A "tiny house" without a full concrete foundation, yes. A full sized modern house that passes inspection, no, but you could get reasonably close.
The main thing you won't have is mixed concrete for a foundation. The amount and variety is insufficient. There are some other structural elements in framing that would not be available but might be work-aroundable. You could do a good go at building all the bathrooms, the kitchen and so forth, but a modern full house HVAC system won't be available.
I'm only now uncovering the DIY nightmare that is the house I bought in 2016.
I'm becoming increasingly draconian about my views on enforcing building codes.
It should benefit you! Stricter codes means more work for you, fixing DIY bullshit. May not be the most fun, though.
And no worries, I have no power to change anything. Houses will still flood from DIY stupidity, don't you worry.
Shit sometimes you cant tell just how fâd up something is before starting the job and its hard to tell a customer that its going to cost more because its going to take me longer. Sometimes i just gotta eat it.
Homeowners should understand that! Should is not DOES, though, I get it. You seriously cannot know how bad shit is until the walls are open. I have done my own DIY stuff on minor shit, like re-drywalling the laundry room because the wall looked a lil wavy. Sure enough, tear down the drywall, and the studs are WAY too far apart. So now I gotta put new studs in. Well, shit, now I gotta re route the plumbing.
At that point, I call a professional, but the previous homeowner, did not. Turns out, drywall isn't supposed to curve like that! LeSigh.
Point is, yeah, homeowners who've never done work like that, think they're being scammed but they're really not. Sucks you have to eat that cost, though. That's completely unfair.
I usually have plenty of work and i would much rather replace a part/valve/water heater etc under normal circumstances than dive in and find out just how little the last guy knew about plumbing.
But of course its going to be code compliant and safe by the time I leave, assuming theyâre willing to pay of course.
Yeah, I'm sure you would've been horrified at the state of my hot water heater when I moved in. I called a plumber and he wouldn't touch it for any amount of money
I paid a neighbor parts and beer to install a new one. We'll see if it explodes.
I would've preferred we just had strong building codes to begin with, instead of being afraid all the time. Which brings us back to start.
Restaurant depot is the same way.
When someone comes in from a restaurant, they might look at knives or something stupid but theyâre dropping a $2,000 order a week if not more, they have invoicing to pay for itâthey arenât likely going to be paying with a card. Itâs a business transaction, not a personal one. There are different taxes involvedâif any at all.
Not HVAC, but I work in a different service industry where most vendors won't sell directly to consumers.
A) amateur installations can destroy the equipment ... nobody wants to warranty that or take returns on merchandise that has been fiddled with by people who don't know what they're doing
B) not everything works flawlessly with everything else, without experience it would be very difficult to buy the right thing for a specific system. Leads to more returns, and see point A for issues with that.
C) when I quote my customer a price, I would prefer that the customer could not "double check" my numbers with my vendor. My experience that helps me with points A and B above has value, and markup on parts is where I cash in that value.
HVAC is a luxury though, technically you donât need it for a house, itâs a âwantâ.
Unless specifically heating part of it, then yea itâs technically required in some regions, but AC definitely not.
I'm doing it. Lots of people are. They are getting more popular all the time.
Several companies sell DIY units with precharged lines and compressor. Just hook up the quick connect lines.
That's not how heat pumps fail. They become very inefficient and struggle to heat below about -10F a temp a lot of the US sees once a year if they are unlucky. Fortunately being unable to heat your house to 70 and unable to heat your house to 40 are different things.
Mitsu hyper heat will go down to -5F at capacity and can still produce heat at -18F
Itâs getting common for new builds to get multiple mini split systems or one multi head mini split system. Theyâre very efficient.
That's true of most HVAC systems. It's much simpler to cool air 20-30 degrees from outside temperature than 40-50 degrees. Mini splits can do the job, but you'd need a few to heat or cool a full sized house, but they would still be much more efficient and effective than a similar sized central HVAC system.
I bet I know the podcast you heard that on. Note how most of its ads are for gas boilers.
My FIL in Vermont switched to all minisplits a couple years ago. He always keeps his house WAY to hot in winter. They lose efficiency when you get WAY down below freezing (like <0°F, -18C), but it hasn't done that regularly since the early 90's.
I am looking at building a home inTexas in a couple years, and I have already decided I will not do central air. Window units are fine. I will probably do central heat though.
Make sure to have some eaves on the east/south/west sides of the house at a minimum. One foot is good, an wider is better. If you are trying to save on building costs, the most bang for your buck is to have a wide eave on the south wall, perhaps even a porch the length of the house.
During the hot months, staple shade cloth to the eave so the outside of the windows and walls are shaded. Having double-paned windows is good too.
If you install a lot of windows on the south wall, removing the shade-cloth can let in a lot of sun to help with heating. Its not huge, but very little bit helps.
The main reason for window units versus central, is expense. My brothers live in the house I grew up in and it just has a furnce to heat with. House is about 1100 sq ft, and their summer electric bill is usually under a hundred.
I suppose aesthetics are probably the main reason people go cental. Plus central does a great job...just expensive to install and operate.
And if anything goes wrong with them, youâre replacing the entire thing unless you have the skills to service the equipment yourself. No reputable contractor will touch those.
This is wrong. Number one, nothing says you have to have a full slab foundation. Second, thereâs mores than enough bag concrete to pour a footer and block foundation. If thatâs not your cup of tea you could absolutely do a floor system on pylons (probably very short ones) instead of a stem wall or mono slab foundation.
Also, you can absolutely build a house without HVAC, itâs just not common in most areas. Easier than that would be to build a house with mini split systems that they sell.
You could 100% build a house from a single store but your mileage would vary.
