Day 1 of construction-any tips?

misskrysbaby · May 2012

Hello there, I'm Krystle, I mostly lurk around these parts, I post on H&F more really. Today is officially Day 1 of construction on our new home, we've done the whole design center deal, signed the contract with the LO and now here we are! All of the preliminaries took about three weeks total for us and the build is supposed to be anywhere from 8 weeks to 12 weeks (crosses fingers). Do you guys have any tips for H & I on getting through this process with our sanity still intact? Anything I should be looking for when I go to the build site?

srs5624 · May 2012

It's been about 10 years and a major recession and housing crash since I had a house built, so I'll take the humor route and let someone else answer in a serious manner.

misskrysbaby:

Do you guys have any tips for H & I on getting through this process with our sanity still intact?

Keep liquor on hand. 8-12 weeks isn't bad, but if you get bored I suggest learning how to make mixed drinks. You'll have the best parties on the block if you can sling the bottles like you were an extra in Cocktail.

Anything I should be looking for when I go to the build site?

Ideally, construction workers building a house.

brianabrad · May 2012

Congrats! My biggest tip would be to make time to go to the job site every day or two. In the early stages, foundation, framing, roof, etc things will move very quickly and you want to make sure everything is being done correctly. DH and I will be the first to admit we know nothing about construction of a house, however, we know enough to know if something looks wrong. For example, while framing our new house they missed the water lines. Basically, in our kitchen they framed the water lines to the outside of the house, instead of the inside. How does this happen? I have no idea but it was a big err moment for us. It was fixed a few days later when we brought it to the attention of our agent and builder.

Don't be afraid to question anything! If something looks wrong, it probably is.

Take lots of pictures! Construction will move along so fast you'll have fun looking back at the progress. I've been keeping a blog of our experience and its been a lot of fun to go back and look at from time to time.

Have fun!

MNVegas · May 2012

Looks like we are about on the same schedule. Our new construction started yesterday. Agree w/pp about visiting site if you are able. We are building in Florida and currently live in Rhode Island, so won't be able to check on things as often as we would if we were building locally. We do plan on flying down a few times to check things out including for our pre-drywall inspection. Also our sales person will be sending us photos to keep us updated on the build.

brianabrad · May 2012

One more thought I just had while reading MNVegas post, check into local building requirements and find out about inspections that the city requires. We are lucky to live in an area with very strict city inspections at every stage. If you don't make sure and ask for a pre-drywall inspection to ensure the wiring, insulation, etc has been done correctly.

misskrysbaby · May 2012

brianabrad:
One more thought I just had while reading MNVegas post, check into local building requirements and find out about inspections that the city requires. We are lucky to live in an area with very strict city inspections at every stage. If you don't make sure and ask for a pre-drywall inspection to ensure the wiring, insulation, etc has been done correctly.

That's a good idea! I know we do have a walk through when they do the wiring so they can show us where it's going. I'll have to see if there are any other inspections we can ask for.

MrsPM · May 2012

I agree with other posters. We were only able to visit the house once per week due to our work schedules. Even with that we were able to catch things that needed to get done.

We were amazed at how fast framing went. The whole house was framed in 2 days. We made a special visit during the week that week because we were told it would be fast.

Definitely get lots of pictures. Especially before drywall. During our electrical walk-through we took pictures of every wall. We've only been in the house for a little over a month and it's already been a good resource.

Enjoy it..It's really fun seeing it all come together!

SusanH. · May 2012

We custom built and I was at the job site daily....sometimes 2X a day! I was expected to show up often so if the builder had any questions, I could answer them. Going daily allowed me to be sure things were as I thought they should be. Sometimes I didnt under stand some of the processes, but my builder was great and would explain things if I wasnt clear on them.

There were a few times I didnt like something a sub-contractor did and my builder ( who was also my GC) would step in and clear up the issue.

The buiding of our house consumed our lives for many months, but well worth it in the end.

