My wife and I did the OB thing 5 years ago. No kids (our first was born 13 days after we moved in), and my wife's dad (who used to buid houses during the Reagan administration) was on site for us most days.

You'll probably be better than most builders at the organization, planning and scheduling. But code is a pathetic attempt at rules for good work. You have to know more. As an example, Code doesn't regulate how to install tile. So you have to be able to know the proper way to do a shower pan and waterproof a shower... or get hosed. I tell people thinking about OB, that you must know how to do everything yourself, but you don't have to do everything yourself.

You can save some money. The 10-20% GC fee for cost plus contracts should save you that much, but really, you'll probably only realize half that savings. You'll talk yourself into upgrades along the way. Fixed price contracts usually look good until you dig into allowances and change fees.

We chose to OB because during the bid process, we would hand a 5 page typed list of finishes and how we wanted it built. We'd get back a quote that didn't line up with our spec list. If they pay that little attention to us before they have us locked in a contract, how bad will it be after?

Good Luck.

Brian

Owner building isn't for a paper GC. You have to be willing to get your hands dirty and love it. And know a thing or two about what's being done. There is no inspector who will ever be a substitute for someone always being on site who knows what needs to be done!

Strike #1 is actually believing that "people with little knowledge of home building can do this and be successful at it." If you don't have the time to do the research for a year or two to have more than a D- knowledge of construction, you will not be be successful in your build. If you do have the time to devote to becoming knowledgeable before your actually start the process, you will have a much higher success rate. At least by then, you will know what you don't know, which is one of the most valuable bits that you can learn.

The second drawback is your assumption that a poorly built home isn't built to code. That's completely untrue. Code is merely the lowest possible building method that satisfies the inspectors. A home can be built to code and still not be a home that is economical or comfortable to occupy due to it's lack of energy efficiency or poor attention paid to window number, type, and their orientation coordinated with latitude. And, "to code" has zero to do with gooddesign. You can have an extremely well built home that is horrible to live in because of it's poor design.

Inspectors aren't there every single day supervising what goes on like a builder or site supervisor does. By the time things get to one of the milestones for your inspector to come in, things could be done that are hidden, or that would require a massive amount of tearout. And that has nothing to do with whether or not it's up to code. That has to do with how the plans are being interpreted, and when the plans conflict with reality, how those changes are handled on the fly.

"How much time a week I will need to be at the site?"

30-60 hours if you actually want to be the GC and be able to answer or mediate the questions that the trades need you to answer, plus do the site cleanup and minor tasks that fall between the cracks of which trade is responsible for which task. GC's aren't just sequential organizers of the trades. They provide a certain amount of hands on labor as well as daily supervision of the subs. When they aren't being hands on, they are doing research. Like reading the install instructions of that fancy Italian faucet that they've not dealt with before. Or looking at the specifications of the different brands of roofing underlayment now that their supplier is carrying multiple brands. Or, researching how to find a less expensive supplier or lookalike for a stone that puts the build 4K over budget. It's a never ending series of jobs.

"Can I logically save money doing this or is it a waste of time? "

The ONLY way that you can justify this as saving money is if you value your time at zero and look at this as a hobby to occupy your hands and mind in your spare time. If you don't enjoy babysitting kindergarteners and picking up trash, and counting pennies, the experience will not be a pleasant one for you.

"A major concern is will anyone give me a construction loan? "

You bet. Banks don't like to be left with half done projects because the trades all walked off the job, or the job drags on for two or three years. 20% is the minimum that you need to begin a project. Twice that would be better. The more independent you can be of a bank, the easier it is for you to be an OB. Banks are in the business of protecting their interests, so there may be times you are at cross purposes. Having the comfort level of financial independence to do what you want without them cannot be measured on the stress scale reduction!

While you may be able to get a "builder's discount" at some stores, don't count on their repeat builder's discount. And the subs won't be giving you their best rate or scheduling priority either. You provide no repeat business. You are a single customer project and they will deal with you only once. Builders provide repeat business to both the subs and suppliers. Guess who gets priority?

The people that are the most successful OB's are those who are in the trades, or have a lot of family that are. They want to know the home inside and out. They are geeks about construction knowledge, even if they don't do this for a day job. It's their second job. Literally. They spend as much time GCing as they do in their day job. In some critical weeks, 80 hours doing the job might not be enough. Especially if it's a challenging lot, and rocks or springs are discovered during excavation. And you already have the home sited, and permitted for that site, and the budget is already squeak tight from the beginning. Whatta ya do now? Who do you call? Which trade? What code officer? What bank officer? What decision here has what effect on the budget? The timeline? The loan?