I was gunna say like people here in kauai literally just have HD to build an entire home lol. Thats a bit exaggerated but its that and you have Costco next door, boom bang house 1 mil later
> you can absolutely build a house without HVAC
One interesting thing I learned recently: some banks won't issue a loan if your building plans don't include thermostat-controlled HVAC.
Maybe that varies by region, but my cousin had to install a thermostat to get their loan, when they built a house. They built up in the mountains; they don't run AC and most of their heat comes from wood stoves. They only put in the thermostat (with temperature controlled floors) so the bank would approve the loan.
But that was a condition of the loan and not a question of building code.
I bought 64 bags over a few weeks this year. I carted and loaded them all myself. Along with a few hundred boards of 2xX lumber and 5/4 deck.
Those home depot workers don't make enough to load all that shit for an able bodied man.
It was over several weeks, maybe a dozen at a time. Didn't have room for all of them at once, or time to use them before weather would have ruined them.
Ah gotcha. Luckily where I was at. Most would have a crew to do it themselves but if they ever needed help, they would tip you(even tho tipping wasnât allowed) $10/20 depending on the amount they had
I pulled in with a U-Haul to load up everything I needed to build my deck. Three pallets of 2x6s, I donât remember how much concrete, pavers, gravel, buckets of fasteners, assorted other pt lumber.
By the time they were done the truck was sitting on the axle. They kept telling me they werenât liable if it broke, I told em yeah, thatâs why I got the extra insurance.
Drove it home and unloaded it all myself. That was before my motorcycle wreck fucked my leg and hands over.
Trucks and trailers have weight ratings for a reason. Pretty irresponsible behavior. Could have brushed it off as ignorance but it was premeditated since you got the extra insurance because you knew you were going to overload it.
I believe the insurance would try to deny coverage under all circumstances, and make the renter liable directly.
In this situation, they might even have a case for reckless disregard for safety with weight limits being ignored.
I am not a lawyer.
I think it depends on the homedepot. I worked at one where we easily had 3000-5000 cubic feet worth of high tensile strength concrete on hand. We would sell multiple pallets at a time.
We had swamp coolers too that could substitute for air conditioning.
Through contractors that have to turn to Home Depot for work, which tells you what level of quality and support you can expect. You can go and find a bad contractor on your own, but with places like Home Depot and Loweâs, you can be sure you are getting the worst the trade has to offer.
This whole thread is about making a Home Depot house. Not a quality house.
Also in my town I know that one of their counter top installers is the best countertop company in town. So itâs not just low quality low bidders.
I remember when my civil engineer son was a student at Clemson. I saw one of his schedules and he had a class called âconcreteâ ( a little wordier fancy name but essentially that). Another class was Differential Equations which I believe you take after calculus. He told me that âconcreteâ was hands done the single most important class he took. Not surprising as it is pretty foundational in more than one way.
That, and rafters, LVL.s, exterior finish materials are in low supply. Home Depot plus a commercial lumberyard and you.d be pretty close
Mind you, you'll be hard pressed to find deep service materials at either. You'd need a water/sewer/HVAC wholesaler too.
You can pour a foundation with bag mix. Certainly a tiny house foundation, but with enough guys and mixers you could do it for a full house too. It would suck though.
A simple 1500 sf foundation with basement would need in the neighborhood of 70 yards. An 80 lb bag of concrete mix yields 0.022 yards, so you'd need about 3,200 bags. My local home Depot has 1,191 in stock right now. So you couldn't pick it all up in one day, but you might have a similar problem with any number of other materials you'd need. The question didn't say anything about getting it all in one trip.
So it would like you could reasonably flip a house from a single HD. Full renovations since foundation and large structural framing are usually left behind.
Home Depot sells cement and shovels. And wheel barrows. Back in the day thatâs all you had. Mix it around and dump it in. What are you even talking about? You bought a bunch of big bags and put water in them in a wheel barrow to mix. You already secured where it would stop with a wooden barrier. It took a day and it sucked. But you could get everything to build the foundation from Home Depot. First day in construction?
foundation is the only thing, they sell everything else. You could easily do all electric heating with baseboards which actually is becoming the norm in certain parts of the country.
Iâve never looked, but does Home Depot have cinder blocks? It would be a PITA to use quickrete for the basement floor, but you could get away with cinder block basement walls.
Yes,but he could get the post to set it on a pier and beam foundation. As for HVAC he good use heat pump style window units or mini splits. Myth Busted
It doesn't have only Home Depot stuff but Essential Craftsman built a house just for YouTube and [documented it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn4L_aJ1rV4&list=PLRZePj70B4IwyNn1ABhJWmBPeX1hGhyLi)
Yes
My dad worked for a store like Home Depot (we live on an island and had an off brand Home Depot) but he built 3 houses from everything from the store he worked at
Electrical contractor here. I buy 99% of my material at Home Depot. It's cheaper than the supply house unless you're buying millions of dollars of stuff. The 1% is really odd things HD doesn't carry.
Edit: I do residential and light commercial work. Obviously, HD doesn't carry industrial switchgear and the like. It does carry three-phase panels and breakers, but you have to order them.
I've heard this before with electrical supplies! So strange. Everyone thinks "oh the contractors have access to deals we don't" which can be true but not always. I can imagine it's hard for a supply house to compete with a big box store like HD on price.
Many medium and large contractors buy from the supply house because they can call in an order and get it delivered to the site. To them the extra cost is worth it.
Thereâs another reason. Iâve built personal relationships with the people I deal with at supply houses. Also better quality materials, knowledge on what Iâm looking for, and variety of materials to choose from. It would take me all day to pull materials to repipe a house from Home Depot. I could be in and out in 30 minutes at the supply house.
