Anyone built a barndominium?

“Barndominium” is a made up word. Are you talking about a metal building with an apartment inside?

If you do this and then have kids, you’ll never be able to say anything to them when they leave the front door open.

I had a friend research this option and it was more expensive than traditional home construction.

Im looking at building one myself. So I've been a member of a Facebook group called something like Barndomeneum Building.

Spend a few minutes perusing it and you will see a few things repeated:

1) barndos are a style. Not type of build. There's nothing that defines a structure as a barndo. There's no line between barndo, stick built, and post frame. You can blend all three elements as much as you like.

2) prices vary wildly. From $120 to $350 per finished sft. People talk about this incessantly and wonder why and complain and compare. That's like 80% of the content on that page.

3) one way to do it is just to build a shell metal shop. And then build a frame house in one corner. Sans roof or siding. Dont even touch the outside shell. That way seems to be pretty cheap and easy.

4) There's a raging debate about the best way to insulate. Insulate the metal shell first? Then the inside? Just the inside? Just the metal shell? Both? There is no consensus.

5) lots of people complain about condensation on their floors and walls. And then wonder what they did wrong. And all sorts of morons chime in with different opinions.

So essentially it's just a normal social media shite show.

If you are financing, tradition mortgages won't work

I worked for a contractor and we built a badass one for his daughter (residence) and some other deer camp type dwellings.

The cost of metal is so high now, it’s really not a deal anymore. I think his daughter’s barndo was north of 500k haha. At what point is it a barndomansion??

Cost of the building is a little cheaper but you need to have a beefed slab for it. There are plenty of YouTube videos on them. It’s pretty interesting because there is basically limit to what you can do.

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Are you talking about a metal building with an apartment inside?

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Did this with a shop with my father in law. 35x90 under roof with 14' eaves (high enough to get a Kubota 7060 w/cab inside). 25' of covered area in rear, 5+/-' front porch, interior 60' evenly split between shop and apartment. Built it about 8 years ago. We did all the site prep work and most of the interior/finish work ourselves, but even then it was between $60-70k, minus HVAC and septic. If we'd paid someone to do what we did ourselves, it would have been an extra $20k at least. Covered the underside of roof with rolled foam insulation, no ceiling.

You can add at least 35% inflation costs to those numbers for doing it now.

One thing about people doing these builds for residences, though: the life expectancy of ground contact treated lumber is 10-40 years (60yrs max according to some reports), depending on the environment, concentration of preservatives, and depth of penetration (not to mention that treated 6x6s tend to twist as they dry). These things are going to be major problems for someone one day.

The white oak for her kitchen and stairs, etc was a pretty penny. It was a big build overall. Her dad comped some labor too…