Brit Reacts to how AMERICAN HOUSES are Built from Start to Finish! 

Not all American homes have basements, and not all Americans have the money to build a home like that. Some of us are still dreaming along with you! 😉

As an architect, I design homes like these, all the time. Like others have said, the price really depends on where you're building.

Jack & Jill shower is a bathroom between 2 bedrooms with a door to each room. Septic tank is meant to hold the sewage from the house in areas with no city sewers. HVAC is Heat Ventilation and Air Conditioning. AND if you notice, the owners did a lot of the work themselves, saving on labor expenses. Oh and BTW, we live in a wooden house that's about 130 -140 years old - 3 levels.

They saved so much in labor cost by doing much of the work themselves! Beautiful home and GREAT JOB!

I was stunned when I Googled average square feet of a British home and it's 880 square feet 😮 that's smaller than most apartments here in the U.S.

Not only does wood last as long as people are saying here, but when on occasion a 100+ year old home is turn down, a premium is placed on salvaging the old wood for reuse. I have personally salvaged 200+ year old wood planks from an old horse barn, placed them down and had them looking like brand new-- fetching an obscene amount of money when sold.

The reason that it takes so long to put in the basement is that concrete takes at least 30 days to cure long enough to take the weight. Concrete cures for years (it never full does) but 30 days is needed for structural stability. The soil backfill also needs to compact.

I'm a retired Building Contractor here in Oregon. What you need to understand is the reason for such strict Codes and those are to protect the Contractor building the home and also to protect the homeowner having the home built at a specific specification covering Structural, plumbing, electrical, roof and neighbor and in the long run it will even protect any future home buyer if the original homeowner sells the home, it has certain protections for the purchaser. I live in Douglas County which is known as the Timber Capitol of the World with Douglas Fir trees large enough to be one log loads on any log truck and is said that due to the reforestation laws, Oregon could supply all the building material for every home built in the U.S. and never run out of trees.

Son, my wife and I built our own house. We hired the excavation, concrete work for the basement and exterior framing. Everything else we did ourselves including the HVAC, plumbing, drywall, flooring and electrical. We had friends and family to come over and help us. It took us a little over a year to complete. Our house has been valued at 3.5 times the cost of building it. This was because of sweat equity. We through the help and grace of God had it completely paid in full by the time we were 40 years old.

The windows are so expensive because they are decorative and highly efficient at blocking UV rays and heat and cooling loss. It's multiple layers of class with special gasses sealed in between them. Not a bad price with that many windows. Anywhere with extremish temperatures you can't get away with big windows like that cheaply or you won't be able to heat/cool your home.

This is not a typical American home. This is a special build

Bro I have been a hvac contractor for over 30 years and I used to do new home construction it’s still a blast to watch houses being built

re: only one floor, stairs can be difficult when you're old. so if you are custom building a forever home and have the space to spread out, why not avoid them. single story ramblers are pretty common here

A septic tank is an individual sewage system for homes not hooked up to public sewer.

"jack and jill" is a term we use to describe a bathroom that can be accessed from 2 bedrooms, basically it's a shared bathroom typically between kids bedrooms.

The windows are either double or triple glass for insulation purposes

It depends on where the house is as to the price. What is $500,000.00 in one state could be multiple millions in another or only $200,000.00 someplace else. Our windows are pretty amazing.

The most expensive, would be the wood, we built a house that was 5 million dollars like 20 years ago, and the windows in that house were a bit over 100k. The house was for a, hall of farmer and basketball player in San Antonio Texas. David Robinson, it took us 16 carpenters, 6 months to frame the house, it took 2 years to finish it.. lots of cool memories for us..

The windows are double pane with an inert gas sealed between the two panes. Much more energy efficient winter and summer. Homes with basements are usually built in colder climates.

Dude, the wood is the framing of the house, and then you see 4 x 8 sheets of particle board covered with fiberglass making it waterproof, and then it gets a layer of brick and mortar. The most energy efficient houses on our planet. This is the USA, and we know how to build a house. Bless your heart

Double Clad windows are high end and needed for their superior insulation. Which you need in our harsh winters and hot summers

Keeping water out of your house is sort of the defining trait of calling something shelter. Ergo, the wood never gets wet, so it never rots away. The roof keeps water off the house, and the drainage system keeps water from getting under the foundation, making the soil soft.