GC's earn their fee. If you want to assume that role, you will earn that fee as well. Just be sure you are up to the challenges of doing that.

I really do appreciate you honesty. I fear that I cannot do this. From these posts it looks like it is way over my head. I have been researching this since August 2013 and do not plan to build until Jan 2014. The research has shown me for sure what I do not know.

Instead of a private inspector consider hiring a professional residential building superintendent, from out of your area.

You CAN do it. You have the flexibility, desire and time to invest. You're trading your time for savings on the build cost. It's not free savings, and it is stressful, but you'll hire experienced subcontractors to do the jobs that they have expertise in performing. Your plans and specs will dictate if things are performed either to code or above code. You need to be able to schedule work, organize all of the information and tasks that you or someone else needs to do, and stick to a well researched budget. (Plan in advance for things to go over by at least 10%!!!)

I spent 2 years planning my build. Pretty much the same situation you're in. I own the lot, have good credit, have 20%+ up front, and spent a considerable amount of time in the planning stages.

The first year (2012) I spent planning the house itself. The second year (2013) I spent working on ironing out plan details and learning the 'how-to' of home building via books and internet research.

This year (2014) I started gathering estimates in February and working out my spreadsheets for estimates, work tracking, subcontractor contacts, budgeting, materials selection, construction method/features final decisions, reviewing plans and permits with the city and financing options.

We broke ground a few weeks ago, and since then have got footings in, basement walls up, drainage and waterproofing installed. Tomorrow I'm meeting with the plumber/HVAC for plumbing rough-in and geothermal loop installation. Once we have the rough-in complete we'll get the basement and slab poured and we should be on target to frame the house by the middle of next month. Once that's done the HVAC/Plumbing/Electric go in. With those complete I'll have 'the big' inspection, after which we'll get insulation, followed by drywall. Siding and roofing will be going in while this interior work is being done. Once all of the above is complete we're largely down to the finishing work, flooring, painting, cabinets, landscaping, etc.

It's ALL been left up to the experts on the 'how' of things that need to be done. As the GC, I'm responsible for the who/what/when and overseeing that the 'how' meets my expectations and the city is responsible for checking that it meets their expectations/code. When the subs have questions, they call and since I've invested a lot of time in the planning stages I generally have good answers for them. On things I'm not sure about, we can discuss options and it's easy enough to do a bit of research and check in with the city inspector (I'm lucky to be in a small town where I have access to them as needed for the most part).

I actually envy that you have someone local and available who's done this before. I'm pretty much doing this all on my own. My feeling is that once we get past the framing and electric/plumbing/hvac jobs the rest is slow but easy in terms of management. Drywall is drywall, paint is paint, flooring is flooring etc.

I've used Carl Heldmann's book as a guide for knowing what I will need to do. So far it's been an excellent resource. Concise and to the point for the job of being an owner/builder. There are other books out there that get into more details, but this one is great for getting to the key points and concerns of the process.

Here is a link that might be useful: Build Your Own House

One thing about inspections - the inspector only checks to make sure things were done to code. The foundation is strong enough. The electrical outlets are properly grounded. The plumbing pipes are sealed correctly. Etc. The inspectors don't necessarily care if things were installed per your blueprints. Unless you have the time and the knowledge to assure all work was done to your specifications, it would be a bummer to get the Sheetrock up and then find out that the wiring or the plumbing is in the wrong location. Or even have windows and doors in wrong locations.

You're greatly misunderstanding what building code is and isn't. It addresss specific situations that affect health and safety, not general building issues. Most building inspectors will have their own hot button issues that they physically check closely, but most everything else on a build isn't given a close once over. The job of daily quality control and inspection belongs to the GC.

Thank you all so much. I now understand what code is. I am no longer looking at that the same way. I actually have the the Be Your Own builder book and several others. I am just making sure to do my research. I want to make a well thought out decision on rather to do this or not.

This post was edited by jenlef82 on Fri, May 23, 14 at 11:23

Since I am building my own house, I am by default the GC. Although I do most of my own work, I have hired out certain jobs to subs, mostly work that one person cannot physically do. I've run into trouble finding subs, and then keeping them on the job. They will always give preferential treatment to GC's who represent repeat business, at the expense of your one-off. Many of them either didn't respond at all, or failed to give a quote.

