WARNING: SLOW BLOGGING CONTINUES

Yes, it’s still all about the house.  All new house construction, all the time.  I’m making requests for quotes for interior doors and exterior siding in my sleep these days, stressing about staying under the budget my husband set for the new house.

Ugh, at least I’m not the one on the hot seat right now; my spouse is FURIOUS about the builder with whom we’re working.  How is it a builder can offer a spec home – with NO SPECS? 

“Yeah, it’s like this house, this is a spec house,” says the builder, waving his beefy arm dusty with gypsum around in the air.  “Except this one’s sold now and the owner has made some changes.”

“So what windows are in this house?  How many, what size, what grade, who’s the manufacturer?  What’s the allowance for these windows, as installed?” my spouse asks, arms folded across his chest, that muscle in his cheek tightening.

“Umm, they’re Simonton brand vinyl windows.”  A short, curt answer from the dusty man.  It doesn’t satisfy my husband’s curiosity and concern.

The builder’s rep, a well-known realtor, chips in no additional information at this point.  Now would be a very good time for a builder’s representative to pipe up with an offer to provide a window schedule, a call-out list of sizes along with a manufacturer’s brochure.  We’ve noticed she doesn’t seem to notice these important opportunities.

Fortunately I’ve already done my research; I found the building supply sales rep who actually sells the windows to this general contractor.  I have a pretty good idea what the cost is because I’ve see a schedule for another partially-customized spec home.  I know how much detail I’m not getting.

After a number of additional questions which go just as well, my husband asks to speak to the builder outside.  I know what the builder’s in for; the muscle in my husband’s cheek has tightened into a knot all the way down his jaw.

Not good at all for the builder; my husband is so close to putting this out for bids right now.  This guy may do quality work, but I can see where we’d get nailed for another 5000 dollars here and another 5000 dollars there in a hurry.  In my husband’s line of work, stuff is not this nebulous;  his customers wouldn’t stand for it.  His firm quotes on contracts worth tens of millions of dollars and more, and each and every widget is called out and specified.  There are no verbal agreements, only purchase orders and change orders, dated, signed and countersigned.  This home building process is entirely too fuzzy for his comfort – or at least this builder is too nebulous in his approach.

Hubby’s gotten several important cell phone calls since he arrived at the spec home site for this particular meeting.  He bails out on me, leaving me alone with the builder, the builder’s rep and my own realtor.  At this point, while we run through my list of questions one more time, the builder’s rep pipes up and volunteers that wood prices have gone up.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t volunteer how much; I’ll have to drag it out of her again like I did with all the other construction line items so far.

Fortunately, the builder and his rep need to leave; my realtor and I can take a leisurely audit of this so-called spec home one more time without feeling pressured.  I take many pictures to document the specs that aren’t otherwise documented.  My realtor makes some suggestions that will help future resale of this yet-to-be-built house; we talk freely about the problems we’re seeing with the builder and his representative.  I feel a little better after talking with her, but I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me.

For the rest of the day and over the weekend I’m going to have to work on building a specification for this house, create a schedule for each and every item we need.  If I don’t get this done in a big fat hurry, the price will either continue to escalate or I’m going to have to start over from scratch with another builder and possibly even another lot.  I don’t know how else to salvage the time and effort we’ve put in so far; I’m fighting the urge to cut and run the other way, far away.

There’s a phone mail waiting for me when I get home.  It’s my hubby, in a tense voice: Call me when you can, we have to talk.

Argh.  I’ve got to run.

12:11:15 PM    comment []