House building questions?

[Rob Channell]

I like this board and know there are people out there more knowledgable than me on this subject. Help me out, please.

I am looking at building a house. I cannot find what I really want in the school district (all the while prices are rising) I want so building may be my only option. To try to keep the price down I am using a stock plan that this particular builder uses. It is here. http://www.woodlandhomes.com/home-designs/charleston-b/new/charleston-b-page.html#
It is a fairly nice neighborhood with homes in the $300-450k range. I am attempting to squeeze into the bottom of the neighborhood near the 300k range with maybe a small chance of expanding later. Yeah, I know it sounds cheap to all you California guys, but I live in Alabama and don't make six figures. I also support a wife, 4 kids (plus one on the way), 2 Porsches, a Miata, full size pickup, Suburban, and a few hobbies in my spare time.

I will probably add a 5th bedroom option upstairs with a Jack and Jill bath. I want a nice house, but cannot afford to be extravagent. It's going to be tight already, and the Porsche doesn't need to be put any further down the queue than she already is, if you get me. I want as much bang for the buck as I can get. I am looking especially for things that increase usefulness or utility or even appraisal value without adding a lot of extra cost. Tell me your ideas and what you did. Has it worked out well? What would you do different next time?

I am trying to think of gotchas and know there are a ton of them. I need to eliminate as many as possible ahead of time. Here are some of the things I am thinking. The prices are from the builder's architect.

1.Get approval in writing for a garage workshop behind the house before I ever commit to build. Include size, style, height, and placement on the lot.
2. 3 car garage option adds only $8750 to price.
3. Pay for wiring and ductwork to be run around the edges above the garage, leaving an empty flat storage area above the garage. $300--500 I could possibly heat and cool this as another room at some point in the future, but just storage for now.
4. Extra 1/2 ton in size of A/C unit for the upstairs in case I decide to heat and cool my storage area later.
5. Attempt to get a 26' or 28' deep 3 car garage instead of a 24' deep one. Not sure if it is possible since it may affect the roofline too much.
6. Garage ceiling joist reinforcement in case I decide to store heavy stuff up there.
7. Maybe a higher ceiling on the end bay in case I want to install a lift and cannot build an extra workshop. Would entail upfront concrete requirements changes.) I'd have to decide now before it is built.
8. Extra garage outlets with lights on a couple of seperate circuits.
9. 220V 50A outlet or possibly a 220V 50A and a 220V 30-40A outlets for my compressor and/or welder.
10. Extra 110 30 or 40A outlet for an RV (in-laws). Can I include both of these heavy duty outlets with only a 200 amp main breaker panel?
11. Cat 5 throughout if it's not too expensive.
12. Family room and upstairs bonus room wired with speaker cable for surround sound.
13. Should I run power, water, and sewer to the backyard garage site and cap it all off somehow so the garage is cheaper when I get ready to do that? Is there a good way to do that and meet code?(probably a local question only for code).

What else should I consider? Please lend me your experiences.

Thanks,

[MikeCT]

Thats great 9 out of 13 are concerns about the garage

[vash]

here is a good article in MONEY magazine i read last month: some good tips, on where to put the $$

http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/05/real_estate/re2005_reno_0506/index.htm

[IROC]

Rob,

We went through alot of the same things you are looking into. Where are you thinking about building? For starters, Woodland Homes is expensive. We spent a decent amount of time with them and finally decided they were too high ($100/sq ft easy). Have you considered Alabama Heritrage Homes? They seem to build really decent stuff (check out the subdivision at the corner of Douglass/Indian Creek) and are quite a bit cheaper than Woodland.

We talked to Woodland, Alabama Heritage and Hunter Homes and in the end found that it was simply cheaper to buy an existing house. We have a .78 acre lot for sale on Kelly Springs Rd if you're interested. :>)

Mike

[Sarc]

It's amazing how the typical American home has (d)evolved into one of sameness and conservatism. The general public demands the latest in technology and sophistication in anything from their cell phone to their car-but when it comes to the design of a house, well.....
Have you looked into any existing, older neighborhoods, with mature trees, sidewalks and a community feel about them? Sorry, I deal with issues like this everyday. I just find it incredible what people are willing to pay for.

