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

[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.

I think if you compare true apples to apples--holding location constant--buying an existing home that needs minimal remodeling is the least expensive. Remodeling is going to depend based on how much work has to be done. Full gut rehab or some 100 year old farmhouse is probably (I'm guessing) pretty pricey as well, but more modest remodeling would be cheaper and could be tackled in stages. Custom build is likely the most expensive. But: true comparisons are really hard. If we had bought an existing home in the same neighborhood as our build, it would not have had all the features we wanted: from energy efficiency, to accessibility, to other design elements. If all goes well, we'll be all in for $1.4 million, for a home that would have cost about $2M for comparable in, say, Bethesda (similar square footage, something built 2015 or later). We could have bought existing in our location for between $950K and $1.2m. Of course we'll be further from DC--I mentioned earlier that we're a 30-45 min drive into downtown DC, depending on traffic or a 15 min drive to metro and then a 30 min ride in. But, we have a half acre lot, which almost isn't possible close in. We are walking distance to a grocery store, and a few other stores, but I wouldn't call our neighborhood very walkable generally. All about tradeoffs. We have a family member with a disability, and a big part of the reason we're building is that we couldn't find anything existing with true wheelchair accessibility--easy to sink 100K or more into widening hallways, adding a full accessible bath on a main level, adding ramps, changing cabinetry & kitchen to accommodate. So it made it worthwhile for us. Building is such a hassle--I think the 'knowing your motivation' was key for us up front. Lot of 'cost benefit' calculations done upfront.

[Anonymous]

And, now an update on windows, which also had to be ordered fairly early in the process. We went with Anderson 100 series windows. Home has 32 windows total, and the cost was 22K. While the windows are all different sizes, theyre all existing standard sizes. We have one 'specialty' window --a standard offered size but its a sliding window from our kitchen looking out on the back deck--so whoever is grilling can pass things through to the kitchen.

Basement windows are casement, first floor are single hung, and the windows in the kids bedrooms on the second floor are double hung.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

Thanks! I was the one asking for the details and this is real, real helpful. I know about how much concrete will cost for mine and labor was the wildcard, but I've got a 1200 sq ft. rectangle and you have a lot, lot more wall and floor space than I do. So it gives me a real benchmark for what to expect as a I get bids...THANKS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And, now an update on windows, which also had to be ordered fairly early in the process. We went with Anderson 100 series windows. Home has 32 windows total, and the cost was 22K. While the windows are all different sizes, theyre all existing standard sizes. We have one 'specialty' window --a standard offered size but its a sliding window from our kitchen looking out on the back deck--so whoever is grilling can pass things through to the kitchen.

Basement windows are casement, first floor are single hung, and the windows in the kids bedrooms on the second floor are double hung.

That’s way cheaper than I’d expect for windows!

I’m juggling with this idea now. I have 30 acres along the Shenandoah river that I paid under $200k for. My neighbor recently built her 1500 sq ft home with no basement for $415k not included the cost of the land. Houses in the neighborhood go for $700k-$1.2 million on 20-35 acres. My lot is a challenge- the well site and building site sits on top of a large hill, the septic field is in the flood plain down the hill and up and over another hill. I’m debating whether to look into building (realistically it’ll cost at least $650k to build a decent modest house) or wait until one of my adjacent neighbors with an existing house sells and have larger acreage.

[Anonymous]

surprised at this price point you went with Anderson 100s (and hence the real low cost). How'd you come to that decision and not use 400s or something similar?

[Anonymous]

I'll address both PP windows observations here. Anderson 100 windows are a composite material. We also got the Low-E glass on the southern exposure side of the house to help block heat.

For us, the 100 series had the combination of lower cost and high performance. Anderson has a 200 series (wood) and 400 series (wood covered in vinyl) that are more expensive. We also could have gone cheaper had we done builder grade, all vinyl windows. On a previous home, we had wood windows and I will never again do that (not Anderson but they all pretty much have these options). The wood expanded in the heat/direct sun and contracted in the cold--it was a maintenance rat race. Something always needed to be fixed/replaced.

We further kept our costs low by sticking to standard window sizes and colors. We did a sandstone color inside and out--options like having the windows one color inside and a different color outside dramatically raise the cost.

