The Construction Process

A quick word about building a new home. Expect the following: second-guess some of your choices, visit the site, get in some mud, worry about the weather, make some changes, and wonder where all that money is going.

You think everyone should hurry up and get your home built.

…No wait, they should take their time and build it right.

…..No wait, the loan rate expires, the school year starts, the new job begins.

Maybe they should just take their time as fast as possible.

However much worry and fun you think the process will be, get ready for more of both.

Depending on who you talk to, you may dread a frustrating, stressful, expensive nightmare, or you may look forward to a utopian experience with no glitches. Neither of those scenarios are realistic. Delays, surprises, questions, dirt, noise, and more meetings, emails, and phone calls than you can imagine make up the building process. Building a new home puts significant demands on your time, but expect fun and satisfaction too. We compare the building process to a roller coaster ride, a series of highs and lows. For instance, when you stand in your newly framed family room deciding where to put the sofa, the loan application paperwork seems less annoying than when you filled it out.

In the end, your view of this experience as good or bad will depend on the expectations with which you started. Our hope is that by starting out with accurate and complete information about the construction process, you’ll have more realistic expectations for the construction schedule, jobsite protocol, your site visits, changes, and quality.

Construction Schedules

When Will the House Be Done?

From the moment you decide to build, a natural question is, “When can we move in?” At this point the answer is a target at best. We cannot provide a firm delivery date because factors outside of our control affect the time needed to build a new home. For example, delays in obtaining plan approval from the building department, or your homeowners association design review committee, or weather, shortage of labor, delays in obtaining materials, etc. We recognize that timing is critical to planning your move. The initial target date will begin as just that – a target.  Once the home is closed in, we can set a firmer date since weather delays are minimized. Understanding the construction process makes tolerating this ambiguity easier.

We create a construction schedule based on experience combined with input from the trades. Each trade contractor estimates the number of days needed to complete its portion of the work. Builders who build the same floor plans repeatedly evolve a predictable schedule for each plan. Because custom building plans have not been built before, unanticipated details that crop up affect the schedule. Construction schedules require regular revisions. And although everyone (not just you) would prefer to follow the original schedule and finish on time, these schedules seldom behave that way. A construction schedule is the epitome of a living document and many factors can conspire to extend its life.

Sequence

Each trade contractor needs a certain number of days to complete its work, depending on the size and complexity of the floor plan. Most portions of the work must occur in sequence. Some trades need to work alone in the house. Having the electrician and the plumber there simultaneously can result in frustration and inefficiency because they get in each other’s way. However, some aspects of the work can overlap, especially later on, after the home is closed in. Interior and exterior crews usually do not interfere with each other’s work, so we run parallel schedules – one interior, one exterior. A carpenter can hang interior doors while the concrete contractor pours the sidewalk.

Knowing which trades can work at the same time, from a practical and a personality standpoint, is part of our job.

Critical Path

You may hear the term critical path used in connection with the construction schedule. This term refers to milestones in the building process that are critical to meeting the target delivery date.

Between these milestones some variation in the order or exact timing of the work can occur. But if the work fails to meet one milestone, expect an adjustment in the final delivery date.

Lead Time

Once work begins, we notify each trade several days or weeks before its assigned work date. Trade contractors need varying lengths of lead time, or notice, depending on how much construction is occurring in the region. The exact number of days varies with workload and from trade to trade.

The painter who needs four days lead time in June may need four weeks in November due to the yearend crunch. The electrician may need two days’ notice, while the drywall crew needs two weeks. A month later, they all may need entirely different lead times. Staying in touch with these constantly changing workloads is part of our job.

Material Delivery

We must time the ordering of materials so that deliveries occur at the correct time. If materials arrive too soon and just sit at the site, they risk damage or theft. If they arrive too late, someone ends up waiting for them. Suppliers need lead time just as trade contractors do. Again, the amount of work in the area affects this orchestration.

Final Selections

Speaking of schedules, your job at this point is to complete your selections by their due dates. We must order many parts and materials in advance to have them on hand when needed. The sooner the materials can be ordered, the better, particularly if you selected unusual custom items. If a product or color choice is no longer available, the earlier you know that, the more notice you have to select another one.

When you feel impatient, remember that we want the home completed as much as you do. Do your part to keep the home on schedule by making selections on time and minimizing changes.

Jobsite Protocol

Day to Day Activities

We are involved with your home on a daily basis, but that doesn’t mean we are in the house every day. This involvement includes monitoring and updating the schedule, talking with the trade contractors and suppliers on the phone, and checking on deliveries. We also answer questions from tradespeople and resolve conflicting details. Sometimes we ask for comments from you to clarify details. When this request occurs, we need your response quickly.