American homes in the snowy NORTH almost always have basements, because the foundation walls have to be footed below the frost line (4-5 feet below surface). The added cost to turn that into a full basement is trivial and the added utility is MASSIVE!.

A jack and jill bathroom is shared between 2 bedrooms. Some deluxe versions will have a sink and toilet for each bedroom, then a shared shower and/or tub in the middle.

I live on the beach. All the homes here are built on top of pilings (large poles) so when it storm floods, the water can go underneath and not inside!. Custom built 5000 sq ft cost 1.6 mil. (including the land- 2 acres). Hurricane proof windows are EXPENSIVE!

HVAC stands for heating, ventilation and air conditioning. A Jack and Jill bathroom is a bathroom that joins two bedrooms. It's a common setup for siblings. Septic tanks are a form of waste management. It's for people who don't live close enough to the city in order to be connected to city water and sewage. It's a big underground tank for your dookie to go in until it gets full and someone has to come out and empty it.

You have homes with basements but it was for the servants’ entrance, gun rooms, kitchen etc with the windows down by the dirt in the palaces of Dukes lol. They are common in areas with sloping land to have a “walk out basement “ which means three walls have small or no windows and are mostly behind soil and the forth was is exposed. I love your enthusiasm about this stuff. :)

I like seeing that Tyvek! That's what feeds my fam.

We build houses out of all different materials it all depends on which little piggy you are, straw, stick's, or bricks!HUFF AND PUFF!!!

My house was built in 1889. It is still very sturdy. No signs of rot. In the basement you can tell how old it is. The walls are made of large stones and the floor is mostly dirt. You can see the beams are trees with bark still on them. Pretty much all houses in America are built differently. It all depends on when it was built, where you live and how much money you have to spend on it.. I love your videos and reactions! Keep the great content coming

Notice they did alot of stuff themselves!! My husband and I built our house too! My dad did the copper plumbing and electrical, but we did everything else!! Its a 3 bedroom,2 bath, with attached garage... Nothing like this home on the video but we love it! This was 17 years ago and it was around $23000 total including getting electric and drilling a well... I had an uncle that did the well for us....

If you want to see a home-build on a more modest scale but in great (many videos) detail, go to The Kelley’s Country Life a couple years ago. No basement (few homes in Florida have basements), but, with just a few exceptions, he did it by himself. Plus, you’ll love this guy’s accent!

My grandmother's house was almost 300 years old for the first part. It was built during the colonial period. Wood can last a long time if you keep water, termites and fire off of it. Wood is warmer, and more resistant to earthquakes. Less resistant to tornados though, and you have to take extra precautions if you are in a hurricane area. There are a lot of concrete houses in the States too.

You should watch how people buy a log cabin kit. And build it. I think you would like it

Fortunately, I had my retirement home built in 2001 before prices of materials skyrocketed. Starting with a patch of woods next to a brook, the builder took my hand-drawn plans and created my 2-bed, 2-bath house with full basement, 3-season porch and 2-car garage for less than $200,000, complete with new appliances. It's still solid as a rock, no cracks or settlement.

The gravel near the beginning was installed around the waste pipe, to give moisture a place to drain away from the house. We do that in areas with lots of snow and ice. That wasn't paving gravel, lol.

When she says “Jack and Jill shower,” she means “the shower in our Jack and Jill bathroom.” A Jack and Jill bathroom is a bathroom situated between two bedrooms and accessible from both, but only accessible from the two bedrooms - sort of a shared en-suite. Also, it’s common for drywall guys to use stilts; it’s so common that they’re sold in hardware and building supply stores and they’re called drywall stilts. The windows on this house are custom made, which costs more, but even stock windows in larger sizes can easily run $500-600 each.

A culvert is for drainage from one low area to a lower one, away from the property, to prevent flooding the lower levels of the house. It usually runs under high ground and may have a road or driveway running on top.

