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Home addition cost per sq ft

bringmagicback

bringmagicback

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Ive been doing some research about adding on to my house. I want to add a 30x30 (900sqft) addition that will be completely square. No fancyness just square. 1 story, sit on a concrete foundation, no basement. No plumbing, it will have probably 7 electrical outlets and 4 light switches so very minimal electric work (will probably do this myself). On the interior, there will be 2 15x15 bedrooms and a 15 by 30 living room. The addtion will have two entry points to the current house. It will have 5 windows. It will need to have a roof put on and siding. I plan to hang the drywall myself but have a pro mud it and sand it. I will hang all the doors myself (2 of them). Basically I just need a 30x 30 framed shell w/ all the outside stuff done.

I know I could do this myself but I really dont want to, any idea on cost per square foot? Obviously these are just estimates but Ive heard anywhere from $50-$150sq foot so trying to see if this is even reasonable to try. Small town Iowa for location.
 
Mtowncyclone13

Mtowncyclone13

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bringmagicback said:
Ive been doing some research about adding on to my house. I want to add a 30x30 (900sqft) addition that will be completely square. No fancyness just square. 1 story, sit on a concrete foundation, no basement. No plumbing, it will have probably 7 electrical outlets and 4 light switches so very minimal electric work (will probably do this myself). On the interior, there will be 2 15x15 bedrooms and a 15 by 30 living room. The addtion will have two entry points to the current house. It will have 5 windows. It will need to have a roof put on and siding. I plan to hang the drywall myself but have a pro mud it and sand it. I will hang all the doors myself (2 of them). Basically I just need a 30x 30 framed shell w/ all the outside stuff done.

I know I could do this myself but I really dont want to, any idea on cost per square foot? Obviously these are just estimates but Ive heard anywhere from $50-$150sq foot so trying to see if this is even reasonable to try. Small town Iowa for location.
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You should really have a licensed electrician do the electrical work. I'm 100% serious.

If your contractor is just doing the framing I'd plan for anywhere from $20-$35 square foot. $50-$150 per square foot is for finished construction. We see an average of about $130 around here. Just your shell should be a lot cheaper.

Also, since this is attached to your main house you can't just have 4" poured slab, you'll need footings down at least 42" to get to the frost line. Your local building code will outline all of this.
 
mj4cy

mj4cy

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Along with the footings, you will also want to consider concrete stoop footings around the exterior doors so you don't get frost heave in the winter. Also, is your new addition going to be shorter than your original house? If so, you'll get heavier drift snow loads on the lower roof which will need more structure under it.
 
C

CYlent Bob

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Does your existing house have a basement? We added on a 2 story 16x25 addition with a full basement about 6 years ago, and at the time my contractor told me that the cost for going from a crawlspace (the main floor on our house is about 3 feet above ground, so a slab wasn't a good option for us) to a basement wasn't that much. It basically gave us 400 SF of unfinished room downstairs for a third or a quarter of what the rest of the footage will run you.

And the electrical? Get a pro to finish it at least. When we did a little remodeling in the old portion of our house about 12 years ago or so, we pulled the wires and set the boxes ourselves, and then had an electrician come in and check out work and do the final hookups on both ends of the wire. We saved a little money, but we still ended up with a safer house.

Your contractor will know this, but make sure than when you hook the addition to the existing house, you don't put the new load on the existing foundation. Doing that could cause differential settlement, which will play hell with your drywall at the least.
 
bringmagicback

bringmagicback

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mtowncyclone13 said:
You should really have a licensed electrician do the electrical work. I'm 100% serious.

If your contractor is just doing the framing I'd plan for anywhere from $20-$35 square foot. $50-$150 per square foot is for finished construction. We see an average of about $130 around here. Just your shell should be a lot cheaper.

Also, since this is attached to your main house you can't just have 4" poured slab, you'll need footings down at least 42" to get to the frost line. Your local building code will outline all of this.
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What I meant by doing it by myself is that I have a friend who does electric so I pay for just the materials. You say 20-35 for just the framing. Do you litterally mean just the framing. Basically I want the whole thing enclosed meaning water/wind tight, meaning roof siding windows foundation ect. Then I do all the interior myself including insulation.



mj4cy said:
Along with the footings, you will also want to consider concrete stoop footings around the exterior doors so you don't get frost heave in the winter. Also, is your new addition going to be shorter than your original house? If so, you'll get heavier drift snow loads on the lower roof which will need more structure under it.
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there will not be any exterior doors. and yes it will be shorter and be on the south side with the pitch facing south (the current house sits east and west).

My thing is, I dont see how this can cost $100 sq/ft when I can build a garage (with much more concrete) for $25 a square ft (drywalled). Its the exact same principal just one has a wood floor, the other a concrete floor. Doesnt make sense to me lol.
 
bringmagicback

bringmagicback

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CYlent Bob said:
Does your existing house have a basement? We added on a 2 story 16x25 addition with a full basement about 6 years ago, and at the time my contractor told me that the cost for going from a crawlspace (the main floor on our house is about 3 feet above ground, so a slab wasn't a good option for us) to a basement wasn't that much. It basically gave us 400 SF of unfinished room downstairs for a third or a quarter of what the rest of the footage will run you. And the electrical? Get a pro to finish it at least. When we did a little remodeling in the old portion of our house about 12 years ago or so, we pulled the wires and set the boxes ourselves, and then had an electrician come in and check out work and do the final hookups on both ends of the wire. We saved a little money, but we still ended up with a safer house.

