Advice On Self Build Material Costs

[jb007uk]

Hello to the board,

Can anyone who has built their our Log Home give me some idea of the cost of materials per sq ft to build their home ?

I am considering building my own home in Southern Spain, followed by perhaps gradually building a number of homes on a large plot small park featuring log homes, which are a bit of a novelty at the moment in Southern Europe. It seems to me that the large and beautiful North American log homes are very expensive and I was wondering what was the ratios between the cost of the materials, the cost of the manufacturer putting together the kits and the building costs ?

Thanking you in anticipation.

Kind regards

Joe Burke
England
sandforthintl@yahoo.com

[ianebeggs]

My wife and I just left Spain after 3 years of living there. I don't think anyone can answer that because everything is sooooooo different. For starters, about all you'll find for trees in southern spain is eucalyptus and some crummy pine. I didn't look at trees the same way when we were there (I think we went to the same class, Feb 19th?) but I don't remember seeing many tall straight ones. And then you have to deal with the restrictions on digging. There are so many old roman ruins there that starting construction could take years just to get it approved. And god forbid you hit somthing, a brick, bone, glass, anything. You have to stop, archealogists have to come out and see what you've found, excavate etc. Now that is just what they did on the base (U.S. Navy) but it didn't seem like the guys building appartment complexes out in town had any of those problems. But you have to understand the Spanish people to appreciate that I guess. It may be different for you and I'm sure it depends on where you wanted to build. Over in the Malaga area they might love to have a log home and god knows they can afford it down there. A friend of ours recently opened a subway in France. It took almost 4 years from the time he first started until the time he opened the doors. Almost all of it French government beauracracy. Spain seems like it would be very similar for something like this, but that's just me. I only speculate on that. If you know some people or are a real sweet talker then you might not have any problems but otherwise I can't imagine that it would be any fun. I don't know where you would get your trees either unless you brought them up from Africa. It's only a few miles across the Strait. Who knows. I wish you luck and keep us posted. We have to go back to visit Barcelona anyway since that's the main place we missed so we'll stop in and visit.

Ian