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I am in the process of getting a new addition and am learning a lot about the process that I would like to share. This is my own personal experience that is happening now.
I have a tiny 1-story ranch (or cape not sure) less than 800 sq ft with 2 bedrooms and 1 bath.
My goal is to extend the back about 12 feet and to add a full 2nd story.
The way I see it is that you can hire someone like an architect up front to help you decide what you want to do.......... or you can decide for yourself. For us, we decided ourselves. We want 3 bedrooms all on the same floor each with their own bathroom (where one bedroom is a nice master suite). And we want a larger kitchen and an open floor plan. Total square footage will go from 750 to 2300 sq ft.
Once we new what we wanted, the fun started. We already had a "survey" of the property so we took the following steps.
1. Emailed the local township zoning officer to ask about setbacks (how far from the property lines we are allowed to build)
Answer: our property is zoned something called R6 because the land area is ~0.25 Acre (~10,800 square feet). Our set backs are 15 feet from each side and from the back, and 25 feet from the front.
Also the zoning officer indicated we could not build more than 30 feet high.
Step 2. Next I did some research on the net, such as looking at this site, then I drove around the neighborhood looking for signs of construction on other homes, and wrote down the builders numbers from their lawn signs. I also ended up on a website called homeadvisor.com filling out a form, that resulted in 4 contractors calling me. (I ultimately selected one of them to do the sealed drawings).
Step 3. The hardest part was selecting a contactor so ultimately I selected one that had an architect, nice website, good reviews on the net, and a good "better business bureau" rating.... primarily to do my sealed drawings for bidding. We agreed I would pay them for finalizing the design and drawings ready for permitting and I could bid it out to any contractor I wanted including them. They were so thorough that before giving me a bid they brought their own subcontracted Mason, Framer, Electrician, Plumber, Architect and HVAC guy to the house to get actual bids on the job and measure everything so that they could provide a guaranteed price. They even went in the attic and in the crawl space.
Is that typically what contractors do?
I was both shocked and impressed. Most impressive was their bid of ~$105 per sq foot.
As retired former contractor let me give you a little advise based on my 30 years in the contracting business.
Make sure your archetict provides you with a set of specs. along with construction drawings. Make sure your bidders get copies of the spects. This insures they are all bidding on the work using the exact same materials. This usually weeds out the low ballers.
Try to get five bids from referred contractors. Throw out the reduculously low and high bids. Your fair price will be with the middle three. Pick the one of them you are most comfortable with.
You already got a bid of $105 so if you get a bid of 120-140-150-200 it's pretty obvious your $105 bid is too low.
I am just using these numbers as an example. I have been retired for 10 years so I have no idea what prices are today.
Good luck.
One more thing, negotiate a payment plan that is fair to you and the contractor, he needs to get paid for his work and materials and you need to see work being done promptly.
OP, $105 per square foot ... in New Jersey? Something seems off ... for that kind of work, I am astonished that you could get a bid that low. And that includes all those extra bathrooms?
Read the fine print ... I hope it IS that good, but again, something seems off.
I work in construction management (commercial). This contractor could also be bidding low becuase of the previous relationship (and trust) from doing the drawings. They win the work and then BOOM, the change orders and extra work tickets start hitting.
Before i address the responses, i wanted to add that somewhere in step2 i bought some large graph paper and used my survey to lay out my plans to make sure i did not violate any zoning rules, and to show the architect of roughly what we are looking to do.
Now concerning the rough bid. This is the bid without the architects drawings...it may go up or down once the drawings are bid to multiple contractors. But I guess I am mis-informed because I thought the bid was expensive. We are just simple folk and 160 thousand dollars is a lot of money.
The house is a simple little rectangle that we want to push out 12 feet in the back. and add a simple rectangle above the entire thing, nothing fancy.
A few years ago my neighbor's boss bought a new construction home at 4400 sq feet of living area, 2 car garage, 15 minutes from us on 0.75 acre for 600k here in NJ and even if the land and garages were free (and they are not) that would be ~ 136 dollars per square foot. Also, he added a 4th bath room for an additional $8000 (or the price would have been 592k).
We are not getting anything fancy just basic wood floors, basic tiles, and basic fixtures. and tearing down one small non load bearing wall.
Concerning the existing structure. It is built on an 8 inch cinderblock foundation 3 feet deep sitting on concrete footings that are 16"wide (crawl space that is in excellent condition, bone dry with a cement floor). I was told the soil bearing capacity is over 3000 psi in this area and that the foundation can support a 2nd story because that is the same foundation that is used in this area to build 2 story homes and that is the foundation that they are going to build to support the 2 story portion of the addition....but i will leave that in the architects hands.
Since I own the land and am not building a garage or anything fancy just basic double pane windows (7 or eight I believe) and vinyl siding, I am wondering what could drive the price so high?
Concerning the existing structure. It is built on an 8 inch cinderblock foundation 3 feet deep sitting on concrete footings that are 16"wide (crawl space that is in excellent condition, bone dry with a cement floor). I was told the soil bearing capacity is over 3000 psi in this area and that the foundation can support a 2nd story because that is the same foundation that is used in this area to build 2 story homes and that is the foundation that they are going to build to support the 2 story portion of the addition....but i will leave that in the architects hands.
Since I own the land and am not building a garage or anything fancy just basic double pane windows (7 or eight I believe) and vinyl siding, I am wondering what could drive the price so high?
Key1
Architects arent engineers. They don't do structural/load analysis. Are you working with an A/E (Architectural/Engineering) firm that has engineers on staff to do these calcs? The last thing you want to do is get started only to find out the foundation is no good, and then BOOM, your first 30K change order.
The Architect is part of a firm that has a structural engineer. Thanks for pointing this out as I will make sure I protect myself as much as possible in the contract with whoever I end up going with.
Key1
The Architect is part of a firm that has a structural engineer. Thanks for pointing this out as I will make sure I protect myself as much as possible in the contract with whoever I end up going with.
Key1
Things like this need to be addressed before you get started. The calcs and foundation analysis should come from a registered PE. That is the only way you can protect yourself from liability. I'd have a structural engineer personally check out the foundation as well. Its one thing to say, yes under ideal conditions, the foundation could support the new structure, only to find out its cracked or bowing etc and can't actually support the new structure.
Your contract needs to be IRON CLAD putting all of the risk on the contractor.
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