Building a custom home...what you wish you had known (plumber, cheapest)

[redlodge]

We have bought a lot and are in the process of getting ready to build. So for those of you who have built on an unimproved lot with a custom/semi custom builder what do you wish you had known before starting??

Some days I'm thinking what did we get ourselves into?

[Sand&Salt]

We built a split-level because it was a hillside home. We used plans specifically for hillside homes.
When we went to sell it, all the realtors called the lower level a "basement". Good grief. Took a big hit because of that ridiculous nomenclature.


Take-away: Just build the boring crap that everyone else is used to seeing for that area. Also, in-suite master baths were just becoming the norm and ours wasn't. Another hit.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by redlodge

We have bought a lot and are in the process of getting ready to build. So for those of you who have built on an unimproved lot with a custom/semi custom builder what do you wish you had known before starting??

Some days I'm thinking what did we get ourselves into?

Presumably you shopped around for existing homes and decided that there was nothing that made financial sense for you to purchase and modify. If so then the best advice is treat not like a race to get the finish line, but a heck of a journey. You WILL learn more about the potential delays than you ever dreamed of and even if this is the best builder in the world you will find out long after the fact there were more than few things that could have went better.

The worst possible situation is to plan a big time critical celebration and have the house remain unfinished for that deadline, but you should have a real honest to goodness "critical calendar" that is hopefully enforced by a third party (ideally a lender) that makes it imperative for the builder to at least understand the consequences of delays.

Do not start until you are 100% satisfied with all the critical choices like the exterior size / siting / material and mostly on the same page about key interior choices. That said, if something does change during the build discuss ahead of time how such things will be handled -- upcharges for real additional costs are one thing but charges that are mostly to keep YOU from deciding how your house becomes custom are a ripoff to be avoided.

Part of me also wants to warn you that building even a dream home is not like getting a fancy exotic car. Builders that have an attitude of "if you have to ask you can't afford it" are going to end up talking you into something that is so over budget that you can go bankrupt. That said I have seen a shocking number of "custom homes" that suggest somebody decided to use so much "builder grade" stuff as a way to afford a larger footprint that they end up with home less appealing than smaller more well appointed tract home... It is a hard balance!

Share your outlines here before you commit to building, lots cheaper to make changes when things are in the wishlist or sketch stage than when changes mean the saws and wrecking bars are needed!

[jerseyj]

Our home is in the final stages of completion, the lot was prepped last Sept. and there have been no major weather events to slow the process.
Be patient.

If this is a true custom build where you are working with an Architect/Designer it really helps to have a good idea of what you invision the house to be.....down to the door knobs, counters, etc. Those decisions can get mind boogling if you haven't looked around and "pre-selected" your wish list. Staying in budget can become challenging...think, kid in a candy shop.

If you are building from an "off the shelf house plan" disregard the above.

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by redlodge

We have bought a lot and are in the process of getting ready to build. So for those of you who have built on an unimproved lot with a custom/semi custom builder what do you wish you had known before starting??

Some days I'm thinking what did we get ourselves into?

make sure you have all your upgrades and the price of the upgrades hammered out before any building commences. change orders during the process seem to come with extraordinary pricing.

[pikabike]

We had a house custom built for us because we could not find what we liked in a location we liked.

Anyway, one thing I wish I had not done was to let the plumber choose the bathroom fixtures. I had selected a kitchen sink and fixtures and told him to pick bathroom fixtures with the same type of finish. Well, he did but they were not that attractive. As for the kitchen sink, he had told me that what I wanted was not available except at some ridiculous price. I found some online at Lowe's, priced for half what he claimed I would have to pay to get what I wanted. I bought it myself rather than put up with his BS. He also did not shield the plumbing in the garage sink from winter cold. Usually in that region winter temps did not get very cold, but in the first two winters we had some unusual spells that prompted us to run a portable oil-filled radiator nearby to prevent freeze-up. Having moved from (and now back TO) a region with cold winters, we knew we had to do something with that uninsulated plumbing. It worked, BTW, but we were not impressed by the plumber's lack of caution for such things. Aesthetic choices in fixtures is just about looks, but frozen pipes is a problem.