A basement with the ability to walk outside is usually called a "walk out." It makes the home more attractive to potential buyers. Primer is the BASE coat of paint that is applied before you put the actual "paint" on the walls. Primers are wonderful to cover dark wall colors and make them look bright again. Without Primer, you may need 3-4 coats of paint to cover the dark color otherwise. Primer will save a lot of cost and time, along with labor. A "Jack and Jill bathroom" is a bathroom that is built between 2 bedrooms, only the individuals in those 2 bedrooms can access the Jack and Jill bathroom that is built between the bedrooms. They have to put up a Water-proof coating on the bathroom walls to make it water-tight and won't wet and rot the wood behind the shower walls or cause mold growth from the wood framing getting wet and growing algae/mold. When you live in the countryside outside of a town with plumbing that runs to the Waste Water Treatment plant, you have to dig a hole, put in around a 1,000 gallon cement box or container inside the ground and bury it. First you run the toilets underground with pipes to the Cess Pool (where the waste water goes from the toilets.) The rest of the water from the house, like the sinks and showers are also buried underground outside, but usually, a wire mesh is placed on the end of the drain pipe to keep small animals from entering it, then the wastewater will water the lawn, etc. About every 4-5 years we have a vacuum truck come out and empty the Cess Pool to keep it available for use and not let it overfill. The feces that is vacuumed up is taken somewhere and either destroyed or turned into energy or fertilizer. 🙂 HVAC is what we call the Heater/Air Conditioner that is placed just outside the house (or in the Basement or Utility Room depending on the house plans) and runs into the home to heat and cool it. HVAC is the more technical term, its just a big almost square box outside that houses the motor to run the heating and air conditioning.

The septic system is basically the sewer and waste management for the house. They are normal for rural areas. Basements are often required in colder parts of the country. Slab on grade are more common in warmer areas.

The best thing about having wood is if one wall gets damaged in a way it's cheap to repair or replace

A septic system is a sewage system that drains into the yard, instead of hooking up to the city sewage system. They have a small tank that collects the sewage from all the drains in the house, and then distributes it to perforated pipes buried under the yard, which seeps out over time. These systems are almost obligatory in rural areas, as the small town's sewage systems don't extend past the town limits. They make the grass grow really well.

They put a liner between the wood and the exterior of the house to keep moisture from coming in. As long as the house is sealed properly before it rains, or after it dries completely from rain, then there will be no mold issues. Moisture would caused the wood to rot. Sometimes when somebody gets an old house and updates that they find dry rot wood and it has to be replaced it and it could be very expensive. we use drywall in the interior of our house

You make me want to come remodel your house for you. Carpet is typically only used in bedrooms although it has become a lot less popular. Tile, wood and vinyl plank is more common in these days due to easy cleaning and a long lasting option .

when I was a young adult, I used to build houses (framing+). we would (me and 2 other guys) walk onto a job site with a concrete slab with plumbing started and when we would leave 3 months later, the ENTIRE house would be done. we did everything from framing (putting the walls together) to windows, to flooring, to plumbing, to electrical, to drywall, to trim, to painting, to roofing. It was just the 3 of us and no heavy equipment to lift up materials, just us and our muscles... we did everything up to "turnkey" (where they only have to turn their key to open the door and move in, no other worked required. when we walked from the site, a person could move into the house and start living once they moved their furniture into it. It took us an average of 3 months for a 3 bed/2 bath house to go from slab to move in ready. bigger houses were a little longer (one 5 bed 4 bath took us 6 months because it was monster large).

culverts drain water away from the structure, driveway, so the basement won't flood etc.. .... Priming paint is the underlayer paint layer. Priming is a good base. Jack and Jill bathrooms are between 2 bedrooms with a door to each bedroom...

Carpets are considered old fashioned by many Americans. That being said I live in a 2014 building upper middle class home 4000 sqft home that has carpet in the 2 main floor bedrooms, the stairs, and all the basement. The rest is laminate wood floors or tile. Some of these things are pretty common in rural uk too, but: Culvert is a pipe for drainage. HVAC is heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. Septic tank is basically rural plumbing. Its a tank that has special bacteria to help break down all the waste.

