First Inspection Passed

DH Matt is in a bouyant mood tonight, as his first inspection (trenches) passed with flying colors.
Personally, I'm happy to see him smiling. He thinks that we might actually make our budget and schedule for our house build.. Our AAC blocks came in at $17,766....about 20% less than we'd budgeted for. I know that our budget, $125K, looks amazingly small. We actually started this project last year, improving a mile of road for $25K. Without a decent road, nothing else would be happening.

We also put the wells (the first well came up dry, although it does produce about .5 gallons/minute) in last year, at about $12K.Plus, we had our plans designed and engineered, septic designed, land surveyed, and the perk and mantle test done, soil compaction test...approximately another $30K in all. So, if I said we were building a small house in the country for $200K, everyone would nod their heads...this is doable.

This project is simple, basically just a glorified barn. Building it in California is the only tough part. Between earthquake codes, energy codes,engineering codes and wildfire codes we've had a lot of expensive extras tacked onto our build. And, it's an unconventional building material.

Our building envelope, the aerated autoclaved concrete, is the result of five years of research on our part. We phoned many, many people, toured houses and building sites, attended home shows and surfed web sites. We examined every Rastra Block, Sip builder, and every brand of ICF on the market. I wanted a product that was 1:1 in price to conventional stick built construction, didn't require special expertise to build, was more insulated, was 4-hour fireproof and could be plastered/stuccoed on both sides without having to sheet rock or screen first. That whole ICF thing of building a great, terrific wall and then having to sheetrock the interior and finish the exterior struck me as stupid and wasteful. And expensive; typically those building products add at least 10% to a build project. DH Matt was a wee bit less picky, but he happily jumped in board when we found the AAC blocks. They are the same price as a stick built house. We can/will plaster directly to both sides, saving labor and cost. They have a 70 year track record in Europe and perform beautifully in fires and earthquakes. And they are simple. Also, our 8" thick walls are R16.