I mentioned the sliding window. Early on, after one too many Architectural Digest/houzz inspo pictures, I wanted an accordion style, giant window to open outward. But then remembered we don't live on the pages of Architectural Digest, and would rather not invite mosquitos the size of housecats inside. So practicality aligned with budget, for once!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, now an update on windows, which also had to be ordered fairly early in the process. We went with Anderson 100 series windows. Home has 32 windows total, and the cost was 22K. While the windows are all different sizes, theyre all existing standard sizes. We have one 'specialty' window --a standard offered size but its a sliding window from our kitchen looking out on the back deck--so whoever is grilling can pass things through to the kitchen.

Basement windows are casement, first floor are single hung, and the windows in the kids bedrooms on the second floor are double hung.

That’s way cheaper than I’d expect for windows!

I’m juggling with this idea now. I have 30 acres along the Shenandoah river that I paid under $200k for. My neighbor recently built her 1500 sq ft home with no basement for $415k not included the cost of the land. Houses in the neighborhood go for $700k-$1.2 million on 20-35 acres. My lot is a challenge- the well site and building site sits on top of a large hill, the septic field is in the flood plain down the hill and up and over another hill. I’m debating whether to look into building (realistically it’ll cost at least $650k to build a decent modest house) or wait until one of my adjacent neighbors with an existing house sells and have larger acreage.

Your well/septic challenges are a whole other level. I bet the views at the top of the hill could make it all worth it, though. If we didn't have our own special needs, probably would have gone for an existing home. Your situation sounds like another reason to go custom--getting something that fits the landscape sounds really appealing. Maybe a barn and a few horses too??

[Anonymous]

A note on time spent, which is the other cost associated with a custom build. Spouse and I are very hands on, and really into the process. But its a lot of work. I detailed time spent with the architect on the other thread, and time spent interviewing and selecting builders. Throughout this whole journey, we've been meeting weekly with the builder for 1 hour, usually via zoom. There are also a half dozen emails with the builder during a typical week. We go and visit the site weekly on our own, or sometimes with the builder. We've also been visiting show rooms for plumbing fixtures, appliances, lighting, tile. Some of the weekly home visits are just pure fun, seeing it all come together. But at key points, the visits are pretty important. After the foundation, the framing + roof went in. The electrician and plumber (who also does gas lines) came. Will add detail on this next--but we found it useful to stay very engaged at this point (all pre insulation & drywall). Once this stuff is in and insulation & drywall goes on top, its a turning point. You can change stuff, but the cost in both money and time will be astronomical. And, people will get irritated.

[Anonymous]

I'm getting out of order here. A few months before the foundation was started (actually before we had the final building permit in hand), the builder had us pick out plumbing fixtures. Even though faucets won't go in until later in the build process, the drains and valves that go with particular fixtures go in before insulation and drywall and so they all have to be picked out early.

We went with Ferguson, and the salesperson, Mary Jo Barbato who was great.

We never used a separate designer through this process, though I could see why one would. Instead, we worked with professionals who had a great sense for what works in their domain, and an idea of how their area overlapped or impacted others. And the Builder (whose daughter in law has an eye for design and coordinates the interior finish vendors) helped us think through a few things as well.

What I liked about Mary Jo is, we talked about how we lived, what we liked, who would be using the various rooms, shared Houzz folders for inspiration, told her our budget, and then she selected options she thought would work. So rather than picking from hundreds (thousands?) of options, we picked from a dozen or so in each room. Rather than us just roaming through the show room and finding a $2K faucet, or choosing something that wouldn't meet our other needs, she steered us in the right direction. Also, having lived in a ton of homes over the years, plus our own online research, we started the process with a sense of what we wanted.

