Good luck with your build. Although we were never looking at a manufactured home, we currently have our first home on the market and will be building when it sells. After getting bids from 4 contractors and then getting 3 bids for the trades that I won’t do and getting those cost put together, I have made the decision to contract/build the home myself as well. The biggest reasons I have decided to do it myself are because I am either related, or personally know owners of the flowing trades: cement work/excavation, framing, plumbing, electrical, and drywall. I will shingle, do brick work, finish plumbing, flooring, tile work, paint, and millwork myself. I have been doing research for about 2 years now and here are some things I have learned as far as being your own general contractor.
- expect to be at the job site every morning, afternoon and evening to make sure your subs get the work done they are suppose to get done on time and right
- you control subs with money, pay as the work is complete not all at once up front and make sure to include liquidated damages to every day they are late over a agreed on grace period, obviously you must acknowledge that weather can play a factor in some subs ability to work
- don’t expect your subs or inspectors to find issues, you need to know how everything should be put together. Your foundation and framing are two subs that you need to know have an outstanding reputation. If either of those two steps are done half assed or wrong, the entire home can have problems.
- Banks will need 20% down for you to secure your own construction loan and they will only lend you the money for 12 months. Factor in permit fees, inspection fees, surveying fees, insurance, Interest, ect into these fees that you may not think of. For a $300k home, 4 month construction period you will accrue approx $8k in the fees listed above.
- You will have to provide all materials to your subs if you own the land, a sub can’t put his materials on your property
- Get bids from a few builders first, you will learn a lot about the construction process
- Look at as many homes for sale as you can, get ideas of what you do and don’t like. The worse thing is to build a home and then go into one you like a lot more and saying to yourself “man I wish I would have thought of that!”
- If you have never done drywall or trim in the past, hire a pro that will work hourly to help you so you can learn the tricks. These two steps can be the difference between a beautiful looking home and one that looks like it was put together by the special needs shop class
Here are some of my opinions when it comes to building materials or building techniques
- I am going to go with LP siding over Hardy board; LP is lighter and doesn’t chatter in the wind as bad. Hardy has a sharp edge that gets damaged easily during install and can been seen after being installed
- Do your research on your windows, just because they have the most ads and are higher priced doesn’t mean they are a better window. I am going to go with Windsor windows for my home
- IMO, basement infloor heat in the Midwest is worth its weight in gold
- One thing I have really noticed here in SD is the vaulted ceiling is starting to be out dated. A lot of homes are going with 9 or 10’ flat ceilings. These are more efficient as well since your heat isn’t up in a 14-16’ peak. Doing a trayed ceiling is a great way to add character to the home and only had a few hundred bucks to the overall cost.
- If your plans include a front porch, I would consider going with a poured cement stoop over a wood deck. The cost is very similar, and the stoop won’t have the maintenance a deck will have.
I could go on and on, but above is biggest points I have learned.
