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Christ_Ut, I deal with know-it-all customers all the time that have no idea about homebuilding yet because they have an engineering degree..they become experts. I'm sure you trusted Meritage with the building of your home right? Or were you yet another "expert"
You better nitpick because most of these guys will cut your throat for a dollar. More buyers should be informed about things like the psi in the slab. Since when do you drop a couple hundred grand for something and not even bother to know the first thing about it.
"It is in their best interest to provide you a quality home". Gimme a break. How many thousands of home buyers have gotten screwed by various companies with shoddy houses that fall apart, with broken foundations, full of mold etc...
We just met someone this weekend who is in a lawsuit with a builder over cracked foundation and shoddy plumbing that resulted in the entire 1st floor to flood. Turns out the builder knew there were major problems; supposedly fixed them but took $$-shortcuts & sold a flawed "custom" house for a "great deal". He wouldn't share the name of the builder for legal reasons but he said it's a reputable company that deals in high-end builds which is one of the reasons they did not even suspect being sold a house with major flaws.
We are in the process of buying a house from Taylor Morrison and WOW they do charge us 100% markup.
we got a stripped down base house and we have to pay for the upgrades which is much more that what they
offer for the lousy $40,000 free upgrades. Negotiate the house value before you pay them the earnest money
because everything is a upgrade!!!!!
Christ_Ut, I deal with know-it-all customers all the time that have no idea about homebuilding yet because they have an engineering degree..they become experts. I'm sure you trusted Meritage with the building of your home right? Or were you yet another "expert"
Im willing to bet that the majority of engineers, no matter what type of engineering they specialized in, do in fact know more than 99.9% of home-builders. Which, I might add, is precisely why home builders use engineers to do their foundations and structural documents.
Asking to know the PSI in the concrete, or size of the aggregate, is not a big tough hard question...Its specified in the engineering documents...if the builder can't provide you a report with the sample cylinders and conical test results its because they did not test it at all...and most the big tract builders dont test it...they just assume its good....which is negligent, but standard practice...Im in the process of building my house now, ( I am an engineer and a lawyer) and my contract specifically spells out that absolutely no framing can occur on the slab until the results of the concrete tests are returned and the concrete has cured for 21 days. During that time nothing more than foot traffic can be on the slab.
You can't trust builders to build a home correctly the first time, they give incentives to their foremen to build the house quickly- which inherently contradicts quality....If you dont check every single thing they do, they will conceal mistakes and go on.
Home builders are used to the average person being a total idiot - so they just say we know best. Well the real answer is that they dont know best. An engineer does know more....And the engineer knows how to do it right - not just the way its done most of the time.
Dont let a builder walk over you. Its your house...they will be long gone as soon as they have your check, so be stubborn, check everything with a microscope, require an independent inspection at every stage of the process (pre pour, post pour, framing, electrical, plumbing, dryed in, after drywall, final) and anywhere else you think you need one.
A good builder will not take offense to any of this - it is the norm when you expect high quality. If your builder objects or thinks your a pain in the butt, its because they cut corners and dont want you looking over their shoulder.
It does not always matter if you are buying a 500K >, or < 200K home, it comes down to the skill of the laborers. I've seen a lot of 'Pedro and Jesus' crews doing work, but also have seen fancy builders, or remodeling companies out there. The professionals pull the required permits, get inspections as they are required to, but the labor they employ usually comes from the same pool. So no matter who the builder is, you can bet Pedro and Jesus will be there, and it all depends on their skills.
And about being "nitpicky" about a home, I'd say absolutely, you had better be. You have not only a right, but an obligation to nitpick. If you have a crooked wall, cracked tile, or sloping floor, are you going to let it ride just so as not to appear to nitpick? The only people concerned about someone being picky are the builders, but if they did things right and honest, they would never have a need to be bothered.
You know what gets me though? It is when I see even skilled laborers do an excellent job at rough-ins, but then shop at Home Depot and Lowes for architectual finishes. You can take a stroll through Montrose and can easily spot those who shop at Home Depot for cheap vinyl windows, rails, columns, etc. Another issue is scale; this is why you need an architects help, if not that, at least software that will size things up appropriately. Scale is important when building, or remodeling a home, but people focus on the coolness, or newness without knowing the relationship of scale. Or, some people don't think it is important.
Im willing to bet that the majority of engineers, no matter what type of engineering they specialized in, do in fact know more than 99.9% of home-builders. Which, I might add, is precisely why home builders use engineers to do their foundations and structural documents.
Asking to know the PSI in the concrete, or size of the aggregate, is not a big tough hard question...Its specified in the engineering documents...if the builder can't provide you a report with the sample cylinders and conical test results its because they did not test it at all...and most the big tract builders dont test it...they just assume its good....which is negligent, but standard practice...Im in the process of building my house now, ( I am an engineer and a lawyer) and my contract specifically spells out that absolutely no framing can occur on the slab until the results of the concrete tests are returned and the concrete has cured for 21 days. During that time nothing more than foot traffic can be on the slab.
You can't trust builders to build a home correctly the first time, they give incentives to their foremen to build the house quickly- which inherently contradicts quality....If you dont check every single thing they do, they will conceal mistakes and go on.
