Posted By sleddermb on 27 Oct 2012 10:54 AM
Unfortunately retirement is about 15 years away. Plan on doing the majority of the work and design myself (with spec by engineer of course). Any regrets? Thanks for the moral boost :)

None, other than not being omniscient enough to know I was going lose 1/3 of my investment from construction loan to mortgage because of the housing crash!

One huge caution. Do you have all of the money in hand up front to build this without having to borrow? If not, and you plan to get a construction loan, you will need to engage a contractor and plan on a time frame of preferably 6 months, but no more than one year, to build the house. Virtually no bank will loan money to a DIY directly, and they abhor stretched out projects. A banker is not your friend, even though they pretend to be. Even though the market is improving, you have to really look close to see if the market value of the completed house, which is what the mortgage is based on, will be greater than the cost of construction. In my case the market value in early 2009 was 1/3 less than the cost of construction in 2008.

Posted By dmaceld on 28 Oct 2012 11:07 PM

Posted By robinnc on 28 Oct 2012 10:13 PM
I reshingled my roof about 12 yrs ago. When they came out to do the work, he said even though my attic is vented, it wasn't enough. He said he was gonna add at least one more vent or 2. He said my roof would have lasted allot longer if it had been vented properly. He also said if you don't have your roof vented properly, it would cut the life outta of shingles by almost half. He had been in the business for over 25 yrs.

Experience does not guarantee increased knowledge. Check out this quote from here.

http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/digests/bsd-102-understanding-attic-ventilation/view?searchterm=ROOF%20VENTING

Thanks for the Building Science article. In the article it states:

In high wind regions – particularly in coastal areas, wind driven rain is a problem with vented roof assemblies. Additionally, during high wind events, vented soffit collapse leads to building pressurization and window blowout and roof loss due to increased uplift. Unvented roofs – principally due to the robustness of their soffit construction - outperform vented roofs during hurricanes – they are safer. In coastal areas salt spray and corrosion are a major concern with steel frames, metal roof trusses and truss plate connectors in vented attics. Finally, in wildfire zones, unvented roofs and attics have significant benefits in terms of fire safety over vented roof assemblies.

The above agrees with what I said in my previous post about high winds and vented attics.

The whole spew that roofers give about adding more vents in an attic are nothing more than sales lines. They get to install 2 or 3 more vents, they add another $400 - $1,000 to the bill. Multiply that by 30 roofs a year and you got yourself $12k - $30k extra change in their pocket.

So an unvented attic, the roof shingles are shown to rise 2 or 3 degrees in temperature, then applying the Arrhenius equation, a 10 percent reduction in useful service life should be expected. So on a 25 year roof install, that means it drops to 22.50 years. Basically insignificant. The color of the shingles has more to do with life expectancy of roofs. A cool roof reduces roof temps and it really doesn't matter if you have a vented or non-vented attic. The cool roof can reduce roof temps by 70 degrees. Of course, one must vent the roof if they do a typical roof install.

A steel SIP roof would provide the best type of unvented roof setup as it would not have any issues with condensation. You would have an air barrier on the interior and exterior surface with solid insulation sandwiched between the two. Top it off with a standing seam metal cool roof and it's just icing on the cake.

Posted By dmaceld on 28 Oct 2012 11:25 PM

None, other than not being omniscient enough to know I was going lose 1/3 of my investment from construction loan to mortgage because of the housing crash!

One huge caution. Do you have all of the money in hand up front to build this without having to borrow? If not, and you plan to get a construction loan, you will need to engage a contractor and plan on a time frame of preferably 6 months, but no more than one year, to build the house. Virtually no bank will loan money to a DIY directly, and they abhor stretched out projects. A banker is not your friend, even though they pretend to be. Even though the market is improving, you have to really look close to see if the market value of the completed house, which is what the mortgage is based on, will be greater than the cost of construction. In my case the market value in early 2009 was 1/3 less than the cost of construction in 2008.

Even today the cost to build new is still more than the cost to buy an existing home. Three to four year old homes out in Phoenix are going for $65 a sqft. That includes the 2 - 3 car garage and a landscaped yard. You can't build new for that amount of money.

Homes here in Winnipeg are going for over 200$ a sq.ft pretty sad. And a lot to build on is at least 90K in or any where close to the city.


As for the roof thing, when i build again it will be with ICF and i will make the house with a shed style roof with web truss/spray foam/steel roof then something under the spray foam, not too sure batt or ridged foam.