15 McHugh: Day 1 (Sept 20th)

New house underway!

Quite a bit of work has gone into the process to this point, and things are getting somewhat confusing, so Nicole and I though it a good idea to document the house development for ourselves (should we be brave enough to attempt this again later in life) and for anyone else who may benefit from our decisions and/or mistakes.

We are considering this day 1 of the house building process, because the clearing of the land started last night. However, all the steps leading to this point are important and at times obscure, so we'll list those too.

1. July
   
   
   1. Downloaded a decent piece of house design software and laid out the basics of what we wanted.
      
   2. Sent our design ideas to a professional to have the house plans drawn up.
      
   3. Put a $1000 down payment on the block of land we wanted (lot 13) which is somewhere in the middle of this woods.
      
2. August
   
   
   1. Put our old house up for sale.
      
   2. Sold it 1 day later! Woot!
      
   3. Received completed plans. Design work plus 5 copies came in at about $400.
      
   4. Met with many banks haggling mortgage interest rates. Have pre-approved mortgages in several places, I guess we just have to pick a bank once we are ready to begin.
      
   5. Delivered copies of the house plans to various people:
      
      
      1. Surveyor's: survey the land, and provide the plot plan. (Surveyor's eventually sent their completed work and their copy of the plans to the town engineer; see Sept 6)
         
      2. Building supplies stores for materials list estimates.
         
      3. A specialist in geo-thermal heating and heat pumps.
         
      4. Construction contractors. This was tricky in our case as we are doing the entire house with RewardWall (only using lumber for the interior walls) and needed a certified contractor. In our area, RewardWall is supplied by Newfoundland Styro.
         
3. September
   
   
1. Sept 6: Town engineer had our building permit ready. Picked it up along with the copy of our house plans, and a booklet detailing at which stage each of the town inspections will occur. Cost: $387.79.
2. Sept 10: Dropped off a copy of the plot plan to our excavator, and gave him the ok to grub (see Defn #6) the land. He said this work is often in the ballpark of $5000. Ours would be more because the land was higher than grade (2 feet had to come off the top) and it is a large block.
3. Sept 19: Surveyor's finished their work (pegging the boundaries of the land). Paid their fee of $340. Also, Excavation began in the evening.
4. Today: Drove up to the land again to take a look, grubbing is going well. Also visited the geo-thermal guy and picked up his estimate. Expensive stuff! He's working on some additional numbers for us.