MarkoJ, 28 June 2016 - 09:53 PM.

Link is broken, here's the info bulletin: https://www.hpo.bc.c...uilder_Exam.pdf

Seems idiotic to me.  Can you imagine the bureaucracy that went into creating and now administering this exam for all eternity?  How do these people live with themselves?   

How do these people live with themselves?

Curious, I noticed in there that you can't build a house, live in it for a year and build another as an "owner builder". It says you need to wait 18 months prior to doing another owner build. It was my understanding that some builders out there would build a new house every year  as an owner builder. Is this a change also or is the build a new house and live in it for a year thing a GST / some other taxation thing?