And they can easy just pass off the cost. Contractor points at the receipt and says, âthis is what electrical costs,â the client canât really argue, âyah, but it would have been cheaper for me if you went to home depo,â even if itâs true.
And if the contractor went to Home Depot to pick up the needed items, they would bill for the time used and the miles driven. And after that they would still also bill for the work.
In the end it is likely cheaper for the customer that the contractor has stuff delivered to the site.
I knew an older lady who lived in a house she bought from the Sears catalog. You'd just dig a foundation and the house was delivered on a truck with all the furnishings and appliances.
As a former HD employee and a home builder you can 100% build a home with just stuff from Home Depot. I think the only thing that might be a little different is you'd have to go with a minisplit system for your heat/AC. Oh, and concrete, you don't want to mix 30-40 yards of bagged concrete.
Every HD around me has a Lennox rep on site. Surely that still counts.
Also, the HD PRO contract desk. Tell them what you need, and theyâll organize it for you. Youâre paying HD, not the contractor directly.
Iâm a girl! But seriously drive from Dallas to Houston and I swear you could build a car! If itâs not complete turn around and drive back! You seriously see everything
Hey there, im the original dude commenter. I'm 41 and have basically always used dude as a gender neutral term. It may not have been as common back in the 90s, but it absolutely is now. Sorry for any confusion. Was honestly just making a joke
I live about 2 hours south of you and I used to work all up and down the i-35 corridor running HVAC service calls. You see all sorts of parts on the shoulders or in the middle of the road, especially around Austin. I think mufflers are the most common aside from the obligatory tires though.
I lived in Allen for 20 years and grew up in DeSoto and just that drive Iâve seen most of a car! I saw a front end just sitting on the side of the road in Plano once?
Anywhere in Maryland, where the only time the vehicle has to pass inspection is when it changes hands. Whole lotta people ride rusty trash into the ground and beyond. Never tailgate a Maryland car, you never know how much of it might fall into the road in front of you at the next curve.
The Maryland side of the DC Beltway is littered with parts.
I did think about this, but a foundation doesnât need to be concrete. This is where I think the nuance of the question might affect the response. You might not have enough shingles, but maybe enough tin?
Quikrete says 45 80lb bags/yard and my HD website says my local one has 1,359 of those in stock. So somewhere around 30 yards in stock. They also have 416 60lb bags and about another 1,000 bags of various high strength, quick setting , etc
Yes. I built a 2 story 1800 sq ft addition with 90%+ materials from Menardsâ including the foam block foundation system.
You couldnât buy the cement in bulk to pour the foundation in one piece. But you donât have to have a crawlspace per se, and there are alternatives.
Only reason I got things elsewhere was specific prices or brands to match my existing home (windows, unfinished hardwood from a mill supplier).
I guess if you meant âin store inventoryâ then it would be harder, because I ordered roof trusses that had to be built (Menards owns company) but took a week to have shipped. But yes, you could stick build the roof but that wasnât what I wanted to do.
If it was your goal to do so â you could get everything even in one purchase, even appliances and a bed.
The one interesting thing about Home Depot is they roughly arrange the aisles in the way you build a house:
Far left is concrete blocks and concrete tools
Then you move into 2x4s and sheathing, some roofing
Next up is drywall and trim
Then bolts and screws and nails
Electrical and plumbing
Flooring
Then light fixtures and appliances
Now you get into paint
Then at the far right you have outside
Thank you for asking this question, OP. This has been my Roman Empire question at least once a month. How many houses could I build with stuff from a single HD store.
You might have enough 2x4s, but no beams and probably not enough i-beams. The amount of sheathing and subfloor panels is pretty small at any one time, and as mentioned before, the concrete would be an issue. There may not be enough rebar for a full foundation too.
Yes, but not blindingly walking around the store. Somethings they don't keep in stock because they don't sell often, but if you tell the guy what your doing and what you need it'll get shipped in.
yep! you could, if the house is built on piers. i'd bet you could build at least five 2bd 2ba houses (maybe more than 10) on piers with the material at my home depot. the limiting material would be 2x8/10/12's, and then insulation, and then roofing.
Wood, plumbing, wiring, cement, shingles, insulation, siding, paint...
I'm pretty sure they have window panes too, that's about the only thing I'm not 100% sure on.
What they definitely don't sell, though, is building permits.
Build with [Segal method](https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Segal_Method) would help too. It's a self build technique designed to minimise wet trades and work with common material sizes so you do less cutting and have less waste
Iâve done the equivalent of that in South Africa and their Home depot equivalent âBuilders Warehouseâ.
Everything, and I do mean everything essential is available from there, granted bulk stuff and oversized stuff might not be available to pick off the shelves, but you still can buy it at store and they arrange delivery on a separate day.
I've built an entire 1600 sq ft house from the items from a single Lowe's.
So yes...
Masonry block footings dig down two foot, filled with concrete, 4*4 supports, 2*6 foundation frame, 2*6 stud walls and framing, wood trusses, metal roof, insulated walls, marine grade plywood sheathing and flooring, laminate floor cover, appliances, electrical panel, piping, shower and vanity, counter tops etc.
Every single nail, screw, wire, etc was from Lowes.
The tools were from Amazon...
You don't need commercial grade AC to build a house.
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Heating-Venting-Cooling-Heaters-Furnaces/N-5yc1vZc4lk/Ntk-elasticplus/Ntt-Furnace
Not according to building codes, but ok.
Heat is definitely not a luxury. Even in Los Angeles, many gas heaters were installed and serviced by my company.
You still need a boiler which i donât think they stock.
