New Home Construction

[fordmantpw]

Well, I've heard that folks here at TBN enjoy home construction threads, so I thought I would start one to track the progress on our new home.

First, the history. We had been looking for land to buy for years, but had never really found what we were looking for. We were about to give up looking, when in the fall of 2012, a patch of ground about a quarter mile from our current home came up for sale. Long story short, we negotiated an acceptable price and purchased 48 acres. The land is in the perfect location for us. We currently access it through our neighbor's woods via an ATV trail. We can go over and enjoy the land without the need to get in the truck and drive. We can take our ATV's and tractor over without hauling them. Our new piece of ground actually borders on the back side of quite a few of our current neighbors in our subdivision. For us, we couldn't have found a better location.

After over a year of planning, we finally have our house plans completed and the location of the home picked out. Our home will be a rancher with about 2300 finished square feet on the main floor with a fully finished basement. We will also be building a 34x44 detached garage to store my tractor and our fifth wheel in. Our contractor is one of our neighbors who has done some work for us on our current home in the past. I am very comfortable with him, and he and his crew (his brother and son) do great work!

Yesterday, the hole was dug and the 1/4 mile driveway was started. I have attached a couple pics of the progress so far and plan to update as we go along. I hope you enjoy, but if you get tired of the updates, let me know and I will quit boring you.

 

[dave1949]

Nice setting for your new home. Congratulations!

We never get tired of construction projects.

 

[EddieWalker]

Congratulations!!!! It's always fun to follow along on a new home being built. I especially enjoy seeing how it's done in different parts of the country and what new ideas people bring to their homes. Post lots of pics and I'm sure somewhere along the line somebody will notice something that will help you out or answer a question that you never thought to ask. For me, those comments and questions are priceless. I've saved thousands of dollars on projects by doing it right after somebody noticed something I did wasn't as it should be.

Eddie

 

[fordmantpw]

Thanks Eddie! I will welcome all input. Though I am comfortable with our contractor, it's always nice to have another set of eyes on things, especially when you are dealing with the single largest purchase in your life!

It's raining here today, so no progress today. We do have the road in and covered with rock and the footings are about half formed up.

We thought it would be cool to put a game camera out and put it in plot mode taking a pic every 5 minutes. Then, in the end, we could put it all together and see our home built in 30 minutes. Well, the first day, the guys digging it out put the dirt pile right in front of the camera! They didn't have anywhere else to go with it, so we just moved the camera to the other side. Turns out, it's a bit better view on that side anyway.

 

[EddieWalker]

Good idea on the game camera, but I'd suggest one pic an hour or even two or three pics a day. You really don't want to go through all those pics once it's said and done.

Eddie

 

[Hiltz]

Your contractor is going to just love all the suggestions and corrections that come from this website thread.

 

[fordmantpw]

Good idea on the game camera, but I'd suggest one pic an hour or even two or three pics a day. You really don't want to go through all those pics once it's said and done.

Eddie

Yeah, I wanted to do every hour, but the camera only lets me go to 5 minutes. It puts them all in one video file (AVI) per day, so it will be pretty easy to cut sections out and splice together into a single large video file, and even just delete an entire day if there is no activity.

Your contractor is going to just love all the suggestions and corrections that come from this website thread.

Don't worry, I'm not going to relay all suggestions to the contractor. I grew up around building houses (my father was a contractor, taught "building trades" at high school and they built a house every year as a group), and I spent many a summer helping my father starting and finishing houses. I know a bit about it, and have him for advice, so I can filter a lot of the suggestions. All suggestions are welcome, but not all will make it to the contractor (or my wife, for that matter! ).

 

[Hiltz]

Yeah, I wanted to do every hour, but the camera only lets me go to 5 minutes. It puts them all in one video file (AVI) per day, so it will be pretty easy to cut sections out and splice together into a single large video file, and even just delete an entire day if there is no activity.



Don't worry, I'm not going to relay all suggestions to the contractor. I grew up around building houses (my father was a contractor, taught "building trades" at high school and they built a house every year as a group), and I spent many a summer helping my father starting and finishing houses. I know a bit about it, and have him for advice, so I can filter a lot of the suggestions. All suggestions are welcome, but not all will make it to the contractor (or my wife, for that matter! ).

When I was an carpenter apprentice over 40 years ago Ill never forget a job we were doing. It was a kitchen remodel job and every evening the older lady we were doing the job for would be as happy as she could be. Then in the mornings when we showed up for work she would be upset and crying. Seems at quitting time everyday when we left all the neighbors would come over and make suggestions and tell her what we were doing wrong and we should have done it a different way, , ect. After about 3 days of her crying every morning the head carpenter had had enough and sat her down for a talk. He was very polite and explained it all to her (the process for her remodel) and very nicely explained that we could please her but not all of her neighbors.

 

[MacLawn]

Hehehehehe, that's a good one, Hiltz! Fordman, nope, we never tire of building here! Work? Hey, I don't mind work - I can sit around and watch it all day!

I like Missouri, just got back from there a couple weeks ago. You did good, 48 acres! Here's my suggestion - pipe insulation is cheap - I insulated EVERY pipe in my house, crawl space, no basement in Georgia, but that's one little thing I'm sure glad I did! Hot water stays warm in pipes even after a long time, and cold pipes don't sweat (aka, condense) all over the place. Okay boys, let's get them suggestions coming for old ford! And, keep ye pics coming!

 

[fordmantpw]

Hehehehehe, that's a good one, Hiltz! Fordman, nope, we never tire of building here! Work? Hey, I don't mind work - I can sit around and watch it all day!

I like Missouri, just got back from there a couple weeks ago. You did good, 48 acres! Here's my suggestion - pipe insulation is cheap - I insulated EVERY pipe in my house, crawl space, no basement in Georgia, but that's one little thing I'm sure glad I did! Hot water stays warm in pipes even after a long time, and cold pipes don't sweat (aka, condense) all over the place. Okay boys, let's get them suggestions coming for old ford! And, keep ye pics coming!

Thanks! I've lived within 3 miles of this place my entire life except for a 2-year stint in the big city of St. Charles for work, and 4 years in Rolla while I went to college. We really love the place.

As far as the pipe insulation, that's already on my list. I insulated the hot water side on our current home about 5 years ago. I hadn't thought about the cold water side, but that's a good point as well. As you can probably tell from the pics, we will have a full basement, complete with a pseudo storm shelter under the front porch for my wife, who is terribly afraid of storms.