Building a House

      When building a house, ideally, the weather will be perfect, all the materials will arrive on time and intact, and the trades people will be ready and on time. Unfortunately this is a very rare occasion. The weather could take a turn for the worse, materials could be late or items missing, the electrician could be held up at another job, or any number of things could go wrong. The point is that building a house can be a chaotic event.

      What we have attempted to do with this web site is give you a step by step guide to building a house and some idea what each step involves.  While certain things must happen before others, like the foundation goes in before the roof, other things may be completed in a different order without creating many problems. In other words this site is to be treated as a general guide to construction.

GETTING STARTED

• Don't forget to budget for the driveway, sidewalks, landscaping, fencing, blinds and maybe even some new furniture or appliances.

• Before you choose a plan, take into account your lifestyle and your budget.  It is very easy to go over budget or choose a plan that looks ideal on paper, but does not suit your family.
• There are many design books on the market or you could hire an architect or a home designer to design a house for you.
• Make sure you have enough copies of your plan, 10 would be really nice. Your building permit will take 2 or 3 copies and you will probably have to leave a plan at your place of lending. That leaves you with 6 or 7 copies left. Many of the sub trades need a plan to price out their work, make sure you remember who has a plan and get it back when they are finished with it.
• Most subdivisions will require a set of plans.

• A building scheme is when the subdivision owners or the city have placed restrictions on the type, color, roof style, size, basically it could include anything to do with the house or the lot. Some subdivisions have many restrictions and others have none.

5. Estimates: Get cost estimates from all the sub trades needed to complete the job.

• Make sure that you get several quotes from each sub trade, at least 3 or more,  stick to REPUTABLE companies and you will be able to ELIMINATE a lot of problems afterwards. Compare all the quotes to make sure they include the same materials and work, and of course the quality of the material. Cheaper is not always better. Have the material list checked by someone who knows a little about it. Do not be afraid to ask questions.

7. Building permit: After your plan has been approved by the developer of the subdivision take your plans and a Plot Plan to City Hall for the building permit.

• A Plot Plan is a drawing of how and where your house will be placed on the lot.
• Depending on the time of year and how busy they are it could take from 2 to 6 weeks before the permit is ready to be picked up.
• When you receive your building permit, you will receive a list of conditions that must be met.  Example: some beams must be engineered or the soil must be tested.

• If you are your own General Contractor the first trades to contact are the Surveyors, Framing crew and Excavator.
• Contact the electric company to get temporary power and if this takes to long, there is usually a friendly neighbor who will let you use their power for a small fee.
• You should contact all the trades you have selected to confirm their availability, when confirming ask each trade during what stage of construction they need to come in to do their job.