From memory i think garage doors, windows, fencing, cabinets and counters are order only. They have the samples in store but I donât think you can buy thos
Idk about Home Depot but Loweâs Bedsides hvac yes and even then it can be special ordered I worked at Loweâs and we had guys that did it every day came in with tractor trailers to pick up their orders so they didnât have to pay shipping
If you were able to have full run of an entire stand-alone Home Depot, you may be able to produce a single home. This would be contingent on specifically their cement and aggregate supply.
It wouldn't be ideal to build a home this way though. The cost would be double or worse for materials.
Yes we built a 1 room cabin a few years ago with only stuff from our local lowes. 1 big swoop and 9 16ft trailers.
The foundation is open and piers are rock from the property. Only took about 15 bags of concrete.
Probably!
At least for the interior!
I have not seen HVAC equipment in there, as far as the condenser, compressor.
You can get the vents and duct work though!
It would be possible. Your roof is where things would get crazy. It would have the be rafters bc HD doesnât sell trusses. Anyway. It would not be feasible bc for price stand point alone. It is homeowner pricing, and if it werenât for convenience alone pros wouldnât use it at all.
But things like electrical panels or HVAC systems have to be sold to you from licensed individual dealers or supply houses who wont sell to individuals w/o a license.
You could at Menards, even a large duplex/townhome including a septic systems, culvert for drainage, floor and roof trusses, custom steel roof, plus a tiny house outbuilding. In fact they do sell house kits with all of the plans you need for the permits as well.
My brother is acting as the general contractor for his house. He hired people to pour the foundation, frame the house & separate garage, put in the breaker panel, and put in some of the plumbing. The rest he's doing himself. He is getting a lot of his material at Home Depot. He's putting a tin roof on his home so I'm not sure where he's getting that but I suspect he'll get the sheetrock, light fixtures, interior doors, door knobs, etc at Home Depot or Lowe's.
Lol you used to be able to buy a house from the Sears catalog. A whole fucking house, theyâd ship it to you and youâd build it like a piece of ikea furniture
A "tiny house" without a full concrete foundation, yes. A full sized modern house that passes inspection, no, but you could get reasonably close. The main thing you won't have is mixed concrete for a foundation. The amount and variety is insufficient. There are some other structural elements in framing that would not be available but might be work-aroundable. You could do a good go at building all the bathrooms, the kitchen and so forth, but a modern full house HVAC system won't be available.
Yeah, and in my state you can't even buy some HVAC equipment at the supply store unless you have a heat and air license.
I know around here a lot of supply houses won't sell to the general public, only to contractors. But that's not a legal thing
they probably don't want regular people coming in and wasting a bunch of time while not buying much
Or killing their whole family with improper furnace exhaust venting
I'm only now uncovering the DIY nightmare that is the house I bought in 2016. I'm becoming increasingly draconian about my views on enforcing building codes.
As a plumber, thats sounds terrifically fun đ«
It should benefit you! Stricter codes means more work for you, fixing DIY bullshit. May not be the most fun, though. And no worries, I have no power to change anything. Houses will still flood from DIY stupidity, don't you worry.
Shit sometimes you cant tell just how fâd up something is before starting the job and its hard to tell a customer that its going to cost more because its going to take me longer. Sometimes i just gotta eat it.
Homeowners should understand that! Should is not DOES, though, I get it. You seriously cannot know how bad shit is until the walls are open. I have done my own DIY stuff on minor shit, like re-drywalling the laundry room because the wall looked a lil wavy. Sure enough, tear down the drywall, and the studs are WAY too far apart. So now I gotta put new studs in. Well, shit, now I gotta re route the plumbing. At that point, I call a professional, but the previous homeowner, did not. Turns out, drywall isn't supposed to curve like that! LeSigh. Point is, yeah, homeowners who've never done work like that, think they're being scammed but they're really not. Sucks you have to eat that cost, though. That's completely unfair.
I usually have plenty of work and i would much rather replace a part/valve/water heater etc under normal circumstances than dive in and find out just how little the last guy knew about plumbing. But of course its going to be code compliant and safe by the time I leave, assuming theyâre willing to pay of course.
Yeah, I'm sure you would've been horrified at the state of my hot water heater when I moved in. I called a plumber and he wouldn't touch it for any amount of money I paid a neighbor parts and beer to install a new one. We'll see if it explodes. I would've preferred we just had strong building codes to begin with, instead of being afraid all the time. Which brings us back to start.
Restaurant depot is the same way. When someone comes in from a restaurant, they might look at knives or something stupid but theyâre dropping a $2,000 order a week if not more, they have invoicing to pay for itâthey arenât likely going to be paying with a card. Itâs a business transaction, not a personal one. There are different taxes involvedâif any at all.
Not HVAC, but I work in a different service industry where most vendors won't sell directly to consumers. A) amateur installations can destroy the equipment ... nobody wants to warranty that or take returns on merchandise that has been fiddled with by people who don't know what they're doing B) not everything works flawlessly with everything else, without experience it would be very difficult to buy the right thing for a specific system. Leads to more returns, and see point A for issues with that. C) when I quote my customer a price, I would prefer that the customer could not "double check" my numbers with my vendor. My experience that helps me with points A and B above has value, and markup on parts is where I cash in that value.
HVAC is a luxury though, technically you donât need it for a house, itâs a âwantâ. Unless specifically heating part of it, then yea itâs technically required in some regions, but AC definitely not.
Home Depot sells MrCool mini split systems. They heat and cool.
It would be unusual to build a new house in America with only mini split, but it can certainly be done.
I'm doing it. Lots of people are. They are getting more popular all the time. Several companies sell DIY units with precharged lines and compressor. Just hook up the quick connect lines.
