I'm looking at building a home as a first time home owner in the next few years. One thing I'm wondering is how many headaches can I avoid if I just choose an expensive builder and not try to haggle or save a buck at every turn? I just want a 2-bedroom, 1,000 sq ft bungalow and am willing to pay 60-70% more than the average $/sqft in my city if they do a good job. I'd rather have a nice small place rather than a huge place full of issues and corner cutting. Can I just throw more money at the problem so that I'm less stressed and offload more decisions to the builders?
Unfortunately, if you want it done right, you really have to be involved. Frequent checking on the work and hounding the people to fix it. Which also means you need to know enough about construction to ask the right questions to figure out what's right or not. It's very hard to effectively contract that out. If you can date/marry someone in construction/architecture, and let them supervise, it helps.
You can just pay more and get probably more quality materials, but not necessarily get better workmanship. Saving time by taking shortcuts is just going to happen unless you call them on it a lot.
One thing to keep in mind though, it's good to know what you want, but also be flexible, for example, if you can adjust a bit and get a standard size window instead of your specific window, it will reduce the cost now and probably in the future (unless standards change), doorways are similar... if you get a standard sized door, it makes life much easier.
> Frequent checking on the work and hounding the people to fix it.
Isn't this partially what you pay your architect for? If you're willing to pay top dollar you should be able to find one that's very hands on and coordinates the whole building process as your representative.
This neatly summarizes the dynamics of so many client-contractor relationships. Takes real professional integrity not to exploit the information asymmetry, which I regrettably found to be in short supply in the building trades, at least in the UK.
This is true, but it can be improved. For example, offer a bonus for excellent air tightness and insulation, which can be tested once the home shell is complete. Hire an inspector 1 or 2 times to critique construction along the way.
If the agent insures the quality and is contractually bound to pay all expenses for repair and maintenance, that could avoid a major chunk of the principal-agent problem.
Good luck with enforcing the contract. The cost to prove the agent made the error (and not you or the manufacturer or time) and then other legal costs would probably almost always outweigh the cost to just fix the problem.
It might be possible to materially minimize the probability of error to have 2 agents, one that checks the others’ work. But that also will get costly.
An architect that will do field supervision on a 1,000 sq. ft. house is going to be quite rare. You're more or less relegated to a freshly-minted architect, who may or may not be qualified (not enough experience) to do the kind of double-checking needed.
Of course, paying more money could certainly help, but now you're paying 2,500 sq. ft. prices for a 1,000 sq. ft. house.
There's not really a replacement for doing daily or at least twice-weekly inspections yourself. The architect may catch some things but miss a completely botched plumbing job. And just for fun, every issue you catch will become a fight with the sub-contractor.
Our Architect in Ireland did this for us. He found the builders and also hired a QS and other people to manage cost. It was not at all cheap but well worth it as we were in no position to supervise ourselves. Even for a modest build, it was well worth the cost.
I can't understand how people can spend $$$ on building a new house but try to go cheap on the Architect... All you get is a McMansion.
I just had a house built in Ireland. Our architect was fairly cheap but it was that or nothing. It was a kit house and the builders still half-assed most things (they HATED the idea of making a house reasonably airtight for one) so I've been cleaning up their mess.
I hear you, one would expect a kit house to be fairly straightforward, without needing too much input from an architect. Sorry to hear about your builders (though not surprised). What I had in mind when I made my comment though was my parent's neighbourhood in rural Ireland. A modest bungalow in a field that is now dwarfed by huge McMansions 3x the size every 300m in a strip 10km long. Each one massive, asymmetrical, uniquely ugly, and obviously sketched out on the back of a cigarette packet rather than designed by a competent architect.
Bonus points for a huge set of gates with fancy piers and walls, because god forbid any of your neighbours might swing by casually and say hello. But hurray for the tight-knit rural community right? /rant
hah, honestly the experience has me working on getting out of Ireland. It was a mistake to move here, and doubly one to sink money in to an extension to make our cottage more livable. If it helps, I don't think we're part of one-off ribbon development since the original cottage was 200+ years old. I understand now why the heritage officer was so delighted to meet some chump who didn't realize there's a reason houses in the midlands are so cheap.... and here I thought I was an easy bike ride from a train station with regular service to Heuston, how could it go wrong?
The extension is, in my view, quite nice. We tried to get away with some crazy newfangled ideas like "eaves" and "bug screens" but Ireland shot us down there. People think we're insane not building it out of cinderblocks already.
Speaking of that tight-knit rural community, mostly I know that people can break the law with no consequences and won't talk to anyone their family hasn't known for at least 3 generations. And walking is bizarre and dangerous; the councillor thought I was joking when I asked about getting a footpath to the village 700 meters away.
Of course, if Ireland weren't kicking and screaming about building apartments in the middle of cities neat jobs, schools, transport, and amenities, it would be in a much better position.
Would be happy to compare notes! Email is in my bio.
