The most crucial step in a home build that no one thinks about is the foundation. It’s a minor foot note, there’s a pun in there, to the grand vision that is your home. Yes, breaking ground is an exciting step in the process of home building, but it sets the stage for everything else to come together properly. This is not a portion of the building process that I recommend doing yourself. Unless you are extremely knowledgeable with the process of determining trench widths, setting grades, incline drops, and precision excavation, I’d leave this step to the professionals. The mere mention that we were going outside of our contractors list of usual subs for this step had him very nervous. A lot can go wrong in this step. If the excavators don’t consider extra distance for backfilling, aren’t level with the dig, or don’t take the final grade into account it can mean huge setbacks or inflated costs with the concrete pouring or masonry. It wasn’t until our contractor showed up to the groundbreaking and saw the crew working that he was at ease with the situation. With that being said, we were very fortunate to know someone who worked in the construction business. Not just the construction business, but a foreman for a footing crew. He had been working in excavation for roughly 12 years and was very knowledgeable with the process. After an initial meeting, we were confident that he’d be able to give us a proper foundation and save us a little money at the same time. After that first meeting, we were under the impression that it would just be our friend and maybe one other helper, that would check grade for him. When the day came to break ground, we were all a little shocked to see two 18 wheelers parked in the driveway with some large equipment that is usually reserved for bigger jobs, and a crew of 4. Within minutes of arriving and painting out their paths, the digging was underway. We were very glad our friend decided to bring the extra help. We knew it was a large job, but it took both excavators running for about 6 hours to knock out the digging. It was methodical and constant. One excavator dug the interior footings, while the other dug the exterior trench. Only stopping to verify the walls were solid and check for the next drop they would need to account for the slope. The skill and expertise involved in digging a foundation is astounding. If you want the job done right, make sure you or your contractor has confidence in the crew that will be doing your digging. It may save you some dollars and heartache down the road.
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Guys, mistakes were made, things were underestimated. When it came time for us to actually get the land ready to build on, it was so much more than we had anticipated. Our house is sitting close to the middle of 10 wooded acres. That meant we had to create a driveway and clear a place for the house. Luckily the driveway, which is roughly 1100 feet long, went mostly through a field. This meant far fewer trees to clear. Still, we ended up clearing just under 2 acres of land for the house to sit on. In the midst of doing this, we learned a few things. First, when hiring a logging company, be very clear on the expectations. I came from Idaho and in all my experience with logging companies, they came, cut down the area, took the wood they could use, cleaned up everything else, and then paid you a portion of what they were making from the logs. We wrongly assumed that is what would happen here in North Carolina. Different geographical area, different experience. While the logging company came and cut down the desired area, they left a huge mess. All the stumps were left and the tops of all the hardwoods. We were left with a huge undertaking. I don't know if we could have negotiated with them to clean up, but had I known they wouldn't automatically do it, I sure would have tried. After seeing what was left, Alan very briefly thought he could clean it up himself with the tractor. It wasn't long before we knew we need some professionals. The second thing we learned about this process was to shop around for quotes. Let me lay out all we had to do so you can see what all we were paying for: 1. Cut in a 1100 foot driveway with about 250 feet of it being through woods. 2. Placing 4 drain pipes over spillways and a small creek. 3. Cleaning up the tree tops and stumps from just under 2 acres. For this, we allowed them to pile them up and burn what they could and bury the rest. This saved a lot of money. 4. Some initial grading 5. 4 loads of gravel. For a finished driveway we really need 10, but since numerous trucks would be going up and down throwing gravel for the next few months, we just did the bare minimum. The first quote we got was shocking to say the least. I had moments of thinking "Well, guess we aren't building there!" They said it would be a minimum of $25,000. We were floored, we couldn't believe how much it was going to cost. Luckily, my persistent husband decided to keep shopping around. We couldn't spend forever getting quotes because we needed the land ready, but we were able to get a few more numbers. We managed to find a company that was just beginning to move away from their hourly jobs to venture out on their own. They had been doing this work for 15 years, but wanted to start their own company and needed new clients. This was great for us because they quoted half of what the other, larger companies had bid. This still came with some cons though. They hadn't left their full time jobs yet, so they were fitting us in on the weekends. This plus the awful weather meant this project took 6 weeks rather than the week and half it would have taken a crew working through the week. This leads me into the final lesson we learned; have patience and managing expectations. Weather can't be controlled. And since we decided to choose a crew that only worked on the weekends, we really had to manage our time table expectations. Unfortunately, it rained almost every weekend. While we were still frustrated, ultimately it was out of the crew's hands and we just had to be patient. If I could sum it up into a few main takeaways, here's what it would be: 1. Be very clear on what you are getting or expect from your logging crew 2. You most likely cannot do it on your own 3. Shop around for quotes and be open to other options (like a crew trying to build their business) 4. If possible, allow them to burn and bury stumps and scraps on the land, it will save you a lot of money 5. If a crew talks about bringing dirt in, see if there is any place else on your land that you can take dirt from first 6. If you are having a gravel drive, just put the minimum gravel needed first because you will be replacing it after construction is done I hope you learn from some of our mistakes and save a little time and maybe some money! This is a question we were asked all the time when few people knew that we were already months into the process of building our home. For us, we had almost 6 months worth of things to do before the actual "building" of our home started. So where exactly do you start? It can be one of two places for you. Either with a home plan or with finding land to build on. We already had the land, so our first step was finding a house plan. (Check back for the next post dealing with prepping our land for building). Now some might think that you would start with a bank, however, that isn't exactly true. If you are hoping to get a construction loan, the bank will require a quote from a contractor based on the house plans you have chosen.
Actually looking at house plans can be very overwhelming, so its helpful to sit down prior and really think about all the elements you "need" in your house and what additional things you "want". Also consider things like the number of floors you want. If you are wanting a larger home, one stories are typically slightly more expensive. Most contractors will give you an initial general quote using price per square foot, so it is nice to have an idea how large of a home you are wanting. Home plan websites will let you use multiple filters to narrow down the search. Here are a few you can try: www.familyhomeplans.com/ www.thehousedesigners.com www.theplancollection.com When it came to choosing our plan, I had a fairly good idea of what I thought our family needed. And also, it was important to me that we chose something that would work for us for the rest of our lives (which we are only in our early 30's, so hopefully that is quite a while), because we are building on our families land. The reality is that we won't be selling this house to do something else later, so we it really needs to work. Knowing that, I formed my requirements: 1. Mostly single level living. 80 year old me may not want to go up stairs everyday. 2. Room for my family to visit, that meant 4 bedrooms. 3. My husband needs an office separate from the guest bedroom. 4. A formal dining room, and a separate casual eating area. 5. Play area for the kiddos, one that can be a "cool" teen spot later on 6. Numbers 1-5 had to be under 2500 sq ft. After figuring all this out, honestly we only had a few house plans to choose from. Once I saw the see-through fireplace on the home plan we chose, I fell in love. That was it, we were sold, and nothing else compared. I can't promise that it will be that easy for you, but I hope you do fall in love with something! |
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