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For new construction, making sure the right material arrives at the right time seems like it would be a GC responsibility, right?
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Apr 11, 2016 18:01
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Met with first builder, meeting went great. He had some suggestions for changes we could do that sounded good. Did ask him to bid to the plans so we can keep the bids for the same work and we can go over those later. I dragged a ballpark estimate out of him. Definitely under 400, almost certainly under 350, probably around 300. All assuming mid-high finish. So well within budget. Great to get that sanity check. He had been going over the plans already, and had already sent it out to his subcontractors, and we should have an actual price mid next week. As I was typing, he called to ask if he could visit the site again today with his civil engineer, so he's clearly pushing ahead. Worst news? Probably talking a year start to finish. I guess that's the price you pay for the smaller guys. Not a huge deal. Is a builder giving a 15 year warranty a big deal, or just something they say? Should finally own the land as of a few hours from now.
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Apr 14, 2016 18:34
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I had a feeling that might be the case. I'll find out how long he's been working under that name, but assume it's not worth a lot.
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Apr 14, 2016 19:30
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Met with second builder today. Only thing noteworthy is he thought it'd take 4-5 months instead of a year like the other guy. He built a house of someone my kid goes to school with and they offered to let us take a look, so we'll take them up on that. Waiting on those two bids now and working on getting a third.
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Apr 19, 2016 19:33
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Thanks for the warning. We'll have a full basement and no heat pump, so I'm not overly worried about dry time. My parents house was built in ~5 months 8 or so years ago so I don't think this is an absurd estimate. Also, I think he means the actual building and not the site work before.
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Apr 20, 2016 12:43
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Visited a completed house last night from third builder. Looked great, and was shockingly similar to what we're looking for in terms of finishes/style. Met with him at the lot today, he was much more interested in the grading and conservation areas than the other guys. Gave some insight that the planning/conservation process tends to be easier when the economy is struggling. These guys are a bigger outfit. He'd probably have 8-9 guys there much of the time compare to 3 or 4 the other builders would have and he thought it might take about 4 months to build. But, I'm pretty certain he'll be the most expensive. He ballparked $150/sqft and the house we looked at last night was a $450k build and was only slightly bigger than ours. We'll have a bid by end of next week. That means we should have all 3 bids by then and can get this show moving again. I'll have to bug the first two guys to make sure they finish up.
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Apr 28, 2016 14:52
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Time lapse outdoor photography ... any recommendations? Found this http://www.amazon.com/Brinno-BCC100...on+camera&psc=1
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Apr 30, 2016 14:48
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First bid in. $439k Doesn't include light fixtures, appliances, knobs & handles. Several places with possible additional charges, such as ledge blasting, not a big surprise. Only had a $17k allowance for all cabinets and countertops (estimate we got was ~$45k for the kitchen) So overall, maybe $40k higher than that, kind of thinking of it as a $480 bid. Higher than I was hoping for, but not completely out-there. This was one of the two smaller guys, I was expecting him to be in the middle price-range, but now I'm thinking he might be on the high side.
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May 6, 2016 00:48
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Second bid $425k This was the place that does the kitchen design and was the biggest outfit of the three. $425k, sounds great, huh? It's not. First, they didn't include ANYTHING for kitchen. These are the guys that stressed over and over how builders skimp out on kitchen allowances. They KNEW what we wanted to more detail than anyone else. And they don't put anything down? Come on. Second, they didn't include ANYTHING for site work or driveway. W.T.F. Here's some other things not included: Sewer/Water connection fees. Plans review. Any landscaping whatsoever, not even grass. Ledge removal. Light fixtures. Appliances. Bathroom cabinets. Towel racks, toilet paper holders, and all that crap. Closet shelving. The wood stove. Any fill / gravel. They were good enough to admit it's probably closer to $500k all said-and-done. In my mind that means $525 High price plus these were the only guys not personally recommended to us = pass The one high-point on all of this... They explained how we can save some cash on driveway by grading the land differently. It means going to the conservation commission to file a letter of intent, but they even told us how to game the system. They said do a temp-driveway just for construction. Start building. Then go to the commission. That way, they can't reject the whole project and since the house is already in-progress it's an easier sell for "yeah, this makes sense to do". Worse-case we do it as already approved, best case we save money and get a better layout. So first bid is on top right now. Last contractor says he sent the bid on Friday, never got it. I'm betting he spelled the email address wrong and I'm waiting for him to check.
