How to Build a Simple House – Introduction

Home construction can be broken down into the following simple steps:

1. Floor

2. Walls

3. Roof

4. Windows and Doors

5. Plumbing

6. Electrical

7. HVAC

8. Insulation

9. Drywall

10. Finish (including cabinets)

This series of posts will describe how to build a house in these steps. It won’t be easy, but it will be simple. Most of the design choices for this house have been made to optimize for simplicity, cost efficiency, and ease of build. For our purposes, “cost efficiency” means that it is not only inexpensive to build, but that the house has low long-term maintenance and utility costs. Additional design considerations include building materials that are aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the house design, which is a modest, 3-bedroom 2-bathroom home covering approximately 1200 square feet.

Figure 1. Floor Plan (on 1-foot grid)

Figure 2. Elevation (on 1-foot grid)

The following tools are needed at a minimum:

This is a really barebones list, but I’m a minimalist. Most specialized tools can be rented for a day.

Before we get into the nitty gritty, please consider a few general notes about the homebuilding process.

Obviously, when you build a house well, you avoid paying for someone else’s labor.  You also avoid paying income and sales tax on the difference between the price of a new house and the sum of the price of a bare piece of land and building materials.

I like to say that I built my house the old-fashioned way, by which I mean that I saved up for the building materials ahead of time, and I did basically all the construction myself with some help from family and friends. I also avoided heavy equipment and specialized tools unless they brought large cost and time savings. These choices don’t make sense for everyone, and the approach that I’m laying out does not require you to make any of these choices if they don’t work for you.

If one decides to build outside of a municipality and without a loan for the building materials, the only inspections that are likely to be necessary are for the septic system. I liked having this flexibility when I built because I didn’t have to spend a lot of time coordinating with regulators, and I documented the process to show that I built according to code. When my family needed to move for my wife’s career, I found that it was relatively easy to sell my house. If you choose to submit to building inspections from the municipality or the bank providing your building loan, consider familiarizing yourself with the permitting process and building department ahead of time, and try and find others that you can ask whether they found the inspectors to be reasonable. I live in the city now in a 75-year-old house and found my building department to be reasonable and easy to deal with for the renovations I made.

When building a house from scratch, I bought most of my building materials from Home Depot and a local lumber yard. Home Depot had a professional program that I took advantage of, where I could get about a 10 percent discount if I bought $2500 of products up front, so consider negotiating with a sales manager wherever you buy.

Plumbing and electrical work require a license with some exceptions. For example, in many cities you can do this work for a house you plan to live in, but you can’t do it in a house you’re intending to sell. Anyone can do this work safely and well with the proper research ahead of time, but you will want to hire a professional to connect the temporary and permanent breaker panels.

Remember to budget property taxes on a partially completed house if your project is going to last more than a year. Also, consider getting insurance to cover any incidents during the construction project, if you’re not willing to take those risks on yourself.

You can do most of the project by yourself if you plan carefully, but it is helpful to have at least one helper for some of the larger tasks, and at least three helpers when pouring the concrete slab.

Some people choose to forego adding gas lines to their house to reduce gas leak risks, avoid exposure to contaminants, and avoid connection and monthly user fees. The gas usually pays for itself if you have significant water or home heating needs, but that depends on many factors. I will leave the gas lines out of the instructions but it’s simple to do it safely and well if you prepare properly ahead of time.

Passive solar design suggests that you orient the long axis of the house east-west (if possible), that you put most of the glazing on the north and south sides, and that you consider shading the glazing on the south side with adequate roof overhangs. This will allow you to benefit from solar heating in the winter and avoid it as much as possible in the summer.

Finally, if you need more detail for the main steps, or if you want to use different building materials than I describe, Charlie Wing’s Visual Handbook of Building and Remodeling is a phenomenal resource.