In many areas, codes and inspections are a joke. For example- I had an inspection for my basement slab. The very next inspection was framing, rough plumbing, and rough electric. So, I built an entire house and plumbed it and wired it. The inspector was here 3 minutes; he didn't even shut his truck off! The roof was finished- no inspection of the sheathing or underlayment. Regardless of who did the work; nobody checked it to see if it was code.

I'm also in the camp of 'You Can Do it". Its hard work, and your biggest obstacle will be money (dealing with the bank). We are GC'ing our house, and my brother did the same thing. The key is good subs. But, yes, I agree you need to know how stuff works in order to determine if the bids you are getting back are good or not. You need recommendations/references for subs. You learn a lot from the bids too. Many subs will explain each detail of the bid, and how THEY do things. Then with that knowledge, you've got some questions for the next bid who didn't menetion that detail- and you can hear the flip side to the methods used by your first one, etc.. Get 3 quotes for each item (clearing, foundation, electrical, plumbing, framing, etc..)

We are less than half way through our build, but so far so good. I have done a TON of research at each step, and know the questions to ask, and have ONLY hired subs based on recommendations from people that have actually used them. Plus we have the benefit of time (no construction loan or bank involved yet, so have paid each sub in cash/check). We also have a very friendly/helpful town inspector that did not laugh at me (a woman) when we started the process, but did give excellent advice (get insurance certs & workman's comp certs from EVERY sub).

Even among the pros, no one does the work exactly the same. At some point, you have to understand the different ways things can be done, and trust your sub's way may be the best way for him. (Example -what's better- stick framing or trusses? "Zip panels" or plywood/Tyvek? Is insulation necessary under the slab when you have very sandy soil? Is gravel under the slab necessary if you have very sandy soil? Should we pin the slab to the foundation walls? Some say yes, others no...).

A large amount of the savings will largely be negated by the fact that you will spend the extra '$1000' for the better way/upgrade, along the line, for each sub (its always $1000, and that adds up!). But you will get a better built house, for the same money. For us, its worth the work to get the house we want, and know every material that goes into it.

You seem to have what it takes to be your own GC. You have one great advantage having more flexible time than most O/B plus family support. That’s HUGE! I don’t know why people on here say you have to have 30-60hrs/wk to build ONE house. That’s just plain ridiculous…..maybe if that person doesn’t have a CLUE what they are doing. Building a house is not rocket science. A women can do anything a man can do…..well as long as it doesn’t involve weights. That being said, being a woman in that field, you might have to be a little more aggressive. The only women in this area that I know of is a GC, only builds million$+ homes in the Charlotte area.
As everyone mentioned……do ALLOT of research. Go around where they are building houses and talk to the different subs. Subs have two prices....one is consumer the other is GC prices. It runs approx 40-50% dif. You MUST get the GC price. Probably 99% of people don’t have a clue what GC pricing is. Talk to ALLOT of different subs keeping track of what they charge. I don’t know where you are in the country but if you’re in the SE I can give you an estimate of what it should cost. When I built a house 8 yrs ago, the first few subs I talked to gave me(seemed to me) very high prices but I wasn’t sure what GC were charged. The more subs I talked to the prices changed dramatically. I actually found a GC that told me what GC’s pay to confirm what prices I was getting was real……very unusual…..I hate to say it but most GC lie about what they actually pay.
I’m not sure why several are talking about getting quotes back. At least in the SE, the quotes are by s/f for framing, shingles and elect. Plumbing is by each hook up. That’s pretty cut and dry. If you need extra outlets/cat5/pot lights or anything extra in the elect., they will quote x amount for each extra.
Being a woman, I hate to say it but you might not get the respect from the subs. It might be a good idea to bring your boyfriend(if you have one) or your Dad. Also with the bank.

added....with the lot already paid for....that's part of the down payment. Once the bank owns the house, they also own the property.

This post was edited by robin0919 on Sat, May 24, 14 at 23:31

Thank you Robin! I live in Ada, Oklahoma. It is a small town. I have spoken with a few home builders. I am still working with an architect to get my house plan figured out. I have attached a rough copy of the plan. It is currently 1922 sq ft. I have had him add an island in the kitchen instead of the L shape. I am going to have him remove the extra door in the middle bedroom, and make the master bath smaller. I may make it a two car garage and I will include the full ladder in the heated sq ft somewhere.

I am worried I cannot afford this size house so I have been looking at maybe doing a three bed two bath house with a two car garage and an unfinished bonus space up stairs in case I ever need a fourth bedroom.