Your contractor will know this, but make sure than when you hook the addition to the existing house, you don't put the new load on the existing foundation. Doing that could cause differential settlement, which will play hell with your drywall at the least.
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It does but I dont want a basement under the new part...regardless of cost.
 
C

CYlent Bob

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bringmagicback said:
It does but I dont want a basement under the new part...regardless of cost.
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I can't really help you with the cost. Our general contractor was a high school buddy who did our job in fits & starts between his other projects, and a lot of the subs were guys who I did work for in exchange for their work on my house. Seems like it cost us several quarters of beef as well, if I remember right.

I remember that our total cost was about 65k for the 1200 sf total addition (800 finished, 400 unfinished in the basement) and a small deck on the back, but we left a lot of finishing touches to be finished up later. Funny how having your first child in the middle of an addition makes you want to wrap it up and move into the new space ASAP.
 
Mtowncyclone13

Mtowncyclone13

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CYlent Bob said:
Funny how having your first child in the middle of an addition makes you want to wrap it up and move into the new space ASAP.
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Since you had an addition couldn't you stay there?

OP, just call a contractor and describe to him what you want. I would not go and get bids because you'll end up with the cheapest guy and low profit = low quality. Get some references from other local people, call the guy, and ask. Then have him do it. And write down exactly what you want because if you say "I don't know" he can't give you specific quotes.
 
bringmagicback

bringmagicback

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CYlent Bob said:
I can't really help you with the cost. Our general contractor was a high school buddy who did our job in fits & starts between his other projects, and a lot of the subs were guys who I did work for in exchange for their work on my house. Seems like it cost us several quarters of beef as well, if I remember right.

I remember that our total cost was about 65k for the 1200 sf total addition (800 finished, 400 unfinished in the basement) and a small deck on the back, but we left a lot of finishing touches to be finished up later. Funny how having your first child in the middle of an addition makes you want to wrap it up and move into the new space ASAP.
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Right, that comes out to like $54 a sq ft. I figure I have in materials on the high side $44sq ft. Based on past construction projects that Ive done I dont see how this could take longer than 3 weeks. In fact that would seem like a long time to me. If I paid the guy that does it $15,000 in labor thats like $120 an hour which would add on another $17 sq/ft which would be around $60 per sq ft. I want to find that deal haha.
 
bringmagicback

bringmagicback

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mtowncyclone13 said:
Since you had an addition couldn't you stay there?

OP, just call a contractor and describe to him what you want. I would not go and get bids because you'll end up with the cheapest guy and low profit = low quality. Get some references from other local people, call the guy, and ask. Then have him do it. And write down exactly what you want because if you say "I don't know" he can't give you specific quotes.
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Right, I just wanted to get a ball park on here to see if feasable. I dont want to go through the whole bid process and waste everyones time to find out that its $150sqft.... There is 3 carpenters in town, all do great work.
 
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nfrine

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bringmagicback said:
My thing is, I dont see how this can cost $100 sq/ft when I can build a garage (with much more concrete) for $25 a square ft (drywalled). Its the exact same principal just one has a wood floor, the other a concrete floor. Doesnt make sense to me lol.
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Move into the garage and be done with it then:smile:.
 
Cyclones_R_GR8

Cyclones_R_GR8

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Just how do you plan on heating/cooling this 900 extra square feet? You don't mention anything about ductwork or returns. Are you planning on running electric baseboards or something ?
 
bringmagicback

bringmagicback

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Cyclones_R_GR8 said:
Just how do you plan on heating/cooling this 900 extra square feet? You don't mention anything about ductwork or returns. Are you planning on running electric baseboards or something ?
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what I gave info on is what I had the questions on, Im just looking for sq footage costs specificially on what I asked about as opposed to the whole "my opinion" stuff. If I didnt mention it, its because Its taken care of.
 
C

CYlent Bob

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mtowncyclone13 said:
Since you had an addition couldn't you stay there?

OP, just call a contractor and describe to him what you want. I would not go and get bids because you'll end up with the cheapest guy and low profit = low quality. Get some references from other local people, call the guy, and ask. Then have him do it. And write down exactly what you want because if you say "I don't know" he can't give you specific quotes.
Click to expand...

Yeah. We were living in the same house at the time, but it was a small 2 bedroom (barely 2 bedrooms, more like 1 big bedroom and one office/hallway right outside the bathroom), and the kitchen was also gutted while we were doing the addition. We were basically living in the living room, using a dorm fridge for milk & such, and cooking everything on the grill and with a toaster oven.

We got a hellova deal on the cost, but the tradeoff is that it took us months to get it done. Plus, when they dug our basement in November, we got hit with a big snowstorm that shut it down until late March. That really put a crimp in our schedule.

Plus, part of the savings we had was that we knew we were going to do this a year before we started, so we started "stockpiling" materials whenever we caught something on sale. That probably saved us 15-20% in materials right there.
 
VTXCyRyD

VTXCyRyD

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