This past week Ira and I had our pre-construction meeting with our builder! It’s been really rainy here the past few days which has held back construction just a bit, but nothing that will affect our closing date (thankfully)! Because of all the mud, I wasn’t able to get pictures of base framing and lot like I would’ve liked, but hopefully once the foundation is poured and dry, I’ll be able to get some great shots!

The pre-construction meeting went over a lot of the more technical aspects of building our home and I was fascinated by all of the different elements, vendors, schedule coordination, and timelines that go into the building process. We came prepared for the meeting with a bunch of questions and told our builder not to hold back on the details! We wanted to know every little thing so that we weren’t surprised by anything along the way. He did a great job of informing us about what to expect over the next few months, answering our questions, and sharing his knowledge and expertise so I took as many notes as I could to share them all with you!

what’s a pre-construction meeting?

This is kind-of a misnomer because technically construction has already begun, but I guess that depends on the builder. Your pre-construction meeting is the meeting you’ll have with your builder just before (or right as) construction begins. With some builders, this meeting takes place before any work begins on your home at all. With others (including ours), the pre-construction meeting takes place after the initial base framing has been completed, the plumbing has been roughed in, and your home is at the foundation stage. You’ll meet with the site/construction manager to go over all of the details of your home and the home building process. After the pre-construction meeting, your home’s foundation will be poured and the rest of the process should fly right on by (or so I’m told)!

What will your builder go over with you?

Your Plot Plan

First things first, you’ll go over the plot plan for your home. Your plot plan shows the outline of your lot and exactly where your home will be placed. Most communities have guidelines on how far your home needs to be positioned from the lot line, meaning you probably won’t have any wiggle room. For example, our home has to be 25 feet from the front edge of our lot line and 5 feet from the sides. As cool as it would’ve been to have a huge backyard and not have to worry about maintaining a front lawn (which is a waste of space IMO), think about how weird the street would look with some houses super close to the side walk and some pushed back. Most builders have a Regina George mindset: it looks sexy with all the houses pushed back. Your construction manager will also tell you about any easements on your property—land that other will have access to. We have a small easement on our lawn, close to the sidewalk, where the power, cable, and internet lines run. If those ever needed to be fixed or adjusted, the respective companies and the city would be allowed to dig up that area of our lawn to access them without having to ask us first.

After that, you’ll go over the grading for your lot, aka how level your lot is and where any sloping and drainage will be. Our lot slopes a bit in the back so our builder so our builder explained that our covered patio may end up having stairs down to the backyard. I actually really wanted this so I’m super excited about it! I really like the idea of having a raised seating area because it separates that space from the rest of the backyard, making it feel like there’s multiple zones.

We also talked a bit about our home’s foundation and some do’s and don’t’s related to that. Our foundation will be poured sometime next week, but right now it’s just fill dirt and base framing. There are also tension wires installed to hold the whole thing together and make it as sturdy as possible. I’m not going to pretend to know anything about foundations, but the way he explained it was that the wires were installed on both the X and Y axises so that once the concrete was poured, everything can be tightened together and it’ll harden into one strong, gigantic piece. Pretty cool and very reassuring! We paid to have gutters and a sprinkler system installed with our home’s upgrades—something our construction manager highly recommends! The gutters will make sure rain water drains correctly and keep water from building up next to our house and ruining the foundation. He also mentioned that watering the lawn year-round is another thing that helps your foundation. Most homeowners think the lawn doesn’t need to be watered during the winter because it’s not as hot outside, but he informed us that the dry air can actually cause the foundation to dry out too much and get small cracks. Then when it rains, those cracks fill up and get bigger. Again, I don’t know anything about foundations but the way he explained it seemed similar to how potholes form and I can tell you I definitely do not want any potholes forming underneath my house. That expensive @$$ sprinkler system will be put to good use.

Your Floor plan

Next, we went over the paper blueprints for our home. We got to see all of the dimensions for each room, nook, and cranny! He also made sure that the swing of the house was shown correctly and all structural upgrades were accounted for. In the blueprint sheets, we could see where our plumbing lines were, where the electrical would be placed, and which walls were load bearing. I took a few pictures at this point just in case I want to knock out a wall later ;)

Our builder doesn’t allow anyone to have copies of the blueprints and unfortunately doesn’t offer room dimensions on their floor plans. However, I was able to get room dimensions on the Matterport interactive 3D walkthrough of our home. If your builder offers virtual tours of their home through Matterport, click the floor plan button in the bottom left corner to see a bird’s eye view and then the ruler tool to get accurate measurements of each space in your home. You can also take measurements while viewing in walkthrough mode to measure things like ceiling height or window width. The tool is spot on and was a total lifesaver when trying to get room dimensions.