The measurements on the plan are from inside wall to inside wall. The exterior is 6 inch thick and interior 4 inch thick walls.

I am a woman and the GC on our house. We had a GC to start, but ended up being our own. You are capable of doing it, it's more a matter of whether you really want to once you know more about it. Live Wire Oak's comments were spot on. If you know good subs, are willing to spend a lot of time researching the correct way things should be done and have a lot of time to babysit and enough assertiveness to stay on subs, you will be successful. You will also spend more money than you think - you will find out the best way to do things and want to go that route for more $ and you won't get all the same price breaks GC's get.

I do not work outside the home and do not have young children, have the help of my parents and husband, yet am very busy, exhausted and stressed. You have to be up early and at the site to make sure deliveries are correct, workers have shown up and that they are doing a good job. You have to line up the next subs and be organized, but at the same time flexible. There will be delays due to weather, in material delivery, in subs (sickness, "emergency jobs", injury, etc.) If you are very organized that is good, but you must be just as good at being flexible. If one sub can't make it, can you have a different sub come in earlier without messing things up? For instance, my original GC wanted to keep the inside of the house on schedule so wanted insulation and drywall to go up before the exterior brick was installed and before heat was in (winter time). We said no, which was one reason we parted ways.

If you can get a really good GC (which was hard in our small town), you can turn over all these types of issues to them. We got the best in our small town, but that is relative when there is not much competition.

We like the control we have over the project now, but things have taken a lot longer than if we had a GC throughout the whole project. The good subs are busy, many of them for GCs, so we are a side job that they work in. Therefore we have to be flexible, but we are almost two years into the build and we aren't done. We had to wait six months for a chimney leak to be fixed (weather dependent) and then for the mason to work us in to fix it when weather allowed. If we had to do it again, we would definitely prefer a competent GC vs doing it ourselves - some days. :-) Some days the fee is worth it - it's hard enough just keeping up with appliance, cabinet, trim, flooring, paint choices, let alone the actual building process. Other days there is a feeling of accomplishment that yes, I can do this.

To address some things more specifically:

As far as knowing how things should be done, it's true you don't have to know everything, but you must know enough to make sure you have a competant GC/Subs and inspector. For instance, we had three really important things that our GC did not ensure was done, nor did our building inspector.

1) Of all our small town masons, only one knew how to put in weep holes and that it was necessary. Although building code required it, in our small town the inspectors did not enforce it. Our GC didn't even know it was code until I brought it to his attention.

2) Our foundation is concrete block. We are built into a hill. We did not know until later that the concrete blocks were supposed to have rebar attached to the footer and then cement poured in every 4 feet. When we became our own GC and had the perimeter drain redone, the structural engineer for that job noted the pressure against the blocks and asked about reinforcement. It cost an arm and a leg to fix it. When we talked to the inspector, he said rebar and cement was only required if you had uneven backfill and/or the blocks are over 5 feet high. Our GC did not tell the inspector where the backfill was going to be ahead of time and not until we realized later that we had too much pressure on one foundation wall section, did we have to pay for a "retrofit" to install rebar and cement. It however isn't as good because the rebar is not attached to the footer. This is an example of needing to know what should be done and not relying on inspectors (or our GC for that matter).

3) It ended up our bricked chimney had a massive leak from the mason laying the brick in hot weather, without pre-wetting the brick, so the mortar flash dried creating small cracks. He also didn't install thru the wall flashing. The blueprint called for thru the wall flashing around windows and on the chimney. The GC did not tell our masons to do this. When I called the mason back to come do the chimney because of leaking, he said just spray a sealant on it - he had never done thru the wall flashing. We ended up having to call in a commercial mason to install thru the wall flashing.

All of these things were learned AFTER we became the GC and read the blueprints. (You need to know how to read them and interpret them.) In addition, all these things were inspected and passed by our building inspector. You cannot rely on your inspector - you must know it. When we talked to our inspector about these issues, he said his job is to enforce code that his county is enforcing. These are MINIMUM standards - not best practices.

Regarding a loan, we fortunately have a loan through Farm Credit and they allow owners to be their own GC, but most banks do not. In addition, we don't have a separate construction loan. It was a regular mortgage loan that incorporated the construction part. Therefore we don't technically have a time limit, but we do have to make progress and keep them informed of the progress. Most banks have a 1 year limit, which unless you have everyone lined up and contracted and will not change your mind on anything substantial during the build, it may be possible, but it will be hard if you are doing it all yourself.

