New Construction Build Process – 5 Tips So You Don’t Go Crazy

Building a New Home Can Be Stressful – Keep These 5 Tips In Mind So You Don’t Go Crazy

There are many steps, pieces, and processes that go into your new home. If you think about it, from nails and screws to shingles and trim, there are MILLIONS of parts and pieces that go into building your new home. Not to mention hundreds of different people involved in the process, if not thousands. So how do you keep from going crazy during the process, how do you not call you builder and sales person with a long list every week, how do you have Piece of Mind during the process? Lets get started.

TIP #1 – Make Sure Expectations Are Set Early On

Your builder and salesperson should have done this early on in the process. This should have been discussed during the purchase agreement, and expectations should have been discussed and re-inforced at the pre construction meeting. Discussion and open dialogue can be the key to keeping you as a homebuyer happy in almost any circumstance. Understanding that the home building site is a job site, and not an operating room, food prep area, or laboratory is key to your mindset about how your jobsite will look.

TIP #2 – Understanding The Process Of Construction (Rough, Punch, Finish)

Understanding the process of construction can make a world of difference when you are viewing your under construction home. You walk in on a Saturday morning to find that they installed most of your lights, but the 10 that you paid extra for are all missing. You dial up your builder (on their day off by the way), you group message your sales person, and now in your head your upset the rest of the day. How could this have been avoided? Using Tip 1 to explain that during the construction process there are phases that the different companies that work on your home go through. These are the Rough Phase, Punch Phase, and Finish Phase. They are described below:

• Rough Phase – The initial installation of the part of the home that vendor is responsible for takes place. They install what is on the purchase order or complete the work that comes standard with the home. For a framer this can me he frames the first floor of the home, or for an electrician this means they could put the wiring and lighting in the locations annotated on the original set of blueprints. Each part of construction follows the 3 phases, so it is a continual loop at each stage.
• Punch Phase – This is where the builder or construction manager walks you home marking changes, additions, removals, or anything else they see and calls the vendor back to do the work listed. This can range from adding door and window framing for our framer above, to adding or moving lights and switches for the electrician. This is where the builder and vendor work together to ensure that what is in the home is what is on the paperwork. The punch phase for inside the walls of the home would be the pre-drywall meeting, but we will discuss that in another article I will link to later. Just ensure that at the pre drywall meeting everything is where you placed it and want it as when the drywall is up it is harder to move things around.
• Finish Phase – This is where the builder and vendor manager sign off on that stage of the home. In some circumstances they check with you and in others the refer to the purchase orders and documentation to make sure everything is there. This is when the home is signed off for the current stage, and the construction process advances.

TIP #3 – You ARE Part Of The Process 

Over the years I have worked with many homebuyers who have told me horror stores about building homes and their builder not allowing them to be part of the process. From not being allowed on the jobsite and no meetings during the construction timeframe to no communication about what is going on. You ARE part of the new construction process and everyone is working as one team to build your home. I have always welcomed and set the expectation that if one of my homebuyers wants to keep a list of items of concern they should, and we can even discuss it on a weekly basis. This is one of the reasons for Weekly Update Calls during the construction process, and it is important to find out what that process looks like when choosing a builder. Communication is the key to a great homebuilding experience.

TIP #4 – Nothing Is Happening At Your Home – Why

This is one that I have seen people who build without proper expectations get VERY upset over, and it is one of the easiest things to understand through expectation setting. During the construction process at various phases nothing is allowed to happen in your home. There are inspections that must happen before the home can move forward, and generally your builder has no control over when these happen once they are ordered. For example; once your frame goes up you need to get a frame inspection. Your builder calls in the inspection to the city and they have 7 buisiness days (it varies by city, county, or local governing body) to complete the process. During this time, nothing can be done to advance the construction of you home, but if you visit it will just look like nothing is happening. Discuss with your builder or sales on your Weekly Update Call to see where you are in the process and settle your mind down.

TIP #5 – The Jobsite Is DIRTY……Why Is My New Home Not Clean

The answer is in the title of the tip. Your new construction home is a JOBSTE until it is finished. Hundreds of people will be working on your home to ensure that you have a great finished product at the end, but those people need to eat and drink to fuel up to get the job done. Your builder should have trash cans (blue cans) inside the home, and a large trash collection point out front for construction debris. Does this mean that the vendors will always use them, absolutely NOT. While builders do their best to ensure you have a clean jobsite, this is not always the case. Saw dust, wood parts, nails, screws, piping, electric wires, and food debris will be left around the home during the process. While it might not be pleasant to look at and you don’t like seeing it (trust me neither do we) it is part of the process. Normally builders have the homes cleaned once a week, and I encourage my clients to visit their jobsite on Saturday as we have ours cleaned on Fridays to ensure that they see the jobsite in its most presentable form. Discuss what a clean jobsite looks like with your salesperson or builder to make sure you are all on the same page.

In Summary

Communication and Expectations are key to a successful new construction build, and your builder and you are all one team. Work with your builder and ask some of the questions above about expectations to ensure a smooth build process.