Estimated Costs: How much to build?

[Kris G.]

I'm new to the community, but very interested in building and want to get a sense of what the costs might look like. Of course there are several variables to consider, i.e., part of the world, different materials used, including electrical and plumbing, etc., but I haven't seen any post on this subject and thought it would be useful to start a discussion on.

Are there any estimated costs of a complete build with materials? How much have current home builds that have been completed cost?

• Cost of materials?

• Complete house with plumbing and electrical?

Please add and other variables and information.

Regards,

Kris

[Jerome Plumat]

Hi Chris,

I'm really beginner here but there are some files in communs project folders describing list of items you need as well as prices.

You can find an example following the path: Project Folder | Featured Projects | 002 studio | studio_v0.2

It should be a good start I guess. Prices must be adapted to your region but it should give you an idea.

Regards,

Jerome.

[Harry Knight]

Hey Kris,

Yes I can give you some of that information!

Like you say it completely depends on where you are, how fancy the materials are that you use, if you have access to your own (or a friends) cnc etc etc.

There has been a house done recently in the UK which is about £95 - £120 all up (including design fees which really only have to be paid once after everything is uploaded to the commons).

So it works out at about £800psm. The house was two stories and 130sqm (or there abouts, I wasn't involved in the project but can confidently say these figures are pretty accurate. 

This cost is being driven down the more the chassis system develops. Each design improvement means less cutting time and less material but more strength and easier assembly too. If you do use the system and have suggestions for improvements, we're always open. The most recent chassis system has been developed by work from chapters in New Zealand, United States, UK and Europe.

Hope this was helpful.

H

[Kris G.]

Hi Jerome,

Many thanks for sending me this path! This break down is really fantastic and helps get an idea of costs. When I saw the costs that were so low, I was really excited :) But.... then I saw the size of the studio. haha. 

CNC cutting costs??

• I was taking a look at the cost of purchasing a CNC machine, and a few machines that I've seen seem to be almost the same price or even less than the "CNC Cutting" costs of £3,330.00 listed on the Studio_v0.2 price breakdown. 
• Does the UK team not have it's own CNC machine? I am just very ignorant to the price of a CNC machine and operating costs? (probably)

Best, 

Chris

[Kris G.]

Hi Harry,

Many thanks for putting up this info. Do you know the name of this project or if there is a folder path for the project in the commons? 

Also, I don't understand what you mean by "design fees"? Aren't designs provided for everyone for free? Isn't that what WikiHouse is all about? Still a new jack, and maybe I'm missing something very big...

The location of my build would likely be much cheaper than the U.K. in many regards, i.e., materials and any services I might require, so that's a big plus I suppose. £120 has taken a little bit of the wind out of my sails, but as you say, the costs are continuing to be driven down as more people create more cost effective designs. 

Kind regards,

Chris

[Harry Knight]

It's called FarmHouse. Folder will be up shortly. Hopefully before the year finishes.

If you're getting designs from WikiHouse they're free but if you're dealing with a provider (like an architect), you pay for their fee. So the farmhouse was provided by a practice for a client, using the WikiHouse system. If that makes sense?

These designs will still be shared for free with the community but it's a fresh set of designs paid for by a client.

At the moment we do t communicate this well online but we're making changes for the new year and improving the entire website. Let me know if I can help answer any other questions or clarify stuff :)

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[Paul Pangrazzi]

Thanks for the update on FarmHouse Henry... Looking forward to all the changes coming to wikihouse as well.

[Torbjørn Engel]

I am curious about this too. I have to estimate cost for a WikiHouse to be used in training for lean construction.

I've already got access to the WikiHouse projects folder, so I will of course check out the examples there next. 

The cost for sheet materials depends on how many sheets are needed for the constructions. I guess the WikiHouse plugin in Sketchup will tell me this. But if we could use OSB insted of plywood, it would mean a big cost reduction. I've read that OSB is as strong as plywood, so I don't see why it couldn't be done. As this set would be used for training, indoors,, and put together and taken apart several times, I think MDF could be an option. 

I have to adjust the costs to a norwegian context. They should be similar to the UK, but more expensive in some respects. I think machine time should be counted in as a cost at arount £ 50 / hour, and then 30 mins per sheet.

 

 

[Sébastien Lucas]

Hello every one, 

I've created a new group on Linkedin about open source and collaborative design. 

I invite you to join !

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8487454

If  you are in Paris, you can join also our meetups at 

http://www.meetup.com/fr-FR/Architecture-collaborative/

Have a nice day.

Sébastien

_

Sébastien Lucas

CoFounder & CEO of Bricks

Architect / Web developer / Photographer

Linkedin / Twitter / slu...@archiref.com / tel: 33 (0)6 01 24 30 29 / skype: archiref

Collaborate with open bricks of architecture projects

Bricks is a web app that help architects and creatives to organize their visual inspirations

and share reusable bricks of projects with their team and the community.

[Torbjørn Engel]

I've received offers for fabrication of parts for a 7,5 x 3,5 m studio, 3,5 m high from bottom to top, The cost of this lies about 10.000 Euro with materials, packing and transport (local) inklusive. The offer is made on basis of using OSB panels. I calculated a need for about 115 panels for this, and offers seem to indicate 30 mins of routing for each panel.