alt Hacker NewsThat you think $20k was a good deal for this shack in your backyard is indicative of how little we know about building.
You got raked over the coals. You can downvote me, but as someone who knows how to build structures man, I feel so sorry for people reading your message thinking this is OK.
This is really, really poor quality for the cost.
I’m not even a commercial builder. A bag of Portland cement concrete is $5/bag. You don’t need to pay $2k for such a small foundation.
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It's not $5/bag. There's also tools to be bought or rented, knowledge and skills to learn, and time spent. $2k is the cheat code to skip all of that.
My calculus is to evaluate time, cost, and quality. If someone can match or beat me on 2/3 of those dimensions then I'll hire them.
Huh. I would have gone the other route if I was going to rant and say there’s no way to do this for so cheap because I’ve looked at replacing a shed in NH with something a bit more sizable and while you can get a nice looking prefab for like 6-8k, that’s before the pad. Add in real windows and a mini split and insulation and I’ve no idea how to keep it that low, but I am jealous.
You can buy all the Quickcrete you want (not sure the last time you priced it), but it won’t make you good at pouring a level pad. That alone puts me off trying to do it some days.
> I’m not even a commercial builder. A bag of Portland cement concrete is $5/bag. You don’t need to pay $2k for such a small foundation.
An 8x10 6” slab has 1.5 cubic yards of concrete. Making concrete takes more than a bag of Portland cement, you also need gravel, sand, a mixer, a wood frame, a source of water, shovels, floats, et cetera. If you want rebar, add in steel and rebar tools and wire.
You could frame up the wood yourself and have Cemstone deliver the concrete but you still need to spread it out, float it, and finish it.
Instead of buying or renting all of that, I would sub it out. I subcontract out light pole bases and concrete pads for transformers, EV chargers, and other equipment all of the time.
Beyond the fact that there's absolutely no reason for you to post this, I'm not sure what you're looking at. I'm not a pro but I've been building sheds and things for decades and based on the pictures here I don't see low quality. Maybe I'd put more joists in the roof but Portland doesn't get a ton of snow so I'm sure it's fine. $2k is a fine price for that slab, especially compared to the pain of lifting 80lb bags of concrete yourself all day. People shouldn't be afraid of spending the money on a pro if they've got the money to spend.
Maybe he could have saved a few thousand with different subs (maybe) but your comments are nonsensical. I see tons of janky builds people post on Reddit and this is not one of them. You should spend your commenting time over there.