The architect isn't present at all times. When I paid a company to put some new flooring, paints, etc a few years ago, the interior architect told the guys "the floorboards must always be placed in the direction of light, from the window wall towards the opposite wall". The following morning, I came early into the room, and the guy was dutifully aligning floorboards in the wrong direction. "What are you doing? You're supposed to lay them this way, not that way" "Oh, just testing". My ass. The guy had already forgotten the instructions he received the night before.
In the toilets, the painter dutifully painted shut the plumbing and valves access panel ("you must open the panel before painting everything. And please don't paint the valves"). The electrician was about to pierce a hole between floors 1 foot away from the walls to pass cables through as I stopped him. Etc.
When having an house built, you (or the architect, or some other responsible person with a working brain) must be there looking at everything all the time. And even with that, they will fuck up. They'll lay alternating tiles in the wrong pattern. They'll build stairs of uneven height. They'll put a window in the kitchen that won't open because it hits the faucet. They'll set up doors that open on the wrong side (all of these happened to my in-laws when getting their home built, and they were there watching every day). They'll fuck up every time you don't watch, every single time.
> Architects are about end results and "vision". General contractors, while imperfect, should be about getting it built.
Plenty of architects care about getting the details right. Check out Steve Baczek, who is online a lot, and is very interested in building science details.
I think some architects will offer this kind of supervision of the project as a service. I don’t know to what extent these are handled by different people at the firm from the design part but I expect there are small firms where one person can do both.
I think it’s wrong to think that all architects are like celebrity architects. If you’re designing a house there may be room for weird designs (if that’s what the client wants) but I think there’s also just a lot of technical or boring details that are handled by architects too.
On home construction, some people use an architect to get their plans stamped and that's it. Those architects aren't supervising construction at all.
But, if you've hired the architect to supervise construction, you've still got to supervise the architect. Maybe you only have to hound the architect to get issues fixed and let them figure out who fixes it, though; and they'll likely get a lot of things fixed without you, but you'll still get better results with regular supervision than hands off.
>Isn't this partially what you pay your architect for? If you're willing to pay top dollar you should be able to find one that's very hands on and coordinates the whole building process as your representative.
It is amazing how separate most architects are from the actual implementation. I sort of wish architects were required to apprentice as builders before doing design.
I recently built a custom house with a long time friend as the architect and have a family member I could talk to who is an architect. Additionally there was a structural engineer involved in the project for things like truss design and sheer calculations I could talk. That's a lot of talent and experience in residential and commercial design!
On the other hand my father is a general contractor and I have some construction experience and grew up around roofers, framers, etc.
All the architects I talked to frequently had very low visibility into the difficulty and cost factors of their design proposals.
For example: flush baseboards make the wall super clean and don't get dinged up. But no indie contractors in our area can install them.
Curves on drywall interior walls will match the curves in the plastered exterior walls - but while wetted 1/4 inch drywall will bend a pretty tight inside curve it can't be attached to an outside curve because it pulls through the fasteners - I ended up kerf cutting plywood to make the bend, priming it for adhesion and plastering the curves with help from a high end plaster specialist.
High windows downstairs go all the way to the ceiling inside which looks more balanced on the outside... but would require a small "vault" in the otherwise flat ceiling... Which would have affected the framing of the wall, required at least one custom floor truss instead of a standard TJI, made for super complicated trim in the affected rooms, required a very non-standard window size, and an expensive plaster detail at each such window. On my investigation it was going to be at least $25K to make 4 windows 8" taller!
In my experience custom home building architects generally were not very construction aware. Talking about installation practices or costs usually resulted in advice to "get a bid"! Despite being very pleased with my architectural collaboration I don't think hands-on supervision of actual building practice is likely a realistic expectation from a typical architect.
I’ve worked in construction. For independent Architects, you get plan and some schematics, but that’s it. An architectural firm may provide the white glove treatment by managing the build, getting engineers involved, and basically making sure it’s done right. It is not cheap and most certainly not accessible to the average home builder.
No. That’s still a lottery and you are basically saying I’m paying more, so I expect a better service. This does not guarantee results. At all.
What you want is a third party.
Someone who understands the trade and the codes and will check in on the building site daily and will make sure everything is being done correctly. And if it’s not, will stop work and put everyone in their place.
I frankly have no idea what the term for that is in America, but we call them freelance foremen where I’m from. Current going rate per month is roughly 1.5x minimum wage in my country.
May sound like a lot of money for someone just doing checking, but that’s only until you find out how expensive lack of oversight can be.
Ask around, many building companies offer these services, so company a builds the house, and an inspector from unrelated company b does the daily inspection. But ideally you’d find a one man band man, who’s really gonna be on your side.
That person is called a construction supervisor: someone hired by the owner who makes sure the contractor is doing good work and not ripping you off, as well as keeping the owner in line and making sure they don’t get in the contractor’s way, delay decisions etc.
Around here they aren’t interested in projects under $5M.
In some parts of the world, mine in Europe included, those guys are required by law and are usually employed by the municipality (but the construction project owners are charged for their services via a special fee).
They take on some personal responsibility for the way the construction project is handled (at least for the things that fall within their purview).
That sounds like building inspectors in the US. They vary widely in competence, but all will ensure the permit fees are paid and property taxes raised; most will ensure the work is done to code; approximately none will ensure the work is built to plan details.
