As construction of your new home gets under way, the anticipation builds with every week and every visit to the site.
You watch as the framing goes up. Next, the roof goes on. Finally, the kitchen cabinets are in place.
All this excitement can sometimes lead to anxiety, however, as you question why the exterior brick is not yet finished or the wood floors are not installed.
“People get so excited about the home and they’ll say, ‘Why aren’t the vanity tops installed yet?’ ” said Don Zierer, director of field operations for Wiseman Hughes Homes, which is building homes in the south and southwest suburbs. “Well, we have to put the drywall up first.”
Building a house requires assembling many materials and products in a specific sequence. The wall framing has to be assembled before the insulation and drywall can be added. The drywall must be in place before the wall cabinets and crown molding go up.
Most builders follow a regimented schedule that dictates when each component has to be selected, ordered and installed.
Some products take 10 to 12 weeks to be delivered, while others are part of a sequence that requires that product “A” be installed before product “B,” said Susan Brill, director of sales for Kennedy Homes, which is building homes in the northwest and southwest suburbs.
A delay because a buyer can’t decide on a countertop color could create a snowball effect that throws off the schedule of every tradesperson down the line.
For this reason, Kennedy Homes and many other production builders will not start construction until buyers make all the product and design selections.
While that may seem extreme to some buyers, it is necessary to make all the pieces fall into place, said Court Airhart, president of Airhart Construction, which is building homes in the western suburbs.
“One of the most difficult things our customers have to understand is the timeline of construction. When we dig a foundation we order the windows. When the foundation is done we have to order the bathtubs,” he said.
This sequence of events also makes it difficult for many production builders to allow changes once the selections are made. A seemingly minor change such as buying a granite countertop instead of a laminate version could lead to weeks of delays in ordering and installation.
Nadia Koligman found the process overwhelming at times as she tried to select products while debating the overall design scheme for her new home.
“It was a little tough because we felt like we were always behind in making decisions,” she said.
She and her husband John are buying a three-bedroom townhouse at Plaza on New York in Aurora. The unit, being built by Wiseman Hughes Homes, is scheduled for completion in May.
“They needed to know about the sink and tile selections before you’d gone through the mental process of visualizing the space,” she said.
Selecting the color scheme was one stumbling block for Nadia Koligman, who recommends that other home buyers do as much research as possible before committing to an overall style.
“You’re swimming in a mental soup of what you like, but it is hard to visualize what something will look like,” she said.
Her solution was to tear out magazine pictures of styles, colors and products she liked. She then brought the pictures to the builder’s design center.
The Koligmans selected a contemporary, Zen-like design that incorporates maple cabinets, wood floors, and earth-tone tile and countertops.
As buyers approach their decision-making, it helps to understand the typical timeline for building a house.
By understanding the process, they may discover that construction often involves periods of inactivity as workers wait for supplies or for other workers to finish their part of the project.
In production housing, buyers select the floor plan and then make all their product and design selections.
These decisions are important, because they drive all the scheduling decisions.
The builder then gets a building permit, begins excavation and starts pouring the foundation. After the foundation is backfilled, the rough framing starts.
Next comes the rough plumbing and heating systems, as well as electrical and telephone wiring. Many builders schedule inspections with buyers at that time to allow them to see the walls before they are closed with drywall.
If the house includes a fireplace or exterior masonry, those areas would be built during these initial stages. As the framing is completed, the roof goes on and then the windows go in. Then comes the insulation and drywall.
After the walls are closed, workers move onto more of the finishes buyers focus on — the tile, cabinets and trim.
On the exterior, workers then start installing concrete sidewalks and stoops, siding, and the garage door. Once all the exterior materials are installed, contractors work on the driveway.
The landscaping is one of the last parts of the puzzle, as builders want to wait until most of the construction traffic is gone, along with waste materials, before installing grass seed, sod or plantings.
Among the finishing touches on the inside are vinyl, tile or wood floors and carpeting. Painting typically is one of the last projects, along with putting the trim on plumbing fixtures and installing light fixtures.
Builders typically talk with buyers about the construction stages as the buyers are making their initial floor plan and design decisions. There is a lot of information to digest and many decisions to make, leaving many buyers in a whirlwind of emotions.
This can lead to confusion and misperceptions about the various stages of construction. Some buyers are so focused on the fancy tile they selected for the kitchen or the large soaking tub in the bathroom that they expect those items to be the first ones installed.
Building a house is a complicated process that involves assembling many different products and materials. As home buyers watch their homes being built they should keep the construction timeline in mind. This can prevent disappointment when activity seems to stop for several days or the bathroom vanity sit in the hall for weeks on end.
Hopefully, these little bumps in the road are all part of an overall plan.
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Construction follows simple rules
Here’s a look at some common misperceptions when building a home:
*The outside should be finished before the inside. Not true. The crews will be working to get the exterior framed and under roof so that the main interior work can begin. The siding and brick installation can wait until close to the end of the process.
*The kitchen cabinets are installed before the floor. Ideally, the floor should be installed first. This adds a stable base on which to build the cabinets and ensures there are no visible gaps where the floor meets the base cabinets.
*No water will get into the home. This expectation is impossible to meet, as the house may be exposed to the elements for several weeks or months before the roof goes on and the windows are installed. As long as the builder pumps out the water quickly and the house dries out, the house should be fine, said Corey Friedman, president of Lescor Building Consultants, a home inspection company in Northbrook.
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See also “Beware of extreme housing frustrations,” New Homes section, Page 4