The hundreds of phone calls that go into building a home are an invisible component of the work. BuilderTrend communications, texts, emails, and cell phones make these communications more convenient, but they do little to mitigate the sometimes-hectic nature of the process. Expect to find yourself communicating a lot. During some phases of the process, daily communication with the selection coordinator, the site supervisor, the allowance contractors, and other members of the construction team are common. Studying selection options and reviewing pricing to make decisions becomes part of your daily routine. The process demands your energy, enthusiasm and patience.

We frequently check the work at the house, but not every day. Our reputation and your ultimate satisfaction with the product rely on this close attention. Technical standards such as building codes and specific requirements such as the blueprints, specs, and change orders provide the criteria for these inspections.

Your Site Visits

Few purchases in today’s world offer us the opportunity to watch the manufacturing of a product. Building a home is unique in this regard, and that idea proves both exhilarating and frightening. The excitement of seeing your home progress is one reason you’re building a home. But few of us know how many details were corrected in our cell phones, our vehicles, or our shoes before they arrived pristine and ready to use at the retailer. Mistakes will occur during construction. Good communication can prevent the anxiety you’re likely to feel as necessary corrections take place in your home. Scheduled site visits with the site supervisor offer you and us an opportunity to have each other’s undivided attention. At agreed-upon points during construction, we meet at the site to

review progress and discuss questions. These visits might occur every two or three weeks or upon completion of certain phases of work. Meetings occur during normal business hours, Monday through Friday. Staffing limitations and other practical details often prevent holding meetings in the evenings or on weekends. We require that company personnel accompany you when you visit your home.

Safety

When visiting the site, be mindful of the following precautions.

• Keep older children within view and younger children within reach or make arrangements to leave them elsewhere when visiting the site.
• Do not walk backward, even one step. Look in the direction you are moving at all times.
  • Watch for boards, cords, tools, nails, or construction materials that might cause tripping, puncture wounds, or other injury.
  • Do not enter any level of a home that is not equipped with stairs and rails.
  • Stay a minimum of six feet from all excavations.
    • Give large, noisy grading equipment or delivery vehicles plenty of room. Assume that the driver can neither see nor hear you.

People Who Build Your Home

You meet many characters on the construction site. You might find reformed type-A executives who gave up corporate positions to create something with their hands. Later you might encounter proud craftsmen, rough laborers, and a rambler who follows the gyrations of the job market. Every job has at least one sharp-eyed curmudgeon and one eccentric philosopher – sometimes in the same person. Look for some rookies learning a new trade and a few youngsters working for next semester’s tuition. This motley collection of skill and brawn builds your home. Their habits include smoking, chewing, and singing. Their attire and language reflect the hard work and outdoor environment.

Conversations range from stock market analysis to last night’s game, from kids to hunting. Vehicles and spouses are compared between trading tools and passing materials. Sunday school manners have infiltrated few construction sites. If a hammer and thumb come in close contact, a colorful description of that event is likely to ensue.

Overall you find a pragmatic group of people committed to doing a good job. Woven through their efforts you should expect mud, trash, material scraps, lunch wrappers, gravel, more mud, blowing dust, mystery parts and vehicles of every shape and size. Depending on who’s working, the musical repertoire ranges from country to rock to rap to classical. Drugs, drinking alcohol, horseplay, and speeding vehicles is not tolerated and can result in termination.

“Why Isn’t Anyone Working?”

Despite the diversity of this cast of characters, from time to time they all seem to leave the stage simultaneously. At times nothing appears to be happening. If you visit the site Tuesday, then on Thursday and see no significant change, your home is in one of those lulls. You’ll worry less if you understand the reasons for this inactivity.

Weather

We include weather days in the schedule. Until the home is closed in, precipitation, low temperatures and extreme high temperatures can stop interior work. Exterior work is always subject to weather conditions. Concrete work and painting require certain temperatures.

Postponing this work until conditions are right is usually less expensive that doing it twice.

Pace of Work

Sometimes a trade completes its work ahead of schedule. Often the next trade has an assigned time and cannot change on short notice. On the other hand, despite the requested lead time, a trade may run behind schedule. Work the trade contractor is completing at another site sometimes takes longer than expected. Trade contractors don’t always let us know about these days. Many phone calls follow.

Based on past history or recent events, we know which trades are difficult to schedule. A shortage of skilled labor for a particular trade, the time of year, and recent weather all can impact the schedule. For instance, if a hail storm occurs, roofers are at a premium. We consider this fact in our planning and scheduling. One late trade can force the rescheduling of several others, which causes other delays.

Inspection Days

At several points during construction, progress stops until the work up to that point passes required building department inspections. There are around 20 such inspections. This normal pause occurs in every home. Further work must wait until the items noted by inspectors are corrected.

No homes go through construction without an inspector citing something.

Deliveries

Materials we order do not always arrive on time. Delivery of back-ordered or custom-made items are unpredictable. Even when materials are available, shipping and delivery can cause delays.

Sometimes shipments arrive on time but are incomplete. Items may arrive damaged.

