Come along as we build a custom home Thread II--Construction

[Anonymous]

Thank you. This is very helpful.

[Anonymous]

Do you mind letting us know which construction company you are using?

[Anonymous]

OP your lumber package must have been insane. House I'm building now is 9 foot ceilings on the first floor and 8 feet on the second. I think all told, house is about 34 feet high. Basement is walk out, not walk up. Your house is probably what...40 feet high or close to it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you mind letting us know which construction company you are using?

PP, do you mean builder? Finding a builder meant getting recommendations from our architect, asking friends, and also looking at the Maryland Building Industry Association website. We looked at websites, recommendations, and spouse is a lawyer and looked for any lawsuits filed via a Lexus Nexis search. We treated it like a job interview, probably talked with 7-8, and we ended up narrowing to two:

https://riversedgebuilders.com/

and

https://chadsworthhomes.com/

In the end, Chadsworth got our business, but we also really liked Rivers Edge (which was just out of our price range, but still reasonable vs someone like Sandy Spring, and others I'm forgetting that were really expensive).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP your lumber package must have been insane. House I'm building now is 9 foot ceilings on the first floor and 8 feet on the second. I think all told, house is about 34 feet high. Basement is walk out, not walk up. Your house is probably what...40 feet high or close to it?

The height of the house at the top of the roof ridge is approx 29 feet, 7 in. Code in the neighborhood allows up to 35 ft. This is because its a true, below ground basement, not a walkout. So the basement is 10 feet into the ground--for a little light + safety codes, there are window wells and a door with steps up to grade.

On each line item of cost, sometimes we've gotten lucky and other things have cost more. When we started this whole process, just after the pandemic hit, lumber prices spiked to historically high levels. Our permitting and other delays were frustrating, and cost us money and transaction costs, but it did save us on lumber and labor, since at the beginning, everyone was remodeling while stuck at home and labor was at a premium as well. We had budgeted 138K for lumber (for framing, roof and floor trusses) as well as labor. We came in 24K under at 114K.

[Anonymous]

One other thing about lumber costs--its not that much more expensive to build 10 foot (at least % wise for the total build), because that is still a standard length of wood involved. It will cost somewhat more, of course, because you're buying more feet. But what seems to really add costs is choosing non-standard materials. So, 8 foot wall, normal. 10 foot walls, normal. But a set of building plans where you want 13 foot walls means custom cutting boards and that is going to be expensive (plus wasting excess material since a standard length will need to be cut to size).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP your lumber package must have been insane. House I'm building now is 9 foot ceilings on the first floor and 8 feet on the second. I think all told, house is about 34 feet high. Basement is walk out, not walk up. Your house is probably what...40 feet high or close to it?

The height of the house at the top of the roof ridge is approx 29 feet, 7 in. Code in the neighborhood allows up to 35 ft. This is because its a true, below ground basement, not a walkout. So the basement is 10 feet into the ground--for a little light + safety codes, there are window wells and a door with steps up to grade.

On each line item of cost, sometimes we've gotten lucky and other things have cost more. When we started this whole process, just after the pandemic hit, lumber prices spiked to historically high levels. Our permitting and other delays were frustrating, and cost us money and transaction costs, but it did save us on lumber and labor, since at the beginning, everyone was remodeling while stuck at home and labor was at a premium as well. We had budgeted 138K for lumber (for framing, roof and floor trusses) as well as labor. We came in 24K under at 114K.

Hi OP, this is incredibly helpful! Thank you. I noted your 55 line items in your budget. Would you be willing to share the budget #s for each item? I have a good handle on my framing, chimney, plumbing, electrical, kitchen, fixtures, etc., but at a bit of a loss about some things like drywall, roofing, foundation, etc. in terms of budget numbers. I think we're up to a similar size project in similar location (or using similarly located subs). I've really learned a lot from your posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP your lumber package must have been insane. House I'm building now is 9 foot ceilings on the first floor and 8 feet on the second. I think all told, house is about 34 feet high. Basement is walk out, not walk up. Your house is probably what...40 feet high or close to it?

The height of the house at the top of the roof ridge is approx 29 feet, 7 in. Code in the neighborhood allows up to 35 ft. This is because its a true, below ground basement, not a walkout. So the basement is 10 feet into the ground--for a little light + safety codes, there are window wells and a door with steps up to grade.

On each line item of cost, sometimes we've gotten lucky and other things have cost more. When we started this whole process, just after the pandemic hit, lumber prices spiked to historically high levels. Our permitting and other delays were frustrating, and cost us money and transaction costs, but it did save us on lumber and labor, since at the beginning, everyone was remodeling while stuck at home and labor was at a premium as well. We had budgeted 138K for lumber (for framing, roof and floor trusses) as well as labor. We came in 24K under at 114K.