That is annoying part - even if you could overspend and match salary for the guy - it still not guaranteed they will work for you. Mostly because anyone who is good is swamped with requests and can choose what they will work on.
I think Dvele (http://dvele.com) is one option in the US for this. I'd love to hear about others. They build in SD and ship in the lower 48 afaik. Would love to hear other options. Our budget to expand and my opinion of gc's after hearing an unending litany of horror stories are at the point that I'd be quite glad to pay a premium for a known, factory-made product.
I don't know, from experience Huf Haus is (while being very expensive) offering a level of quality (both in the construction and in the details/personalization) that I haven't seen in other EU firms, it is very possible that there are US firms at the same level, though from the little I have seen they are on par on the "other" EU ones (possibly good, but not exceptionally good).
If I recall correctly, Huf Haus is around since forever, before WW1, and they continuously evolved, their solutions are more than well tested, as "perfect" as they can be.
The great advantage of the "fully integrated pre-fab" (such as Huf House and similar) is that IF/WHEN the project is done, the result will be exactly what has been designed, the great disadvantage is that once the project has been approved, NO changes are possible (and again from experience it is a rare case that the customer/owner is capable of fully understand the project in all its details).
Back to the OP question the issue (generally speaking and in my experience) is about coordination of the various figures involved, typically here (EU, Italy) you will have several people:
1) land surveyor
2) architect (here the architect is more about design than building)
3) engineer (structural)
4) engineer (hydraulics)
5) engineer (electric)
6) general contractor or builder
7) various sub-contractors (electrician, plumber, etc.)
The common issue is that each of them (usually) have a somewhat "narrow" view, limited to their particular field, and often (please read as "always") they don't communicate properly among them and with the customer/owner.
The exception (as well usually) is, or should be, the general contractor, but an experienced enough one is unlikely to be available for a single house building or will dedicate to it too little time.
Mind you each of the figures I mentioned are in most cases very good at what they do, but, in the absence of someone who coordinates the project and execution, it is common that the result is not as good as it could be.
There are (were) people (shameless plug I am or was one of them) that while not specialists in anything have the experience and capability to coordinate these people and - also important - "translate" and "interpret" the desires of the customer/owner, the "project manager" and/or "site manager" that could be either paid by the general contractor or by the customer/owner.
Sometimes (not often) the architect (or the builder) has these capabilities, or is part of a largish firm that can provide such a resource for the project.
Since this has a cost, and building is generally a cost competitive field, this added cost is one of those that in recent years has been (generally speaking) either cut or reduced to the minimum (like giving - say - five or six building sites to the same person, which won't have the needed time to follow in detail each of them).
So, in a nutshell (and as always) it all depends on the people, you might be able to find a builder (usually small firms, almost familiar ones) that can do this or you might be able to find an architect studio (as well a smallish, but not too small one) that can provide you with this service, or maybe you can find and hire yourself such a manager/coordinator.
I agree with everything you said, this is why I think pre-fab is the way to go. It's like ordering a car, high industrial quality and few/no surprises. Other readers should keep in mind the pre-fabs we are talking have nothing to do with park homes. It's more like a Lego that is assembled onsite.
Regarding Huf Haus alternatives, there are a few German brands that are quite similar. Baufritz for instance is also old, and manufactures outstanding houses: https://www.baufritz.com/uk. The problem is that, unlike Huf Haus, they are not willing to do cheap (<€800k) projects. Huf can do smaller bungalows, which will be expensive per sqm but still less than a half out what Baufritz would be willing to consider.
For smaller stuff, in the UK there is https://wudl.co.uk, which builds pretty nice things. I also love https://www.echoliving.co.uk, although this is just a high-end cabin builder. Very different.
A good architect will be this third party and hold the GC's feet to the fire. The GC might not care about you and repeat business, but they will likely care a lot more about keeping a good architect & firm happier with a decent reputation. Plus, the architect is used to helping this process.
I thought architects are designers who are not experts on the technical details of things like constructions (strength, earthquake proofness, wind proofing), heating/cooling, humidity issues, electrical installation building codes, proper tubing, insulation materials, sound proofing etc.
That's the experience / knowledge I'd want to hire for oversight.
I don't see how a designer is the best person for that but then maybe my idea about architects mostly being desk-bound designers focused on estatics is totally wrong?
> maybe my idea about architects mostly being desk-bound designers focused on estatics is totally wrong?
Yep, it’s totally wrong. No doubt there are some architects/engineers who focus strictly on design. An architect/engineer is generally “in charge” of a construction project in the US, at least for commercial construction, which is the segment where most of the architects work.
I’m just a lowly subcontractor PM but the GC generally works for the architect/engineer.
Edit: New building projects will have multiple drawing sets: architectural, structural, civil, landscape, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, low voltage systems, fire protection, as well as others depending on the project specifics, but all of these engineers are coordinated by the architect.
Not all architects know. Source -- Am in month 21 of a construction project. Have caught more than a dozen mistakes made by both the architect and the GC's subcontractors.
