Man Hours

[dmorgan]

Is there any way to estimate average man hours of labor?

I'm building a one story house and detached garage. Total of about 2200 sq feet. I hired out the foundations, the house shell, the steel roofing, the well bore, the gutters and the garage door. Almost everything else I'm doing alone from clearing/landscaping, electrical, plumbing, septic system, staining, finish materials, trim, kitchen cabinets, ..... you get the idea.

I've got about 25 years of construction experience in several trades; electrical the primary. I guess I'm not as young as I used to be. :-) I'm having the electrical, plumbing and framing inspections done next week and then I'm free to insulate and start the finish interior (all wood, won't be any drywall in this baby).

I started this project in June of last year and have worked it nights after work and weekends with a couple of weeks of vacation time devoted to it. I've made some good progress but man I thought I'd be further along than this. Actually I expected to be living in the darn thing by now.

So how many man hours would you think this should take? I know there isn't a magic number but there should be a general estimate possible. I'm sure a crew would be a less total amount than someone alone so I guess I'm looking for two numbers. Crew vs Man.

Thanks in advance.

David
Belmont, NC

[wood bug]

For you D Morgan, or to hire it out? I would figure it (at your prime work ability) With that many yrs experiance you know how long it takes you to say, put in 8 recepticals, 4 light switches and 2 light fixtures, whether your the journeyman, and have an apprentice helper or alone. I do bids all the time and I know how long it should take Me or my crew to accomplish a certian job, thier is always a little flexibility such as unforseen problems but that is one of the risk. Of course I factor in the number of helpers, thier skill level and ability which in turn effects production. That is partly why you would get differant bid amounts on lets say a contractor bid, each contractor has differant amounts of employee contribution but he relies alot on past experiance, some can frame an intire 2000' house in a couple of days with a large crew, some it may take a week. I have never heard of a "formula" per se, outside of past experiance and trade knowledge. I think the biggest factor is in the motivation and consistancy of the worker

[JeffandSara]

David--

Can't help you with any formula, but just did want to say that we found the same thing. Working really really hard (and there were two of us, not just one) but with Jeff also working a full-time job, it took a long time to get our house done to c of o status. We even thought we estimated pretty realistically... but with overtime at his work, fatigue from being on the go all the time with one or the other, and with the way any little delay seems to expand if you can't work every day... work time did really stretch out.

So no wisdom to share, but wanted to say we could relate to your comments!!!! :wink: Hang in there and keep plugging along!

Best of luck to you!
Sara :D , who's happily living in logs now, though it took a while to get here!

[ets80]

Without knowing your amount of skill there is really no way to calculate it. Generally speaking though a typical house should be move in ready in about 120 days from start to finish. With an average crew of 3 men per day per trade and an average trade taking 4 days to complete his trade you would have approximately 2,000 man hrs.

[Pokey]

approximately 2,000 man hrs.

huh ...... say what????

[Log Al]

You might be in the wrong place . No stick framing here. Butt and Pass Log Home Building.

[Ellsworth]

Without knowing your amount of skill there is really no way to calculate it. Generally speaking though a typical house should be move in ready in about 120 days from start to finish. With an average crew of 3 men per day per trade and an average trade taking 4 days to complete his trade you would have approximately 2,000 man hrs.

This user caught our attention because his first couple posts followed standard spam tactics. We're carefully monitoring his posts to ensure compliance with all ToS. Happy to give him a benefit of a doubt.

BTW, it is generally considered bad forum etiquette to bump old threads. It is called necrobumping. (https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Zea&tbo=d&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=necrobumping&oq=necrobumping&gs_l=serp.3..0.560541.560541.0.560698.1.1.0.0.0.0. 44.44.1.1.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.NK35gA-f2FU) This user has bumped 8-9 such ancient threads (this thread had no posts since 2006).

Many forums have explicit rules against such behavior. While the LHBA forum does not, it is a quick way to draw moderator attention.

