Home-building project will be filled with challenges

BY TIM CARTER Tribune Media Services

DEAR TIM: My husband and I are determined to build our new home. Because the economy is so bad and money is tight, we plan to do this job ourselves. We’re convinced we can do this as we’ve done lots of tough DIY jobs in our past homes. Is it realistic to assume we can complete this project? What are the challenges? What are the pitfalls? Can you help us achieve our dream? — Sandi H.

DEAR SANDI: My oldest daughter has a nickname for me: dream crusher.

The reality of building a new home from scratch, with you doing much of the work or even subcontracting out some aspects, is one filled with hourly challenges. You can’t imagine how complex it is to build a new home, making sure you follow all the best practices much less the minimum standards represented by the building code.

I don’t have any statistics on how many DIY home-building projects end up a total success, but my gut tells me it’s in the single digits. To get an idea of what you’re up against, break down the entire job into modules and start to add up the total hours required. This is just one way to get a dose of reality. You’ll quickly discover the total time required in man/woman hours to build a home will approach 10,000, if not more.

In all my years of watching do-it-yourselfers attempt to build a home, I’ve discovered that they want to get to the glory work as fast as possible. They throw up the shell of the house and make it somewhat waterproof so they can get to work inside. If you happen to be plagued with attention deficit disorder, you’ll pay dearly for jumping ahead and not finishing critical weatherproofing details outside.

There are countless challenges. Some of the most significant ones: financing issues, incomplete plans and specifications, poor budgeting, lack of needed tools, poor grasp of scheduling, subcontractors that don’t show up, price inflation issues because of the extended building schedule, and delays in obtaining materials because of shortages and just-in-time manufacturing issues.

To help you achieve your dream, I recommend that you spend lots of time up front long before you do one thing at the lot. You need to break the job down into each separate task — there are hundreds of them — and get accurate pricing information for each thing you need. Far

See BUILDER, page C37