| Not a contractor myself (I "escaped" into IT), but I come from a family that's almost exclusively contractors and had quite a few summer jobs on construction sites. I think for more, err, concrete advice, some indication of the location you want to build in would be helpful. Either way, you will likely want to involve an architect if you're building your first house, to help getting your ideas to paper within the confines of local building codes. You'll also want a structural engineer verifying the suitability of the design, especially with something as heavy as concrete. If you're in the US (at least) or other places where wood framing is more common than concrete or stone, the "uncommon" material will likely increase cost noticeably. Also keep in mind that unless you want to drywall the interior of the house anyway, you'll have to make sure you have pipes and conduits for everything in place before you pour the concrete. Even if you are planning to drywall the interior, you're still looking at making sure all your mechanical systems (heating/cooling, water, electricity) can actually be routed from one floor to the next. If you're looking for an inspirational rabbit hole to go down, check out this thread on Garage Journal: https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=145073 Just keep in mind that the guy building the house is actually a concrete contractor and not exactly new to this game. |