Cool video...we live Virginia in an all wood built home as well pine wood siding. It was built in 1833 so it is pre-civil war home and the wood is still as strong as day 1...the siding has had replacement pieces over the years. Our windows are original as well. Its actually a privilege to live in such a quality built historical home..love your channel

It looks like this couple is doing at least some of the work themselves. They also do not appear to have hired a general contractor to oversee the project, an extra expense in most home builds. They are basically doing the work of the general contractor themselves. This helps keep their costs down.

Not in the south most homes have an attic not a basement

Septic tank and drain field is where your bathroom and other drain business goes. The septic tank is where the solids rot away and the liquid flows out to the drain field to soak into the ground.

6:17 we have some barns made of wood that are 300 to 400 years old and still standing don't underestimate wood 8:14 the window brand is known to be strong and very storm resistant I also believe they have a Warranty 12:55 primer is the base layer of paint to help the paint look smooth 16:27 carpet yes my house has carpet everywhere except the dining room, kitchen, and bathroom

Don't forget landscaping and home furnishings. Not to mention annual property tax and home insurance. Some parts of the country this can be astronomical.

Keep in mind, it would have cost a lot more, but if you notice a lot of the work was done by the couple. By renting a lot of the building equipment and doing a lot of the work themselves, they saved a huge amount of money on labor. The heavy duty work and work requiring specialized labor (electrical, plumbing, gas lines, etc) was a lot of the costs. As for the windows costing so much, not only were there a lot of them, but they were double paned and likely had some type of tinting on them to reduce the glare coming into the house. Less glare, less sun damage to the furnishings and stuff. It took a long time to build because all that poured concrete had to dry before moving on to next steps, weather caused periods where no work could be done at all (no work while it's snowing or rainy) and they did a lot of work themselves, so basically a two man crew working on a huge house. They likely saved 100-200k on labor, depending on where they built the house.

A septic is where waste water goes for people who are on well water. Because they are not connected to city water treatment, they have a septic take where water is separated from the waste and sent to a drainage field

My daughter works at a window company, yes but the keep out harsh sun warmth and cold winters. The are usually 2 layers or 3 thick glass. You can go to a hardware store bye new glass cheap and put in your old frame yourself. These are very special insulated window being put in here!

So on your last framing video I told you about building codes. If you were going to move to America you would have to choose a state, then pick the area of the state you’re thinking of. Almost every state has land forsale. You need to check the zoning before you buy the land. A lot of land isn’t dissented for housing. It may be for farming or agriculture or industrial etc. So the best advice get a local architect to do your building plans as they know the local building codes. You tell him or her what you want bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, dining, family room, man cave, two stories what ever you want and the sizes of everything. They will draw it up you come in and make changes on what you don’t like, this can take a few times to make it right for you. Once that’s done you or your architect can submit your building plans to the local building department. They will review those plans, most of the time they will find a problem and the architect will make the needed changes then resubmit. The building department will red stamp those plans, meaning you’re ready to start building! Next step is to get a general contractor who is licensed. Ask your architect for a recommendation as they know the best general contractors! The general contractor can handle your whole project ground up to finish. All building departments can tell you all the steps that you need to take from start to finish. You can buy building plans but they might not meet the local codes but they can give you tons of ideas here’s a site www.houseplans.net/styles/?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIud3K06aEhQMVVRezAB0e3AYTEAAYASAAEgIeiPD_BwE. There are many sites like this online. Click on the pictures of the houses that you like, it will show you the floor plan and exterior of the houses along with the square footage.

A culvert is a pipe that goes under the driveway so water can drain and not block the ditch along the roadway. The driveway is put in first with gravel to allow the construction workers to access the property easy but it's gravel initially so the trucks won't mess it up. When the house is nearly done, with no heavy trucks, they'll asphalt it or pour a concrete driveway over the gravel. (I just got to that part)

Wow, in 1987 i built a cabin and drilled a well foe $7,500 in Alabama. That cabin was 384 sq ft- 16x24 with a big porch. I lived there 9 years as happy as a clam.

A septic tank is where the plumbing drains to when you dont live in an urban area with a sewer system that connects to the city water system. With a septic system, you need to subscribe to a service where a "honey wagon" comes out regularly to pump unprocessed waste out of the tank and disposes it in a sanitary way.

