Over­view

Here we cov­er: es­tim­at­ing con­struc­tion costs. Our goal is to keep things simple, but also give you enough know­ledge to com­pare apples to apples!

TCHC: Total Con­struc­tion Hard Cost

If you use an am‑cor Fer­ro­ce­ment Kit to con­struct your build­ing, you will save money and time:

• Con­struct­ing your shell: as­sem­bling your found­a­tion, walls, roof, and so on
• Pour­ing your floor slabs
• Put­ting in in­su­la­tion
• In­stalling ser­vices (elec­tric­al, plumb­ing, HVAC, etc.)
• No re­quire­ment for sprink­ler sys­tems
• Over­all sched­ule & man­age­ment
• And more!

You won't ne­ces­sar­ily save time/money on things like in­stalling fancy kit­chen coun­ter­tops, or site­works. To keep things simple, we like to talk about Total Con­struc­tion Hard Cost (TCHC).

Basically:

• TCHC = $$ re­quired for con­struct­ing your build­ing on a pre­pared site, so you can get a Cer­ti­fic­ate of Oc­cu­pancy (CO)

Total Con­struc­tion Hard Cost: Hard cost of con­struct­ing a fin­ished build­ing. In­cludes ma­ter­i­al & labor for con­struc­tion and en­clos­ure of the build­ing shell: found­a­tions, struc­ture, fin­ishes, ser­vices, in­su­la­tion, ba­sic trim, fix­tures and cab­in­etry. Does not in­clude costs in­dir­ec­tly as­so­ci­ated with con­struc­tion of the build­ing, such as: site­works, con­tract­or over­heads, util­ity hook­ups, taxes, per­mits, fees, etc.

Gen­er­al Es­tim­ates

NB: The TCHC es­tim­ates above in­clude the am-cor Kit. They are na­tion­al (USA) av­er­ages—us­ing RS Means data as a basis—of dif­fer­ent designs & spe­cif­ic­a­tions in dif­fer­ent re­gions, us­ing dif­fer­ent con­tract­ors, based on fig­ures from our pro­ject his­tory. They usu­ally lag ac­tu­al site costs by at least 12 months, can vary greatly de­pend­ing on loc­a­tion, pro­ject design & spe­cif­ic­a­tion, loc­al site & labor con­di­tions, and are meant as in­form­at­ive es­tim­ates only. Your costs may be high­er or lower, de­pend­ing on your design, quant­ity, spe­cif­ic­a­tion, re­gion­al labor & ma­ter­i­al rates, choice of con­tract­ors, DIY level aka "sweat equity", etc.

To get a rough es­tim­ate of the TCHC for your pro­ject us­ing the am-cor Sys­tem, use this gen­er­al for­mula:

• [Floor plan area] x [# of floors] x TCHC rate = TCHC Es­tim­ate

So, your con­trac­ted and earth-bermed am-cor home, us­ing stand­ard mid-range in­teri­or fin­ishes, is es­tim­ated to have a Total Con­struc­tion Hard Cost of US $149,040.

👉  If you de­cide to Do-It-Yourself, you can save much more by man­aging and do­ing your own labor. We've seen cli­ents save around 50% of the build­er's price, by DIY­ing most or all of their pro­ject!

This in­cludes cost of sub­con­tract­ors to per­form ex­cav­a­tion, con­crete ground floor slab, and ser­vice in­stall­a­tions.  This es­tim­ate does not in­clude site­works or pro­ject over­head costs.  It is a na­tion­al av­er­age, and may be high­er or lower, de­pend­ing on your site loc­a­tion.

If you're out­side the USA, the es­tim­ates above won't ap­ply to you (your sav­ings may be even great­er).

It's tough in the con­struc­tion in­dustry to com­pare apples with apples: num­bers can vary dra­mat­ic­ally, de­pend­ing on what's in­cluded and what's not. Please contact us, and we'll help es­tim­ate con­struc­tion in your re­gion.

Budget­ing

We can help you with gen­er­al budget­ing for your pro­ject. Please provide, via email or snail mail:

1. Your con­tact in­form­a­tion
2. Gen­er­al pro­ject over­view
3. Num­ber of units, es­tim­ated con­struc­tion date
4. Di­men­sioned sketches or draw­ings
5. Any oth­er in­fo; e.g.: en­vir­on­ment­al or green ma­ter­i­al con­cerns

Then we'll send you an in­ter­act­ive Budget sheet, so you can get an idea of your TCHC.

If you are in­ter­es­ted in us­ing, modi­fy­ing, or cre­at­ing an ar­chi­tec­tur­al design to turn in­to an am-cor Kit, please check out our Designs section.

Dis­claim­er

Price es­tim­ates is­sued are FOB Culpeper, VA, USA (ship­ping not in­cluded) and in US Dol­lars ($).

am-cor inc. can ar­range ship­ping as a cour­tesy to the cus­tom­er.

Es­tim­ates for Standard Kits and Custom Kits vary with the design type, struc­ture, and re­gion of each pro­ject. All fig­ures are ap­prox­im­ate, time-sens­it­ive, and non-bind­ing. Factors that ef­fect cost in­clude:

• Loc­al labor and ma­ter­i­als
• Choice of in­teri­or fin­ishes, in­su­la­tion, etc.
• Cost of trans­port­a­tion
• Site is­sues (ac­cess­ib­il­ity, drain­age, slope, loc­al or­din­ances, etc.),
• Fluc­tu­at­ing raw ma­ter­i­al costs, etc.