But that's normal, there are varying degrees of competence in each trade. If someone asks who should they hire to develop a software solution, the answer is "a software company", even if there are software companies that develop awful software full of bugs.
Slightly sarcastic a bit, but isn't the point of all that engineering schooling, certification, titles, social prestige etc some kind of assurance that those people don't make mistakes? Or if they do, very slight ones? In a sense you cannot have it both ways right?
The idea behind is surely that, but it doesn't mean they can screw things anyway... the difference is that they will be accountable by law for it (which is an important difference, especially if compared to the world of THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS")
I guess in theory that would be true, but in practice (at least where I live), there is no accountability. So yes, doctors, lawyers, architects/engineers etc, get all the prestige and social status, without the downsides.
There was an exception though, like 10 years ago where the doctor was removing a patient's appendix and damaged major artheries. The poor patient lost the leg and the other one is not functioning well. They've sued privately (and had top lawyers) and after a very long process they've kind of won some meagre settlement. What was actually interesting was the fact that the major regional hospital never had a "doctor's error" in the last 20 years, only so called "complications" (which was "nobody's fault").
Doctors (and similar) don't get insurance against damages at all. Why would they?
You cannot state such things without specifying where you are. In some places (and/or industries or market segments, even), architects are 'just the design person', sometimes even not really doing technical design but just function and aesthetics. In others they are engineers who do (besides design) very hands-on oversight of all sorts of contractors.
I think statement like this need a country name to be included. I. Germany the architect is responsible to also manage contractors and that they do the right thing. The architect can however employ a 'Bauleiter', a foreman?
This is what a builder would do in North America, they're the general contractor and will generally budget for you, manage the project and the trades. They'll ensure quality and be your point of contact. Typically where I'm at they charge 15% of the total time and materials of the build.
My expectation is that the general contractor's attitude towards quality would be completely random. Some are gonna be great and some are gonna cut every corner they think they can hide from you. And then the buy side of the market isn't sophisticated enough for it to be easy to identify which is which.
And like for renovations, lots will bid the easy project and do it as fast as they can vs ensuring that anything that comes up is addressed well.
> Someone who understands the trade and the codes and will check in on the building site daily and will make sure everything is being done correctly. And if it’s not, will stop work and put everyone in their place. I frankly have no idea what the term for that is in America ...
My thinking was also to go with a reputable pre-fab house provider or a low-energy/emissions house.
I would hope that the higher requirements will set you up with a better builder. Not guaranteed though.
Pre-fab houses/ components do require more rigor for foundation etc.
Invest 40-50 hours of your time, and do the following:
1) interview 5-6 contractors/builders; then, go look at 2-3 houses that they finished - you pick them, don't let them pick. Try to observe bad issues - here's a funny video about "snagging" [0].
2) pick one. Ask a lawyer to draw a contract and have them sign it. The lawyer should be experienced in construction contracts. A good contractor/builder will be comfortable signing a fair contract.
3) find a friend (architect, civil engineer) who will, for a modest amount, be your sounding board, and help you through the various phases of the project.
>go look at 2-3 houses that they finished - you pick them, don't let them pick.
Does this work in practice? How can you "pick them" without the builder telling you which houses they built? Do you expect people living in the houses to let you wander around their homes looking for contractor flaws?
You ask them for the last X houses they've built and pick randomly. People are generally happy to do this: this proves to them their house is good enough for their contractor to show to others and most people don't move into a finished house right away anyway.
I haven't build myself but two friends have had to go legal on the builder and architect. A few lessons from these.
Don't hire friends or family.
Make sure the builder is registered and isn't a director of other companies that have defaulted.
Have a signed contract or agreement in place.
If doing payment in stages make sure that what you are paying for has been completed and has been signed off by your engineer.
Take as many photos and videos as you can as often as you can, use a drone to get to awkward unsafe areas and record video. Include all major structural and sealing work. Even good builders/window installers etc make genuine mistakes, photos of what was done make inside a wall make it easier to attribute liability if there is an issue.
These are some key points from two terrible cases, don't let them scare you and enjoy it.
>Can I just throw more money at the problem so that I'm less stressed and offload more decisions to the builders?
Yes you can. It requires two things:
1) you need to hire a builder who has experience with commercial and/or industrial construction. Hire the same type of builder that you wanted to build a small dental clinic. Tell them explicitly that you want everything to build built with the same standards as their commercial clients. Even if they are well intentioned, you don't want to be the beta tester for a builder trying to expand in a new type of construction. Most of the work will also be done by subcontractors, so you want to hire someone with a list of contacts filled with companies who typically do high quality work for highly demanding client.
2) Hire a structural engineer and architect to check their work. If you can only hire one, the engineer is more important, a shitty finish material or bad interior lightning is easier to fix than a cracked foundation. The engineer needs to be on site to check the work at the critical moments to make sure it's done right (eg. before pouring concrete). He needs to have the authority to stop work if it's bad and/or force them to redo it. they also need to approve the plans and the product that will be installed. It is common practice in government contracts that the builder has to submit for approval the spec sheet for most of the products that they want to install.
Basically, you want to follow the same procedure a large city would use but skip some of the red tape that don't apply to you.