The gravel drive goes in early because big trucks and construction equipment absolutely destroy bare ground. A septic tank is a standalone low tech sewerage treatment. BTW, this is what we call a McMansion.

I used to work for a company that specialized in installing glass. This includes, windows, showers, greenhouses etc. Yes, this is a normal price. Especially for this many windows. One window, depending on this size, is easily a minimum of $200. It increases depending on the size, the insulation, the type of glass, if there is solar protection etc. This is all before the cost of labor which is usually a minimum of $250. They’re honestly probably paying more for labor than the actual windows.

a jack and jill bathroom is a bathroom that is shared between two bedrooms. Each bedroom has a door that enters into the bathroom. Often the shower and toilet are in a separate room off the bathroom are that has dual sinks and the doors into the bedrooms, that way one person can be showering or using the toilet while another utilizes the sink area to get ready or wash hands etc.

Septic is the tank that holds the bathroom waste; people in towns and cities usually have theirs connected to the town or city pipes while rural homes have a tank that needs to be emptied (and serviced now and then). HVAC is Heat and AC that extends throughout the house (simplified). As mentioned, it all depends on location. There was a home built in a nearby town not too long ago, fairly large. Easily over $1mil. A small, single-floor home with 3 bedrooms can easily cost $500,000+ in my area. That same amount can get you a larger home and space in a different state. Also, it seems as if they did a lot of the work, possibly being contractors themselves, which can help keep costs down.

The "R" value that she mentioned for the insulation is just a measure of how efficient it is.

Rural homes in the USA are usually not attached to a city sewage system. Therefore, the sewage plumbing for the home has to be self-contained at the property, itself. The septic tank is an underground container that holds everything from human waste from flushing the toilet to the soapy waste water from sinks. Although the septic tank is buried, there is a cover that remains accessible above ground. When the tank becomes full, the container is emptied of waste by a specialized truck that transports it to a facility elsewhere for treatment and release. The specialized truck uses the tank access via a hose to siphon the waste material and pump it out.

On large lots a single floor with no upper story, but with a basement, is common. It saves climbing stairs to the upper floor all the time and allows for the open floor plan that most Americans currently prefer. The basements are sometimes used just for storage, laundry, and heating, cooling, water heater and the like, but sometimes are finished and used as additional living space/bedrooms.

my grandfather in the mid 50s bought a piece of land. dug the basement. helped pour the floor. He put up the lathe and plaster walls. etc. etc. It hardly cost anything to build/ The windows are special thermal insulated and they are more than just one layer of glass. Those are huge windows.

Today I JUST Had the workers complete changing out six windows into sliding doors. It cost $26,000. I live in colorado so of course you want to make sure that you have good windows. So the price is actually a good deal that they have put in.

One floor homes in America are classified as Ranch style houses. Ranch houses are actually quite desirable as all of the living space (minus the basement on this particular house) is all on the same level and so you don't have to climb stairs all the time.

I have a 4 bedroom, 2 bath home in North Carolina. It's 1988 square feet with an eat in kitchen, LR, den and a mud room. It also has an attached 1 car garage and a utility shed in the back yard. The house sits on just under a half acre of land. I bought it for $93K, and after the upgrades the house, just from the outside is valued at $248K. The windows were the most expensive so I did it in parts.

There are times when, for instance, the concrete needs to cure before building on it. After framing, it's a good idea to let it set a few days for the framing to settle down. Trusses and such are heavy and tend to push down on the walls. So ya, let it settle. You will have less cracks in the sheetrock later. I have done this twice in my time. Some places do not allow basements, depending on ground water levels. I retired in my last one. Happy days!

Part of the reason this home is so affordable is because it's not in a suburban setting with all the services like city water and sewage, electric, natural gas, phone and cable, road access, etc. It's basically out in the wilderness, which is why they drilled a well and dug/installed a septic tank (a buried concrete box in which all the solid and liquid toilet waste breaks down over time and goes into the soil). They will likely do solar for electricity, with backup diesel generators, and delivered heating oil or LP gas in pressure tanks. Plus 'sweat equity' knocked down some of the cost, from them doing a lot of the work themselves. Building one from scratch like this in a new neighborhood development in the suburbs, with all the services going to it, would raise the price.