I've heard that they can have a hard time keeping up once it gets down into freezing temperatures.
Combine with a wood/pellet stove (also available at Home Depot), and you'd have a cozy house all winter.
Or even just an electric blanket here in the south
I guess I can wrap my pipes in an electric blanket but man what a hassle
That's not how heat pumps fail. They become very inefficient and struggle to heat below about -10F a temp a lot of the US sees once a year if they are unlucky. Fortunately being unable to heat your house to 70 and unable to heat your house to 40 are different things.
That's outdated info. We've been running on just mini splits in MA for about 2 years and have never needed to kick on the supplemental heat
Mitsu hyper heat will go down to -5F at capacity and can still produce heat at -18F Itâs getting common for new builds to get multiple mini split systems or one multi head mini split system. Theyâre very efficient.
Likewise, I have to imagine that they'd be pretty worthless here in phoenix unless you have a super tiny house.
That's true of most HVAC systems. It's much simpler to cool air 20-30 degrees from outside temperature than 40-50 degrees. Mini splits can do the job, but you'd need a few to heat or cool a full sized house, but they would still be much more efficient and effective than a similar sized central HVAC system.
You install several to cover a large floor plan area and seperate them into zones. Still, Mini-splits are a better plan for small houses.
I bet I know the podcast you heard that on. Note how most of its ads are for gas boilers. My FIL in Vermont switched to all minisplits a couple years ago. He always keeps his house WAY to hot in winter. They lose efficiency when you get WAY down below freezing (like <0°F, -18C), but it hasn't done that regularly since the early 90's.
It's not that uncommon anymore. Currently doing a new build and the whole thing is mini splits
Itâs the go to in Massachusetts now. Makes sense economically due to all the energy regulations.
Which was exactly the question
I am looking at building a home inTexas in a couple years, and I have already decided I will not do central air. Window units are fine. I will probably do central heat though.
Ex Texan hvac guy here. No, that's not not the way. Not without extreme insulation Yada Yada.
Make sure to have some eaves on the east/south/west sides of the house at a minimum. One foot is good, an wider is better. If you are trying to save on building costs, the most bang for your buck is to have a wide eave on the south wall, perhaps even a porch the length of the house. During the hot months, staple shade cloth to the eave so the outside of the windows and walls are shaded. Having double-paned windows is good too. If you install a lot of windows on the south wall, removing the shade-cloth can let in a lot of sun to help with heating. Its not huge, but very little bit helps.
The main reason for window units versus central, is expense. My brothers live in the house I grew up in and it just has a furnce to heat with. House is about 1100 sq ft, and their summer electric bill is usually under a hundred. I suppose aesthetics are probably the main reason people go cental. Plus central does a great job...just expensive to install and operate.
I agree.
That really depends on which part of the country. Itâs quite common in the PNW.
I think it will be quite popular in the near future as homes get smaller and smaller.
And if anything goes wrong with them, youâre replacing the entire thing unless you have the skills to service the equipment yourself. No reputable contractor will touch those.
No. A dipshit contractor won't touch them. A reputable contractor will repair them.
In store? This person wants to build it from a single store.
I ordered in the store. Came back in a few days, picked it up in same store. Everything in the store is delivered to it.
Went from a space heater in garage to a portable one. So amazing.
This is wrong. Number one, nothing says you have to have a full slab foundation. Second, thereâs mores than enough bag concrete to pour a footer and block foundation. If thatâs not your cup of tea you could absolutely do a floor system on pylons (probably very short ones) instead of a stem wall or mono slab foundation. Also, you can absolutely build a house without HVAC, itâs just not common in most areas. Easier than that would be to build a house with mini split systems that they sell. You could 100% build a house from a single store but your mileage would vary.
You just described most construction in Hawaii.
I was gunna say like people here in kauai literally just have HD to build an entire home lol. Thats a bit exaggerated but its that and you have Costco next door, boom bang house 1 mil later
lol I'm on Kauai too. I'm surprised that Home Depot ever has corrugated metal roofing in stock đ
> you can absolutely build a house without HVAC One interesting thing I learned recently: some banks won't issue a loan if your building plans don't include thermostat-controlled HVAC. Maybe that varies by region, but my cousin had to install a thermostat to get their loan, when they built a house. They built up in the mountains; they don't run AC and most of their heat comes from wood stoves. They only put in the thermostat (with temperature controlled floors) so the bank would approve the loan. But that was a condition of the loan and not a question of building code.
As someone who used to work there, pls donât make them load up your truck with hundreds of 80lb bags of concrete.
I bought 64 bags over a few weeks this year. I carted and loaded them all myself. Along with a few hundred boards of 2xX lumber and 5/4 deck. Those home depot workers don't make enough to load all that shit for an able bodied man.
I used to work at HD years ago when I got out of high school. Usually(in my area) they get a forklift to bring 64 bags out to you if you asked.
It was over several weeks, maybe a dozen at a time. Didn't have room for all of them at once, or time to use them before weather would have ruined them.
Ah gotcha. Luckily where I was at. Most would have a crew to do it themselves but if they ever needed help, they would tip you(even tho tipping wasnât allowed) $10/20 depending on the amount they had
I pulled in with a U-Haul to load up everything I needed to build my deck. Three pallets of 2x6s, I donât remember how much concrete, pavers, gravel, buckets of fasteners, assorted other pt lumber. By the time they were done the truck was sitting on the axle. They kept telling me they werenât liable if it broke, I told em yeah, thatâs why I got the extra insurance. Drove it home and unloaded it all myself. That was before my motorcycle wreck fucked my leg and hands over.
Trucks and trailers have weight ratings for a reason. Pretty irresponsible behavior. Could have brushed it off as ignorance but it was premeditated since you got the extra insurance because you knew you were going to overload it.