The contract is very important, I would recommend copying it from whatever is the most used one in your region for public work. It's probably gonna be a >200 page monster but it will cover every single situation you could possibly imagine and provide a fair way to resolve the situation.
I think this advice isn't just throwing money at the problem, your suggestion sinks time into creating a mini-bureaucracy to ensure quality decision making. That mini-bureaucracy may in itself may make it hard to source/retain the various contractors you're suggesting.
For example I imagine it would be quite hard to source a small dental clinic builder who does high quality work and is also willing to sign a 200-page city level government procurement contracts without significant negotiation or persuasion.
>your suggestion sinks time into creating a mini-bureaucracy to ensure quality decision making
My main suggestion is to hire an engineer/architect, they will manage all of this crap. They will work FOR you and not for the contractor and money doesn't come out of their pocket when they reject something.
>For example I imagine it would be quite hard to source a small dental clinic builder who does high quality work
It's not, they don't need to know how to design it, they just need to have done commercial work before and be used to work on a project that has architects/engineers watching them. Dental clinic was just a random example. Government buildings might have been a better one.
>and is also willing to sign a 200-page city level government procurement contracts without significant negotiation or persuasion.
In every region, there should be one contract that everyone is used to work with and that is fairly balanced. You should not write a new one or try to negotiate clauses. They are long because they have a clause for almost every possible type of conflict that could happen. No one actually reads them cover-to-cover because it's mostly just common sense or things that don't apply but someone has to put it in writing to make it official. If the project goes well, you will never open it.
It provides instructions on things like how to approve an extra and payment schedules, how to fire them, how to reject work, how to contest a decisions from the expert, maximum delays for important things, etc. If you want a hands-off approach, it will protect you. The more involved you want to be, the less you need it.
I've done this twice by hiring a family friend as the builder once, and hiring a one-man builder another time, both times it worked out for me, was mostly headache-free, they both had excellent worksmanship. I built with a big company once and it was a nightmare. There are always headaches though, you need to expect them so you don't go crazy when it inevitably arrives. Good luck! :)
You might have trouble finding good builders for such a small job. Depends on the market I suppose. Also you'll run in to restrictions on some land, some areas will not let you build really small places that are out of proportion to the neighbourhood. Depends how fancy you're talking.
But doing a really nice small space is a great strategy for saving money. You can use nice materials since you dont have a lot. Doing a lot of quality built-ins (cabinetry and the like) also will make a huge difference -- and is a necessity when going small.
I've only built two houses for myself that are large custom builds. Dont really know about kit homes. From what I hear that they dont really solve a ton of money as people always overestimate the cost of the structure and underestimate site prep and finishing which are the same whether your house is custom or pre fabricated.
Small but bespoke. It's the only way. Stuff, the actual materials things, they have their own designs. Better to shape them in your image, than have them shape you in theirs.
My tip is get yourself an experienced independent agent/manager to supervise the build - or treat it as one semester of a college course on how to build houses, and accept the costs that you would expect (with the full realisation that you are going to have to do two more to "graduate").
When I first did projects I got caught repeatedly with items that were not on the spec sheets or costings - but were 100% required. This is one of the ways that builders manage price competition with the inexperienced. They 100% know what the rate that is likely to get quoted will be, if they want the work they will quote lower than that and will use overruns to make back to the market or somewhat above (because by then you are stuck).
An experienced project manager will catch 95% of these issues some will sneak through but they will also have the contacts to get these sorted if the builders are unreasonable. You will pay out a chunk to employ this person - sure - but this will pay you back just with the cost overrun issue (in my experience) and at the same time you will have much less day to day work on your plate. So, it's basically a "free" assistant.
Also, what's a good job? You have ideas... but experienced builders (and your manager) will know where it's really smart to spend your money.
I am just about to start construction of 750 sqft home this year. We decided to go with cross laminated timber building. Manufacturer builds walls inside their factory, bring it to construction site and put it together within day or two. The main disadvantage is that it just a "bit" more expensive.
Hire an architect. Find the directory of registered architects in your state or country, browse through the listings and chose a few that are within a hour or so of your location that do work that you like. For each architect, choose some houses on the architect’s website and ask if they will put you in touch with the owners and if they would be happy to show you around one of them. Ask the architect what went wrong and how they dealt with it. (Something goes wrong on every project). You should get a good feel for if the architect is someone you can work with from this process, you will be in a relationship with them for at least a year and a half and building is expensive and stressful. If you hire an architect for a full service they will also take care things like permits, sourcing some reliable contractors to choose from, quality control for the build process.
Ask your architect to show you visuals of what the house will be like, I guarantee you you can’t read plans like we can. They don’t need to be hyper expensive realtime ray traced renderings, if your architect works in 3D you can sit with them a look at the computer model we work with day to day, that’s enough to understand what it will be like.
