Plans are almost ready for permit

We have some progress being made. Tuesday I got the plans from UBuildIt along with the approved truss engineering, and then dropped them off at a structural engineer to take care of the basement walls. He said that he should be done next week sometime. I told him to engineer the basement walls based on poured concrete, not block. I have been in contact with a concrete company that can do it for about the same price. We won't know for sure until we get the bid back from them, but we were willing to spend a little more for the better walls.

Thursday I picked up the septic approval. I will have to double-check, but I think we will be ready to send the plans to Rio Rancho for permit as soon as we get them back from the basement engineer. From what we've heard, it takes 4-6 weeks to get a permit from the City. We are hoping that the City can go faster since there shouldn't be as many other people building right now. Maybe they can get it done in a week or two. If everything goes well we can break ground in August, but we should probably be content with early September. We will try to build in time constraints into our subcontracts to keep everything moving quickly and smoothly. We should be done by January! Right now it's just a little bit of a waiting game (for the basement engineering and the permit).

From El Paso, Texas

We are out of town this week and it's been a little harder to work on anything. I did find out a couple of important things though. First, we do not need to get an engineered grading and drainage plan! That was going to cost money and take a lot of time. I talked to Rio Rancho and found out we won't need it because we are not altering the landscape enough to disrupt the water flow. Also, our trusses have been approved and stamped by an engineer. That was something that needed to be done before we submit our plans for a building permit. Finally, I got word that our septic tank has been approved by the New Mexico Environmental Department. That is also needed before a building permit can be requested.

All we need is our basement walls to be stamped by an engineer. UBuildIt was supposed to be getting quotes on pured concrete walls, but they haven't been able to find anyone. They have a quote for masonry block walls, and thought that would be o.k. Based on a few different conversations we've had we feel like we would like to get the poured concrete. Our basement plans cannot be stamped without knowing the material it is made out of. I have called around a little and will hopefully get some bids on poured concrete soon. Then we can make a final decision and get a stamp and submit for permit!

Permitting

The permitting process is underway. We are going to try to have the entire home completed by December. Grandma's lease expires in September I believe, so I think a 6 month extension will be more than enough buffer time, in case the construction takes a couple extra months. I will work on some more today and keep you posted.

A Video of Our Lot

On Sunday we visited my brother's family. They live about 2 minutes away from our lot, so I decided to take the video camera and make a recording. The video file is pretty big, so you may have to wait for it a little.

Latest Floorplans

I haven't ever posted the floorplans. Here is our house. Scharese and I looked through hundreds of different plans and nothing quite worked. Scharese designed this entire house from scratch. When we submitted the design to our draftsman, he was very impressed because everything just worked. Scharese had to take into account the thickness of walls and proper measurements of doors and fixtures throughout the entire home. If anyone needs a great designer, Scharese's services will be available at competitive rates!

We have since gotten numerous comments praising the plans. Dennis, the contractor who we considered, loved the plans so much that he is stealing them. They actually have a copyright on them but he said that it just takes a few minor changes to become "his own" plan. It's a little aggravating, but what can we do?

Septic Permitting

So, we are now working on getting all the necessary permits to start building our home. The New Mexico Environmental Department has to approve our septic system. Our home design had too many closets for a conventional septic system, so we had to remove the doorways from the closets in the study, the den and the loft. If we kept the doors, those rooms would be counted as bedrooms and we would have to get an advanced septic system (which costs 4 times as much as a conventional system). My Dad wants me to look into a new kind of system that would use the greywater for watering the lawn and such. They are called Pugosystems. I will have to look into that.

Once we get the plans accepted by the Environmental Department we will need to get a couple of engineer approvals and we can submit for the building permit.

Meeting Reports

Some significant information has come out of our latest meetings. We met with our neighbor Dennis and his partner about building our home. We came away from that meeting discouraged. We were told earlier that they were going to be within a price per square foot that made us excited, but when we got the actual price breakdown it was significantly higher. They added taxes which made it higher. More drastically the price per square foot they quoted us included the basement, which they are not going to build. Why are they charging us for something that they are not building? They had some reasons, but none that we really feel are valid. So, they said they would look at some things and rework the numbers. We have almost entirely ruled them out, unless they come back with something really looks good. It would have been nice to have someone to build the whole thing for us, but I guess we will probably save a lot of money being our own builder/contractor.

Thursday we met with UBuildIt. Earlier they said over the phone that they were really happy with how the price was looking. But I was sceptical since our meeting with Dennis. When we got in there to meet with them, we found out that the price they calculated after getting bids from all the subcontractors was much more in line with our expectations. Then we found out that UBuildIt had allotted us more generous amounts of money for things than we think we need. We think we can build it for even less than UBuildIt allotted. So, we are definitely leaning towards UBuildIt. My dad is worried that UBuildIt may not give us enough support for the fee that they are charging us. I think their fee might pay for itself based on the quotes from subcontractors that they showed us. We need to talk to them and see if we can't get something in writing for them to visit the construction site a little more often.

I need to talk to James Lane and see what he will charge us, and what he would be able to offer. One little red flag that has come up is that he said Ybarra Concrete was a good company to contact for our basement, but they are actually out of business. That makes me wonder if it's been too long since he's done this. Maybe he won't be able to get the kind of prices from the subcontractors that UBuildIt can. UBuildIt claims to only use subcontractors that they know and trust. If we go with James Lane, we won't know what subcontractors are good and trustworthy. Maybe UBuildIt doesn't really know the subs like they claim to?

So, unless Dennis comes back with something spectacular, it looks like it's down to UBuildIt or brother Lane. I would say UBuildIt has the edge as of right now. But I was giving the edge to brother Lane last Saturday, so things might change.

We would love to get your input and feelings on this Grandma.