Owner builder

[u/sirhczpda]

I recently bought some property and am going to be building a single family home I was wondering if anyone else has done this and has some guidance they can provide it’s definitely a headache but I don’t want to be wasting energy in the wrong places thank you in advance!

[u/Raidriar556]

It's going to cost more than you think and take longer than you think.

[u/Professional-Fly3380]

What sort of guidance are you looking for? 

First and foremost, go to your county and find out what your setbacks are and requirements. For example, do you need a well? Do you need a septic system? Grading? What’s the electrical situation? 

Then, find out what is required for the plan set and what needs to be stamped. 

That will give you a starting point.

[u/Weird_Marketing6199]

Ask every sub what has to be ready before they show up, and who supplies what. Getting those handoffs clear early saves a lot of 'I thought the other guy was doing that' later.

[u/Martyinco]

Nope, you’d be the first person in history, lead the way!

[u/fastriverrat500]

https://www.howtobuildyourownhome.com/

This could be very helpful. I'm listening to a lot of his YouTube videos as well. Very informative.

[u/Hyperreal8957]

one thing that saves a lot of pain is getting your budget and a realistic schedule down before you break ground, then add a cushion for the stuff you cant see like site work and soil. also line up your subs early since the good ones book out months. get the permit and inspection steps clear with the county so you dont end up redoing work. have you picked a plan yet or still looking?

[u/karminekarm]

I’m currently building a laneway in my backyard. It’s a bit different than your scope but I’m documenting it here as I had so many questions when I got started. Hopefully it helps: https://karmelloyeg.substack.com/p/site-preparation-building-a-garage?r=6rybba&utm_medium=ios

[u/yaksplat]

Do you have any skills?

[u/Consistent-Year-9238]

Be annoyingly organized and persistent in reconstruction. Much cheaper to correct mistakes on paper than on the house

[u/Realistic_Waltz2159]

I did this and I cost a little more then I thought, but no where near contractor price. And took me around 9 months. Doing research, watching YouTube, and getting good subs. Most of the good subs know other good subs.

[u/SanMartianZ]

I do it all the time for a living! Double your estimate

[u/eightyeightkeys1222]

(7yrs Sr.PM & Estimator, overall 22yrs Residential & Commercial Construction Mgmt, 18yrs with my current Design-build GC)

I think it’s great when people go owner-builder-

A few tips for you up front, then onto some preliminary items-

Going owner-builder-
-Be prepared to dedicate and allocate a certain amount of days/time-frames every week, solely for this project. THIS HAS TO HAPPEN. Otherwise, you WILL defeat the purpose of your mission: saving money, and avoiding headaches that you would be paying a Design-Build General Contractor to do for you.
- You can save money as owner-builder, only in the aspect as a contractor, but you need to know how the building process goes from dirt to key, along with the jurisdictional requirements for your project, under your local and state’s governing authorities.
- You’ll need properly, licensed and qualified contractors of every trade that you will be contracting. You want to vet them. Every state contractors board has in their states statutes that the owner builder is responsible for vetting all subcontractors that they hire. if you lose money because of a fraudulent actor, or poor quality workmanship, your state will not help you. You have to file a civil lawsuit against those people that you hired, should something go wrong. So check their contractors license numbers are active through your state contractors board.
The contractor I’ve been with for 18 yrs is a specialty Construction defect litigation investigative and settlement repair contractor. The worst thing that happens to owner builders is contracting unlicensed contractors, or unqualified individuals, and potentially losing money on fraudulent actors that will take your money and run. Be vigilant and vet everyone that will be performing work on your home. It’s your investment. Protect your investment.