Designing a house with an absolutely fixed budget is only possible if you are building a new build house on a flat serviced site and you give a minimal brief and don’t change it after the outline design and you allow a contingency. This practically never happens. After giving you a lowball hard limit on how much they have to spend I draw them a small house and pretty much all clients like to make their houses bigger as the project progresses. I always warn clients that they are going over budget because of extra floor area and I warn them not to get bamboozled into choosing insanely expensive kitchens and finishes by salespeople, but it still happens on most projects. Don’t make last minute design changes, someone will make a mistake and it will cause a cascade of changes that will cost you more or compromise the design. Don’t base your idea of what a decent budget in $/sqft is on what your neighbour self built 15 years ago, or what someone on a TV program about building houses said; the neighbour typically omits lots of costs when telling them how much their build cost e.g. groundworks, services connections, etc. Likewise the budgets people say on TV are usually absolute bullshit. Also remember that your architect doesn’t have total control over the price; what you get quoted by the contractor is what they think the market will bear and this can change considerably over the course of the 6-12 months it will take to get your permissions and finalise the detailed design.
Ok, I figured. Yeah honestly some of the new homeowner subreddits make me glad to be in an apartment. Apartment isn't perfect but it basically works and I never have to think about maintenance, vs. some noobs where it becomes 5-10 hours of work per week.
I'm not sure what you're trying to avoid. After the plan is finalized, there is a discussion between the builder and owner about materials and furnishing (e.g. flooring, countertops, cabinet style, siding, roofing, HVAC, lights, paint, etc). But once those decisions are made, it's (hopefully) off to the races. That's the way it'll be with a budget builder or a luxury builder.
The actual construction is what is crucial. All builders and their subcontractors will be in a hurry to get the job done so they can move on to the next job. I expect most are professionals and care about doing a good job, but there are plenty who are OK with a shoddy job. They'll be most likely gone when the problems in their workmanship is done.
Hang out in /r/HomeImprovement for a while and you'll see all sorts of contractor fuckups.
Getting a good builder and subcontractors is a crap shoot. My wealthy neighbors a few years ago wanted to build their dream/final home. The builder left halfway through. They found a new builder and eventually completed the project but way past the original date. They finally moved in and had to deal with so many issues that it was hurting their marriage. After about a year, they decided to sell the house. The new owners were still dealing with construction issues (for example, the crawlspace wasn't properly waterproofed and had significant water intrusion).
If you want to be hands off, buy an existing house and hire a really good inspector to tell you what kind of shape it's in. Some inspectors don't do a very good job either, so...
If you want to do things properly: you ("the investor") get a "investor's supervisor" which is a person that goes to the building site daily and checks that everything is done properly. For example every time there is something that's going to be covered up and not possible to inspect later, the contractor's crew has to wait for approval of the investor's supervisor before covering it up and continuing the work (simple example -- pouring foundations).
If they don't call your guy to sign off on it, he makes them redo that part. This is the only way to be sure they didn't just throw some garbage there or quickly covered up some shoddy work or usage of cheaper materials than agreed.
Note that you can't rely on the builder's supervisor for this, it has to be your guy. Some architects can come check the site and supervise a bit, however this is not enough and you still need an actual supervisor.
So you can kind of throw more money at it, but you still need to know what you're doing. Perhaps the closest to what you are saying is finding an architect that has reliable contractors in their rolodex. It won't save you from having to run the project properly, but there are going to be fewer issues.
Long answer: you need someone experienced you can trust. In my case it was a neighbor who owned a construction company that had built his own house. We just told him to build ours to the same spec.
Caveat one: it's more expensive. I don't own a construction company, so our spending budgets were different.
Caveat two: you will still find things you wish you had done differently. Either because you have different priorities or because your circumstances are different. In my case, he routed all the wiring through the walls with no convenient way to access or replace them. When you have electricians and drywall installers literally at your beck and call, it's not a problem: you finish up early one day, drive the guys home with some sheets of drywall in the bed, they rip up the wall, replace or add another cable, fix the drywall and go home. When you're a homeowner with a cordless drill and a hammer, you'll want everything done with maintenance in mind.
Even if you find a person you can trust to oversee the construction, you'll still want to learn enough to understand (!) and communicate your requirements to him.
1000 square feet is so small there isn't much to do and only so many ways to design it. IMHO you could easily find a small bungalow of that size, have the interior ripped out and taken down to studs, then totally rebuilt to exactly the layout you want and still be way under the cost of commissioning an architect to design something from scratch.
I'm intrigued to see that you consider 1000 sq feet (100 sq m) to be "so small". It's twice the size of the first house I owned (which was also 2 bed, and pretty typical starter size here) [1]
To me 1000 sq feet for 2 bedrooms sounds fantastic. So many ways you can use that space creatively. So many different layout options and shapes.
My recommendation would be to start with an architect. Given a good budget and defined parameters you should get something really good. And (at least here, don't know about there) architects like to be project manager as well to make sure their baby is executed well.
[1] starter apartments here can be under 200 sq feet. Not sure who wants that (they are typically quite expensive) but someone is buying them.
If you built a 1000sf detached home in North America you'd have a hell of a time selling it later on outside of some very specific conditions as it'll not be much cheaper than a 1500-2000sf home.
Home costs do not scale proportionately with their square footage. For example you still have one refrigerator in most homes regardless of size, one front door, pay base flat fees for services and trades just to show up, permitting fees, etc.
