House of Arden, Part 9 – Develop, Starting is so hard to do

I can't believe it's been almost three months since I last posted a House of Arden article. We had the design finished and the architectural drawings completed. We were ready – so let's rock and roll! But, not so fast! We've learned that starting is a lot harder than you think.
So, what's so difficult about getting the building process going? If you have the architectural drawings, what more do you need?
First of all, you need a general contractor. Although we selected our general contractor about three years ago, one of the criteria was that he be a good general contractor – which means, of course, he is busy. The first delay that we encountered was that the general contractor had to finish up some projects before he could focus on our project. Actually, this is a good thing in a way. Some general contractors are good at starting projects. It is a little harder to find someone who is committed to completing projects on a timely schedule. They can easily get side tracked by the new projects coming up – like our project.
Once the general contractor was able to give full attention to our project, there were several tasks that had to be completed. First, permits had to be acquired from the city. Our architect was really good about supplying a permit set of drawings. These are drawings that are about 90% or more complete – complete enough to let the building inspector see exactly what we are planning to do. We experienced only two potential hang-ups with the permitting process. First, we are specifying some things the building inspector was not familiar with and he requested manufactures' installation instructions. Second, the city was in the middle of scrapping all of their existing building codes and adopting a whole new set. I don't think this second issue held anything up, but was a source of concern.
The second thing that had to be done is to line up sub-contractors. This was made a bit more complicated, again because we were doing some things that are not normally done in that home construction market. In fact, we had to modify some of our specifications because sub-contractors with the right skills were not readily available.
There was one contractor issue of particular interest. We had contacted a ground-source heat pump contractor for our heating and cooling. Because we have such a small lot (0.26 acre), we thought that we were going to have to drill wells for the ground source part of the system. This contractor was not located in our construction market so he was going to sub-contract some of the work locally – like drilling the wells. Our general contractor then contacted the well driller and found out that he really discouraged the drilling of wells for the geothermal in that area because he would have to go through bed rock, making things much more complicated and, of course, more expensive. He recommended digging a 50-foot trench for the geothermal source. He would then lay plastic pipe in the trench in the form of a slinky. This will actually save us quite a bit of money. I will provide pictures and an explanation as we get to that part of the construction.
The third task was to get bids for all of the various parts of the building process. The bids from the general contractor and from all of the sub-contractors add up to give us an overall cost for construction. This figure is needed to accomplish the fourth task – getting construction financing. And, of course, after seeing the final number, we again changed some of our specifications.
Arranging construction financing can take anywhere from one to four weeks. The reason for this is that they have to verify title to the land, make sure the land is not on a flood plain, and perform an assessment of the finished house, which is based on the architectural drawings and specification sheets. And, of course they need our credit history and to determine our ability to pay off the loan. This was complicated a bit by the fact that I was in the middle of retiring and my retirement income had to be estimated.

One of the things we learned during this process is the importance of checking credit reports. In late March we decided that maybe we should check our credit reports in anticipation of financing the construction. In checking all three of the credit reporting companies for both of us, all was just fine until we got to my report from the third company. Apparently, I had been living a double life. While I thought I was living in Minnesota behaving myself and paying all my bills on time, I apparently had also be living it up under a completely different name in Montana, and not paying my bills to the point of filing for bankruptcy. It took quite a bit of effort to clean up that mess. You might wonder how such a thing could happen – different name, different birth date, different address, and presumably a different Social Security Number. Well, it does happen. So, I encourage everyone to check his or her credit reports (all three companies!) at least annually and certainly well in advance of seeking financing. Luckily, the credit reporting company responded quickly to our complaint and cleaned up the report.

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Develop the dream – the House of Arden – will continue next time with a detailed description of "the big dig" and the fun "treasures" that were uncovered.
© 2006, Gary L. Engstrom