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Comment by octopoc | Hacker News Reader

If I may ask, what are your thoughts on BuildZoom? If I go through them can I be more certain about quality work?

I have heard many horror stories of people who had houses built and the builders made terrible mistakes. The person having the house built had to micromanage them and kept finding bad mistakes, like "forgetting" to put insulation in walls before the drywall, putting a window in the wrong spot, or putting crawlspace pillar supports in the wrong area.

I feel like right now the most reliable way to make sure my house gets built right is live nearby and check on it every day. Is there a better way?

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People don't forget to do that stuff. Drywaller shows up with crew. Insulation is not in. A lot of people just shrug and install the drywall. Maybe they are in a good mood and have another job close by that they can go to after informing the GC about the insulation. My money is on them just throwing up the drywall. Imagine the "bastard operator from hell" and you will have a good feel for how they view you and your house...typically. There are some craftsman out there but good luck finding them.

> check on it every day

you got it.

> Is there a better way?

no.

This is also how you ensure software projects you contract out are being built "right."

It is hard since even experienced and capable builders might still take you for a ride. In the UK, plumbers are notorious for not turning up to jobs and not even calling etc. Those that know what they are doing are also prone to inflate a quote to someone they think can afford it.

The other problem in the UK is there is no formal registry for a "builder" as opposed to plumbers, electricians and even window fitters that have to be registered.

There is definitely a need for good people skills (passive aggressive doesn't work on the building site) and being clear up-front. You also need to try and avoid over-reliance on one person/company, you don't want everything stopping because the electrician cancelled on you.

> The other problem in the UK is there is no formal registry for a "builder" as opposed to plumbers, electricians and even window fitters that have to be registered.

In the UK, electricians do not have to be registered.

I always understood electricians did have to be registered and qualified https://www.competentperson.co.uk/

But I don’t know for sure.

My understanding is that anybody can do any type of electrical work (in homes), but certain type of electrical work needs to be certified. If your electrician isn't certified then a third party certifier has to certify the work after completion.

It is the same in the US. The actual labor can be done by anyone, but a licensed electrician has to be willing to accept liability for it.

It is quite a racket in some towns, as some electricians will have an “expedited” relationship with the town’s inspectors, so you basically have to hire certain electricians if you want your project to move along smoothly. The electrician will come by and walk through for 5 min glancing here and there and sign the paper for $10k or $20k or $30k depending on size of the project.

Architects are the same way, a couple draftsmen to all the design and construction documents. Then, while on the way out the door to lunch, the architect gets their stamp and a sharpie out.

Here in NM, you can do your own electrical work, but you have to pass an exam first. The exam is non-trivial.

There's a separate exam for solar installs. I took and passed that, but given that it is open book (you get the NEC book) and covers "only 3 sections of the NEC"), it was suprisingly hard.

Not true everywhere in the US, this sort of thing is regulated at the state level.

Where I live, a homeowner is allowed to do their own electrical work. Must be permitted and inspected, though. When I've done big projects in the past, I've asked the inspector out at the start to ask for their advice -- gotten really good info that way.

>>If your electrician isn't certified then a third party certifier has to certify the work after completion.

Even that has been outlawed sadly. You can't fit your own fuse board and get an electrician to just sign off on it anymore - there might be people who still do it and give you a document saying they've done the installation, but in general it's not a thing anymore.

Of course absolutely nothing stops you from doing it anyway, then having a general electrical inspection done. If anyone asks just say it was like that when you bought the house already.

> There is definitely a need for good people skills (passive aggressive doesn't work on the building site) and being clear up-front.

You don't even need good people skills, just being aggressive works, but you do have to be clear up-front: "stop right now, I am sure you fucked up this part: either prove to me I am wrong or redo it ASAP or I am not paying you for this" works much better than rolling out a list of complaints when they present the final bill.

Someone I know who had their house built took pictures of the construction site every day.

That way, if an issue turned up later, he could prove by showing the pics that they forgot to do something or did it in the wrong way.

Then it's too late. Code requirements would prevent all of this. Requiring county inspection to certify insulation install (presence, no gaps) and thickness (R-value) with a post-install test. All of that would increase costs and build time though.

If you do something wrong you need to correct it at your cost, including everything. I've been in framing before and called to move a joist that we put right where the toilet pipe had to be. We moved it, but it was a lot of work to cut all the glue and get it in the place it should have been. (normally joists are a fixed distance apart, but we are supposed to verify on the print before hand that the toilet or other pipe won't land on one). At least the plumber called us - he would be in his right to just cut the joist, and then we would have to fix it after the house failed the final inspection.