Hi OP, this is incredibly helpful! Thank you. I noted your 55 line items in your budget. Would you be willing to share the budget #s for each item? I have a good handle on my framing, chimney, plumbing, electrical, kitchen, fixtures, etc., but at a bit of a loss about some things like drywall, roofing, foundation, etc. in terms of budget numbers. I think we're up to a similar size project in similar location (or using similarly located subs). I've really learned a lot from your posts.

Oh good, I'm glad. We're still in process of building, so I don't have everything yet, but, for the items you called out:
Roofing: total cost was $16,690. Builder recommended Certainteed, https://www.certainteed.com/ and we used the Landmark line. We also got a small metal roofed overhang for the portico at the front door (that was $750 of the 16K total). Went with the lightest color available, to help with heat absorption. A complicated roofline will make this go up in cost...ours is fairly simple.

Foundation: Cost was $86K
Waterproofing the foundation: $3,900 (damp proofing would have been cheaper)
Termite protection: $1,200
Structural Steel: $5,200 (these are the steel beams that run across the length of the house)

This stage of construction was fast! Once the homesite was dug, and foundation was poured, the framing went up in a week, and the roof in a couple of days.

[Anonymous]

I’m following this thread with fascination. I hope to do this one day. Although I think sometimes it’s cheaper to buy an existing home.

[Anonymous]

Foundation: Cost was $86K


This is the total paid to the sub for time + materials, for the footing, walls, and slab?

Was this a complicated wall layout or a straightforward rectangle? What's the square footage of your footprint?
(THANKS!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Foundation: Cost was $86K


This is the total paid to the sub for time + materials, for the footing, walls, and slab?

Was this a complicated wall layout or a straightforward rectangle? What's the square footage of your footprint?
(THANKS!)

Not OP, but my costs were probably half that, which makes sense since my house is probably 2000 square feet less than what OP is building.

From my experience, that was total costs for material and everything. What the contractor pays out to their workers was not itemized out.

Regarding another post about how it may be cheaper to buy something instead of building, my wife and I thought about that a lot. But, just to use this as an example, if we bought a house with a decent sized island and you wanted to swap out the counter top, it's not like it's a couple of grand, its in the thousands. Several thousands just for a mid-tier quartz. Flooring is also costly, even if you do LVP. For the most part, it's not the materials of the house that are going to be an issue, i.e. lumber those costs don't fluctuate much unless you run into the issue OP had where lumber went up fast during the pandemic. It's also not the the site costs, those are fixed too. It's once you start putting things into the house, i.e. your recess lighting budget was 10K, but you added 15 more recess lights so now that doubled. Instead of standard appliances, you splurged and got Wolf or something high end. Black windows instead of standard white? That's an extra 10-15K or so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Foundation: Cost was $86K


This is the total paid to the sub for time + materials, for the footing, walls, and slab?

Was this a complicated wall layout or a straightforward rectangle? What's the square footage of your footprint?
(THANKS!)

Not OP, but my costs were probably half that, which makes sense since my house is probably 2000 square feet less than what OP is building.

From my experience, that was total costs for material and everything. What the contractor pays out to their workers was not itemized out.

Regarding another post about how it may be cheaper to buy something instead of building, my wife and I thought about that a lot. But, just to use this as an example, if we bought a house with a decent sized island and you wanted to swap out the counter top, it's not like it's a couple of grand, its in the thousands. Several thousands just for a mid-tier quartz. Flooring is also costly, even if you do LVP. For the most part, it's not the materials of the house that are going to be an issue, i.e. lumber those costs don't fluctuate much unless you run into the issue OP had where lumber went up fast during the pandemic. It's also not the the site costs, those are fixed too. It's once you start putting things into the house, i.e. your recess lighting budget was 10K, but you added 15 more recess lights so now that doubled. Instead of standard appliances, you splurged and got Wolf or something high end. Black windows instead of standard white? That's an extra 10-15K or so.

Yes, the 86K included everything, from labor to materials for everything associated with the foundation itself (footings, slab, etc). It also included the work 'around' the foundation to protect from water (eg gravel filtration).

I don't know that there is a way to save money here--other than just building a smaller structure. I suppose you could build up not out, but that's still going to cost in materials and labor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Foundation: Cost was $86K


This is the total paid to the sub for time + materials, for the footing, walls, and slab?

Was this a complicated wall layout or a straightforward rectangle? What's the square footage of your footprint?
(THANKS!)

Not OP, but my costs were probably half that, which makes sense since my house is probably 2000 square feet less than what OP is building.