Home builders are used to the average person being a total idiot - so they just say we know best. Well the real answer is that they dont know best. An engineer does know more....And the engineer knows how to do it right - not just the way its done most of the time.
Dont let a builder walk over you. Its your house...they will be long gone as soon as they have your check, so be stubborn, check everything with a microscope, require an independent inspection at every stage of the process (pre pour, post pour, framing, electrical, plumbing, dryed in, after drywall, final) and anywhere else you think you need one.
A good builder will not take offense to any of this - it is the norm when you expect high quality. If your builder objects or thinks your a pain in the butt, its because they cut corners and dont want you looking over their shoulder.
There is so much wrong with your post I don't know where to start. But let's take one small section...
Quote:
Originally Posted by marksmu
Im willing to bet that the majority of engineers, no matter what type of engineering they specialized in, do in fact know more than 99.9% of home-builders. Which, I might add, is precisely why home builders use engineers to do their foundations and structural documents.
There is FAR more to building a home than engineering. You can't build a house without it, but it's not ALL there is. An engineer with some structural knowledge probably knows more about his area of expertise than most builders, because most builders aren't engineers. They HIRE engineers for that.
They also aren't cabinet craftsmen, they hire a cabinet company. And so forth...
As in every field of life, there are good builders, and bad builders. And lots that fall in between. Your broad sweeping remarks are as useless as if I said the same thing about whatever field of endeavor you work in. I'm not sure why you have such a chip on your shoulder, maybe a bad experience, but let me assure you, if you find a reputable builder, and treat them as the professional they are, they will be as happy to work with you as they can.
As in every field of life, there are good builders, and bad builders. And lots that fall in between. Your broad sweeping remarks are as useless as if I said the same thing about whatever field of endeavor you work in. I'm not sure why you have such a chip on your shoulder, maybe a bad experience, but let me assure you, if you find a reputable builder, and treat them as the professional they are, they will be as happy to work with you as they can.
And I am NOT a builder.
You obviously have not worked with any of the master planned community builders. They are happy to cut every corner. Ive built three new homes and none of the supers on any of those 3 homes knew as much as I did about home construction...their most important skill was being bilingual....second to that came coordinating the subs to show up on the correct days....a distant third was the quality/skill of the subs doing the work...all 3 of those were on master planned cookie cutter houses. All 3 would have had problems if I had not babysat the house and just let the builder go.
Todays master planned builders rely on the subs to tell them what they need and to know everything - the super is basically just a coordinator....It would probably be better if the super had to answer all the warranty bs too for the first 5 years...that might fix things, but as it is, the supers get bonuses for finishing on or ahead of schedule - so they have no incentive at all to ensure that your house is built properly.
To address your statement...Engineers dont need to know about cabinets - its purely cosmetic....but let me make a broad generalization about engineers for you. We research/study/learn before we talk - we dont just talk like experts on a subject we know nothing about.
So when a builder gets ready to pour a slab, you can be sure the engineer will have researched this, taken a continuing education class on it, done the calculation himself, and read the engineering plans for his house before the day of the pour...that is why when he gets to the job site he expects to know the things that matter like the PSI of the concrete, the size of the aggregate, and the results of the concrete testing....
on my second house the engineering document called for the driveway to have rebar on 8" spacing - the subs put it in on 12" spacing...it was supposed to be 4" thick - the subs used a 1 x 4 on edge and then hammered it into the dirt...they removed only about 25% of the dirt from the driveway area and never compacted the dirt prior to laying the rebar...they did not use the cones to lift the rebar into the middle of the concrete, and instead put a rock here/there to lift it up - but most was laid right on the ground... Had I not been there to rip it out and stop them - they would have poured a drive that had the wrong spacing, and was closer to 2 inches thick than the 4" that I paid for and with rebar that did close to nothing. These obvious things happen ALL of the time. If you never read the plans you dont know what your looking for. But that was a big mistake and it was stopped....2 years later that driveway would have been cracked to hell, and have rust stains all over where the rusting rebar bled through.
Engineers usually are much more lax when it comes to things like cabinetry, and purely cosmetic things...Engineers tend to take the structural and the mechanicals very seriously...so the concrete, the framing, the plumbing, the HVAC, and the electrical - ya we care, yes we learn, and yes we tend to know as much or more than the builders - so you can be sure we are going to speak up when its wrong.
You obviously have not worked with any of the master planned community builders. They are happy to cut every corner. Ive built three new homes and none of the supers on any of those 3 homes knew as much as I did about home construction...their most important skill was being bilingual....second to that came coordinating the subs to show up on the correct days....a distant third was the quality/skill of the subs doing the work...all 3 of those were on master planned cookie cutter houses. All 3 would have had problems if I had not babysat the house and just let the builder go.
I think we've discovered the problem.
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Skill, not cost determines quality
You can take a stroll through Montrose and can easily spot those who shop at Home Depot for cheap vinyl windows, rails, columns, etc. 
Another issue is scale; this is why you need an architects help, if not that, at least software that will size things up appropriately. Scale is important when building, or remodeling a home, but people focus on the coolness, or newness without knowing the relationship of scale. Or, some people don't think it is important.
