ᐅ Time Required for Owner-Performed Work

Hello,

today I would like to ask you again for what you do best: bringing a layperson’s naive ideas back down to reality.

I hope the attached calculation is at least somewhat self-explanatory. It might be worth mentioning that in the estimates (h=hours, d=days, w=weeks) I have already taken the number of helpers into account. So these are not man-hours/days/weeks.

Many of you probably have more practical experience: would you consider these figures roughly realistic? Most of the tasks (those listed with 1.5 people) I will do more or less alone, with my wife as an assistant. There might be more active helpers, but I’m not counting on that for now. At least for the trades involved, I’m reasonably skilled but not exactly fast—at least until I get into a routine, then I can speed up quite a bit.

Best regards

Hello,
the only "self-explanatory" aspect of this "calculation" is that it is the naive estimate of someone who has no real knowledge.

Sorry, but flowery language won’t bring you "back down to earth."

I have no idea about the required efforts, but based on the mentioned constructions, I assume this is a new build?! What construction period are you aiming for? With a typical 6 months or 26 weeks, planning to contribute 16.6 weeks of your own work? How do you intend to manage that?

Since it might not be entirely obvious: I’m calculating 22 hours per week. Ten hours on Saturdays, plus three weekdays with four hours each. This does not account for the fact that I will take some weeks off or use overtime. I would consider those as a buffer since things usually don’t go exactly as planned. So this should be a conservative estimate.
The house has about 140 sqm (1507 sq ft) of living space.
For the electrical work, there is a total of 130 years of experience available for consultation and planning, thanks to several relatives in that field. However, they will hardly be able to help with the actual installation.

I am currently trying to determine the construction time based on this estimate.
A rough idea would be a maximum of 6 months until completing the detailed electrical work (5 1/2 weeks of self-performed labor). Eight months until moving in (a total of 14 weeks of self-performed labor).

For the later self-performed work, subcontractors will no longer be involved, so it might take a bit longer. I plan to do interior doors, the last LAN connections, lighting fixtures, and coverings after moving in. We don’t have children yet.

If you manage to put in 300 hours alongside your job in one year, you have my respect.

There are only two problems:

1) In my opinion, the time planned is clearly too little.
2) You won’t be able to maintain the planned schedule.

Intense workload over a fairly long period of time.
It’s not just about the actual working time in the house. Consider the hours spent on shopping, transportation, and loading.