Contractors try to look after each other. Most know enough about other trades to stop and say "this isn't right, are you sure you want me to continue" if someone else did something wrong. But everyone once in a while this fails.

I imagine the better way is to hire an experienced GC to go and check on it every day for you. It’s only “better” in terms of time (and perhaps experience), though.

I think that this is the way to go because it's really hard to catch all of the things that can go on on site if you're not a professional. I built (ok got fellas in to build) an extension many years ago and I didn't catch that the drainage was inadequate until after they had completed and left - so I had to get that done separately and it wasn't cheap. Every builder I've talked to since has given me the impression that they would have spotted this upfront, and I think I believe them.

> that they would have spotted this upfront

Of course they say that. What would you think if they said the opposite?

>What would you think if they said the opposite?

Not the same guy, but I might start to trust them more

I get the point(s) here, but I think that my error was very much a rookies, and that one of the first things that good builders think is "where is the water going"?

> I imagine the better way is to hire an experienced GC to go and check on it every day for you.

Going every day is how you check the GCs work. A good GC should probably tell you the days where it's more important for you to come and check and what you should be looking for, but being there to notice things and ask questions helps keep things on track.

Unconventional, a St Louis entrepreneur built a container house. Few things to go wrong there.

Unfortunately a container house will always end up both more expensive and worse than a traditionally built house. Containers are fantastic as containers but terrible for making a house with. As soon as you start cutting holes in them they lose a great deal of their structural strength which is their main advantage. Terrible to insulate and for condensation as well. The exception is if you’re happy with a single container with no additional holes and only the doors for access and windows and you live in a very low humidity environment.

Could you elaborate on the high prices?

I have a friend who plans on building a container house, and who is convinced that it will be much cheaper than a traditional house. Note that we live in Europe, where homes are build from stone and concrete, not wood and cardboard.

It depends, actually. Container prices are very volatile. If you're in the middle of a crash, a container house can be cheap. GP was correct however in pointing out they aren't particularly good for building houses that are actually nice to live in.

EDIT: There's a caveat here. Because containers are trivially transportable, you have lots of options when it comes to assembling off-site that could be kind of nice. For instance, if you were a carpenter with a nice workshop, and wanted to fit out your house in your shop instead of in a muddy building site, it's kind of cool that you can do all the fitting, then put the parts on a truck. This would also be cheaper. If I was self-building, this would be a big consideration for me, because it's not actually very nice working in a building site, and it's not particularly efficient either.

You can buy a manufactured home if you want the factory. They are cheaper, but mostly because they don't allow any customization.

You can build a wooden house in Europe as well, it's just not cheap, e.g. https://scotframe.co.uk/ : not only is the timber more expensive than the US, the main challenge is getting land and planning permission.

I've no idea what permissions you'd need for a container house.

Grand Designs has an episode featuring a container house build. I recommend showing it your friend, as there might be a few things to learn.

As I recall, the biggest challenge was cutting out the sides while maintaining structural integrity. They ended up having to do a lot of complicated stuff to make it structurally sound, nearly negating the benefits of using containers in the first place.

But it looks great. I think the episode is on Netflix. Here [1] is an article with photos and a ten-minute clip from the episode.

[1] https://metalbuildinghomes.org/grand-designs-shipping-contai...

You can build a container house that’s cheap but it won’t be nice. You can build a container house that is nice but it won’t be cheap. I spent a very long time looking into this as I really wanted to have a container house. Unfortunately the more research I did the more I realised what a bad idea it was. A container is great because you have a basic structure and it’s watertight from day one. However, getting to that point with a regular build is actually pretty straightforward. Everything past that point though is a massive pain in the ass when you’re drilling or cutting into corten steel. Adding insulation, windows, electrical fittings, everything else ends up being a pain and/or 3 times more expensive and/or 3 times more time consuming. It gets to the point where you basically just building a regular house inside the container anyway and you realize that you just don’t need the container in the first place. As I said before there are really specific instances where it makes sense but if you look at all the container houses that look really nice, the build cost is always insanely expensive. Often two or three times the cost of an equivalent regular house.

>> Unfortunately a container house will always end up both more expensive and worse than a traditionally built house.

I remember when this became popular and also remember plenty of articles deriding the fact by architects and engineers both agreeing this was an incredibly poor idea for a number of reasons.

You'd be a thousand times better off just hiring an architect and doing a prefab or modular home.

Works if you like narrow rooms smelling like an old fridge.

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