Learn about home building companies producing new build homes.
A new construction home requires expert experience of a Houston home construction company. It is also necessary to follow a systematic building design process that develops the new home construction documents needed for building a house. From architectural home design to the building a house, your home building company will guide you through the entire home building process.
New Construction Home Index
- New Home Builders
- New Home Construction
- Pre-Design Stage
- Architectural Design Stage
- New House Construction Stage
The new construction home journey commences with a search for new home builders. This often begins with taking the action you just started, searching the internet. So, your Google search quarry produces a list of first and second-page names of new home builders.
What’s next? If you have done your homework then it’s time to begin developing a short list of qualified home builders in Houston. If you are in the discovery stage of your new home construction Houston experience, we have some insights to share with you.
Understanding home construction companies and their process is critically important to the new home construction.
This knowledge coupled with a fundamental grasp on your architectural needs will prepare you for the challenge of the one-of-a-kind home building design and home construction journey. I use the word journey because it is a long process with many twists and turns.
New home builders leading home designers and home new construction.
In addition, we will discuss all the various stages of the new house construction process. From pre-design preparation through final construction walk through of your completed home, you will find the challenges well worth the benefits.
New Home Builders
There are a number of different types of home construction companies that design and or build homes in almost all communities.
The key to a successful search outcome is effectively focusing your query for a new home builder Houston that fits your needs, is understanding the many different types of Houston home builders and what they offer their clients in services and products.
The following will summarize the 3 different types of Houston new home builders.
Production Builders – Production builders (formally called tract builders) are home building companies that produce 4 – 6 home plans in a given community.
These home plans may have 3-6 exterior elevations that provide the street appearance of many different types of home plans. By developing a small specific line of products allows the production home builder economies of scale on labor and material cost.
This results in lower direct cost and lower sales prices. Production builder’s business model requires them to produce and sell a large number of homes. The price range for these homes are $150,000 – $300,000 with a living square footage of 1,600 /sf – 2,600/sf.
Semi-Custom Builders – Semi-custom home builders are considered a hybrid of both custom home builders and production home builders. They have a variety of off the shelf plans that are pre-designed and offered to their home buyers.
Semi-custom home builders typically approach the home building systems much like production builders. They have many of the same systems but vary in allowing modifications to their house plans.
The primary difference is that they will allow certain modifications to these home plans. These changes are often limited to cosmetic changes or nonstructural modifications.
Their home products have better finishes then production builders and they offer a greater variety of owner product selections. The starting base prices for these homes are more than the production home builders’ homes, but they will increase as changes are made to the base house plans.
Luxury Home Builders – By their definition they offer to design and build one-of-a-kind home plans.
They use architects to design these products to the specifications and needs of the home buyer. These homes are built to meet the owner’s lifestyle with unique architectural features and appointments.
In the case of custom houses there are no standard finish products. Each home has an endless number of products that owners have to choose from.
New custom homes cost much more than the other types of homes, but can be built anywhere the owner wishes. Every detail of the design and construction is customized to the owner’s approval.
The owners of these unique homes have much greater expectations of quality and customer service standards then with any other home options. The owners expect professional advice and direction during both the design process and during luxury home building.
New Home Construction Process
The new home construction process is much different than the semi-custom home builders or the production home builder’s development process. They differ in both the design phase and the construction phase.
From the home buyer’s perspective, the largest difference is in the customer home building experience. In the luxury home building experience, the client is very involved in every aspect of design and construction.
This custom home building experience requires that the owner participate and approves the work of the design team. The owner may think that they are working harder than the professionals they hire and that is often the case.
There is an important distinction in that if the owner does not offer researched design ideas to the design team that the design team will be required to interrupt the owners’ ideas the best they can.
This can result in misunderstandings and lost valuable design time. By the owners having a clear idea of their important design priorities and having discussed these ideas with each other, they can avoid many unnecessary disagreements during design.
The design process has many moving parts and requires clear communication and collaboration between the design team and the owners to create the house plans. We have provided you a link if you want to learn more about the details of the home builders process.
Stage 1 – Pre- Design Preplanning
For the customer the new construction home journey begins much earlier than the actual design phase. It begins with the owner’s collecting product and design ideas from the internet and design magazines.
It requires the owner developing priorities to share with their design team. This is often referred to as a wish and needs list. This idea collection list can greatly assist the design team in understanding the collective architectural theme and features that will be incorporated into the house plans.
Selecting a Design Team
In addition to collecting ideas for their new construction home the owner is also required to select both an architect and a new home builder. There are many ways to approach this from the owners stand point.
The selection process begins with researching professional architects web sites and looking at their portfolios, to determine if their work speaks to you. The owner then creates a short list of professional architects to go through a question-and-answer session to help the owner determine the fit for their project.
A similar process is required in selecting a short list of luxury builders. The owners doing their due diligence is necessary to hire a home builder that will align their interest with the owners to achieve the many common goals.
The process for selecting your builder is researching their past work, studying client’s reviews and conducting a detailed interview to determine the best candidate as your trusted adviser.
For the customer the new house construction journey begins much earlier than the actual design phase. It begins with the owner’s collecting product and design ideas from the internet and design magazines.
It requires the owner developing priorities to share with their home designer. This is often referred to as a wish and needs list. The idea collection list can greatly assist the home designer in understanding the collective architectural theme and features that will be incorporated into the house plans.
