Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I save money by building my own home instead of hiring a builder?
The answer to this question is… complicated. Generally speaking, most people will not see the kinds of savings they’re hoping for by trying to build a home without hiring a General Contractor. In addition, your lender might not be too happy about financing a self-built home, and many banks have rules against lending for a first-time self-built home. Don’t forget, too, that all the same rules will apply to you when building your own home: while you won’t need a General Contractors license, you’ll still need to pull permits, have insurance, maintain good bookkeeping, pay your subcontractors, submit draw requests to the bank, prevent liens from being put on the property, etc.
Q: What kind of warranty do you offer?
We think you’ll love our home warranty. Quick answer: we offer a 10 year structural warranty, 5 year water penetration warranty and a 2 year limited warranty on the inside of the home. This is also backed by Pacific Home Warranty. Want more info? Contact us, and we can give you the full scoop on exactly what that entails.
Q: Do you build enery efficient homes?
Absolutely! Here’s a quick list of what we generally put in our homes:
- 95% efficient furnace
- 2×6 exterior walls
- dual-pane vinyl windows
- R-50 blow-in fiberglass insulation for ceilings
- R-23 blow-in fiberglass insulation for walls
Q: Can I save money by choosing an existing set of plans instead of going through the custom design process?
This is definitely one of the more important questions we get. It may cost few thousand dollars to have a custom set of plans drawn up for your home, and so some people ask themselves: “If I just choose a set of existing plans, won’t I avoid the whole design process and save the time and money?” While this may seem logical, our experience over the years has shown that the cost savings between creating a custom design vs choosing a “stock” home plan is basically not worth it in the end. i.e. there’s really no cost savings at all.
Here’s why: stock plans are designed to fit a general list of requirements to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. With a plan that’s this generic, you’ll usually find yourself trying to fit your family and your lifestyle into a home that wasn’t designed with you in mind. So think about it this way: when you’re building a home, every additional square foot costs you lots of dollars. With this in mind, if your home has just 100 square feet of wasted space in the stock floor plans, you’ve just paid $12,000 for extra room you’ll never use. Building a custom home avoids having this unnecessary square footage in the first place, so while you may spend $5,000-$15,000 on a custom set of plans, you don’t have to build a home from a plan you like but that has 200 square feet more than you need. So if we can save you that 200 square feet, you’ve just avoided spending $24,000. Not a bad deal, right?