Along the same lines, adding bedrooms is basically free in terms of additional maintenance. Especially if you are not actively using them. All you will need to do is vacuum/sweep and dust in there once a month, maybe less often than that.
The only marginal financial cost will be energy required to heat and cool the space. Seeing as the original commenter is in the SeaTac area, with a temperate climate, one would think total energy costs tend to be low (I do not live there so I could be wrong).
In my market (smaller western us city), there are roughly 730 detached single family homes in the market. Only 25 are less than 1000 sq feet and none of those were built in the last 40 years.
It’s not that there aren’t any options that size, I happily spend the first decade of my adult life in residences that size, but dwellings that size are almost exclusively condos/apartments in the US. Others have noted some good reasons for that.
I'm living in the US but from a country where houses are generally smaller. Lots of land here in the US in suburban subdivisions seem to have minimum size restrictions. I think a few lots I looked at had minimums of 2500 sq ft. You don't have the freedom to build a smaller house.
In America a 1000 square foot house is small, it's just a fact. I personally wouldn't have a problem with it, and I live in 1300 square feet. But American family home buyers expect 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a den, etc. and that just isn't possible in 1000 square feet.
Building form scratch with an architect in America is also very, very expensive. I know folks that have gone down that route and it easily doubled the final cost of their home. What could have been a 250k property cost over 500k when all was said and done. It's just not common to see done unless you are wealthy.
1000 square feet is only small in the USA. 1000 sqft is the average size of a home in Japan. 50% are smaller. There's plenty of creative ways to use 1000 sqft
This is a good idea. What I've run into is that bungalows like this exist in my area (Greater Seattle/Tacoma) but look like shit and were built 80-100 years ago. My research has shown that older homes have all manner of issues with plumbing, electrical and so on. So rebuilding it from its guts looks like it could take care of a lot of that.
Not sure where you are, but prefabs, especially panelized ones are popular choice recent years in europe. Customizable layouts, fast to build, affordable, great on energy consumption, better in earthquakes etc. Downsides would be that foundations and roof are built the same as traditional build, have to be careful what you nail through the walls (US people will be familiar with it since drywalls..), and statics-wise it's what you build initially (so if you want more floors, do it initially) and that's it whereas with traditional brick and mortar you can usually (usually provisioned) build another floor.
Although, note, the final time to turnkey may not always be much faster, depending on the market conditions.
The traditional builders told us about 24 months at current lead times.
The modular builders told us 15-20 months, but two separate modular builders told us that anyone claiming less than 18 months is probably lying and reality is closer to 24 months even for modular.
Only to confirm that anything between 18 and 24 months for building a house is plausible, anything less is usually "wishful thinking", there may be some particular exceptions, of course, but my (close to 40 years) experience in the field tells me that whenever someone tells you 12 months or so they are forgetting half of the things needed or they are overly optimistic.
And, to respect an 18 months timeline, you need a supervisor and accurate site and construction planning and a bit of luck, if any of these lack, it is going to take 24 months +.
>You want them always watching their back and being dissatisfied
Ah yes, don't let the proles be happy. You sound horrible to work for. Of course, if your boss did this to you at work, there would be endless complaints.
Sometimes the builders are also the carpenters. I would go with one of those because they will do arguably the most important part right, and they will likely have worked with the foundation team before. Electricians and plumbers often have to be certified so there is less concern there.
Getting educated so you can ask questions and observe that they properly seal the house for air and moisture is a good idea. PGH is a good resource and so is Matt Risingers channel (Build Show).
Consider tapping networks. If you find an architect you like they may know a good builder and vice versa.
Matt's channel seems to focus on innovative technology. For a slightly more traditional approach to a "spec" (speculative) house-building process, see
the "Essential Craftsman" series of 150 videos by Scott and Nate Wadsworth
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRZePj70B4IwyNn1ABhJW...
Scott is the builder, and Nate, his son, the videographer and editor. The subject matter is clearly and honestly explained, and the video, sound, and editing is generally professional quality. From survey and site prep all the through to finish and completion, I would recommend it to anyone in the US considering a bespoke or custom home.
This is probably true in the US, but in UK/Europe most buildings are made of brick/stone. People seem to think builders are dumb, but it's a very complicated job really if you are working on lots of different types of housing.
> I'm looking at building a home as a first time home owner in the next few years. One thing I'm wondering is how many headaches can I avoid if I just choose an expensive builder and not try to haggle or save a buck at every turn?
Look for architects and builders that have certifications or at least interests in Passiv house (PH) designs.
You don't need to go all the way to that level (which may cost more), but the folks interested in it will be more atuned to building science and the little details needed to achieve results.
The Pretty Good House folks created the book and 'movement' because they felt that PH was "too much" for a lot of people (builders, owners), but wanted something better than 'just' code.
The PGH folks run a podcast called BS and Beer: BS = building science. They encourage folks to hold local gatherings of builders on the topic of BS, which is how their podcast started. You may wish to see if there are any folks that hold such meetings in your area.
It’s hard. We just tried that with a design-build firm and they managed some very impressive fuck ups.
