RE: "I didn't make the claim you were responding to."
Sorry about that. The old in box was kind of crowded today.
RE: "With the high price of concrete, nationally, and having built custom homes here in Fla, I think you would be hard pressed to argue the point that "stick built" construction is either "higher end" or more expensive."
It's been a couple of years since I bought concrete. As I recall, it was running about $65 per yard at the time, and half inch rebar was running around three bucks for a twenty foot stick. For a 4X8 section of wall, I come up with about half a yard of concrete and a couple sticks of rebar, or about $40. For 2X6 studs and a sheet of plywood, you'd be looking at about the same for wood framing. If as the pictures suggest, they're using a spray on stucco on the exterior walls, that's a whole lot cheaper than wood siding. Also, a slab on grade, as shown in the pictures, is a LOT cheaper than post and beam construction on a foundation. A ballpark guess is the difference would run about $12 per foot on materials - about $4 on the floors and $8 on the walls.
Where I live seismic is more of an issue than wind sheer, so wood framing is the standard. I assume because it's less likely to go crunch if the ground rattles. It might also be because there are lots of trees in the area, and folks tend to build houses out of whatever happens to be laying around. Whatever. |