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May 10, 2016 16:16
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I can't seem to get a bid out of my last guy. He said he sent it Friday. I texted him Monday saying I didn't get it, he texted back saying he would send it. I texted tuesday asking, no response. I called today "I'm on a ladder, call you back in 5 minutes" and no call back. Called again a couple hours later, voicemail. Pretty much ready to give up there. Also, found out he's bidding on an addition for a friend of ours on the same street. Maybe he just wants that job more or something. Also, sat down with first-bid guy. Went over everything. Sounds solid, and included a bit more than I was expecting. Gounads fucked around with this message at 00:53 on May 12, 2016 |
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May 12, 2016 00:43
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That's what I'm thinking. Before last week he was pretty responsive, so it's a bit baffling.
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May 12, 2016 12:57
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This morning I sent the "We're making our decision tomorrow with or without your bid" text. Got a call back pretty quick. Apparently he upgraded his software and lost everything. Bids, quotes, all his billing info, and has been scrambling to figure everything out. On top of that, his plumber broke a sewer line yesterday and they had a huge mess and that's why he didn't call back. I get that, but just let me know. I'm sure the software issue was before the sewage problem. Should have bid today and he's stopping by tomorrow to go over everything. So we should still hit our self imposed deadline of making a decision this week. Overall this doesn't inspire confidence. But I do want to see a third bid. If we go with him, we'll need to be double-sure that timeliness is built into the contract. Speaking of which, need to find a lawyer to go over that eventual contract. He did say he was going to give us a break on the bid financially because of all this, so I guess that's sorta nice. I didn't expect that and don't imagine it'll be meaningful in the big picture. But at least he recognizes it was a problem.
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May 12, 2016 14:44
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I extracted the interesting parts of the currently winning bid if anyone wants to see: http://pastebin.com/p9fVfi0T
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May 12, 2016 18:06
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Safety Dance posted:Line 51: - Three (4) foundation windows included and to be installed No, he's just horrible at copy/pasting. Also note the sixteen(20) recessed lights. Had both those questions last night. Windows are as they are in the plans. He's checking to see the electrical bid for the real number. Edit: We'll make sure to get it all cleaned up for a contract.
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May 12, 2016 18:12
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MrEnigma posted:We're currently building a house, so I have a few comments on the contractor, just general things (Our house is ~3000sf above grade two story, with a full unfinished basement). We're at about 350k contract price without the lot. Looks like you have a lot of cost just because of your current site. Thanks for those comparisons, it really helps. Fireplace includes nice stone surround, double sided wood stove, and chimney. I know we put a single-sided stove in a few years ago for $8k. He works his allowances so if you don't spend the full amount, you don't pay it. Everyone around here does blacktop driveways. Concrete doesn't survive the winters. Pavers are too expensive. Zhentar posted:
There will be 2 trenches. One will probably be electric/water, the other sewer. They go different directions. Electric/water is a long one. Plans call for studs 16" why would you want wider? better insulation? which brings us to... what insulation values should I be looking for? Yes, we'll end up with a handler in the attic. Is that a big deal? That's the plan. It's 2 tankless heaters, no 50 gal. "Run gas line for 50 gallon hot water heater." - again copy paste shenanigans. That line is really just "run gas lines"
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May 12, 2016 21:22
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Wow, thanks Zhentar! It's flat ceilings everywhere except the photo studio over the garage. > Increasing the wall R-Value by using ZIP R Sheathing saves about $300/yr Is zip-r different than the zipwall sheathing that was specified? We won't be heating the basement. Someday, might finish half of it. > Dropping the air leakage from the code minimum 3 ACH50 to 1 ACH50 saves almost $900/yr on heating Sounds like that would be the biggest win here. Speaking of heating, fireplaces, etc... right now we heat two room entirely via a high efficiency wood stove. We're hoping to do something similar in the new house. The lot itself has several years worth of lumber to harvest and we have a cheap source otherwise.
