Alternate Building technologies

[Chromium]

Folks,

Looking at options towards building new or extending PPOR.

I am ablebodied healthy 40 yr old male well capable of doing minor handyman jobs around house. Also have a few mates who can give me a hand.

I feel (missus more than me) need for a better PPOR. I have been looking @ Project homes and they are out of reach at the moment.

I have also looked @ Kithomes but they are almost at par with Project homes.

Are there any other options besides these ? I can / maybe able to put up basic Steel frame structure,windows and cladding/roof. However I will use tradies for plumbing and electricals and other licencesed jobs.

What are other alternative building technologies ? Are there any forums/portal (like SS) for these ? I have seen lightweight concrete fabricated panels and reckon houses built with steel structure and LWC panels can be easily built ? Has anyone done this ? How cost effective would it be ?

 

[Cartoon]

you can use a few differnt materials if your not interested in the usuall brick cavity construction.

Steel framing is one of them
The conc. pannels you are talking about are called pre cast conc. pannels.
AAC is another, there light weight air rated blocks that are laied like brik and tied down to the slab.

Precast pannels are easy to work with if the spec for them is done right, you will find that they come with all window, door and bolting points pre cut.
The windows and doors used would best be installed as per an aluminium commercial framing (angle timed).

For steel framing and precast -

I would use a builder to construct the structure (unless you can get owners builders approval and know what your doing).
The windows are easy to install, if you can read drawings i can send you details and how to measure what you require.
You can stick plasterboard straight to the pre case but you will have no thermal properties, this is somthing you need to consider as well. the other option is it fix battens to the precast, line with insulation and then fix plasterboard to the battens.

The same as above would apply for steel framing and cladding.

Other option is timber framing with cladding on the out side and plasterboard on the inside. Brick work is not always required, its more to protect the out side than hold anything up, the timber framing takes all the weight in common brick cacity construction.

I hope this helps you out. if you have any more questions feel free to ask

 

[Monty Burns]

I was looking at building a house out of zego bricks.
Basically the bricks are hollow foam bricks that then get filled with
cement and rendered over.
Goes up in a fraction of the time, cheaper, better insulation.

 

[RumpledElf]

Cheaparse construction of choice out here for extending is steel frame, fibre-cement sheet cladding (hardiplank) or galvanised iron cladding, that particleboard tongue and groove flooring (about 900x3600 stuff) or reclaimed floorboards, insulate the cavity in the wall of course, reclaimed windows from salvage yards, galvanised iron roof. Cheaparse choice for new is a transportable house, delivered.

Other good cheaparse construction is the concrete besser blocks, but I think you need to use a particular kind if you're going to live in the construction not use it as a garage, and you'd need a slab poured for that, so not really DIY.

I intend to replace my laundry (which really sucks) with the 'other' cheaparse (but very slow and messy) building construction of choice, which is stone up to window ledge height, solid plastered on the inside, then timber frame/hardiplank/reclaimed windows up to ceiling height with plasterboard on the inside, galvanised iron roof. Lean-to of course, that is the only way to go out here. However, I have access to about 6 cubic metres of stone. If I had more stone, I'd build me a 2-storey keep with turrets and hope the council doesn't notice (which given where I live, this is a reasonable assumption. Someone down the road has a circular single storey keep with turrets). Sadly, I don't have room for a moat, much less a drawbridge.

Most of the other more interesting alternative building methods aren't cheap. Straw bale, for example.

If you're insane, like me, I'd suggest moving somewhere really out of the way where you can use an existing ruin as a base and build pretty much exactly what you want without messing with any of those council approval thingies that always get in the way if you live anywhere respectable.

 

[Muffinman]

I think you will find steel construction is not cheap any more.
50% increase on steel in the last 6 months and another 10-15% due end of this month.

Precast aerated concrete is a cheap option with fairly good R value compared to standard 2400 density , I've used 800 and 1200 dense aerated mix with good results.
But your problem will be finding some one with an aerating maching like myself.
Followed by this a fair priced engineer as often the savings are lost to engineers who over charge as they are not often interested in small projects.