Your banker is absolutely correct, very wise, and genuinely has your best interest at heart by telling you what you apparantly do not want to hear.

If you personally cannot be on site on a regular (at least weekly) basis during a build, forget this 'dream home' because it will quickly become your 'worst nightmare'.

And don't even THINK about saddling any 'friends' with the responsibilities you yourselves as owners should be shouldering.

If you do, you will even more quickly turn these 'friends' into bona fide 'enemies'.

Time to make up your minds.

If you cannot devote the time to the contractor to be at your build at least once weekly, you owe it to yourselves, your builder and your friends, to forget this pipedream and go buy an existing home or go find a 'dreamhouse' to RENT.

Ouch! 'manhattan42' might be just a little harsh....the advice is good, don't get me wrong, but I can't imagine that you or your spouse, either one, would not be around during your build!!? Understanding you can't be around with "any regularity", maybe you can work out some kind of 'schedule'. This should all be worked out with your builder in advance as there are 'things' that come up. If you are building in a city or suburb on a lot that has similar homes it shouldn't be too complicated; excavation, foundation, drainage, etc. should not have any 'surprises'. Later on though, all the little details will require more attention unless you have everything picked out and nailed down to the last coat of paint and choice of faucets! Dh and I lived in our shop next to our house build but we were building in the country where there were alot of 'unknowns'; excavation was more than double because of the rock and shale. We did make some changes along the way, nothing that was major but if we hadn't been around I don't know what would have happened!! Anyway, welcome to GW it is a wonderful resource and there are alot of nice people that have 'been through it' willing to help you out!!!!

Thanks, twotogo. I appreciate the kind advice. It's taken us years to get to this point and I've consulted GW every step of the way.

We travel during the week so we would be around on weekends but our banker said they visited their build twice a day and caught lots of mistakes in progress. She said their subs didn't always work from the plans. Actually our banker was the one that thought hiring someone to drop in on the site while we traveled was a good idea and my friend's husband suggested that she would enjoy taking on the job. He may have been trying to redirect her energies my way. They haven't been in their newest home very long and she's already planning the next one.

I think Hiring someone is different than just asking them to do it as a favor. Still might have hurt feelings though. You will just have to accept it if they make a decision that you wouldnt have and not hold it against them as they felt they were doing their job, which is acting on your behalf.

This day and age of cell phones and instant message, skype, and snap a picture and send it to me real quick to show me what the problem is, that would all help I would think.

I was at my foundation pour, (that is all we have done so far) but I was there 3 times a day. Morning, early afternoon to take them a cooler of tea or gatorade and some candy bars, and then I would go out again at the end of the day, and they would still call me to ask me questions. Now also I am my own contractor, so those might have been questions they would have asked the GC and not me, but point is even if you are there every day, there will still be other things come up. I would think a phone call could help resolve a lot of questions. If you need to see it, they could take a picture and send it to you in a matter of seconds ..... Just throwing that out there as a modern day technology possibility.

My husband has never been out during the day. And he rarely goes out at all. I think he is just waiting to go home to a finished house.... But if I have a question, I call him and ask his opinion. But since this is my job for this year, I had to make some decisions on the fly and he has just had to accept that we decided that I am the one there to make the fly decisions.

I think it can be done, but I am just geting started so I may not know too much. But imo, that is what you hired a GC for. And if he has a question, he can call you. If you absolutely have to be there, then you may just have to leave work and be there. Then you can always go back. Might be tough but might not happen that often when a phone call will not suffice. A weekly check-in on weekends might be all you need, and maybe try to schedule a day off here and there for certain tasks that you want to be there for.

My opinion, this has been an amazing journey so far and it would be a shame for you to miss it. And so long as you know these things might happen and have a plan for when it comes up, I say go for it. But if you are one to get upset alot when things arent quite right, or if you are the kind that tells someone to handle it and then get upset over how they handle it, it might not be the best thing for those relationships or for your new home. It would come with a heavy price tag that $ cant measure.

I think you are going to need a FULL service architecture firm along with impeccable organization on your part.