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May 13, 2016 13:31
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Yay, last bid in. $402k Right away I see there's no driveway (+$28k from other bid). Didn't include the wood stove (+ $13k from other bid). Going to go over it in detail later today, but already can see it's not going to be a ton cheaper, and the reliability of the other guy probably has me sold. Speaking of which, the other guy already gave me an updated bid with everything we talked about in-person.
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May 13, 2016 14:16
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Trying to compare the bids line by line is impossible. First, they're grouped very differently. But even when I combine things to get comparable lines, one has electric and plumbing -50% but then framing +50%, foundations are nowhere near each other. It's just all over the place. I don't understand how line-items can be so far apart but the total so similar. Also, last bid didn't include A/C, so there's another big chunk. Overall, It's definitely higher. So we're at a point where the builder with the best referral, most complete bid, who's been the easiest and most professional to talk with, and who we've seen a house he's built and loved is also the cheapest. The only point where he wasn't *the best* is in time to build, and that was neglible - 4-5 months vs. 4 months. Not rocket science on who we're picking here. Do I negotiate and how hard? (p.s. I suck at that) All the decent negotiating articles I found on google were really aimed at tract houses and had silly advice like "try to get 3% off if you're not using a real estate agent".
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May 13, 2016 15:39
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Talked with that last guy. Told him we're probably going with another builder but I'd still hear him out if he wanted a sit down. He declined (I figured he would). He also made a comment about it almost being a relief since he's got a lot of work coming up, not sure if that was just face-saving or real, but the comment helped reinforce we made the right decision. Called the preferred builder up, gave him the good news. He's so eager on this and wants to make sure we hit our starting deadline that he's working on getting plans approved and going for the building permit starting Monday. We'll work out exact contract details later. Only asked for a $1k deposit. Very reasonable. Generally took the advice here not to worry too much about beating him up on price. I'll work with him to figure out how to get some costs down. Probably cut a few things, maybe I can finish a couple rooms myself, maybe we can find some alternative ideas. If I could trim $10k, I'd be happy. MrEnigma posted:When we bid out our house, a lot of the contractors used the same subs, so we got the same bids back, so that helped out. For everything else I just went through and 'normalized' the bids, trying to make all the 'subbed' out parts equal, since those should be able to be equal. You may also have the option of using your own electric/plumbing/hvac/well/septic/etc subs if you want, keep in mind that the builder may then rely on you to schedule and setup everything if they aren't their preferred subs. Unfortunately, the sub-bids were completely different. Both in price, what they included. One plan had tankless water heater, the other a tank, the other didn't list what it included for that. Your Edit is a really important point. The guy we're going with built 3 houses of people we know, 1 one of which we saw. On the one we saw, he added a deck for only the material cost "because it made sense for the house and it'd would have been stupid not to". His bid had the fewest missing pieces that we'd have to worry about. Edit: If you're interested... Insurance agent just got back to me. Builders risk insurance, which the bank requires, would have cost us $850. But the builder we're going with includes it so it's a moot point now.
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May 13, 2016 19:36
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Found out you can't get a double-sided wood stove in the US - they don't meet EPA standards. Apparently you need firebricks on three sides to get hot enough for the secondary combustion. Oh well, probably go with something like this for that space but with stacked-stone and full depth stove. Probably no pillars. re: insulation talk We'll sit down and have a good long talk about all this with the builder. re: completion time Not worried with this guy. We know of 3 houses done on time and we're not on any kind of deadline to finish. I'll try to get some worse-case type timeframe written in but it doesn't need to be a major part of the contract. It was a big deal with the other guy who said it would take a year.