Also, you do have to be assertive, be willing to fire subs if they are doing a poor job and basically babysit - especially if they quoted by the hour then by the job. However, sometimes when they quote by the job, they cut corners, so you have to watch that too.

Also, some subs require payment right away (down payment, then when the job is over). In our small town, sometimes they want money early. It can be stressful coming up with money ahead of time before getting the next draw from the bank. Plus you have to make sure they sign lien waivers when work is done so you don't have liens put against your house by unscrupulous people. You must also remember to make sure you obtain certificates of liabilities from everyone BEFORE they start work. If they don't have insurance, don't hire them.

If I had trouble with a sub (just a few), my husband would step in to be the heavy, but in general I didn't have a problem. If I interviewed someone that treated me strange or made a comment about me being a woman GC, I didn't hire them unless I really wanted them based on their reputation. I think that only happened once, but I made sure my husband made an appearance every now and then. Since you have family nearby, have a male member be on call if needed.

You are doing the right thing by getting advice and researching first. It may seem simple in theory - just hire good subs, but there is more to it and finding good subs, isn't always easy. If you hire people that have done work for people you know, that is best. Reading BBB or Angie's list reviews isn't always reliable.

If you decide to do it, be sure to ask GW for any advice along the way or just for researching. We have found GW, John Bridge, HVAC Talk, Contractor Talk, Roofing Talk, Terry Love, Building Science, NAIMA, the Brick Industry Assoc and a few other forums/informational sites that I don't remember now very helpful and willing to answer questions from novices. At least bouncing things off the pros is helpful. Reading technical journals and instructions isn't always reliable when it comes to real-life applications. Some instructions are for specific regions also, so your weather and climate may affect what is done.

Good luck!

This post was edited by RQHome on Mon, May 26, 14 at 12:35

One more thing...Farm Credit required 20%, but our property value counted for that, so we qualified without having the 20% up front.

Hey, Robin, I speak from experience in that I didnt have to have a man at my side to command the respect from the subs. ;) Good subs respect someone who knows what the heck they are talking about and can communicate without being a jerk or condescending. I certainly wasn't sugar sweet, but my subs knew what I expected because I told them what I wanted from the get go. They found out quickly that I was in charge and didnt hesitate to ask for a do-over when their work did not meet my expectations. I didnt know everything when I OB'd, but I knew enough to be able to question things if something didnt look right and had enough knowledge that the subs knew they couldn't take shortcuts. I even had one guy confirm that his boss instructed him to make sure he was doing everything by the book bc I knew what I was doing. I didnt always, but never let them know that. ;) I did actually know quite a bit, but that was bc I had been very involved in previously built homes, knew how each step should go from extensive research/convos with folks in the trade, how one thing impacted twenty different things down the line and being able to anticipate and quickly deal issues that will inevitably happen. It was stressful, but I work well under those types of situations. I probably didnt save much, which I knew going into it. The biggest value for me though was getting everything exactly the way *I* wanted it. I learned very quickly that if I questioned a sub on something and got the response "I've been doing this for 30 years and never...." - RUN. The competent subs who had been doing it for 30 years never balked at my questioning and quite often had some very good ideas for improving the looks of things on the plans. I had to be able to determine on the spot if that would impact something else bc the subs didnt always realize the impact.

I have to say, as a woman, I earned my spot in the predominantly male building industry in my tiny southern town. My subs seemed to like me and even take up for me if another trade appeared to not be falling in line. I loved the experience and would do it again in a heartbeat. I had a toddler, but OBing was my full time job. You can do it - it isn't "hard" necessarily, it's tedious and mentally exhausting.

The contractors should be responsible to you for meeting the building code. The inspector should only be responsible for reviewing the work and pointing out deficiencies whether contractual or building code related. If the inspector misses a deficiency the contractor should not be relieved of responsibility.

Understanding such relationships is essential to your success and I would be concerned that you are not properly prepared to be in charge of a construction project.

Thanks again this information has helped me decide on what I need to do. I think I could do this if I studied the building process of my particular house for the next year. I am a single mom and I have decided to hire a builder. I am going to downsize my home plan to make it a more reasonable price. I just realistically cannot take the time away from my son at this time. I work full time and am a single mom ( his dad chooses not to see him). Our future home is important, but so are these precious years as his mother when he is young. He is 5 years old and I don't want to focus the majority of my time on our home. I will make it smaller so that I can afford it.