We have an excellent builder who hires only the best subs. Still, questions have come up that needed an answer only I could provide, and I have caught a couple of mistakes. The builder, who is on site every day, has caught many more.

If something does come up, you can't give directions to a sub who is under contract to the builder. If you do, you can cause all sorts of potential finger pointing issues if something goes wrong. When I have spotted something or been asked a question by the subs, and the builder is not on site, I discuss it politely and always say that my opinion/request/whatever needs to be confirmed by the builder. I then call him immediately and make him aware of the situation.

I can't imagine building without at least one of the homeowners being around a lot.

You can certainly build a habitable dwelling without hanging around the site 24/7. Spec homes by builders are built this way every day. But, even a spec home follows a certain formula that the builder is familar with, and it involves choices that were very very narrowed down in the beginning planning stages. Any questions that arise during the build are answered by the builder with economy and resale in mind. Spec homes can be quite nice homes, but they aren't very individual.

To build what you term a dream home requires a LOT more personal involvement. Those are usually one off designs for that builder instead of being a plan he's built 8 or 9 times. It may even be a totally custom unique design. But, it won't involve ABCs repeated again and again. Unique situations involve unique challenges that require input from the one who is paying for the vision if that vision is not to fall short in some way. It might be as simple as finding a LOT of rock unexpectedly during excavation and figuring out if the budget can withstand the extra equipment necessary to blast it, or if it's simpler to reorient the home on the land. That one decision could either blow the budget, or create a home that you always feel is "wrong" by how it takes advantage of the view. Your build could be planned to have 9' ceilings on the first floor, and 8' for the second, but once the framing is started, the "feel" of the second is too confining and you want to switch to 9' on the second as well. If you aren't there on site to get that feel and arrive a week later after the entire second floor is framed, you'll either have to live with it or spend a lot of money correcting it.

Some decisions on a build can only be answered by the person the build is designed to please. Hiring someone to stand in your stead will only work if that person is very very close to you and shares your same aesthetic taste exactly. That's a rare person to find, and usually, they are a family member. Involving a family member or friend in a build in that type of decision making for you is a quick way to make them an ex friend or non speaking family member. They aren't emotionally invested in the decisions. You are. When the inevitable conflict occurs, they won't understand the depth of emotion that the error arouses in you. After all, "it's just a house".

The only way that I'd let someone stand in for me for a custom home build is if I were also OK with a matchmaker picking out a mate for me! (After all, you can grow to love a person, right?) It's THAT important! A custom house is that much of a personal fit.

Is this a stock plan or a truly 'custom' plan? If you were gonna do this as an O/B I would say H@ll NO....but you have a GC and I assume you have cked s/he out with past customers? If the GC has passed this test, I don't see you having to travel will impact the process. BUT....since you do have a friend that has built several houses and seems interested in watching your build....hire them as your eyes. If it IS a truly custom home.....you're not an engineer....arch. or any other trade that might find a flaw unless it's obvious and realllly stands out anyway. You need to depend on your GC and the inspections(inspections are ONLY looking to see if it meets 'code'....which is the 'very' lowest point in passing!!...and I can guarantee you don't know code....no offence) at this point.....or you can hire an engineer to inspect at certain points in the building process.
You can inspect the house on weekends with a fine tooth comb.....well as much as you can as a lay person that has never built before...:)....look for the obvious and measure floors per room to see if they match the plans. If yu do find something....bring it up to the GC immed. and that will 'show' s/he that you ARE looking over their shoulders!

How obsessive-compulsive are you and your DH, or how OC are you likely to become after planning this for so long and having it be your dream house? Will this create additional stress for you both, as well as the builder?

What if your stand-in develops issues with a sub or the builder? Most builders don't want anyone talking to their subs, so that means your friend would have to deal with the builder. How much time will he be willing to spend talking with you, your DH, and a 3rd party? Does your builder build lots of houses at a time or just a few? How often does he say he will be on site? It might be that the best you can hope for is for the builder to be on site at the beginning of the first day each sub is there, and on the day the sub finishes up. And be careful, a builder/sub will promise lots of things to get a job, but the reality can be quite different. Also, many builders and subs in the building trades do not do well with women checking up on their work. What part of the country are you in, and will your build be urban, suburban, or rural?

