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How long does it take to build a house?

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There are number of factors which affect the time required to build a house. While the size and complexity will play a big role, very often effectiveness and organization of a whole construction process will be the prior factor in determination how long will it take to complete building of the house. Typically standard 1,900 – 2,100 square feet two story house might take about 4 – 5 month to build. Some builders might complete the work faster, but if homeowner will be his own general contractor it typically takes longer.

Everything starts from designing your own house plan, drawing blueprints, and getting permits. For a builder it is routine work, but if homeowner will be in charge of a whole construction process the time spend for all require paperwork might be considered as beginning of a project and can take from a few weeks to a month or even longer.

If the house will be build on a new lot before starting on site work, a temporary power pole should be installed on the property. Excavation and building a foundation typically will take 3 – 4 days and another 72 hours minimum might be necessary to wait while concrete cure, but because of weather condition it might take longer. While building up to 2000 sq. ft. house, a crew of five carpenters should be able to complete rough framing and pass the inspection in about two weeks with a normal 40-hour work week. Finishing exterior with a siding and roof shingles installation will require about 3 – 4 work days. Typically another week will be spent on rough in electrical, plumbing, HVAC and passing inspections before insulation and drywall installation. Hanging, finishing and priming gypsum boards might require additional 7 – 8 days. All interior work including completing bathrooms, kitchen, finish carpentry, flooring installation and painting will last from a few weeks to a month.

While building a custom home everything is less predictable. Complicated details and custom design might be very time consuming process and require much more time to complete the work. But still, significant increase of man – hours doesn’t necessarily mean a huge change in a time frame. Technically, with a perfect organization and unlimited labor resources any type of a house can be build in about three month or even in a shorter period, but practically it is very rare and no one will push the work that fast unless the house will be small with very simple design.

Building a house is a complex step-by-step process and only wise planning ahead will save time and very often money as well. If only 3 – 4 people will be working on a custom 2,900 square feet house the realistic time to complete the work will be around one year. But if the same work will be running simultaneously and while one crew will work on finishing the exterior another will perform interior work and so on the time will be significantly reduced.

What is a shortest time to build a house?

The shortest time is nearly impossible to defined because many factors will impact the total construction time and should be analyzes first. One week is extreme and in practice nearly impossible. One month might be doable while building a simple house with superb organization and unlimited man power. 3 – 4 month typical is a standard work. 5 – 6 month minimum might require for completing the custom up to 3,000 square feet house.