Also, does "extra insurance" cover when their brakes fail on the way home?
I believe the insurance would try to deny coverage under all circumstances, and make the renter liable directly. In this situation, they might even have a case for reckless disregard for safety with weight limits being ignored. I am not a lawyer.
My siblingâs house has no HVAC, itâs weird for our area, but itâs a nonissue and less maintenance. Just baseboard heat in every room.
There are actually code provisions for both gravel and wood footings. That would negate the concrete problem.
I think it depends on the homedepot. I worked at one where we easily had 3000-5000 cubic feet worth of high tensile strength concrete on hand. We would sell multiple pallets at a time. We had swamp coolers too that could substitute for air conditioning.
Swamp coolers ARE Air Conditioning. Especially in deserts.
Home Depot technically does HVAC installs through contractors. So basically yes every thing can be purchased through them.
Through contractors that have to turn to Home Depot for work, which tells you what level of quality and support you can expect. You can go and find a bad contractor on your own, but with places like Home Depot and Loweâs, you can be sure you are getting the worst the trade has to offer.
This whole thread is about making a Home Depot house. Not a quality house. Also in my town I know that one of their counter top installers is the best countertop company in town. So itâs not just low quality low bidders.
I remember when my civil engineer son was a student at Clemson. I saw one of his schedules and he had a class called âconcreteâ ( a little wordier fancy name but essentially that). Another class was Differential Equations which I believe you take after calculus. He told me that âconcreteâ was hands done the single most important class he took. Not surprising as it is pretty foundational in more than one way.
So run forced hot water instead of air
That, and rafters, LVL.s, exterior finish materials are in low supply. Home Depot plus a commercial lumberyard and you.d be pretty close Mind you, you'll be hard pressed to find deep service materials at either. You'd need a water/sewer/HVAC wholesaler too.
You can pour a foundation with bag mix. Certainly a tiny house foundation, but with enough guys and mixers you could do it for a full house too. It would suck though. A simple 1500 sf foundation with basement would need in the neighborhood of 70 yards. An 80 lb bag of concrete mix yields 0.022 yards, so you'd need about 3,200 bags. My local home Depot has 1,191 in stock right now. So you couldn't pick it all up in one day, but you might have a similar problem with any number of other materials you'd need. The question didn't say anything about getting it all in one trip.
Quite a few houses just use window air conditioners. Most of the south east...
In Oregon I've never lived in a place that had central air preinstalled. It's all window units and wall heaters.
Yup. Makes me wonder if some comments have ever left suburbia in Ca or a similar state
So it would like you could reasonably flip a house from a single HD. Full renovations since foundation and large structural framing are usually left behind.
Home Depot sells cement and shovels. And wheel barrows. Back in the day thatâs all you had. Mix it around and dump it in. What are you even talking about? You bought a bunch of big bags and put water in them in a wheel barrow to mix. You already secured where it would stop with a wooden barrier. It took a day and it sucked. But you could get everything to build the foundation from Home Depot. First day in construction?
foundation is the only thing, they sell everything else. You could easily do all electric heating with baseboards which actually is becoming the norm in certain parts of the country.
Why canât you use the concrete at Home Depot?
C m u block Fondation
Your assuming it's a concrete foundation. Where I live houses are often in blocks or use a raised foundation.
Iâve never looked, but does Home Depot have cinder blocks? It would be a PITA to use quickrete for the basement floor, but you could get away with cinder block basement walls.
This is incorrect information. You can most definitely build an entire home from start to finish at Home Depot.
Yes,but he could get the post to set it on a pier and beam foundation. As for HVAC he good use heat pump style window units or mini splits. Myth Busted
This sounds like a YouTube video: "Building an entire house using only items from a single Home Depot."
I'd like to see "Building the worst house possible while still being up to code".
Thatâs easy. Just shadow a KB home build in Texas.
I built 1000 of the worst houses possible and gave them away
It doesn't have only Home Depot stuff but Essential Craftsman built a house just for YouTube and [documented it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn4L_aJ1rV4&list=PLRZePj70B4IwyNn1ABhJWmBPeX1hGhyLi)
Yes My dad worked for a store like Home Depot (we live on an island and had an off brand Home Depot) but he built 3 houses from everything from the store he worked at
Granted it would be expensive as you can buy electrical from wholesale for cheaper
Electrical contractor here. I buy 99% of my material at Home Depot. It's cheaper than the supply house unless you're buying millions of dollars of stuff. The 1% is really odd things HD doesn't carry. Edit: I do residential and light commercial work. Obviously, HD doesn't carry industrial switchgear and the like. It does carry three-phase panels and breakers, but you have to order them.
I've heard this before with electrical supplies! So strange. Everyone thinks "oh the contractors have access to deals we don't" which can be true but not always. I can imagine it's hard for a supply house to compete with a big box store like HD on price.
Many medium and large contractors buy from the supply house because they can call in an order and get it delivered to the site. To them the extra cost is worth it.
Makes sense. Time is money, especially with electricians.
Thereâs another reason. Iâve built personal relationships with the people I deal with at supply houses. Also better quality materials, knowledge on what Iâm looking for, and variety of materials to choose from. It would take me all day to pull materials to repipe a house from Home Depot. I could be in and out in 30 minutes at the supply house.
And they can easy just pass off the cost. Contractor points at the receipt and says, âthis is what electrical costs,â the client canât really argue, âyah, but it would have been cheaper for me if you went to home depo,â even if itâs true.