MrsPM · May 2012

I forgot to mention, once the furnace is in make sure to change out your filter as often. The dust and the paint will collect quick. Buy a bunch of cheap filters and switch them out. Everytime we went we switched and they were full every time.

misskrysbaby · May 2012

MrsPM:
I agree with other posters. We were only able to visit the house once per week due to our work schedules. Even with that we were able to catch things that needed to get done.

What kinds of things did you catch? We plan on being there daily, if not daily then every other day. We have vacation all next week and I'm sure we'll be camped out there all week.

brianabrad · May 2012

MrsPM:
I forgot to mention, once the furnace is in make sure to change out your filter as often. The dust and the paint will collect quick. Buy a bunch of cheap filters and switch them out. Everytime we went we switched and they were full every time.

Good point and also be prepared for it to stink to high heaven the first time you turn it on. My coworker said in her new house when she first turned it on it was terrible and set off all her smoke alarms.

brianabrad · May 2012

misskrysbaby:
MrsPM:
I agree with other posters. We were only able to visit the house once per week due to our work schedules. Even with that we were able to catch things that needed to get done.
What kinds of things did you catch? We plan on being there daily, if not daily then every other day. We have vacation all next week and I'm sure we'll be camped out there all week.

I'll add a few to this:

- They did pour our back patio large enough

- They missed their mark when doing the plumbing

- They add cable jacks in really odd spots so we asked them to add others in "better" / more preferred spots and they did

That's all we have so far . .

lovemymonkey · May 2012

it's been several years since we built so my memory is foggy, but here are a couple of things we found helpful:

1. Take lots of photos, especially after framing. I still pull out those photos occasionally when I've had to hang something heavy on the walls just so I could remember where the studs were or if there were any pipes behind that wall.

2. Hire an independent home inspector to inspect after framing/plumbing/electrical but before drywall, even if you have county inspectors coming out. Our builder thought it was overkill, but our inspector found things that needed to be corrected that the county inspector did not. One that I remember off the top of my head is mold on some beams that we had our builder treat before the drywell went up. Once the drywall is up, a home inspector wouldn't have been able to see that.

We recently had our basement remodeled and county inspectors came out for electrical, plumbing, framing, drywall and final inspections. The plumbing inspector found an issue with the plumbing, but all the other inspections were a total joke. One inspector went down into the basement and then came up literally 2 minutes later. I'm pretty sure he just filled in the "pass inspection" sticker, stuck it on the door and left. Anyway, I highly recommend hiring your own home inspector.

3. Don't be afraid to ask questions or to ask the builder to fix something you're not happy with. you're spending a lot of money on your house, don't hold back. Take a camera with you on your visits and take pictures of things that you don't like so you can email it to your builder. We did this all.the.time. I'm sure everytime they saw an email from us, they moaned.

good luck and have fun!!

MrsPM · May 2012

brianabrad:
misskrysbaby:
MrsPM:

I agree with other posters. We were only able to visit the house once per week due to our work schedules. Even with that we were able to catch things that needed to get done.

What kinds of things did you catch? We plan on being there daily, if not daily then every other day. We have vacation all next week and I'm sure we'll be camped out there all week.

I'll add a few to this:

- They did pour our back patio large enough

- They missed their mark when doing the plumbing

- They add cable jacks in really odd spots so we asked them to add others in "better" / more preferred spots and they did

That's all we have so far . .

We asked for our walkout basement windows to be placed in a non-standard location. They framed it to the standard locations. It was corrected after we told our builder.

We asked for an extra outlet in our kitchen island. Since the island wasn't there at the electrical walk through we couldn't mark it off our list as being done. A week before closing we noticed it still wasn't there. It got corrected before our final walk through after we told the builder.

That's another thing. Bring your list of what options you chose. So as your walking through the house you can mark off what's been complete or not.

Day 1 of construction-any tips?

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