Edited to add: dug deeper. He's a professional roofer in IL. Within the last 30 days he registered as a new member on a lot of construction related forums and made similar posts -- short comments bumping ancient threads. Viewed in that light we consider this spam and the user has been banned.

[Log Al]

Just as I had Imagined! You Guys always on Top !;)

[rckclmbr428]

Ellsworth, pardon my ignorance but why is it bad etiquette to bump old threads? other forums I'm on you will get directed to old threads if your asking the same questions that have been answered already. Thanks

[Pokey]

Ellsworth, pardon my ignorance also, but sometimes us newb's dig into old threads, they hold interest and are also sometimes relevant to ones thought process as they contemplate a journey and sometimes hold a lot of usefull information and value to those not around at the time of initial thread. It is sometimes simpler to re-visit an old thread vs starting a topic anew. And then to sometimes be told to use the search engine. lol

I noticed in this instance what you also did sense - yet hate to get the sense we would not also encourage a re-visit to a thread also.
Imagine it's a slippery slope in some ways to try to anticipate what is this or that .... anyways, hope it doesn't become a carte blanc no-no to revisit old threads and ask questions as that is what the beauty of the forums really are all about.
Thanks for listening and considering my comment and all the good work that you provide.

[panderson03]

Hi there Mr. E. I sort of have to agree with the guys on this one. as we move to a different phase of our build we deliberately search the old threads looking for past wisdom on what we'll be working on next. I do often then post a new question on an old thread if I don't see my particular issues already addressed :(

[Ellsworth]

Ellsworth, pardon my ignorance but why is it bad etiquette to bump old threads? other forums I'm on you will get directed to old threads if your asking the same questions that have been answered already. Thanks

There are a lot of different reasons why it is generally frowned upon on forums. Here are a few common ones:

It is an action often taken by a troll to disrupt a forum.
The person making the new post would usually get their question answered by actually reading all the posts on thread they are bumping.
The original participants in the thread might no longer be active on the forum, so won't be able to respond to the new post/question.
Bumping old threads can regurgitate outdated information and give the false impression that it's current info (more important for technical information or news stories).
Et cetera.



Ellsworth, pardon my ignorance also, but sometimes us newb's dig into old threads, they hold interest and are also sometimes relevant to ones thought process as they contemplate a journey and sometimes hold a lot of usefull information and value to those not around at the time of initial thread. It is sometimes simpler to re-visit an old thread vs starting a topic anew. And then to sometimes be told to use the search engine. lol

I noticed in this instance what you also did sense - yet hate to get the sense we would not also encourage a re-visit to a thread also.
Imagine it's a slippery slope in some ways to try to anticipate what is this or that .... anyways, hope it doesn't become a carte blanc no-no to revisit old threads and ask questions as that is what the beauty of the forums really are all about.
Thanks for listening and considering my comment and all the good work that you provide.

No worries Pokey. This was a special case. Fighting spam on the forum is a pita, because spammers keep finding new ways to defeat the automatic filters. This person's first post seemed to be a very specific kind of spam that we've been having a problem with lately, so we were already keeping an eye on him. Eventually his behavior pattern seemed like a marketing attempt by a roofing company and that put these posts into the spam category.

We have no plans to make a forum rule against posting on old threads. Members here are truly an awesome bunch of folks, and we have never experienced a problem with people inappropriately posting on old threads. Typically when an old thread gets bumped here it's for a good reason.

[edkemper]

I think that most of us when we first found this place bumped one or a couple of old threads. Far different than someone new that has done so numerous times without taking the time to read the entire thread first. Then to E's investigation of his activities on other sites makes it fairly clear to our leader that something was amiss.

Great work E and thank you.

[eduncan911]

Just to let everyone know, I've been administrating and moderating 100s of forums in dozens of languages worldwide for Microsoft (I wrote the software they used for it oh so long ago).

So when I say I defend Ellsworth here, I do without haste - especially with someone with a pattern like ets80. His keywords he's used in 5 or 6 other threads is highly suspicious of what is called "Off Page SEO" - a form of Search Engine ranking bumping. It's really a sleazy way to increase traffic to websites, or increasing rank words that others might search on.

