Building in Timberon (Las Cruces, Alamogordo, La Luz: trip , job, mobile home)

[Apache Flats]

My husband and I are both semi-retired and just bought a wonderful piece of land in Timberon. He has a teaching certificate in building trades and has taught CAD and welding in highschool. We have also restored a Victorian house in Galveston. He has always wanted to build his own house. We are not quite sure where to start. We have contacted the state building rep., but it seems that they really want a contractor to build. Any help or advice you can give us would be helpful.

Apache Flats

[chilegal]

Egglady and her husband are building up in Timberon. Try checking with here on what they did.

[GregW]

With all that experience you hubby should apply for a general contractors license and get on with building your house. After all the GC only has to know what has to be done and how to hire honest specialists for the tricky stuff. In that remote an area I would seriously consider a manufactured house set on a concrete foundation or a Structural Insulated Panel (SIP) that could be built in a couple of days and than plumbed, wired and finished by you both.

Great area, good luck and have fun.

[chilegal]

You can get a license to build your home, but they would rather have a contractor build as they do not have to come out as much to inspect. And your inspector is out of Las Cruces. There are to many people that do not know what they are doing that want to build. When that happens it takes about 3 times as many trips for the inspector. You can be your own general contractor.
There are many stick built homes being built up in Timberon. Just do your research.
Jane

[Pipeweld]

As Will Robinsons's robot Said " Warning Warnng"!! If you do a mobile home make sure to get a PE inspector to approve the design, and the state mobile home inspector to approve it as a permanent foundation so you can convert to ''Real Proberty'' if you ever want to resale or the banks will not fianance.
I know this one way to well !!! If your buying a mobile without P.F. It takes a minium of about 60 days to get this done. The state MH Inspector does not even have to inspect for 90 days after he gets notified. But thank goodness it worked out for us. Hope this helps anyone buying or selling in NM.

[mtncat]

Originally Posted by chilegal

You can get a license to build your home, but they would rather have a contractor build as they do not have to come out as much to inspect. And your inspector is out of Las Cruces. There are to many people that do not know what they are doing that want to build. When that happens it takes about 3 times as many trips for the inspector. You can be your own general contractor.
There are many stick built homes being built up in Timberon. Just do your research.
Jane

Uh, NO. Ron LaClare the state building inspector is out of the La Luz area. He is the inspector/Southern NM supervisor. He does the building and plumbing and Mark (I can't recall his last name off the top of my head) does the electrical.
Makes no difference if you do it yourself or you hire a contractor the number of inspections is the same. Their main problem with the do it your selfers is the number of times they have to go to a site to inspect, tell you to change it and then come back again for the same inspection.
Should you decide to get your GC lic and you establish yourself I.E build your reputation for GOOD work it is really not uncommon to call for an inspection, be asked if it's done right and then be told to go ahead and they will take a look at it next trip out. This does NOT apply to electrical. Mark is very good at what he does and will inspect every job on the list.
One thing I will also say is that you should NEVER try to pull a "fast one" with these folks. They are all good people but once you have the reputation of trying to fool them they will go over your job with a fine tooth comb and call you on ANY problem in spite of size.
Best of luck to you. If you need any local help advice drop me a PM
Mike

[chilegal]

Thanks Mtncat for correcting me. I heard he was out of Las Cruces, or is that where you need to go to get the permit? Guess I will not answer this type of question again as I hate to say the wrong thing.

[mtncat]

chilegal, you apply for the permit in Las Cruces and possibly on line (not sure about online as it has been awhile since I had to do the applying)
Ya'll take care got to get to work, got a roof to do today

[wa3pnt]

When I was in Alamo a few weeks back there was an issue about the Electrical Inspector leaving and nobody to take his place. Per the newspaper, construction was taking a major hit because of no Inspector.

The City of Alamo has/had a set of Standards that did not match the State Standards. When the City tried to get help (an inspector) from the State, they were told that they would have to adopt the State Regulations/Standards for ALL construction areas before the State would help.

I did not hear the final outcome, and have not seen anything in the newspaper (I read it on line). Nothing in the City Council Meeting Minutes on the resolution that I've found, but it takes quite a while for Alamo to post the Council Minutes.

George

[wa3pnt]

I did a search of the Alamogordo Daily News archives and found the articles. Search the archives at this URL for the word "inspector".

Alamogordo Daily News - Archive Search

George