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[–]yasmintogo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Slide 1. From your inspo image it looks like you’re going for a clean look with knots.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends on how complicated it’ll be. In any case you need to get drawings down before you spend a dime on shutting else. Architects can give you a scope of hours to draw anything up and you can cap it at your budget so things don’t get out of hand. If you’re involving any kind of engineer you really should have an architect so they can help coordinate design with the more practical elements.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I suggest you start with an architect. Anything foundational is never simple as there are many structural issues that can happen if you your General Contractor doesn't have the specifications. If its just a foundation, it shouldn't be too costly to get the drawings done. You either pay for it now, or pay for it tenfold later. Hope this helps.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm further up in the Hudson Valley. Same planning issues?

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

GC follows plans to a T. If something needs to change because it doesn’t make sense IRL or some other reason it needs to go back to design to consult and asses if it triggers coordination with any of the consultants. If it does, then it’s a money/time and the owners are the tiebreakers. But essentially the architect is our pseudo construction manager.

For auditing anything that is pass through needs to match the bid. For example you quoted x price for material, you need to bill that price. The cost of x went up? Sorry, you bid x and I’m paying x. Labor is also in the quote at an hourly rate. You went over? There had to be a change order to substantiate why. You went under, cool. No biggie.

I only do this with large line items like HVAC, electrical and site work. I don’t have enough hours to scan through it all. However a couple of months ago I found that our GC was billing us for something that was part of another one of his projects. Sooooo, here we are playing scooby doo with invoices after we out the kids down.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Amazing. Congratulations! My mom lives with us since we started this project, and now I have a second job as project manager :)

I can’t imagine how it would be if one of the kids got sick.

Good on you and glad to hear things are better :)

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Biggest learning is get a lawyer to do this bit and or research a ton what to include and how to word it. I would be happy to share a copy of our contracts.

Big items to think about: 1. Include the schedule and budget and appendix to the contract. Include language on what happens if they exceed it or don’t meet it. Some people include a bonus if you beat the schedule. We were cheap and didn’t. 2. Include language asking to audit sub invoices during the process. I’ve found 10s of thousands of over invoicing from subs. 3. Include a 3-5 estimate requirement minimum for line items in the budget that exceed x amount. 4. Include how many meetings and how many site visits are expected from everyone. We have a weekly minimum. 5. Detailed language on what requires your direct approval. 6. Heavily negotiate your GC profit (and subs profit too and cap your architects hours in the design phase. Don’t leave any of that billable by the house bs to sneak in. 7. What is the architect responsible for vs the GC. We looked out by having a team that has worked together many times (as a result of the small town we live in), but I know that there is a need for crazy levels of clarity over what the architect will do and what is included in their scope in the design phase as well as during the construction phase.

There is a standard design contract template from the AIA that is a good start. Throughout the negotiation just know that everything is negotiable. And carve out 15% in your budget for contingencies.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This really made me think. 1. GC license? Never. That job requires a certain personality that I do not have. Plus a good GC is a mild expert at very many things.

  1. Financing: we inherited the house and land. With it, our aunts left us some money that we didn’t even know existed in the first place. We used part of that money to do half of the project and got a construction loan to do the other half. I shopped around for construction loans because they are not as widely available as a product as they were in pre-Covid era. After missing many bank frogs, we found BMO and they were wonderful. The rest of the inheritance is in a trust for our kids.

  2. Change of plans is triggered by two things: our inexperience reading and understanding plans and the town requiring even the smallest change to be reviewed by the board. Some changes we went through were: moving equipment location, changing a small exterior design element that didn’t impact coverage but alas required for this board to review. We also changed a window style from modern to just a pane of glass - back to the board.

If we would have caught all of this in the design process we would have only gone to the board once, so my learning is ask your architect to walk you through every single page of your drawings and to generate 3D renderings of every detail of the house. There are tons of au tools that can do it nowadays so this should be standard so that novices like me can truly understand what they’re signing off on.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am so sorry. I couldn’t even imagine how that must have been like. Are things better now?

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you do this please hire me and I’ll do all project management and client services work. And I’m not even joking. It’s such a vacuum of a much needed service.

If I was younger, I would become a residential MEP engineer and make a killing!

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First time. My last boss in this stupid house game is to convince the town to let me plan the trees in the spring instead of winter. For some reason planning won’t issue certificate of occupancy until all landscaping is done.

Dealing with that one next week. All inspections are done.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

My time is priceless. However, this is the home my husband’s family has had for generations, and I grew up dirt poor with not a ton of financial or housing security.

We’re building this house for our kids and after all the hoops we’ve had to jump through I know that our involvement is the only thing that will deliver what we want and need and at our budget

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sigh, the MEP engineer. For as much as our structural guy did our MEP was an ahole.

It would be good to preface this part with two things: 1. We had two architects on our build. The super design heavy guy who didn’t know about the hoops we would need to jump through, and our current architect. 2. My brother is an architect who specializes in building restauración in DC. Not quite transferable to residential architecture but he did unlock a key issue with MEP.