Priming walls inside is a coating on the walls that gives it a solid/non-porous foundation for paint.

Where is this? Remodeled my house back in 2005-06, from 2-1, 1000sf rancher to a 3000sf, 2-story 5-3 colonial. I designed it and it took a year _ way longer than we were told. 28 windows! And, it's not 'open concept'_ had the option, chose not to. When COVID hit... soooo happy. Of course, almost 20 years later, I have a punch list of what I didn't think of at the time or would do differently. Watching him watch this_ and listening to his comments, is so fun_ and rather satisfying. 😂

"This place is HUGE!" ... later .... "Why isn't there a second floor?" 🤣

Just so you know man american homes aren't all wood large neighborhoods consisting of all one type of house exist, but usually throughout the US its all mixed home types with brick, steel modern, concrete brutalism, and various other materials/stlyes for home building.

You should watch the channel in Ontario Canada titled "The Outsider." He built a log cabin with his father out in the woods, He chopped down the trees, he lumbered the wood himself and he built it all and it's taken almost 4 years.

Culvert is a type of drain pipe to allow water to flow away from structures and roads. Jack & Jill bathroom usually has a bedroom on each side of it with a door from each bedroom into the bathroom. Septic tanks are usually used in rural areas for waste from the plumbing system; they get pumped out to prevent overflow into yards or backing up into homes.

31k for all the windows for their home seems like it could be reasonable, depending on the amount of windows that they needed to install and the type of window. It really depends on what you get for windows. Several options for how many panes, the sizing and the casing. I have come across a single window getting redone(had to have it custom cut because it was a victorian home and no longer a standard size or shape of window) was close to 3k on its own.

A jack & jill bathroon/showe is when a single bathroom is shared between two bedrooms. Usually kids rooms.

My dad had stilts like that. He did drywall and metal lathe. Also prime is primer paint, it goes on the drywall to keep the paint colors even and from soaking in (otherwise you might see the drywall and spackle through the paint colors. (Also saves you from doing more than two coats of paint)

Modern American windows are double pained... Two pieces of glass. One on the inside, one on the outside. And are vacuumed sealed in between for instillation/weather proofing. It helps the house stay cool/hot depending upon the weather outside. Thats why they cost so much.

The septic tank is a big box, usually made out of concrete, where all the waste goes. It is filled with certain bacteria to eat and breakdown the waste.

My husband and I built a house in Kalkaska Michigan,, one story, cut down pine 🎄 for our siding, my husband and I made our own the next year. Painted all wood. Was 2 bedroom with rwo bathroom. Got a lot of help from family and friends.

Ive been a part of building a few houses and garages, done tons of different jobs. Concrete, framing, electrical, plumbing, drywall, painting, roofing, siding. Went to school (didnt finish) for residential HVAC. In my opinion its incredibly _satisfying_ to build a house, but its way too much goddamn work for it to be much fun most of the time.

Ok, I am a machinist but I have built 10-12 houses in my life. (working for contractors) Some from digging the ground to finish paint and a couple mostly just the framing, roof and siding. I will tell you if you get the chance to build a house do it. (yourself) Hire a contractor and just do what he tells you to do. Building houses is the most fun working I have ever had in my life and I work all the time. It's a blast and it really makes the house a HOME when you were there to build it.

There are so many different styles of homes in America, that really anything goes!! And with the prices, don't forget that the cost includes labor for most installations (windows, brick, etc). Plus, everything is custom, so that adds to the price, too. Also, Wood lasts a LONG time - your Tudor era homes/buildings int he UK are 400 years old, and there are probably some that are older.

My guess is, because the house is in a cold winter area, the windows are thermal or double paned. They cost more because they save more on heating fuel and electric air conditioning costs.

I grew up in northern New Hampshire in a house that was built in 1865. It was a 3 story house with a basement. My sister eventually inherited the home when my parents passed and sold it because it was way too big for her. She then moved to another, nearby, small town and bought a house built in 1860. Other than the size, you would feel at home in many of these old New England homes; no AC, heated with forced hot water heated in an oil-fired boiler. Lots of older homes in the northeast and south; not so much as you get further west. My current home was built in 1978 and would be considered an older home here in western Oregon.