If these scheduling mishaps make you wonder how any home is ever completed, remember that we work with these circumstances every day. All existing homes were subject to the same factors. Just as your budget should contain a contingency category for unexpected expenses, the construction schedule contains extra days to offset the effects of delays. However, even the extra days may not compensate for all of the schedule extensions.

“Let’s Move This Wall a Little Bit”

Although you invested considerable thought and time in designing and making selections for your new home, some refinements may come to mind as you watch it take shape. Before you request a change, consider the effect change orders have on the construction process. We are amenable to accepting change order requests, however our system works much more efficiently with minimal or

no alterations. Changes almost always cause schedule delays, extra expense, and frequently confusion. Also, once parts are ordered and labor is scheduled, a momentum builds that is difficult to stop or change. Changes can cause errors because of conflicting information circulating among people on site and among the trades.

Status of the Work

Just because an item is not yet installed does not mean that changing it is easy or inexpensive. You wake up one morning and realize that your hardwood flooring is the wrong choice. Just because the flooring is not in your home yet doesn’t mean that this change is free. Many suppliers charge a restocking fee for returning items to their inventory. While everyone waits for the new hardwood choice to arrive, we must reschedule the finish work of several trades. For instances we cannot install the appliances or complete the final electrical and plumbing or complete the drywall touch ups or final painting until the flooring is installed.

Time for Research and Decision

When you consider making a change, you must endure the frustrating wait while information is gathered to help you make the decision. Pricing can take a few days or a few weeks.  We must collect information from every trade affected by the change. As the buyer, naturally you want to know the cost and the effect on the delivery date before making a final decision. Meanwhile, work continues. Taking completed work apart also adds days and dollars. Sometimes it costs less to stop work until the decision is made rather than risk having to take work apart.

Change Orders

We charge an administrative fee for change order requests.  This money pays for the extra staff time needed to revise paperwork, cancel original instructions, and double-check that new choices are installed correctly. After a change order is approved, we must see to its implementation and are at risk for any errors.

A well written change order documents the description of the change, the cost, and schedule adjustment.

We inform our trade contractors that changes from the plans and specifications must come from us in the form of an approved change order. This policy protects everyone; most importantly, it protects you. When this policy is not followed, here’s what can happen. A buyer talked the plumber into moving some water lines, so they could center a large antique mirror over the powder room sink. This change of just a few inches created havoc when the cabinet order arrived. The cabinet fit the original plan which showed the sink off center.

After untangling the confusion, the builder returned the cabinet, ordered a new a configuration and rescheduled several trades. The electrician had to return to relocate the electrical box for the light fixture which the buyer had not though of centering. The buyer paid a substantial restocking charge to the cabinet company and an extra trip charge to the electrician and paid for a drywall repair. And their delivery date was delayed. The change order documentation system has evolved for good reason.

Quality

We have systems and procedures for inspecting our homes to ensure that the level of quality meets certain standards.  No one however, looks as closely at the quality of their home as the person who is paying. Our standards for quality construction are high, but your commitment to the home’s quality is the strongest and your standards are the highest. No matter the price of your home, you may reach a point where your standards for some aspect of the work exceed everyone else’s. “Everyone” in this context includes building codes, industry standards, warranty standards, and our quality standards. As detailed as the quality standards are, we must often use our discretion.

Mistakes Will Happen

With a product that has more than 100,000 parts and is built by 300 to 400 people outside in the weather over a period of many months, mistake will happen. Every new home experiences incomplete tasks, installation errors, incidental and even careless damage to finishes and materials. Very rarely does any trade complete their scope without being cited for some needed correction or repair. In most cases, our site supervisors are managing the construction of several homes, in several different locations at any given time. For this reason, your home is not visited every day.

Completion and quality assessments are made at specific points for each phase. Incomplete tasks, deficient installations, and damage is not always corrected as rapidly as you might like or expect but does get corrected at the proper time as the building process advance.

Communicating Your Concerns

In our contract the buyers agree to a noninterference clause. This clause means that you take questions and concerns to us rather than give instructions to the trade contractors.

Can the issue wait until the next routine conversation or should you contact us immediately? Buyers often have difficulty determining the urgency of their questions. No simple formula exists for deciding when you should mention a detail immediately and when it can wait until a routine meeting or conversation. Without an understanding of the construction process, you may not know.

You should bring some details to our attention immediately. For instance, if you ordered oil rubbed bronze plumbing fixtures and you see that chrome fixtures were delivered. The plumber will appreciate your calling attention to the error. As much as you can, resist two temptations. Don’t point out items that are blatantly obvious or that we will come to in the normal sequence of construction. The day the framer starts first floor walls is not the time to mention that you saw a bowed stud, as we will frame the entire house then do a comprehensive frame inspection. And second, don’t call us excessively. Constant conversation, despite how much we enjoy chatting with you, prevents efficient progress on your home.