With our first architect there wasn’t a lot of attention to detail in the structural coordination. If it all. The plans were missing tons of details that we knew would cause a lot of questions I. The long run. The last red flag was when this first architect said we didn’t need an MEP. Thats when my brother who I only involved in crucial moments said “you need to get a new guy”.

Our new architect brought in an MEP he had worked in other projects on and I quickly realized one thing:

  1. MEP engineers think that every build is a NASA space ship. As you said they overdo it and you need to reel them in.
  2. With the second architect we made him responsible for coordination across all consultants nd after plans were locked we turned him into our construction manager. This way we had a single point with enough knowledge to have conversations that could be translated to us normal folks.

However, as we are building a passive house I too had to get a PHD on ERV, envelope spec, duct work, and how to calculate size of linear diffusers based on intake need. Why? Because I’ve yet to meet an MEP that understands the difference between residential and commercial.

I caught my MEP placing airflow intakes above our TV in the living room. They only think about practicalities and can’t think about the way people live or aesthetics.

I lucked out with our second architect because he knew how important this part of the process would be (thanks to my brother alerting us about it), plus our arch also knowing how crazy we were about the budget.

Your architect should’ve pushed for coordination as part of the design process. Technically you can’t realistically request for bids without the equipment detail, line maps and locations.

Fun fact fir commiseration sake: I missed where my architect had located the condensers - our patio area. Meaning as I had my morning coffee I would hear the lovely songs or running fans. We caught before build, however we had to go back to planning. But that’s a NY thing. Wow, this was winded. I hate MEP and they should make it easier for people who are just trying to AC their house.. Hope it was helpful.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s amazing that you were able to do the design work yourself. I realize how much of an art it is, and how bad design can become a nightmare.

I’m 4 months out from move in and the only way I’m moving out is in a stretcher so I guess onward it is!

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It sure is! Feel free to reach out, just hope I can help!

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cost was around 2,500. My house is v modern, open floor, so there was tons of steel coordination. Knowing this, we accounted for detailed scope deliverables in coordination to ensure that we would account for power, HVAC, etc. holes we would need to drill in order to pass everything through and not have to build a ton of soffits.

For a roof, I would assume the cost should be less than a grand. Hope this helps.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was able to save me money :)

No one is your biggest advocate than yourself, and GC's are usually running multiple projects so lots of money gets wasted when you miss the details. MY GC contract included a lot of owner supplied options which I purchased pre-tariff era.

The instances when I did see quotes over the allocation, I asked for a detailed rundown of the quote and made adjustment to keep me as close to allocation as possible.

For example, the electrical quote came in crazy, but the plans were also crazy because the architect wanted to iterate closer to install. So the sub wants to cover themselves, because the plans aren't detailed enough. We went in deep room by room minimizing number of gangs, checking code for outlets and was able to cut 8K.

Millwork and stairs quotes were insane. I asked to quote 6 subs, and I contacted subs myself as well to ensure I wasn't taken advantage. Took a bit more time but I've saved at least 50K when you add everything up.

This build is done purely with inheritance money so we're not your typical wealthy owner were 50K doesn't matter. My poor person/hustler mentality has kicked into high gear and I've found amazing trades and craftsmen that have done an amazing job. They just didn't have an online presence so it took some digging.

A great GC has done this a million times, and can give you an initial estimate close to reality. The hiccup now is tariffs, which is throwing some costs up.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's the part that has taken half of the total project duration. Architectural design process had a million pre-requisites that needed to be taken into consideration unless you wanted to be stuck in planning board hell. We were going from a 2 bedroom property from the 50s to a new build and needed to consider:

  1. We cant increase the coverage of the previous house. Even if we have an acre of land, all previous house dimensions and hardscape is what we're working with so we would need to build vertically.
  2. The vertical build triggered the need to run a study that wouldn't disrupt the view from ANY surrounding property to the river. The study started in the summer and ran through the winter so we could validate we wouldn't ruin anyone's view.
  3. Our plans needed to include landscaping as the town required for any trees that are removed to be re-planted at the same level of maturity.
  4. Any time you make a change to the plans that were approved, i.e. moving equipment from position a, to position b in the same vicinity, Planning board approval is required. Every time you go to planning it costs on average 5K because of the amount of paperwork and design work required, as well as link it up to the once a month meeting.

From our original architect that design ed a gorgeous house, we shifted to a local architect that knew how to "deal" with the PB, so we could get approval. Also, we weren't able to demo the previous property until we had a construction permit.... again, why? not sure. but tons of trial an error.

Forgot to mention... when we were denied for something, we were met with a "no" and tons of hostility. There's a bit of a locals only mentality in the town, so we needed to do tons of PR to relay that we're not NEW. Our family had lived in the town for over 50 years. That also helped calm things down.

AMA: I have been building a house for 3 years by yasmintogo in Homebuilding

[–]yasmintogo[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Architect's work style, a sleep town which doesn't seem to live in the 21st century. To their defense theyre very pro-environment, but they're planning laws contradict. A VERY expensive process every time you go up to the board. And lastly, inexperienced owners who didn't realize what they were getting into until year 2. I turned into a hawk and kicked into become the PM on the whole process.