We spent about 3 hours in the showroom, and picked every faucet, tub, showerhead, sink, toilet, towel bar etc. We also got grab bars for the accessible bathroom. A few days later, Mary Jo sent us the final estimate for everything: $21,633

[Anonymous]

A few of the fixtures we picked out:

Kitchen
Brizo faucets (gold is kind of a muted tone) for the kitchen main sink + additonal prep sink: https://www.brizo.com/kitchen/product/63058LF-GLPG

Signature Hardware Workstation sink, https://www.signaturehardware.com/32-in-workspace-undermount-sink--brushed-stainless-steel/447793.html

Powder Room;
Hammered copper undermount sink, https://thompsontraders.com/product/taxco-aged-copper-ii/

Primary Bath
69" freestanding, airbath tub -- model is now discontinued, so I don't have the link

We went with a combination of Brizo (Kitchen), Signature Hardware (Primary bath), Pfister & Delta (Hall bath, main floor and basement guest baths, laundry room utility sinks)

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info OP, this is an interesting thread!

[Anonymous]

DP. I also would have picked composite/fiberglass over wood or vinyl-covered wood. Painted wood eventually rots. Vinyl protects the wood, but then vinyl is hard to paint. And as OP noted, wood shrinks/expands with temperature changes, while composite/fiberglass will not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP. I also would have picked composite/fiberglass over wood or vinyl-covered wood. Painted wood eventually rots. Vinyl protects the wood, but then vinyl is hard to paint. And as OP noted, wood shrinks/expands with temperature changes, while composite/fiberglass will not.

I'm the PP who asked about windows. the 100s use the same Fibrex material that the A-series are wrapped in. I'm using A-series and have 34 (mostly double hung but a few casement units and 2 picture) and getting them factory finished. The cost is about 70k, around 12-15k of that is for the pre-finishing (which I figured would cost around 400 per window to have a painter do them and they could not have gotten as good of a finish as in the factory).

Interestingly, I got wildly different quotes from dealers (local lumberyards). All in, windows and a big 18' outswing door and another big french door, one place gave me a 105k quote and another gave me a 145k quote. THE EXACT SAME ANDERSON QUOTE with all the same specs. Both in Maryland. One just gouging me at the highest level of gouging. Literally just tacked on 40k to the price over what another place would sell them to me for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. I also would have picked composite/fiberglass over wood or vinyl-covered wood. Painted wood eventually rots. Vinyl protects the wood, but then vinyl is hard to paint. And as OP noted, wood shrinks/expands with temperature changes, while composite/fiberglass will not.

I'm the PP who asked about windows. the 100s use the same Fibrex material that the A-series are wrapped in. I'm using A-series and have 34 (mostly double hung but a few casement units and 2 picture) and getting them factory finished. The cost is about 70k, around 12-15k of that is for the pre-finishing (which I figured would cost around 400 per window to have a painter do them and they could not have gotten as good of a finish as in the factory).

Interestingly, I got wildly different quotes from dealers (local lumberyards). All in, windows and a big 18' outswing door and another big french door, one place gave me a 105k quote and another gave me a 145k quote. THE EXACT SAME ANDERSON QUOTE with all the same specs. Both in Maryland. One just gouging me at the highest level of gouging. Literally just tacked on 40k to the price over what another place would sell them to me for.

The A series are the triple paned ones--very nice and likely accounts for the difference in cost. That is crazy on quotes varying so widely for the same product. Also, there are a lot of really aggressive windows sales outfits. Its been nice having the builder run interference. Once they know you're in the market, we've found windows sales people in particular to be quite persistent.

[Anonymous]

Now, onto HVAC. We spent a lot of time researching this and insulation. A friend of ours (also building) recommended an excellent podcast, and specifically this episode on HVAC.
https://2designers1builder.libsyn.com/26-ac-heating-aka-hvac

Home will have one system for the basement grade level + conditioned crawl space, and a second for the 2nd level.

We went with heat pump system, variable stage unit (5 stages) + air handler by Carrier. System has backup (electric) auxiliary heat. Will also have a filter, ventilation system + humidifier (by Aprilaire). Make up air, duct work, programmable thermostat. The estimate could have also included exhaust fans for bathrooms, but we'd already ordered those through Ferguson. Contractor will also provide refrigeration piping, drain piping, floor register cutouts.

While on the topic of heating, we also have two gas fireplaces--one in the family room, and the other on the outdoor, covered porch. But the home is mostly electric.

Falcon Heating & AirCon is the contractor, total cost for labor, materials, etc is $53,890.