Best of luck, though, in whatever you do.

[id10t]

Be sure to run network (cat-5) cable all thru the house. 2 jacks behind the entertainment center, 2 or 3 in an "office", at least one in the garage and one in each bedroom. Drop them all to a central wiring closet somewhere.

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

If you want some input on steel homes PM me. You likely will not be able to build in this neighborhood but they can easily have brick on the outside, eaves, metal roof, and look just like any other home on the block.

Put mine up last year with a contractor, 2850 under roof, extra thick slab, 6" of insulation all around, antique hardwood floors, vaulted ceiling, custom kitchen, custom floor plan for under $35.00 per square foot. I already owned the land. That is not a typo. Keep in mind that steel prices are higher today than when I built, but you can use manufactured trusses instead of the I-beams that I used and some other ways to cut back costs.

[928ram]

Depending on layout/lot space you might consider a double-deep (4-car) garage rather than an expanded 3-car. longer truss spans add $$$ fast, you may get more space for your money. When we were shopping new (bought pre-existing) it was $200/ft to expand the 2 car as I recall, though that's Baldwin county.

Another design to consider if you have the room is a standard 2-car with overhead doors front and rear to pass thru to 2nd shop/garage in back.

[mikester]

With wireless technology I don't understand why you need the cat 5.

[id10t]

Mikester - Wireless has problems when you are too close to neighbors with their own wireless setups. Throw in the problems with interference with portable phones, microwaves, etc. and it gets painful really quick. And there's nothing quite like streaming video at 100mb/sec over copper.

[Wrecked944]

This is a great topic. I'm posting mainly to throw out ideas and hope the "smart kids" will chime in and keep the thread alive.

If you want to save money, there are a number of ways to go depending on how much "sweat equity" you are willing to provide. I've been researching this very topic for almost two years and have gotten a lot of good advice from the folks on this BBS. Here is what I (think I) know about house building...

1) TRADITIONAL: You can have someone build a house for you for about $90 per square foot. Nothing fancy. Justa nice, decent house. This is based on the experience of a colleague who's family builds houses here in MA.

2) MODULAR: You can get a modular house built and installed for around $70 per square foot. You'll need to have the site prep done on your own. But you'll also get the project done faster than option #1. Again, a different colleague here had this done and was extremely pleased with the results.

3) KIT: You can knock the price down to $40 per square foot if you are willing to buy a kit and build the house yourself.I've looked at steel frame house kits, Structural Insulated Panel kits, and log cabins. All seem do-able - but you have to be willing to sweat a lot.

Here is a thread I started about steel frame houses with some great pics of Groesbeck Hurricane's steel house...

Anybody know about steel frame homes?


4) eBay: Okay, I'm not kidding here. I was searching for the absolute rock bottom, cheapest way to build a house. So I thought, "Hey, nobody actually buys a kit car new from the factory. It always makes more sense to buy a kit from some assclown on eBay who could not finish his/her project and is selling the kit for pennies on the dollar. So would this work with house kits?" Well, sure enough, I found some very nice kits on eBay for as low as $10 per square foot. They ranged from log cabin kits to 4000 sq ft houses to piles of metal framing that will probably never be erected.

5) Earth Berm and Concrete Block: Call me crazy, but I found an article on Mother Earth News describing how to build an earth bermed house using a "dry stacked cement block" method. Very inexpensive and it had super low heating and cooling costs. The idea of building a house from concrete block seems very exciting. But I have not been able to find any good resources explaining how a DIY owner/builder can do it or how concrete and earth bermed houses would fit in with local building codes...But here is a company that does consulting for passive solar construction...

http://thenaturalhome.com/passivesolar.html

6) RECYCLED HOUSES: I just learned about this option recently. So I know very little about it. Apparently, the idea is to buy a house from someone who wants it off their property (presumably to build something else). Then you transport it to yours. Basically a win-win agreement.