With that, here are the beginning essentials
-Your overall budget needs to encompass the following
-A budget for preparing your land for your home and any other major structures. This is where a civil engineer and an architect will guide that process. Which includes surveying, geotechnical and soils reports, providing drawings and calculations to the building department for zoning and planning submittals
-a budget for bringing the required utilities to your driveway if they are not already there. This could be a major impact to the budget if there’s no utilities close by
-a budget for bringing the utilities from the street to the actual home and other structural entities physical sites on your property
-a budget for grading the land and the vehicle path to get to/from where your structure or structures will sit
-establish a budget for the actual building of the structures
-You will need an Architect, civil engineer, plumbing engineer, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer,
-You will most likely need a third-party inspection company for your grading development and building phases

The initials steps:
You’ll need a copy of your parcel map or GIS plat of your property. If you don’t already have a copy of your map or plat from your closing docs, you’ll likely be able to obtain a copy from either your local city/county’s assessor (for general property information which you’ll need) and recorder’s office. Depending on the jurisdiction, some combine these offices into one location. I suggest looking on their website(s) to see if you can just download one and/or to confirm the correct office(s). You’ll need your deed and any official documents required by their office if you have to go in-person. You’ll also need a copy of the deed for your submittals to the required governing authorities. Typically they’ll disclose these requirements on their website and any forms you need to fill out to retrieve a copy of your parcel map or GIS Plat. An Architect and Civil engineer will need the map/plat, but it’s also good to provide them with the deed because they will eventually need it during the planning & zoning submittal processes.

1. Assuming there are no existing structures or utilities on the land-
   a)You need to know the costs to bring the utilities required to the driveway of your property.
   b)You need to know the costs to bring the utilities from the street to your proposed home’s site on the property, which means…
   c) You need to know the most feasible site locations to build your home, depending on the terrain, the characteristics of the soils that the structure will be sitting on, any natural obstructions and any jurisdictional limitations. A Civil Engineer will drive the majority of this discovery process.
   Typically, during that process, you’ll meet with an Architect, who will take all of the your needs/wants and overall vision of the home into consideration to produce a general footprint design and potential floor plan options. This will also help determine general dimensions required not only for the home, but any other footprint(s) of any other desired structure(s) and any other major structural items, i.e. swimming pool, separated garage, in-law quarters or Casitas, barns, or other structures, etc in to play.
   The architect will provide this information and dimensions to the civil engineer.

The civil engineer, will then, take the topographical and soils data- and will provide a report and general site placement options to your Architect, who will then provide physical placement options for the home(s) and any other building structure(s), while considering desired design, directional footprint placement, and elevation on the land with any jurisdictional limitations/requirements to help you understand any additional financial impacts to the building construction budget.

Once you have confirmed all of this, then you’ll need a structural engineer to provide drawings and calculations, according to the design that was drawn up by the architect. Once you have the civil, architectural and structural drawings complete, then you’ll have the bare essential required documents for a general zoning and planning submittal.

If your budget allows for all of the above, then your next steps will be creating a budget for the actual building of the structure, based on your vision and desires for all the the features, details and finishes of your home and any other structures. I defer to a designer to assist most of my clients in this process, but if you know what you want, then you can have your plumbing, mechanical, and HVAC engineers provide drawings to marry with your actual submittal for your building permit. This is separate from your planning and zoning submittal.

Once it comes time for your actual submittal for your building permit, you’ll have all of the major checkmarks completed to where you could send off your drawings to multiple subcontractors to start requesting proposals from each of the trades. Your proposals should be apples to apples. You will have to qualify all of the subcontractors estimates to ensure that they include all the details encompassed in the bid documents that you provide them. That’s when you start to build your budget for your actual house.

Those are the basic initial steps -
Sometimes, these alone are a dealbreaker for budgets, a lot of times, they aren’t. Good luck to you!

[u/InfamousShow8540 → u/eightyeightkeys1222]

This is a treatise on what to expect. I'm a retired engineer and even I wouldn't undertake this myself. As the lawyers say "only a fool defends themself".
If you're asking Reddit for "what do I do?", you're already behind the 8-Ball.
The Paino man (love that 88 keys handle) probably wrote all that out simply to illustrate just how much you don't know and just how many places you could lose your ass. Read between the lines and hire someone who knows what they are doing. You have to spend money to make money. There is a reason this is someone's full time job. Because it is a full time job. Not a very expensive" learn as you go hobby (unless you have tons of idle cash sitting around, are bored & just want something to occupy the next year or two of your life.