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May 16, 2016 16:46
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Talked to the builder this morning. Things are happening! The plans are into the lumber company for review and a stamp, should have all that done by Tuesday. Builder picked up building permit application and is going through it. As part of that, needs to get a hersch (sp?) rating for insulation / energy, apparently the town is an energy star town and has higher requirements than most. So we're going to get that report then go through the insulation plan again. He's going to the conservation committee today to get an affidavit signed for the permit. He's hoping to have everything together for the building permit by Wednesday. Got his insurance in order. He is planning on putting up hay bales / silt fence once he has the conservation approval. Possible that happens this week. I gave him the list of things I need for the bank loan, and he'll get all that together today.
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May 18, 2016 13:33
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Now that I know how to spell it, I found it in the codes. Under 3000sqft of conditioned space is 70, over requires 65.
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May 18, 2016 18:26
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Builder gave an update today. Should have the plans back from the engineer tonight and he's visiting conservation/planning to get their signatures today. Plans on finishing up the permit application tomorrow and submitting it on Tuesday (Monday is a holiday).
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May 27, 2016 00:11
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Builder couldn't file building permit this week. Turns out we do, in fact, need a special permit on top of our special permit to bring in the amount of fill we need to bring in. So there's no avoiding the planning board. Builder really did all the leg work, figured out everything needed to be done, sweet-talked the town planner, and is taking care of it all. He's confident there won't be a problem and said even with this, it's one of the easier permitting processes he went through since we had most of the work done. Planning committee meeting not until the end of the month, so ~3 week delay. Builder put in all the paperwork to extend our current special permits. A bit of stress, but I'm hopeful it'll all work out and grateful I don't need to do much. fyi - turns out we need ~900 yards of fill. oh. my. god. That's 35 trips from a truck like this:  Also met with a realtor today to start talking about selling our current house. Gave an estimate about $20k lower than I was hoping for our house. It never ends...
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Jun 3, 2016 00:48
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slap me silly posted:Jesus. You know, I used to think it would be fun to organize the building of my own house. Getting less and less sure about this Me too. But, so far, glad we picked this builder. All that fill was included in his bid (just the amount wasn't listed so it was a bit of a shock to hear it).
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Jun 3, 2016 13:04
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Nitrox posted:you're still welcome to list it for the amount that you think it's worth. Realtors are very happy to list properties below the market value for faster sale. Yeah, probably will. Also might talk with another realtor. She gave us a things-to-know bout selling your house booklet thing. Like 3 pages of it were dedicated to talking about how great it was to list slightly below market value so you get more people interested and how it can magically lead to higher eventual sales. Typical "I want to sell house fast and get my commission" stuff.
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Jun 3, 2016 13:29
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stupid puma posted:A difference in 20k is real money to you but probably only like 600 bucks to them comparatively. Right, not much money, but might make the difference between a quick sell in few weeks or actual hard work for them over a few months.
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Jun 3, 2016 14:22
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Hashtag Banterzone posted:Did the realtor give comparables to backup their estimate? That's still coming. This was the gut-reaction at-a-glance estimate, nothing official, it's also a few months early which things can change in. The literature about pricing below-market is more what got me worried. We are going to talk with one other realtor that's somewhat of a family friend. Been doing various minor improvement jobs around the current house. Also having Mass Save come do an energy-audit to see if I can get them to pay for part of a new furnace. Ours is on it's last-legs, and apparently that can really hold up a sale. Going to go out and meet the neighbors, especially since there will be a planning board meeting for that fill. But the build is pretty much a waiting game for the next few weeks.
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Jun 8, 2016 15:11
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Builder called. SURPRISE planning board meeting in 5 hours and I should be there. Luckily it's not a problem for me to show up. Apparently he got a call from the town planner asking if he would be there and suggesting that I should definitely be there. I guess the extension of the permits isn't as much of a rubber-stamp as we were led to believe and we'll need to plead our case a bit. I guess they specifically want to hear what I was told about the permits when I bought the land. I'm kind of glad to have just found out about it, because I wouldn't have slept last night if I had known yesterday.