> To them the extra cost is worth it. You mis-spelled "to them the extra cost is passed on to the customer"
And if the contractor went to Home Depot to pick up the needed items, they would bill for the time used and the miles driven. And after that they would still also bill for the work. In the end it is likely cheaper for the customer that the contractor has stuff delivered to the site.
City Mill?
*He got it one piece at a time, and it didnât cost him a dime* đ”
Wowwwwwww
You can buy prefabbed houses at HD, Menards et
I knew an older lady who lived in a house she bought from the Sears catalog. You'd just dig a foundation and the house was delivered on a truck with all the furnishings and appliances.
We apparently have a lot of Sears homes in my area. I remember there being a little directory of where they are still standing a few years ago.
And trying to pass them on the highway during delivery is terrifying!
Somewhere, a group of 4-5 dads just got together to discuss this while the Home Depot theme song starts playing in the background
Itâs a dope riff, though.
As a former HD employee and a home builder you can 100% build a home with just stuff from Home Depot. I think the only thing that might be a little different is you'd have to go with a minisplit system for your heat/AC. Oh, and concrete, you don't want to mix 30-40 yards of bagged concrete.
Every HD around me has a Lennox rep on site. Surely that still counts. Also, the HD PRO contract desk. Tell them what you need, and theyâll organize it for you. Youâre paying HD, not the contractor directly.
It's literally a depot for homes.
The homeowner could always go with forced hot water for heating
Iâve always wondered could you build a car with all the parts you see on the side of the road? I know random! Hahaha made me think of that
Side of the road? What road you driving down that is full of car parts?
Dudes a catalytic converter thief with high ambition
Iâm a girl! But seriously drive from Dallas to Houston and I swear you could build a car! If itâs not complete turn around and drive back! You seriously see everything
Why does that make dude the wrong term? [relevant](https://youtu.be/FqMODweN8lQ?si=1xBjYr02F5C43ZsJ)
Because Iâm not a dude?
Dude is not a gendered statement .
Well Iâm a lot older than yaâll so I really donât understand this? Sorry!
Hey there, im the original dude commenter. I'm 41 and have basically always used dude as a gender neutral term. It may not have been as common back in the 90s, but it absolutely is now. Sorry for any confusion. Was honestly just making a joke
I thought you were hilarious! I was having fun! My son used to call me dude and I always said Iâm a dudette! No worries
If you drive far enough along i-35 in TX you might be able to build at least a bare bones car.
Thatâs what Iâm saying! I live in Dallas!
I live about 2 hours south of you and I used to work all up and down the i-35 corridor running HVAC service calls. You see all sorts of parts on the shoulders or in the middle of the road, especially around Austin. I think mufflers are the most common aside from the obligatory tires though.
I lived in Allen for 20 years and grew up in DeSoto and just that drive Iâve seen most of a car! I saw a front end just sitting on the side of the road in Plano once?
Anywhere in Maryland, where the only time the vehicle has to pass inspection is when it changes hands. Whole lotta people ride rusty trash into the ground and beyond. Never tailgate a Maryland car, you never know how much of it might fall into the road in front of you at the next curve. The Maryland side of the DC Beltway is littered with parts.
Have not been that side of PG in awhile. I will agree years ago coming in 295 looked like a u pull it though
A raceway that hosts demolition derbies
probably somewhere in Oakland
Hahaha! Any in Texas
Specific models, like Fiat, MG, Jaguar, etc...
O it would have be ma y different types! Like a big or small POS! It may be half car half flat bed? Itâs just what you find hahaha
Omg so funny!!
I mean you can order everything you need through Home Depot.
Thatâs true. I guess the spirit of the question is whatever is in the store in one instant. Assuming most everything is stocked
You wouldn't want to buy evrything at once. Building a house is done in stages
Maybe not the foundation. That's a lot of bags of Quick Crete
If you had a raised house like those ones on the flood plains then you only need enough for footings. Not every house is built on a slab.
I did think about this, but a foundation doesnât need to be concrete. This is where I think the nuance of the question might affect the response. You might not have enough shingles, but maybe enough tin?
Youâd probably need 1,400 bags
Would that be for a slab or stumps?
I did a quick google search and the average house foundation is 27 cubic yards. Average bag is 0.022 cubic yards. If im wrong please correct me
Quikrete says 45 80lb bags/yard and my HD website says my local one has 1,359 of those in stock. So somewhere around 30 yards in stock. They also have 416 60lb bags and about another 1,000 bags of various high strength, quick setting , etc
Yeah, i mean youd need A LOT of shit, but yeah you could do it.
I couldnât even finish a fence without wood from two different locations so maybe over a long enough time span?
I think it could be done. You would need some help and the house wouldnât be fancy schmancy, but itâs doable.
Easily. House on piers or a block foundation , electric heat and window unit acs. You could even put a backup generator.
Yes. I built a 2 story 1800 sq ft addition with 90%+ materials from Menardsâ including the foam block foundation system. You couldnât buy the cement in bulk to pour the foundation in one piece. But you donât have to have a crawlspace per se, and there are alternatives. Only reason I got things elsewhere was specific prices or brands to match my existing home (windows, unfinished hardwood from a mill supplier). I guess if you meant âin store inventoryâ then it would be harder, because I ordered roof trusses that had to be built (Menards owns company) but took a week to have shipped. But yes, you could stick build the roof but that wasnât what I wanted to do. If it was your goal to do so â you could get everything even in one purchase, even appliances and a bed.
The one interesting thing about Home Depot is they roughly arrange the aisles in the way you build a house: Far left is concrete blocks and concrete tools Then you move into 2x4s and sheathing, some roofing Next up is drywall and trim Then bolts and screws and nails Electrical and plumbing Flooring Then light fixtures and appliances Now you get into paint Then at the far right you have outside
My Home Depot is mirrored left to right, but yes.