If I was gonna do it again, I would:
1) hire a separate, independent architect
2) spend more money on lawyers to review contracts up front
It’s not about haggling over pennies. It’s about catching the big fuckups while they’re little fuck ups. Also double-checking everyone’s math and putting eyes on the work every single day.
If you're willing to pay more for a better result, one option is a design-build architect, or an architect who has built houses locally and can hook you up with good contractors to get bids from.
Some of the things you pay for when you hire the most expensive builders may or may not have value for you. Expensive builders invest a lot in communication with clients. You'll have a point of contact and possibly even a web portal to help you follow the progress of construction and keep an eye on expenses, just like on a big commercial project. The amount of money you pay to get that might be better spent on better design or better materials.
If you just want the house to be built well, you don't necessarily need to go that high-end, but it's a good idea to work with somebody experienced who can help you pick the right contractor and be your representative in dealing with them through the build process.
If you want to throw money at the problem here are my suggestions.
Find a good architect that knows the building codes and is at least educated in structural engineering.
Second, you can hire someone to manage the quality of the work. This can cost between 8-12% of the project bid. They make sure work is being done to a proper standard and will can deal with the contractor if something is lacking.
It is just going to take time. You can't build until you have permits. You can't get permits without a structural engineer drawings. You can't get a structural engineer until you have architect drawings. It all just takes time. Not to mention Our contractor was a year out.
Also, availability is still difficult on a lot of items. The windows we wanted were 26 weeks out. Our tile unavailable. If you like off the shelf junk from Home Depot, then you can avoid some of that waiting, but otherwise you have to simply wait.
I believe the key is finding a generic contractor (supervisor) who is reliable and scrupulous, responsible and at the same time experienced in the construction industry practices, not afraid of quarrel and confrontation with shady contractors. Money helps as motivator and allows not to rush things through but alone is not a guarantee. Lots of independent and diverse professionals and groups with own agenda and attitude need to act in symphony to produce a satisfactory result. Not an easy feast, despite of the collective wisdom accumulated throughout the centuries construction quality suffers in most cases, to a varying degree, occupants need to get used to and ignore troubles avoidable for long long time in theory (and in practice too with the proper care).
A key component is project management, which is a job which requires a considerable amount of engagement, technical understanding, people skills and financial savvy.
I was effectively the PM for our renovation, and it turns out I suck at enough of this to never want to do it again, and this was on a pretty small place. If you've got additional cash to spend, I'd invest in having a good plan (architect) and management (ideally not you/partner or the architect).
It's like a big software project, right? You can have the best coders in the world, but if they're poorly managed and just making it up as they go along, then you're not going to get it done as fast and well as otherwise.
I recommend a look at https://healthyhomebuilders.com/ and reading their book, in particular. They explicitly use closed-cell foam and appear to use ZIP-system outer sheathing. The methods they advocate seem in agreement with high-performance building, with extra attention to indoor health. They claim the latter can be done with reasonable extra cost. The book is very informative. I found it at the library when I went specifically to look for Pretty Good House.
What you want is a good building site supervisor, who is experienced in the construction industry in general, the scale of the building under construction in particular and the local region and any peculiarities involved, as well as being fastidious and quality-focused. That's AFTER you've obtained a good, site-appropriate, well-specified design from a good architect.
Having all aspects of a bespoke residential build go well takes a lot of effort, planning, attention, money and luck. I wish you well!
No. You kind of have to know what to look for and still spend lots of time with the selected general contractor. My current gold standard of a good general contractor is Hammer & Hand out in the US Pacific Northwest [1]. Their attention to detail is more than what you see in the industry.
IMO, yes. I'm probably biased because this is basically our business. Key is finding a good build team (this could be independent architect and builder, a design-build firm, etc.), and critical that they have good trade partners (plumbers, HVAC, electrical, etc.). Do not shirk checking references and doing the legwork, but the good builders are out there.
I'd suggest buying something that's already built, if at all possible. I'm going through a custom build myself right now, and I would definitely not recommend it unless it's the only option to get what you want and you're prepared to get very hands on.
Consider a separate architect to design the place with you. They can help find a general contractor to be the "builder", but also serve as an owner's representative to oversee construction intent. They want the design done well, as well.
Get a good architect or prefab. Hard to really control for better build quailty unless someone with knowledge inspecting on site, has connection with good crew, or adverse conditions of building in open controlled.
In my experience, price is not correlated to value with tradespeople. Price is usually correlated to honesty. It’s easy to get quotes for jobs that have a huge range in price and it’s often the least expensive that will do the work right. They don’t quote you what their rate is. They quote you what they think they can get out of you. The price is correlated to how much money you have. The quality is correlated to how much you know and pay attention.
Can I just throw more money at the problem so that I'm less stressed and offload more decisions to the builders?
Do you think that would work with paying someone to write some code for you? Do you think that the highest paid consultants write the best code? Of course not. There's a high probability that you'll just pay more for a badly written app. You need someone who you know cares about the product, who comes recommended by people you trust, and ultimately someone who you can check on and verify that they're actually doing a good job.
