Building a house, is this normal ?

[tony]

Have she/you looked into a modular home on a poured foundation? I don’t own one, I’m just making a suggestion.

Yes sir, my girl is high society man!
She’s not crossing the threshold of a home with wheels on it.

Seriously though update:
Builder told her to go with a block wall basement to save money.
Do these get waterproofed as part of the build?
What is the best waterproofing?

She is quietly coming around to selling the land and buying a place.

 

[woods89]

Seriously though update:
Builder told her to go with a block wall basement to save money.

Soils are different in different areas, and I can't speak to your area, but in my area I'd consider this a terrible idea.

Yes, generally any basement wall has to be waterproofed. A lot of folks use foundation tar, but I personally would probably want a membrane of some type. In my area it's just as important to have drain tile bedded in clean gravel at the bottom of the wall on the outside daylighted out. ( Almost all basements in my area are walkouts)

I know my brother in law who's a custom home builder in western Kentucky usually has block laid for crawlspace foundation walls, and that works fine there, but if he's building on a basement it's ICF.

In my area almost all foundation or basement walls are poured concrete wall.

 

[WCT3]

Soils are different in different areas, and I can't speak to your area, but in my area I'd consider this a terrible idea.

Yes, generally any basement wall has to be waterproofed. A lot of folks use foundation tar, but I personally would probably want a membrane of some type. In my area it's just as important to have drain tile bedded in clean gravel at the bottom of the wall on the outside daylighted out. ( Almost all basements in my area are walkouts)

I know my brother in law who's a custom home builder in western Kentucky usually has block laid for crawlspace foundation walls, and that works fine there, but if he's building on a basement it's ICF.

In my area almost all foundation or basement walls are poured concrete wall.

Yeah I would stay away from a block foundation. It's fine for a crawlspace but even then all the builders I know pour concrete. Your foundation isn't something you want to try to save money on.

 

[Pharmseller]

Best advice I got when I built, was if you go cheap, go cheap on something you can upgrade later.

 

[ddowning]

What you’re suggesting can be a good idea, but the reality is not everyone has the knowledge or experience to manage it effectively. A lot of times, it can lead to disorganization and unnecessary chaos.

It’s also important to consider that if you take on the responsibility of sourcing materials yourself, that can work out great—but if something is wrong, the crew still expects to be paid for that day. When a contractor handles materials and coordination, they’re not doing that for free—it’s part of the value they bring.

I do think trade pricing has increased, but at the same time, people often don’t want to pay skilled tradesmen a higher wage, while expecting higher pay in their own professions. One of the advantages of owning your own business is having the ability to control your income and give yourself raises based on your effort and risk.

From what I’ve seen in my area, the lowest bid is often the one that ends up changing scope, running over schedule, and delivering lower-quality work. Higher bids, while not guaranteed, are typically more reliable and produce better results.

I also think a lot of people think the only high paying jobs are office jobs, not the physically debilitating professions that the trades are.

This is in now way aimed towards the quoted message, I quoted it only for reference. I’ll get off my box now lol.

100%. There are a lot of fly by nighters in my area as well. The money perspective has gotten so bad that no one wants to pay for a general contractor. There's not a ton of work to go around like there had been and I find myself working in situations where homeowners want to be the general contractor. I refuse to be the general contractor for free and they all seem to have a friend that is a "general contractor" that says, "it's easy, I just make all my tradesman coordinate with each other." It doesn't take long for trades people to figure this out and price it into the job. Also, I started my business in 2018. My monthly budget for groceries was $335 and my mortgage was $800. By 2020 I was doing very well without any increase in what I charged for labor. I bought a different house (shittier) with way more land. My mortgage was now $2500. After covid everyone wanted higher wages and customers would pay more. Now we have companies buying jobs for 1990s prices. Luckily, I saved enough money to make it awhile, but it is nuts what things cost and what people will do when work is scarce.

Construction (especially residential) has minimal barriers to entry. I see new companies advertise on Facebook all the time that they will work for $25/hr. I can't even break even for that, and I can get a job with a big commercial construction company with a lot less stress where I don't need to run my own company for more than twice that. Hell, I made $38/hr plus a really good benefit package (2017) teaching at a community college (building trades) between working for other companies and starting my own. Do people really expect someone to run a company for the same pay they could make as a wage? Why would anyone go through the headache and financial risk to do that. Based on my experience running a 4 man crew doing higher end labor, I would say the $1500/day quoted by the gentleman is the company's cost and not what they need to bill out at to make a profit. Before covid price changes 4 guys where around $2000/day billed to gc and more to customer. To be profitable after all the inflation it needs to be more like $2400/day and that is actually less profit than previous as a percentage.

The last thing people don't understand is what the experience is worth in custom anything in construction. Pre-construction planning is a very valuable skill. People that are good at it do not do it for free. If you are getting it for free it is not good service. You will have all kinds of problems arise and change orders piled on. Companies that are good at pre-construction planning look really expensive up front. They should have detailed plans, specs, scope, contract, and price up front. No surprises. Companies that are horrible at pre-construction planning look cheap in the beginning and then change order you to death. They have no idea what they are getting into and go over budget and past deadline all the time.

The exception is if you do a spec or "semi-custom". You're choosing a plan that has likely been built many times. The pre-construction planning has been distributed across several identical builds and the surprises have been encountered and worked out. This is where things can be more "economical." Custom doesn't necessarily mean elaborate or difficult. It just means that it is different and requires the complete pre-construction planning process to be worked through to effectively and efficiently carry out the build.