[onewhippedpuppy]

The worst thing about building a cookie cutter house within a development is that when you start making major changes (i.e. truss spans, barn trusses for a higher ceiling) you get expensive fast. These builders have the common upgrades itemized, when you move beyond the norm you'll have to pay dearly. That said, anything you want will be cheaper to add during the construction phase, including the future provisions for adding HVAC zones, wiring, even the backyard garage. All the HVAC and electrical stuff will be through the independent contractors, but most likely the general contractor will have a price list for adding common items such as extra 220 circuits.

While I totally agree with Sarc about the current state of US housing, you do have the right idea with buying a house on the cheap side of the development, just so the area is maintained well when it comes time to sell, the more expensive surrounding houses will help pull up your value, as well as make yours look like a bargain. As far as the upgrades go, get prices for EVERYTHING before you start the process, if anything sounds fishy, call around locally to price stuff for comparison's sake.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Another thought, for 300k, don't you have options beyond a development? Shop around, you may find that you can have a custom floorplan, with the additions you want, for the same price as the cookie cutter. Or maybe it's just my personal dislike of developments, the whole clear cut lots with houses crammed together just doesn't appeal to me.

A couple of thoughts on Janus's post. Though a fun idea, I think it's a mistake for anyone without any construction experience to think that they can just build their own house. Though I'm sure many could handle it, when I did remodeling I saw so many HGTV inspired DIY projects gone wrong, that I would very strongly warn against it. I'll just leave it at hose clamps, duct tape, and lots of silicone. I did remodeling for seven years, everything from framing to custom cabinets and countertops, along with electrical, plumbing, and HVAC. I would NEVER try to build my own house. There's just too many variables that someone without experience does not take into account.

The ebay $10/ square ft. house "kits" scare me, but concrete block construction is cool stuff. We built my in-laws a house out of Eco Block, it's a hollow foam block (24" x 12" x 16") if I remember right), with internal bracing. They lock together, kind of like big legos, you put rebar in laterally and vertically, then fill them with concrete. You end up with concrete walls about a foot thick, the manufacturer claims they're tornado proof. We built a 6000 ft^2 house, their heating/ cooling bills actually went down from their 3000 ft^2 house. It's almost silent inside too, and they save on homeowner's insurance. It's a little more, but in the long run they'll get it back.

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

Check the laws in your state about being your own contractor. My contractor had a sub pour the concrete, sub put in the plumbing and electrical and cooling/heating, he erected the steel, insulated, put on the siding/roof, sub put up sheet rock, I subbed the kitchen out to a local carpenter who made my cabinets from local wood, all wood no particle board, and Home Depot provided the manmade granite countertops. I was the sub who painted and put in the flooring (saved tons of money there!!!). I could do the samething today with a larger (3,625 sqft) home (I have the four bedroom plan at home) for just over $160,000 in my area.

[930addict]

I just built a house last year so I've been through this. Here are a couple recomendations(not necesarily to save money):

1) Get the wider garage doors not the standard size. I have a third car garage with a 10' door (standard is 8). It's ok but I would put in a 13 foot wide door if I could do it again.

2) I rasied the garage opening on all bays to 8 ft and I lengthened the 3rd to 25 feet to accomodate a big dually.

3) Wire 220 and a gas line to the back yard for a Jacuzzi and BBQ pit and just cap them.

4) Might as well put cat 6 in the house.

5) Phone jacks in every room

6) TV jacks definately think about where you want the tv to go. Family room, office, master bedroom, master bath etc...

7) Carpet - We upgraded the carpet padding but kept the standard carpet. The padding will increase the standard carpets longevity. We are not living in the house so we kept the cheapo carpet.