I know it varies by region, so just give me the common expenses, materials, amount of man-hours, equipment, consumables.
Im not talking about a house, ignore utilities, bathrooms or none of that shit. Im just talking a plain grey reinforced concrete hovel with no further work. What does it take to build that?
A lot
Is that in american dollars.
About $500 per cubic foot.
If you want a concrete structure that you can diy you're better off building it out of concrete blocks than trying to build forms like these yourself. The companies that do big concrete forms like this already own all of the pre-built panels and supports for the forms that they can just reuse on every job, and those things are expensive as frick. A diyer would have to build all the forms out of plywood himself which is a frickload of money just in wood, and then hope to God he has supported it properly and it's not going to blow out when you pour it.
In comparison all you need for a block structure is a shovel, trowel, hammer, string line, level, and a mixer (can be rented or buy a small one from a big box store)
Amerishart? A lot.
Correct, use blocks as formwork. Where I am reinforced concrete support is a requirement in house building (unless it's wood framing but that's uncommon) and aerated concrete block manufacturers sell blocks with holes for this exact purpose. AAC is a wonderful material, Americans are missing out.
What's the density of those aerated blocks approximately?
How much would they weigh in comparison to pure concrete blocks?
They seem pretty nice and I imagine they're naturally an insulator?
>What's the density of those aerated blocks approximately?
Jack shit, they put a line of rebar in the middle of every 2nd or 3rd row I guess otherwise the shit would crumble under its own weight. It's cut with a damn saw and carved with a spoon thing for running installations.
>How much would they weigh in comparison to pure concrete blocks?
A damn side less, probably.
>They seem pretty nice and I imagine they're naturally an insulator?
Yes they are a great insulator, everything built with 37cm block doesn't need any extra insulation.
>and a mixer
Just use a cement tub you pussy.
anything over 4ft-ish tall and your forms have to be able to hold backs tons
Not OP. I see a lot of commercial buildings going up where the wall forms are built on the ground, the walls are poured horizontally, and then the walls are stood up with a crane. This (I guess) solves the form blowout issue. It must be cheaper than OP's construction technique if they are doing it.
Do you have any concrete experience? If not then I would say just to hire someone else to do it if you're trying to do anything bigger than a retaining wall, any decent concrete company will be able to do it better and faster than you could.
That being said if you're dead set on doing it yourself, look into ICF foam block forms, they're light and much more DIY friendly than any of the more standard forming systems and the biggest benefit is that you set and forget, no stripping, oiling or any of that other bullshit. As for cost, it really depends on where you live, the cost per yard where I live (north west) is around 400$ a yard but go 1 hour north and it's 1000$ a yard, depends how close you are to a batch plant, time of year, etc etc
source: concrete gay