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Jun 14, 2016 20:22
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Got back a little while ago from planning meeting. It was both terrifying and mundane. The mundane... got the extension, no problem. We're good until March or something now. So we don't have to worry about that running out. The terrifying... We talked briefly about the next planning meeting in 2 weeks where we go over the fill permit. Getting that permit is not an automatic rubber stamp. They're going to potentially want to revisit the conservation committee results, which I don't actually have any paperwork on right now. So looks like I'm trying to track that down.
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Jun 15, 2016 01:24
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Builder called, town hall can find no record of our conservation committee approval. Even went so far as to watch videos of the meetings. Called the company that did all the work (luckily my brother-in-law works there so I had an easy-in). Nice lady remembered the project and was nearly certain everything got filed. Is going back into their records to look it up. I'm crossing my fingers she comes up with something. Surprise 10:30am meeting to go to tomorrow to try and figure out what to do. Good news: Was told the crotchety old guy on the planning board that might have been a pain resigned.  Maybe I should run  Hopefully this crap will get resolved soon and this thread can get interesting again.
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Jun 21, 2016 16:27
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So, quick recap: We need planning board approval to bring in the amount of fill we need to execute on the driveway plan the planning board has previously approved before we can get the building permit. Planning Board meeting was tonight, and it could have gone better... In this great state, if you're 100' away from wetlands and 200' away from bodies of water, you don't have to go to the conservation board to get approval. We fulfill these requirements. We should be fine. The conservation board has a process called a "Request for Determination". Essentially, they look at your plans, say "yes, you are in fact far enough away" and it's an official record so they can't come fine you later for building there. You don't have to do this. Most people don't. The planning board has decided we need to do that before they will give their approval. Ok, no problem.. so... when is the next conservation board meeting? July 13. 2 weeks, that's not horrible. When is the next planning board meeting? July 12. gently caress. So we can't go back to the planning board until the end of July. It could have been worse. The planning board had the July 26 meeting canceled because of not enough business. But they decided to move their July 12 meeting to the 26 to accommodate us. I really appreciated that. So anyways, these meetings. All the abutters get notified about them and they can come have their say. AND BOY OH BOY DID THEY. 9 people from 5 residences showed up. They bitched about quality of fill, junk on the property, drainage, wetlands. I mean, I get it. I wouldn't want someone building next to me if I had a nice empty space there forever. After the meeting I scooted out the door and caught them all. Turned on the charm. Explained it all, showed plans. Talked about my kid, how much we love the town. Painted the picture of the nice house and landscaping. Pretty sure I satisfied all of them except one guy. Talking to his wife, I figured out why. They own two plots of land. The only way those plots would ever be usable is if a road went right down my property. They were under some misguided impression that this was a possibility. Sorry dude. His wife was super nice. So anyways most likely won't be building until August now. There is one super-slim chance. I was reading the applicable laws. There's a chance we don't need planning board approval. The wording is very unclear when it comes to defining the threshold of when you need board approval. It's either if you are bringing in 500 yards of fill. Or it might be if you are filling 500 yards. Since we need ~700 and we're digging ~400 out of the foundation, there's only a net of around 300 we need to bring in. My builder is going to check for sure.
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Jun 29, 2016 01:47
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Another week, and mostly just waiting. Engineer is putting together a new driveway plan that will meet building codes in regards to turn radiuses (radii?) Builder got the building inspector to look over plans so we can save time later. A few minor things need clarification. Builder gave me a small scare because he didn't get conservation committee abutter letters out in time, but called back an hour later after going to town hall and fixing it. Met with a lawyer to understand my responsibilities to the right of way along the edge of the property, nothing surprising or worrisome. He'll draft up a legal opinion letter for me just in case it comes up. Conservation committee next week. Planning board again 2 weeks later.
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Jul 8, 2016 14:57
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Another week, another rejection. Conservation wouldn't approve the plan without a site-visit first. When the one guy tried to go last week, it was raining and he couldn't get down. At the next planning meeting, we'll ask them to grant the permit conditional on a negative finding from conservation, no idea if they will go for that or not.
