Home Building in Alaska Part 2

At the 7-month point and the drywall is nearly finished. The budget has been pretty on thanks to our builder being diligent and communicating realistic choices. The biggest issue has been finding a digger to install our water and sewer. The complexity of the job (the 75-foot slope in front) and sheer number of jobs in the area has made this the key point of stress since April. The rest of the build has gone extremely well. Prices for materials stabilized and we were able to lock in our interest rate. One of the keys to saving money was ordering as much as possible to fill the shipping containers from Seattle. It meant shuffling materials that needed to stay dry in the house, but saved a ton on shipping costs.
#Alaskahomebuilding #alaska

[@borisabramovich3166]

windows are too thin for the local winter

[@bnagnew34]

How much does a shipping container cost to be shipped and how much do they hold?

[@OnStepAlaska]

The barge from Seattle comes up weekly. We had to be strategic to make sure the containers were pretty filled, but we couldn't order too far out and get stuff we didn't have room to store. We ended up having 3 containers. We budget $10,000 for shipping and went over a little bit. That's for trusses, doors, siding, lumber, sheetrock etc.

[@bnagnew34]

@@OnStepAlaska That adds another dimension to building! Down here in the lower 48 there's a building center or box store pretty much within an hour or less from anywhere. Sounds like planning and working through all the material problems that can arise is high priority or it could cost you some big money! With all the lumber that comes out of that part of the country, I'd think access to that would be local, is that not the case in reality?

[@OnStepAlaska]

@@bnagnew34 Most of the local lumber is cedar, so there are a lot of cedar desks, but it's expensive, so it ends up being cheaper to buy the standard stuff like you'd see at a Lowes rather than pay for someone to mill up some red or yellow cedar.