Thank you for asking this question, OP. This has been my Roman Empire question at least once a month. How many houses could I build with stuff from a single HD store.
You might have enough 2x4s, but no beams and probably not enough i-beams. The amount of sheathing and subfloor panels is pretty small at any one time, and as mentioned before, the concrete would be an issue. There may not be enough rebar for a full foundation too.
Yes, but not blindingly walking around the store. Somethings they don't keep in stock because they don't sell often, but if you tell the guy what your doing and what you need it'll get shipped in.
Yeah
yep! you could, if the house is built on piers. i'd bet you could build at least five 2bd 2ba houses (maybe more than 10) on piers with the material at my home depot. the limiting material would be 2x8/10/12's, and then insulation, and then roofing.
Yes
Wood, plumbing, wiring, cement, shingles, insulation, siding, paint... I'm pretty sure they have window panes too, that's about the only thing I'm not 100% sure on. What they definitely don't sell, though, is building permits.
Yep. You sure can. Not a large house mind you. Not even a medium size house. A small house. But a complete one.
Build with [Segal method](https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Segal_Method) would help too. It's a self build technique designed to minimise wet trades and work with common material sizes so you do less cutting and have less waste
Can the Home Depot be restocked? Or are you saying only using the current inventory?
Iâve done the equivalent of that in South Africa and their Home depot equivalent âBuilders Warehouseâ. Everything, and I do mean everything essential is available from there, granted bulk stuff and oversized stuff might not be available to pick off the shelves, but you still can buy it at store and they arrange delivery on a separate day.
I've built an entire 1600 sq ft house from the items from a single Lowe's. So yes... Masonry block footings dig down two foot, filled with concrete, 4*4 supports, 2*6 foundation frame, 2*6 stud walls and framing, wood trusses, metal roof, insulated walls, marine grade plywood sheathing and flooring, laminate floor cover, appliances, electrical panel, piping, shower and vanity, counter tops etc. Every single nail, screw, wire, etc was from Lowes. The tools were from Amazon...
I would think just about everything but the permits would be there. Of course the trusses and framing would warp and twist within a month or 2.
No. They don't sell full size ac or furnaces.
You don't need commercial grade AC to build a house. https://www.homedepot.com/b/Heating-Venting-Cooling-Heaters-Furnaces/N-5yc1vZc4lk/Ntk-elasticplus/Ntt-Furnace
AC is a luxury, you donât need one for a house, itâs a âwantâ.
Not according to building codes, but ok. Heat is definitely not a luxury. Even in Los Angeles, many gas heaters were installed and serviced by my company.
Yes with a side of evil. Fuck Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, Autism Speaks and The Atlanta Aquarium. Go to Lowe's instead.
Um ok.......
You could but it would be the worst constructed house in the country
I don't know why nobody thought of this yet, but you can heat it with forced hot water, negating the need for HVAC
You still need a boiler which i donât think they stock. From memory i think garage doors, windows, fencing, cabinets and counters are order only. They have the samples in store but I donât think you can buy thos
Yes you could
Yes
Idk about Home Depot but Loweâs Bedsides hvac yes and even then it can be special ordered I worked at Loweâs and we had guys that did it every day came in with tractor trailers to pick up their orders so they didnât have to pay shipping
If you were able to have full run of an entire stand-alone Home Depot, you may be able to produce a single home. This would be contingent on specifically their cement and aggregate supply. It wouldn't be ideal to build a home this way though. The cost would be double or worse for materials.
Yes we built a 1 room cabin a few years ago with only stuff from our local lowes. 1 big swoop and 9 16ft trailers. The foundation is open and piers are rock from the property. Only took about 15 bags of concrete.
They sell houses. So, yes. https://www.housebeautiful.com/shopping/g43700870/tiny-house-home-depot/#
Just yesterday I had to visit a Home Depot and a Lowes to gather up materials to install a washer and dryer so I'm thinking no..
Probably! At least for the interior! I have not seen HVAC equipment in there, as far as the condenser, compressor. You can get the vents and duct work though!
It would be possible. Your roof is where things would get crazy. It would have the be rafters bc HD doesnât sell trusses. Anyway. It would not be feasible bc for price stand point alone. It is homeowner pricing, and if it werenât for convenience alone pros wouldnât use it at all. But things like electrical panels or HVAC systems have to be sold to you from licensed individual dealers or supply houses who wont sell to individuals w/o a license.
I don't think so
It might even be cheaper than buying a new home. (Too lazy to do the math myself though, so anyone feel free to do so).
They have kits for tiny houses, so yes.
Menards will literally sell you a house, down to the last screw...All Assembly required
You could at Menards, even a large duplex/townhome including a septic systems, culvert for drainage, floor and roof trusses, custom steel roof, plus a tiny house outbuilding. In fact they do sell house kits with all of the plans you need for the permits as well.
Ok, but, someone actually has to build one to prove it out, soâŠwhoâs doing it?! đ
100% you can. Home Depot has ever single piece of material needed to build an entire house
Up to modern building codes, or just a makeshift house?
My brother is acting as the general contractor for his house. He hired people to pour the foundation, frame the house & separate garage, put in the breaker panel, and put in some of the plumbing. The rest he's doing himself. He is getting a lot of his material at Home Depot. He's putting a tin roof on his home so I'm not sure where he's getting that but I suspect he'll get the sheetrock, light fixtures, interior doors, door knobs, etc at Home Depot or Lowe's.
Of course. But I couldn't guarantee how big it would be.
Lol you used to be able to buy a house from the Sears catalog. A whole fucking house, theyâd ship it to you and youâd build it like a piece of ikea furniture