DIY Patio....

[Capt j-rod]

Well my wooden deck finally pissed me off for the last time. Every year it was $150 in new wood, 2 gallons of stain, wasps, wood bees, and splinters. I finally got mad enough to rip it off the house. Turns out there was a deck there prior to this deck resulting in 28 posts buried 3' deep set in concrete. Luckily for me my neighbor let me use his mini excavator to pull/dig them out. then I excavated out the area, and set grade. I hauled in 8" of stone and compacted it. Now I have to pour the concrete. Short story long, I hoped to do this for $7500, and now it looks like that will be hard to do. I was feeling kinda sick about it until I went to the neighbors for a few beers. He hired a local landscaping contractor last year and paid to have his done in fancy pavers with the super trendy built in bbq outdoor kitchen... Final bill? $80K!!! Needless to say, I feel way better about my $10,000 new solid concrete patio with custom stairs and raised bed gardens. Being a fan of the mustache I always try to do things for nothing, but I guess I can safely say that I will save $40K by doing this myself. The others at the party were talking about how cheap the HELOC was to do their landscaping and decks. WTF are they thinking? So I guess the question is am I crazy to spend $10K for a 42'x24' concrete patio with ipe wood stairs and raised bed gardens for the back of my house? So far I have done it myself with some rental equipment, beers, and an awesome neighbor who hooked me up!

[jlcnuke]

As long as the money spent on it isn't impacting your ability to save/invest, pay your bills, etc, then I don't think you're crazy at all. Now, if you said you planned on moving in 2 years and spent all that time and money, then I'd say you're crazy. To have a backyard you'll use and enjoy for years though, that sounds pretty reasonable to me. I'm guessing those are some expensive stairs/gardens to get you to $10k on this project though.. the concrete should be around $1200 for 13 yards delivered (plus or minus), so I'm not seeing $8k worth of other materials being likely but I may be missing something.

[CptCool]

Are you contracting out the labor? I don't see where the 10k number is coming from either?

I think that it's completely reasonable though - spend money where you'll enjoy it.

[Laura33]

Well, personally, I think you're awesome! It's so much easier to just call a contractor, but you get so much more value (financial and psychological) doing it yourself.

Funny story:  when we bought our house, there was this giant overgrown pile of ivy and honeysuckle in the backyard -- we're talking 10' high, 8' wide, and about 25' long.  I got fed up one day and started ripping stuff out, and after about a weekend of work realized there was a collapsed trellis under there (the ivy was literally holding up the posts) -- but there was also a probably 25-yr-old grapevine and a really cool older flowering tree hiding under all the crap.  So I decided we should build a replacement stone patio with a cedar pergola over it to support the vine; we decided to do it ourselves, both because I am too cheap to hire it out, and because we needed to work around the existing plants (and I didn't trust Gardens 'R Us not to destroy them).

So DH got out there and started digging the foundations for the stone patio.  He hadn't gotten more than about 3' before he threw his back out.  Lesson:  we don't do foundation work any more. :-)  We ended up having to hire out the patio, but he was still able to design, build, and put together the pergola with a buddy, and it is freaking awesome -- and all for way less than a contractor would have charged for generic pressure-treated stock.  That was about 10 years ago, btw, and I am looking at it right now, and it is still very, very pretty and worth the effort (though maybe not the dr's bills).

[Capt j-rod]

to answer the questions... The concrete will be 5 1/2" thick, 20ish yards. I pour 6 1/2 bag mix so its $120/ yard. $2400. I rented a bobcat for two days $450. Fuel bill is $50. Stone base was 8" deep, $800. Landfill for the old deck was $300. Concrete pins, and 2x6... $350. I'm going to hire out the pour, $1500.
Now the stairs... I am going to wrap them in Brazilian IPE wood. I am also building raised bed gardens for my ever expanding vegetable gardens. All of those will be trimmed in IPE as well. The bill for the IPE is $3500 delivered. I am going to build a 12x18 roof for shade as well. It will be with garage trusses so they aren't to pricey. I have shingles left from doing my roof last year.
All of this doesn't sound very mustachian, but we plan to keep the home for another 15 years. Once the kids are grown we will fix up one of my rentals that is in an awesome neighborhood and sell off the big house. We will get plenty of mileage out of the work. If I had contracted this out I think it would easily be $50k. As far as interfering with my savings? Not even close. I budget plenty for home improvements and we love to keep up our home. I bought it at the bottom of the crash for 30% less than appraisal. It's locked in for 30 years at 3.5%. I only have another 7 years and it will be paid off.
I did forget that 38 year old muscles are way weaker and more sore than 25 year old muscles from back when I did this stuff for a living!!!