Stage 2 Architectural Design Process
The architectural home design process commences with the hiring of your home designer and the owners sharing their collective ideas and imagination with them. The architectural home design process is the practice of creating unique home ideas into architectural, engineering and construction drawings.
The actual building design process consists of 3 phases; the concept phase, the design development phase and the construction drawing phase. These phases are intended to promote the creation of the home form and function design into progressive development steps until completed. The process is driven by the owner’s approval of each phase before moving to the next one.
Concept Phase
The first step of the building design is the concept phase. During this stage the design team shares their collected images and product samples with the design team.
The architect listens to the owner’s ideas and begins to develop space blocks to create the beginnings of the floor plan. These shapes represent a rough proportion of the space required for a specific room.
These blocks of space systematically connect as the floor plan begins to develop. With the block form created the architect begins to introduce windows, doors and the outline of cabinetry and plumbing fixtures.
Design features like ceiling heights, stairway locations begin to give the drawings a two-dimensional appearance.
Also, during this stage, the design team will introduce several exterior elevations of the home. Ceiling heights, window and door locations are typically required for elevation requirements.
Items that have the impact on the architectural theme begins to be established like roof pitches, window shapes. With the owner’s approval, the drawings then move to the next stage of creation.
Design Development Phase
The design development phase continues the advancement of the concept design. During this stage the drawings begin to be proportionately scaled and dimensions added to the plans.
Architectural elements like wall sections, cabinet elevations and the roof design are finalized during this stage. This phase is also known as the working drawings phase due to the amount of work involved with specifying selected product details and design changes experienced in this phase.
In this phase items such as special architectural features are developed into the home plans. These include appointments like art niches, architectural ceilings and special floor patterns. It is during design development that renderings become available to assist in visualizing the collective design.
Construction Document Development
The construction drawing development phase begins to complete drawings and documents for construction and permitting. This includes the structural plans like the foundation, framing and roof plans.
It also includes the creation of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) plans. These structural and MEP drawings often require detailed engineering and supportive calculations to arrive at the completed documents.
The foundation plans require a soils report from a geological engineer to establish bearing conditions. The soils report specifies the required size of the beams and slab providing a schedule of reinforcement and concrete mix strength.
While MEP drawings require the electrical lighting layout and demand loads, CFM calculations for mechanical air flow and drain and vent sizes for plumbing waste lines.
Stage 3 – Pre-Construction
Once the construction documents have been developed and the engineering completed, the home construction company begin preparing the necessary construction documents for the owner. These include the schedule of values, product allowances, the construction schedule and assisting owners with a lot selection.
Building Site Lot Selection – Selecting a home site for your one-of-a-kind luxury home requires patience and time. Evaluating many factors is necessary before purchasing a building lot.
Other than the obvious chooses like the neighborhood and schools to consider, there are many technical elements to consider.
Studying the deed restrictions and property survey are 2 of the most important factors. These documents often impose building restrictions upon you like building setbacks and height restrictions.
In addition, studying the drainage of the lot and mapping trees can play a big part in the new home construction process. The following article has many other insights about luxury home building requirements.
Schedule of Values – The schedule of values is a breakdown of the magnitude of construction cost. These costs are incorporated into the formal proposal that is provided to the owner for a contract agreement.
Developing Product Selection Allowances – In order to complete the magnitude of cost your builder is required to provide product allowances for items that the owner will select in the coming months, like flooring, counter tops, plumbing fixtures and cabinetry.
The builder provides appropriate prices for materials and quantities to purchase products at the discretion of the owner.
Creating Construction Schedule – The home building company also creates a construction schedule for many purposes.
First to help understand the cost of general conditions.
Secondly to share this information with the owner for their planning purposes.
Lastly it is used to create a control device to manage the new home construction activities.
Procurement – Many items require advance purchasing due to their required lead time. Specialty items that are needed will be ordered well in advance to avoid construction delays.
Construction
The long-awaited construction phase is when all the pre-planning and preparing pays dividends. The success of building a new construction home is the sum parts of preparation, planning and well-prepared construction documents.
The success of the total project comes from executing these plans in a quality manner. The construction stage of a new house construction consists of scheduling, quality control, good administrative construction task.
The construction phase requires additional pre-planning. It begins with a clearly defined scope of work, allowance schedule and a milestone task schedule.
In addition, home building company are required to manage cash flow, contract and administrate insurance documents and ongoing construction documents.
- Scope of Work – The scope of work is a list of specific tasks including material and labor required to perform the work specified in the construction documents. The scope of work defines the items included and excluded as conditions of the project.
- Allowance Schedule – An allowance schedule consists of finish products that have not been clearly defined or selected by the owner. These are generally products that have a large cost range and are selected at the discretion of the owners before or during the construction of the home. Selection allowances provide the opportunity for the project to move forward before every last detail is finalized.
- Construction Schedule – A construction schedule consist a sequential order of construction task required to complete a house project. Typically focusing on major milestone events that are referred to as the critical path.The schedule serves many purposes other than a job work schedule. The schedule works for developing cash flow projections and long lead item orders.
- Quality Control – Quality control is implementing job site supervision to verify that the new build home is built to the construction documents and quality standards expected.
New home builders provide professional services to support both home design and construction from home plans and documents. These specialized services require your home building company to have decades of experience and training in order to properly serve their clients with preparing house plans and trouble-free quality new build homes.
Conclusion
New home construction is a professional service that requires a skills and experience of a home building company. Home builders are master builders that provide leadership and management of the process of home construction. For additional information on the custom builder’s process visit new construction home.