Not saying that ets80 is exactly doing that, but he (or she) is following exactly that kind of pattern - bumping really old threads that all have some common search terms in them (e.g. "roof"). At the top-left of this forum, under the main nav bar, click New Posts. Check out all of the old threads from 2004 - 2007 that ets80 just bumped and you'll see that kind of pattern.

So really, what Ellsworth is doing was pretty much this above - he's detecting the possible spam happening through the forum in many threads by a specific member. He's not talking about bumping old threads (it just sounds alarm bells when done in conjunction with what just happened here with ets80). Bumping old threads is completely welcome and highly encouraged as far as I go. Main because "Forums" isn't really the best medium for archiving rich data - Wikis do that best. You have to bump old threads in Forums if that is the only medium for this kind of information - or you get a lot of repeated views (we should use sub forums and more stickies to narrow things down for new comers).

Forums are best for personal discussions around certain topics, but really good information belongs in a permanent wiki that is classified and categorized. When a wiki is not available, sticking and bumping old threads is the next best thing.

[Ellsworth]

Thanks for the support.

Just to be clear: bumping old threads on the LHBA forum is fine.

The necrobumping issue was really just a 'test.' I wanted to see if the user in question would respond like a someone who was genuinely looking to participate in the forum, or if he'd continue acting in a questionable manner. It was a very low tech form of a captcha (so to speak). In a perfect world he would have responded positively to the input about bumping old threads, started participating like a normal user, and would have never been banned.

I was just trying to give this situation the benefit of a doubt... but then I discovered he was doing this all over the web. Typically with this sort of pattern the user would wait a few weeks or months (until the thread is buried again) and then go back and edit backlinks into his posts directed to his own website. It's a common tactic spammers use to try and circumvent automated spam filters.

So please don't give the necrobumping issue a second thought. The only reason I made a public post was because members were engaging with ets80 on the various threads he bumped and deserved to know something didn't seem right imho.

[loghousenut]

I don't know about all this necrobumping stuff but I thought he was cute and I'll miss him.









Thanks again Skinny E for keeping this place civil, safe and working like a fine Italian perfume.

[WNYcabinplannin]

The WORD necrobumping doesn't sound safe! Ewwwww ;)


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[rckclmbr428]

Like I said, I'm new to forum stuff, now I think I found my new $50 word, back to what I am good at, put up rpsl's and a ridge pole today!
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk122/rckclmbr428/20130104_165752.jpg

[Timberwolf]

Thanks for the support.

Just to be clear: bumping old threads on the LHBA forum is fine.

The necrobumping issue was really just a 'test.' I wanted to see if the user in question would respond like a someone who was genuinely looking to participate in the forum, or if he'd continue acting in a questionable manner. It was a very low tech form of a captcha (so to speak). In a perfect world he would have responded positively to the input about bumping old threads, started participating like a normal user, and would have never been banned.

I was just trying to give this situation the benefit of a doubt... but then I discovered he was doing this all over the web. Typically with this sort of pattern the user would wait a few weeks or months (until the thread is buried again) and then go back and edit backlinks into his posts directed to his own website. It's a common tactic spammers use to try and circumvent automated spam filters.

So please don't give the necrobumping issue a second thought. The only reason I made a public post was because members were engaging with ets80 on the various threads he bumped and deserved to know something didn't seem right imho.

That's all fine and good and all but...

WHEN CAN I ORDER NEW LHBA SHIRTS WITH THAT LOGO!

;)

[LogHomeFeverDan]

Wooohooo!!!! I soooooo love seeing these pics!! Awesome job rckclmbr!!

[LogHomeFeverDan]

Ellsworth??? Are we really going to have an LBHA Shirt with......"Necrobumping is ok" emblazoned on the front and back??? <g>

[panderson03]

Dan, you fit right in :)

[Cruiser]

E, I was wondering about that guy and it threw up flags for me too. Thanks again to you and Steve for the great job you do on this forum!

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