[Papa bear]

to answer the questions... The concrete will be 5 1/2" thick, 20ish yards. I pour 6 1/2 bag mix so its $120/ yard. $2400. I rented a bobcat for two days $450. Fuel bill is $50. Stone base was 8" deep, $800. Landfill for the old deck was $300. Concrete pins, and 2x6... $350. I'm going to hire out the pour, $1500.
Now the stairs... I am going to wrap them in Brazilian IPE wood. I am also building raised bed gardens for my ever expanding vegetable gardens. All of those will be trimmed in IPE as well. The bill for the IPE is $3500 delivered. I am going to build a 12x18 roof for shade as well. It will be with garage trusses so they aren't to pricey. I have shingles left from doing my roof last year.
All of this doesn't sound very mustachian, but we plan to keep the home for another 15 years. Once the kids are grown we will fix up one of my rentals that is in an awesome neighborhood and sell off the big house. We will get plenty of mileage out of the work. If I had contracted this out I think it would easily be $50k. As far as interfering with my savings? Not even close. I budget plenty for home improvements and we love to keep up our home. I bought it at the bottom of the crash for 30% less than appraisal. It's locked in for 30 years at 3.5%. I only have another 7 years and it will be paid off.
I did forget that 38 year old muscles are way weaker and more sore than 25 year old muscles from back when I did this stuff for a living!!!

Are you planning on driving semi trucks on this thing??? 8" of crushed limestone and 5.5" of concrete sounds like you're building a highway, not a patio. 

For comparison, I just bought close to 1000sf of pavers for under 3k, delivered right to my project.  Planning on 4" of crushed limestone for these patios. Will probably be under 5k total for this. I also did 600sf of paver patio last year for under 3k.

ETA: the 600sf patio under 3k included cost of all material - pavers, 12 ton of limestone, polymeric sand, edging, leveling sand, pipes, mini walk behind excavator rental, and labor for 2 guys for 1 day to remove and haul away an existing 350sf patio and help with excavating/moving materials. 


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[sol]

This thread needs more pics.

[BussoV6]

to answer the questions... The concrete will be 5 1/2" thick, 20ish yards. I pour 6 1/2 bag mix so its $120/ yard. $2400. I rented a bobcat for two days $450. Fuel bill is $50. Stone base was 8" deep, $800. Landfill for the old deck was $300. Concrete pins, and 2x6... $350. I'm going to hire out the pour, $1500.
Now the stairs... I am going to wrap them in Brazilian IPE wood. I am also building raised bed gardens for my ever expanding vegetable gardens. All of those will be trimmed in IPE as well. The bill for the IPE is $3500 delivered. I am going to build a 12x18 roof for shade as well. It will be with garage trusses so they aren't to pricey. I have shingles left from doing my roof last year.
All of this doesn't sound very mustachian, but we plan to keep the home for another 15 years. Once the kids are grown we will fix up one of my rentals that is in an awesome neighborhood and sell off the big house. We will get plenty of mileage out of the work. If I had contracted this out I think it would easily be $50k. As far as interfering with my savings? Not even close. I budget plenty for home improvements and we love to keep up our home. I bought it at the bottom of the crash for 30% less than appraisal. It's locked in for 30 years at 3.5%. I only have another 7 years and it will be paid off.
I did forget that 38 year old muscles are way weaker and more sore than 25 year old muscles from back when I did this stuff for a living!!!

Are you planning on driving semi trucks on this thing??? 8" of crushed limestone and 5.5" of concrete sounds like you're building a highway, not a patio. 

For comparison, I just bought close to 1000sf of pavers for under 3k, delivered right to my project.  Planning on 4" of crushed limestone for these patios. Will probably be under 5k total for this. I also did 600sf of paver patio last year for under 3k.

ETA: the 600sf patio under 3k included cost of all material - pavers, 12 ton of limestone, polymeric sand, edging, leveling sand, pipes, mini walk behind excavator rental, and labor for 2 guys for 1 day to remove and haul away an existing 350sf patio and help with excavating/moving materials. 


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My thoughts exactly. Good grief, do you have a bomb-proof bunker under this patio?

[jlcnuke]

Sounds like you're going with massive overkill to me, but if that's what makes you comfortable/happy and it's in your budget, then enjoy it :)

[Capt j-rod]

Yes it is overkill, but if you look at the other concrete in my neighborhood it is all cracked. My neighbor did his own with this base and his has held up for 20 years. Mine needs replaced in areas

[Dicey]

This thread needs more pics.

Yes, it does.

[Capt j-rod]

I think the biggest thing diy guys forget is that in order to have $30,000 you have to earn, save and pay taxes on $40,000. When I do it for 10k I only pay taxes on that income. I also ordered my decking from out of state which saved some money