The major elements of the build turned out well, but in the future I would visit the work in progress more often than I did. While I didn't want to micromanage the workers (and they did a very good job overall), next time I would want to see more of the building process, mainly to learn something.

[pikabike]

Originally Posted by jerseyj

Our home is in the final stages of completion, the lot was prepped last Sept. and there have been no major weather events to slow the process.
Be patient.

If this is a true custom build where you are working with an Architect/Designer it really helps to have a good idea of what you invision the house to be.....down to the door knobs, counters, etc. Those decisions can get mind boogling if you haven't looked around and "pre-selected" your wish list. Staying in budget can become challenging...think, kid in a candy shop.

If you are building from an "off the shelf house plan" disregard the above.

Yes, yes, yes! If you have not considerered every detail in advance, seeing pages of choices for interior details towards the end will seem overwhelming. I kept saying, "There are so many things we take for granted when buying an existing finished house." These choices are wonderful, but there are so MANY of them.

[Okey Dokie]

Originally Posted by pikabike

Yes, yes, yes! If you have not considerered every detail in advance, seeing pages of choices for interior details towards the end will seem overwhelming. I kept saying, "There are so many things we take for granted when buying an existing finished house." These choices are wonderful, but there are so MANY of them.

When we built our home, the one thing I was NOT prepared to select was the color of the grout for the bathroom tiles. Never occurred to me I'd be asked that.

The house we were building was not far from our house at the time. We liked to go over every night after dinner to see what had happened that day. Took pictures every step of the way. Called it my baby book.

[Zen88]

Consider wide doors in case you need to get a wheelchair into and throughout the house.

Consider having pipes especially in-wall pipes insulated, and insulate the bathroom walls, and use solid doors on the bathroom to keep bathroom related noises down.

Get upgraded exhaust fans in the bathrooms. The cheapo fans are loud and move very little air.

Consider two phone lines throughout the house, and phone lines in the bathroom (the phone only rings when you're in the bathroom).

Central vacuum.

Conveniently located and accessed return for central HVAC so you can clean or replace filters without too much trouble.

Make sure you're getting double insulated windows.

How long are the roof shingles warranteed for?

Consider a tankless water heater.

Make sure they use wonder board instead of the green sheetrock when they tile in the showers. It's a cement board that is better than even the green sheet rock. The green rock goes everywhere else in the bathroom but not in the shower.

Find out about fixtures and fittings, like faucets and lighting, because they will use the cheapest crap they can find.

Get extra hose barbs so you don't need miles of garden hoses to get around to the other side of the house.

If you want a security system, have it installed before the walls go up for obvious reasons. This includes wiring for cameras and maybe an intercom.

Extra outside lighting may be useful.

A slop sink in the garage may be useful so no one has to wash up in the kitchen sink after working outside or changing the oil.

If they're not installing underground sprinklers, have them leave a connection or enough pipe exposed so that it can be done in future.

I know this is a long list, I hope some of this will be useful to you.

[ss20ts]

The only issue that came up was that I absolutely hated the flooring I picked out for the bathrooms. We used the same flooring in both bathrooms. The builder offered to change it and we' have to pay for it. I said no I would live with it. A few months after moving in, it no longer bothered me.

There were small delays. Mostly waiting for the permits. Getting permits issued from Thanksgiving until the beginning of January was a royal pain. Our builder said they dealt with it every year and it was always the same which I believe since the county wasn't known for doing anything with any speed/sense of urgency.

Make sure the upgrades you picked out and paid for are done! I found 3 upgrades we paid for and picked out at the design center. The GC had to have them all changed before we closed. He really didn't want to, but we paid for them and I wasn't taking no for an answer.