We were retired owner-builders and one or both of us was at the building site every day. Our framer made several glaring errors in locating the first floor studs, so I checked everything at lunch and at the end of the day every day after that. At one point when they were framing the lower level, the framer walked off the job. DH got him to finish (other subs usually don't want to take over someone else's job due to possible finger pointing if there's a problem) only by promising that I would not be there when the framer was.

I had designed our house, so I was always watching out for design issues, where DH was responsible for the actual construction issues. Especially with a custom or semi-custom house, there are lots of things that may affect the placement of plumbing and heating ducts, register grills, lighting switches and fixtures, central vac outlets, etc. Will you have a set of plans for all of this, and will the subs LOOK at them. Subs usually put things where they work best not where they look best, and sometimes what was easiest to install was not the best location from my point of view. So I'd have to tell them to put something somewhere else due to my not wanting it there visually, or because of my furniture plan. Of course, you need for the systems to function optimally and be according to code, but sometimes an alternate location is just as good if you are there to point it out.

Anne

Well, I think there is sufficient consensus that hiring a friend as a stand in is not a good idea. Since traveling less isn't much of an option ,I think 'gopintos' advice to use technology when I can't be right at hand can be helpful and we will just make the most of the times when we are in town.

It didn't occur to me to ask this until I read all your comments. Is the main reason for the frequent drop by visits to the site to answer questions as they arise, to make sure the vision behind the design is being honored or to check for mistakes? If it is the latter, I'm still worried I may need help because as 'robin0919' suggested I'm not sure I have the knowledge to catch anything but the most obvious errors.

I do think I am fortunate to have a builder that I trust. I live in a small town and he has a pretty solid reputation and we also know him pretty well. Our friend has used him twice . However,I do think I need to better understand what I should expect from him and what is ultimately my and DH's responsibility.

Thanks to all for all your advice. I have so many questions and a forum like this is so helpful to novices like me. I can't tell you how anxious and excited I am to get started but I do feel like I've waded in to the deep end.

Lots of good advice here. One thing I would add is that it also depends on how fast your builder is going to build the house. My 3300 sq ft plus basement custom log house was about 15 months from breaking ground to certificate of occupancy. It's still not completely finished but that's another story. My point is not a lot happened each week.

It's an hour and half from where I live so I generally only visited the site on weekends. Make that every weekend. Given the pace of construction, I think it was sufficient to identify things I wanted changed or shortcomings from a sub.

I trust my builder (at least from a quality point of view, project mgt is another issue), so that makes a difference. It's true in a custom home that some things you just won't know until you see it in 3-D.

So to kind of answer your latest question, the main purpose of my drop-ins was to make sure the vision was being met. And to be a second set of eyes for the builder for errors.

"It didn't occur to me to ask this until I read all your comments. Is the main reason for the frequent drop by visits to the site to answer questions as they arise, to make sure the vision behind the design is being honored or to check for mistakes? "

Yes to all of those and to document everything with lots and lots of photos from a quality digital camera.

The photos serve numerous purposes. They document how the house was built, in case something was done wrong. They provide a record of where things are behind the sheet-rock for when you need to add, modify, or rectify something later. They can be useful for sale purposes if you sell in the future, pointing out to a prospective buyer how the house was constructed.

And they constitute a construction album that you can use to bore your trapped friends and relatives to death.

Things can happen. We kept a diary. Here's a sample of what happened on Day 1.

It started when the excavator drove up. The large white van came up to the curb and cracked a large double branch on the Kwanzan Cherry tree. Then the driver backed up and cracked the branch some more. Not an auspicious beginning. We notified the project manager. Later in the day, the excavator said that he would cut the broken branches off.

They severed the phone cable. I found this out when I was out and tried to call home. The phone kept ringing, so I called the cell and found that our phone cable had be cut when they were excavating. Our neighborÂs phone service was cut, too.