- HVAC = Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioning - Mudroom = a room directly connecting to the garage and/or side entrance where people stop to remove their (muddy/wet/snowy) shoes/boots and store their coats and outside footwear. Often tiled with ceramic or stone tiles, or covered with vinyl sheet flooring because of the water/mud. - Master bedroom = the largest bedroom in a house, intended for the home owner or couple - Master bath(room) = the private bathroom attached to the master bedroom - Master suite = combination of the Master bedroom and Master bathroom. Sometimes also has an additional private room used as a sitting room or infant's nursery room - Jack & Jill Bathroom = a bathroom shared by 2 bedrooms (usually for children) which each have a private entrance to that bathroom. Not all children's rooms have access to a private bathroom. Most will share a single bathroom accessed from the hallway. - Princess suite, In-Law's suite, or Guest Suite = a bedroom with it's own private bathroom for In-Law parents, guests (or a spoiled daughter 😉). - Septic system/Septic tank = for a home that is not connected to a city sewer system, waste water and sewage is sent by pipe to a tank where it is broken down by bacteria. As the tank fills, eventually semi-clean water from the tank rises to an outlet point where is flows through a pipe to a yard area where it is released underground through perforated pipe (the "leech field")

11:18 the price is for all windows and sliding doors. and windows these days are super insulated and usually 'storm' proof. as in they can be struck by flying debris and not shatter. so it's worth the price.

My grandparents were born in the late nineteen-teens, early nineteen-twenties. My grandfather, his brother and brothers-in-law, and a handful of friends built my grandparents' first house with only hand tools--all while working full-time jobs in the steel mills! There is a reason they are called the Greatest Generation. It was a modest, two-story house with a basement (yes, they dug the foundation by hand!) probably, as you say, a UK-sized house; nothing like this house in the video, but it is still standing strong today.

Septic system is an in place tank and drain field for sewage and waste water vice a sewer system. When you're in the country this is required. The tank is pumped out to remove the solid waste. The tank and drain are set in an area AWAY from the water supply - they have a well.

Regarding having only one story, if you have the land it’s usually cheaper to build out than up. The second story is more expensive per square foot. In cities two stories are typical. HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning. Because they are building on a slope, they have what we call a daylight basement. Most of it is underground but part of it has big windows. The part with no windows is good for storage or maybe a TV room, and the daylight part is good for a playroom or project room.

For the majority of the South in the US, we do not have basements. In most parts, builders are actually not allowed to build them in homes because it's too much of an insurance liability because we have too much water in the soil to build below ground. The water table, an underground boundary between the soil surface and groundwater, is usually less than a meter underground in the South. Your basement would quickly become a moldy, soggy, water logged mess. We see a lot of flooding and the last thing you want is to be underground when it floods.

My Dad was a draftsman. He designed his home. It was so neat to watch and help a bit. The home was built on top of a basalt outcropping and the 1.5 levels of basement had to be blasted out with dynamite. Daddy ruined Mom's new broom, by using it to paint the outside walls of the basements with this black pitch like substance. Our hands were raw, from rubbing used bricks together, to get the old mortar off so they could use the bricks on parts of the home and patios.

A septic tank is basically a two compartment tank that allows the waste water from all the plumbing fixtures to drain into. The side that receives the waste allows the solids to decompose. The water seeps over to second compartment before it drains out into the septic bed

Most homes here in America are foregoing wall-to-wall carpet now because it’s the single biggest air filter in your home and with allergies being so bad, it’s not worth it. Tile and laminate flooring with area rugs are what most people are doing just to save time and animal mess on carpet. Septic tank is for sewage in places that are not hooked up to city sewage lines. They have to be cleaned out periodically and taken care of or they can collapse. HVAC = Heating/Ventilation/Air Conditioning. I find it interesting that they did a ton of the work themselves so they saved a ton on labor!

Prices depend on where you're building too. Take note that a home built in somewhere like Florida or California would cost a lot more than it would in somewhere like Kentucky or Tennessee. Also in the South a lot of home have attics instead of basements due to the risk of flooding. Some Southern houses do have storm or root cellars though. Which is like a small underground bunker where they store homemade canned goods or take cover during tornadoes.😉