From my experience, that was total costs for material and everything. What the contractor pays out to their workers was not itemized out.

Regarding another post about how it may be cheaper to buy something instead of building, my wife and I thought about that a lot. But, just to use this as an example, if we bought a house with a decent sized island and you wanted to swap out the counter top, it's not like it's a couple of grand, its in the thousands. Several thousands just for a mid-tier quartz. Flooring is also costly, even if you do LVP. For the most part, it's not the materials of the house that are going to be an issue, i.e. lumber those costs don't fluctuate much unless you run into the issue OP had where lumber went up fast during the pandemic. It's also not the the site costs, those are fixed too. It's once you start putting things into the house, i.e. your recess lighting budget was 10K, but you added 15 more recess lights so now that doubled. Instead of standard appliances, you splurged and got Wolf or something high end. Black windows instead of standard white? That's an extra 10-15K or so.

Yes, the 86K included everything, from labor to materials for everything associated with the foundation itself (footings, slab, etc). It also included the work 'around' the foundation to protect from water (eg gravel filtration).

I don't know that there is a way to save money here--other than just building a smaller structure. I suppose you could build up not out, but that's still going to cost in materials and labor.

Thanks! What's the square footage of your footprint and was the foundation complicated in the sense of lots of corners, columns, etc? Did the foundation contractor also excavate or was that separate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m following this thread with fascination. I hope to do this one day. Although I think sometimes it’s cheaper to buy an existing home.

Having recently not built from scratch but completely gutted and rebuilt, I think it is cheaper to buy existing. I would say that building is ideal if ou have strong opinions or feelings about how you want your house(I did and don’t regret it, but it is v expensive and a headache). The benefit of existing houses is that often, a lot of the non-construction extras come with it - fences, pavers, patios, landscaping, window. Treatments, appliances, etc. and if you don’t like them at least you can live with them before upgrading. Our window treatments alone were $15k (but again, I have specific preferences ) but there wasn’t an existing option (other than paper blinds) I could live with, so it’s a lot oop immediately

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Foundation: Cost was $86K


This is the total paid to the sub for time + materials, for the footing, walls, and slab?

Was this a complicated wall layout or a straightforward rectangle? What's the square footage of your footprint?
(THANKS!)

Not OP, but my costs were probably half that, which makes sense since my house is probably 2000 square feet less than what OP is building.

From my experience, that was total costs for material and everything. What the contractor pays out to their workers was not itemized out.

Regarding another post about how it may be cheaper to buy something instead of building, my wife and I thought about that a lot. But, just to use this as an example, if we bought a house with a decent sized island and you wanted to swap out the counter top, it's not like it's a couple of grand, its in the thousands. Several thousands just for a mid-tier quartz. Flooring is also costly, even if you do LVP. For the most part, it's not the materials of the house that are going to be an issue, i.e. lumber those costs don't fluctuate much unless you run into the issue OP had where lumber went up fast during the pandemic. It's also not the the site costs, those are fixed too. It's once you start putting things into the house, i.e. your recess lighting budget was 10K, but you added 15 more recess lights so now that doubled. Instead of standard appliances, you splurged and got Wolf or something high end. Black windows instead of standard white? That's an extra 10-15K or so.

Yes, the 86K included everything, from labor to materials for everything associated with the foundation itself (footings, slab, etc). It also included the work 'around' the foundation to protect from water (eg gravel filtration).

I don't know that there is a way to save money here--other than just building a smaller structure. I suppose you could build up not out, but that's still going to cost in materials and labor.

Thanks! What's the square footage of your footprint and was the foundation complicated in the sense of lots of corners, columns, etc? Did the foundation contractor also excavate or was that separate?

Square footage of our building's footprint (living space, garage + covered porches) is 2,938 sq ft. Its mostly a rectangular shape: there's a crawl space and we decided to put a topping slab there--which did increase the cost, but the thought of things tunneling up and into the actual home creeped me out enough that we went for the additional expense. Some modifications in the cement are visible for the (future) elevator shaft space--foundation there is about 18 inches lower there. And for the roll in shower, the foundation is also modified.

Two separate contractors handled excavation/grading/gravel infill + concrete slab, reinforcement, footings, etc. KEY Excavation for the former, and Green Village concrete for the latter. I detailed more of the work on grading etc on the earlier thread that covered site prep. Its a little hard to tell where site prep ends and construction began--KEY handled both the site grading, tree clearing, hauling off of trash/debris, sediment fencing etc AND excavation of the homesite. The grading, excavation and backfill by itself was $8,600 (that's in addition to the 86K foundation cost).

Idk if there are contractors on this site who could weigh in--foundation work is expensive!