Your options sheet

As we went through the blueprints, we also went over what came standard in the home—type of water heater, what grade of insulation, things like that. After reviewing the standards, we went through our options sheet which listed all of the design selections and upgrades we chose for our home. The pre-construction meeting is typically when all of those things are finalized so pay extra-special-super-careful attention to this part and make sure everything is listed correctly. Changes will be costly to make later.

We reviewed all of our electrical and low-voltage options, making sure that pendants would be hung where they should be and that all of the light switches and outlets were accounted for. If you requested any custom or non-standard upgrades, use this meeting to make sure you builder knows exactly what you had in mind and what you’re expecting. It’s better that everyone is on the same page from the beginning and then you can make reminders later if need be.

expectations

Finally, our construction manager went over what we can expect from him and throughout the building process. Like I mentioned, building a home requires a lot of different vendors, craftsmen, and tradesmen to produce the final product. Each person depends on another finishing their task in order to move on to the next phase of the home build. Our builder uses an electronic tracking system and calendar to keep everyone on the same page so that things can keep moving along as scheduled. Because of the tight timelines when these homes are being built, there isn’t really time for someone to forget to order a tile that’s going to take 8 weeks to ship. Luckily though, the scheduling system prevents this for the most part.

He also went over what we should do if (and when) something goes wrong. Homebuilding is an imperfect process because humans are imperfect, so of course some mistakes will be made along the way. We plan on checking in on our home’s progress at least 4 times a week—and I highly recommend you do the same! Sometimes things get missed or done incorrectly and mistakes are much easier to fix when they’re caught early on. We’ll probably go check everything out in the evening after construction has wrapped up for the day, mostly because I feel like it’s rude to bother the construction workers while they’re trying to do their job. I don’t want people hanging out over my shoulder while I’m working, so I’m going to do my best not to do that to them. Or, if I visit during the day I’ll bring snacks. It’s hard to hate the girl that brings food, haha!

Our construction manager let us know that things will definitely break or need to be adjusted, it’s just part of the process. Most of the time they’re aware of the issue and will get to it when it makes sense to do so. However, don’t be afraid to (politely) bring up any concerns you have to your construction manager. He’s there to make sure the job gets done correctly and that you’re happy with the experience.

what questions should you ask your builder?

Ask any and everything that comes to mind that you’re unsure about! We had a few questions that our sales consultant and designer couldn’t answer, a few that we wanted to verify the answer to, and even more that we thought of during the meeting. Everyone’s questions will undoubtedly be different, but here are some of the questions we asked during our meeting.

• What are the dimensions of the refrigerator insert?

• What are the dimensions of the covered patio?

• Tank or tankless water heater?

• What is the sqft footage of the garage? Will it have a tire bump?

• What type of fence will we have? Cedar plank? Stone? Wooden posts or metal?

• Which side of the house will the back gate be on? What about the back gate to the walking trails?

• Will the vent hood vent to outside the house?

• Can we have the extra pieces of countertop slab after it’s installed?

• Can we install pop-up drain spouts for the gutters before the sod goes down?

• Which side of the house will the external AC be on? Will it be in front of our inside the backyard fence?

• Can we have the leftover house and door paint for touchups?

• Will there be any trees planted on the lot?

• How many hose spigots will we have and where are they located?

• What type of windows will we have? Will they have mullions?

• How many steps will there be in from the covered patio down to back yard?

• Will there be steps up from the garage into the house?

can I make changes during (or after) my pre-construction meeting?

Eh, yes and no. At this point, your structural options cannot be changed or adjusted because construction has already begun. The permits have already been pulled and the plans have already been sent to the city, so you builder has to build the house they said they were going to build, just like they said they were going to build it. Unfortunately, this means you won’t be able to add on that third car garage or bonus room and will have to live with the structure of the house as-is (or renovate later).

When it comes to your design options, you did have a little bit of leeway. Typically at this point you will have already done your design studio meeting (you can read about our experience here!). If not, I’ve got a great post all about how to prepare for your design studio appointment so that you won’t have to worry about asking for changes later on! Making changes after your design meeting, while usually possible, is definitely going to cost you. Builders typically charge a change order fee on top of the line item’s price difference because of the extra work required to make sure everyone is on the same page about the new design plan.

If you do still want to change something though, I totally get it. It’s understandable that you may be having second thoughts about some things (last week I was stressing over the kitchen countertops, this week it’s the master bathroom shower tile). Or maybe you just need to add that one little thing that you realized you can’t live without. I say, if it’s keeping you up at night, add it. You’ll be happy you did in the long run. BUT, if it’s something you can easily change or do yourself later after you move in, I wouldn’t stress about it. Talk to your builder and see what your options are, but keep in mind that the pre-construction meeting is typically the Point Of No Return, meaning all of your choices will be set in stone (literally) after that meeting. Hope that doesn’t scare you too much, but it’s better to know now than to wish you knew later. Happy homebuilding!