Go every day if possible to check on the progress and make sure nothing is amiss. If you have questions, ask about it then. Don't wait, don't think "Eh, they know what they're doing."

You're the one paying the tab. It's your house. If someone says, "It's not a big deal" or "It'll be OK," ask how and why. We did this with our house. Didn't catch anything that had to be redone, but got a few questions answered.

A relative building their house had just poured the driveway and told the builders to not drive on it for however many days. They put some string and ribbons around it. Went back two days later and there were tire tracks across it. The builder or whoever did it paid for the driveway to be re-poured.

Go check daily, if possible.

Also, if you want something extra or changes made, ask about it. We wanted extra electrical outlets in a couple of rooms. The sub said, "There are two on each wall, you don't need any more."

I almost lost my mind and let him know I wanted more, in specific locations, and the piddly amount of money it cost to add a few extras was coming out of my wallet and not his. They were installed. It made a difference, too.


When you do your walk-through, check everything -- turn on and off every light, take something to plug into every outlet (a nightlight is easy and works), turn on all the faucets and make sure the drains work, flush the toilets, the works. Check where the carpet is or should be tacked, like at the edge of a room. You don't want to get down the road and find out an outlet doesn't work.

If you have a garage, put up shelves, pegboard or anything else you might want before moving all your stuff in. Easier to do it with an empty garage.

Congrats on the house!

Nah, building is real cheap. My “friend” said he could build me a custom home for $90 sq ft......

Clearly, he's better friends with me than you, he told me $75, the finest finishes and all the latest gadgets and gizmos.

I need a friend like you guys have. I’m over here staring 130 dead in the eyes.

Congratulations juice! Hope you and your family enjoy the property and the new house.

I was once a licensed home builder but only built the houses that I was going to live in. There is some great advice in this thread. My advice would be is to be patient with your wife during this process because nothing will wear on your nerves like building a house together. Good luck!👍

I appreciate your response and the time you put into it. Excellent points.

I’m working on the patience, it’s been a challenge already and we’ve just begun. In the end it will be a blessing for us. We live in a very small structure I built when I first bought this property and was single. 900 sf metal structure that will convert to a shop but it only has 450 sf of living space. We’ve been here 4 years together in this little shack. It has felt like 40 lol. I can take 5 steps from my bed and be at the fridge. We need some room in a bad way.

Yes and it helps moving furniture in and out very easy. Fridge, heavy appliances scratching your door frames and all. Id definitely do that.

Please insulate your exterior garage walls. Im having to tear sheet rock, insulate then screw plywood on. Its making a big difference already in sound and temperatures.

Build a place to clean game animals/fish. Outdoor shower.

Do not pay the final draw to your subs until their work is complete to what you agreed on and to your satisfaction. They come back much slower or not at all sometimes when they have your money.
. Ask your electrician to draw an as wired on a copy of your blueprints for you to keep. If you have issues it is a great help to whomever is doing the troubleshooting.

Put a light switch beside where your bed is going, that turns the lights on in the living room and kitchen. That way If you hear a bump in the night, you can turn those lights on from your bedroom. Bad guy will be in the light and you’ll be in the shadows.

Build a safe room in the house or install a storm shelter

I can turn on all outside flood lights beside my bed too.

[quote=juice]I have instructions before we started to figure everything higher than a giraffes ass. By the looks of the cost estimate, he did. I can find a lot of places we will come in under. That being said, there will be places we’re over to wash it.

I may not be doing the right thing but I’m building out of pocket right now. I don’t plan on taking any draws until the first 100k is toast. This damn foundation took care of a nice chunk of it.

My brother did that and the bank gave him a hard time because of inspections not being done to that point. It makes no sense to me but you might want to ask around before you get much further. He got it in the end but they wanted to be a pain about it at first.

Get everything in writing on scope, specifications and details and especially any changes.

Use change orders.

Get backup documents on draw requests. Go over this regularly.

Talk to the subs to make sure they are getting paid properly.

Discuss with builder the plans regarding water management: grade with positive slope, flashing details at floor line, windows, doors, penetrations, roof/wall intersections, siding terminations and sealants at dissimilar materials WELL before the framing is completed.

Water intrusion and water management is the #1 issue in the vast majority of construction projects. Also #1 most preventable problem with attention to detail.

If you are not in an area with a building inspection department, hire someone who can check for minimum code standards. The 2015 IRC is the state adopted building code that applies to all counties and municipalities that have not specifically adopted an IRC code (previous versions and/or their own ammendments) and have their own building inspectors.

Like Clem said, check and double check behind them. Make sure you get a copy of your blueprints after yall go over them the final time and I assume yall will all sign or initial them. And before they lay sod go check to see if they picked up all the left over motor or bricks or just covered them with dirt. That crap works it way to the top over time.

Like Ryano said banks sometimes have heartache about loaning money on an already started construction project. If they are not already involved do it now. We insulated all of our interior walls and the first floor ceiling to help with noise. I guess it helped but we have 3 kids so I would hate to hear how loud it would be without it.

Make sure any room with an exterior wall gets an HVAC vent, even if its a closet. My first HVAC guy said that was not in his price (along with a bunch of other stuff), so another guy ended up doing mine.

When I built mine I had 2 service legs run to the house. I can't remember if a standard leg is 150amps or 200, but either way I have 2. It made adding a shop and pool super easy.

Any walkway that is not a cased door opening we used bullnose corners for the sheetrock. To me it looks good and minimizes the square corners that are so easy to scratch and chip.

If you are using the attic for storage or have a craft room/storage room upstairs definitely look into a versalift or something similar. I didn't hear about them until about a year ago. My wife has a storage/craft room above our carport and I really wish I had put one of these in when we built.

I’ll address a few of the last posts at once.

As far as the financing goes, the loan is secured. Only draw taken this far was to pay off the existing loan I had on this property from the original purchase. The lender is aware of what I’m doing and actually allow limitless draws. When we begin taking draws it will be weekly.

As far as water intrusion those are all great points. In my line of work I see faulty construction a lot and water intrusion is a big one. We are building on a slab and we’ve set it up to be a block higher than needed at my request. The spot I’m building on is very flat so I requested that in order to allow surface water to run off easier. I’ll be inquiring about the other items mentioned

I pay the subs direct. Contractor give me the bills and I write the checks and he takes care of delivering payment. Contractor is working for a flat fee, there is no schedule laid out to when I’ll pay him. He told me he would let me know when he needed some payment but he would hold off until the end of possible to avoid extra interest on my part. His payment will remain the same regardless of cost of construction. I guess you would call this a cost plus deal. I don’t really have allowances per se, just estimated costs for each part of the build. I can choose to spend as much or as little as I want in any area.

A lot of good Info has been provided. Thanks again.

hope you signed a pre-nup to keep everything in your name ... IJS

Try a major remodel on an older house. 3X the work, tear out-make it fit-replace.

Dealing with my banker was probably my biggest stress factor. I would call on Wed or Thurs to have money transferred so I could pay subs on Friday. About half the time he would tell me he needed to go look and verify before he would transfer money.Then he really couldn't tell me when he could get by. So I always had to wonder whether I would have the money to pay them on Friday. He always ended up putting money in but it was kinda stressful to me not knowing if he would or not.