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Jul 14, 2016 01:15
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Spent a couple hours yesterday evening treking through overgrown woods looking for wetland delineation flags and property boundary flags, hung new ones to make sure conservation could find them on their site visit. Two of the boundary flags that I had seen many times in the past mysteriously went missing. Coincidently, they were the flags along the border with the grumpy neighbor who keeps showing up at all the meetings. This guys's lawn encroaches on my property by a good 10 feet. Not suspicious at all. Hopefully we'll hit a point where he sees construction as inevitable and starts trying to be a good neighbor. We didn't replace those, after I get my permits, if he's still being a dick I'll get them properly measured out and put a stake right in the middle of this guys lawn. Sunday, I get to pull manhole covers to measure the depth to the trough so we can get a utility plan made. (and so I don't have to pay a few hundred dollars to get the engineering firm to send a guy to do it). A new enemy: Japenese Knotweed. This stuff had completely blocked access to some areas.
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Jul 15, 2016 15:52
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ok, so here's some paranoid conspiracy thinking, I know it sounds crazy. I went back and reviewed the video from conservation committee. The guy with the missing flags... the only question he asked the board was when were they going to do their site-visit. Why would he ask that? The only reason I can guess is if he planned on removing flags before then. I know. Paranoid, probably nonsense. Tonight, I'm going down, checking the flags are still there, and setting up the construction time-lapse camera to make sure they don't get taken down.
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Jul 15, 2016 18:40
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This week's updates... Had planning board scheduled Tuesday, and conservation Wednesday. On Saturday, I had our engineer re-flag the wetlands and the conservation committee came out for their site visit a couple hours later. Everything went smoothly. On Monday, the town engineer came back with his report on our plans. There were about a dozen issues to address. Mostly minor things, but since we only had a day before the planning board it wasn't enough time to get our engineer to do it. So we had to file for a continuance. Another two week delay. It was awfully nice of him to sit on the plans for a couple weeks and give it to us the day before the meeting. Only bright side is I hope the abutters all showed up for nothing. The one item the builder is slightly worried about is "The roof drain shall discharge into a groundwater recharge system." we're hoping that just means a dry well and not some sort of retention pond. On Tuesday, the conservation committee gave their approval, as expected. No abutters came. Talked with my builder, and he's worked through the building inspectors office to get the house plans all set. So that permit should be quick once we get this planning board piece finished. Also made sure we're not in danger of losing him to another job, and he just started a ~1 month renovation which will probably fit in pretty well. Safety Dance posted:Have you caught the bastard yet? Nope, no more went missing.
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Jul 28, 2016 12:12
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For your viewing pleasure, the current monstrosity that will be my driveway: Red lines are the most current ones, black lines were the original. Black topo lines are new, grey dashed are existing. I drive a small car and am relatively sure I'd be able to do a 3-point turn on that curve.
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Jul 29, 2016 14:59
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And it looks like +1 month. Our engineer isn't going to make the deadline for submitting updated plans for planning board. They are skipping the meeting at the end of the month. God drat it.
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Aug 4, 2016 15:22
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 15:47 |
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Seriously, don't build. Quick recap on where we last left off: Town engineer came up with a list of poo poo we had to deal with before we can get our permit. We had to postpone planning board meeting all the way to Sept 13 to give our engineer time to do that. Today's story: Engineering firm Shenanigans We've used 2 different engineers during this process. The first one, I'll call FR and the second one I'll call BT. FR - Did original plans ~6 years ago, my brother in law happens to work there. BT - My builder's engineer, we had them do the driveway modifications. But then all those requests came in from the town engineer, and BT suggested we contact FR since they'd have all the data necessary to do the work and it would be cheaper/faster for us. So we did. FR looked at the list and said they'd do it. Great, I love faster/cheaper. Fast forward three weeks. Today, builder gets a call from BT. Apparently FR send them an email asking BT to do a bunch of the work. Luckily BT has been working with my builder for years so he gets right on the phone with him. Builder calls FR up, asks "WTF?". FR - "Oh we don't do blah and blah" WHY THE gently caress DID YOU SAY YOU COULD DO THOSE PIECES THREE WEEKS AGO. Now I don't know if we can get everything done in time for the next planning meeting.
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Aug 24, 2016 17:39
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