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There is an old saying in the field of construction. 'Fail to plan, plan to fail'. Simple, but so accurate. Every year people start building projects before having a game plan in place. The projects take too long, the results are not what the customer wanted and the costs go right off the scale requiring special items or features to be dropped or replaced to keep the home within the home building budget parameters.

Each home building project is different be it a luxury home in Greenwich Connecticut, a Mountain Chalet in Aspen Colorado, or a spacious log cabin along the coast of Maine. No matter how different the projects the principles are the same and start with a simple chain of events.

There are a lot of construction schedule templates in the market place and it makes good sense to look at the various software offerings to find one you like but to start the process simply use an Excel spread sheet approach. This is a great platform for listing, scheduling and keeping track of tasks to do and tasks completed. The building process always starts with the ground to be built on. So start there. Is a survey required, do trees need to be cut, is a wetlands permit required. As Construction Managers these are the things that are on everyone one of our 'Scope of Work' schedules. Your local builder may be responsible for these tasks or you may wish the DIY approach and spend some time but save money by doing them yourself. No matter who is ding the work though it should be on your list to keep track of the progress. Having a list and a schedule always seems to work well even when things are going wrong because you know the issues. It is when there is a new task or surprise that you tend to get upset with the builder, the process and your decision to build a new home.

Imagine building the home here without a plan of attack. People come to builders every day with a picture from the newspaper or a magazine and want to know the price. In the home shown here there are so many questions to be answered the builder at best would come up with a wild guess, generally high to cover himself and hope it falls within your home building budget. You see the obvious problem here. The price you get could be far too low or  far too high. This example is like going to a car dealer and asking how much a red car costs. Not enough information here for an accurate price guess but enough to know you are in the market for a car. Building a new home successfully requires a lot of detailed information.

There are plenty of architects that specialize in system built home design. In most cases though you are not looking for a $25,000 set of plans but rather a $2000 or $3000 set that you can use to show the building inspector, the bank for appraisal, the historical zoning commission for approvals, and of course your builder of choice so a price/budget can be established for the home cost. In the system built industry we call this a preliminary set of plans and their purpose is to give you the working documents needed to complete your task schedule. Working plans are great for getting accurate pricing on things like concrete. Remember in the construction industry and most other industries for that matter when a price is a guess, the guess will always be too high so the contractor is covered or worse yet too low to help the contractor get the job. This situation is worse because corners will need to be cut to make a profit or the dreaded 'change order' will pop up for something that should have been included but is now an expensive option. Banks really hate that situation. Your lending institution approved your construction loan based on your plan, scope of work, and price. Changing this after the fact with increased costs popping up make the bank less than comfortable with their decision. Their discomfort is equal to the discomfort you will be going through seeing your super deal turn into a so-so deal.

When searching for a builder it is always a good idea, during the audition phase of your search, to ask the builder about design capabilities "in house", see some examples of what they do, and of course see how much they charge for the service. Early on when CAD systems were used for system built homes all of us with the capability were drawing plans for free for anyone that asked. Unfortunately this level of leisure time was replaced by longer working days to stay even with the competition. Most builders though have the ability will still work up the first plan for free to make sure you and he are talking about the same house but after that expect to see a charge for this service. This charge in almost all cases is deducted from the house price when you order so it is not money lost unless you decide not to build the home.

Plan changes are never a big deal in the process. Well almost never. This is where the preliminary plan concept pays for itself. Once the factory gets your plan and home order they are working under the assumption that this is exactly the home you want and proceed accordingly. Once they start production it is impossible to make a change or to avoid a hefty change order charge if the change can even be made. If you think of the system built process it is all based on keeping the production line moving at a steady pace which enable the factory to offer an exceptional home or product at a very reasonable price. Now toss a change order into the production line and watch the process come to a grinding halt. In other industries product changes result in higher costs as well. Let's say you bought a new car. As it is going down the production line you decide you want the color changed to midnight blue from red. If the manufacture accommodated that change the car would have to be pulled off the production line, stripped down and repainted. The interior trim may need to be changed as well. All of the cars documents would have to be changed to make the paperwork legal for the DMV. Your cars delivery date would obviously change and possibly the interest rate on your car loan in the process. So you can see where changes are a good thing to make the customer happy but a bad thing when totaling up the cost of happiness.

Even the most minor change after the house is released for production requires a lot of work. Plans have to be changed, shop drawings need to be redone and sent to the shop floor, new materials may have to be ordered, parts of the home that were done may now need to be un-done, etc. The third party inspection agency may need to be brought in if the change affects their plan approval stamp. The real life analogy here would be planning for a bar-b-gue and then being told the day is really for a big wedding. So the point to be made is make all of your changes and selections before the order goes into the factory on the preliminary plan. This makes the process go smoothly, ensures you, your builder and the factory know what you want and keeps all of the costs where they should be, at the contract price.

Great Home plans take into account the energy needs and costs to provide the client with a home built to the high performance standards required today to meet the energy challenges we face. The Green Energy Movement has long been a part of the System Built industry long before it became a movement. Building hundreds and thousands of homes on the scale that modular home factories do is a great thing for eco-friendly home building. The factory setting makes it far easier to be a Green Builder because of the controlled building process. One of the best things a factory can do to improve their bottom line is eliminate waste. The building process, building plans and construction method are all designed to make the highest and best use of every product and material that goes into the construction of a new home.

Final Look. Once your prelim plan goes off to the factory it will be used to generate the final plans for the third party inspector, the local building department and the state and anyone else that needs one like the bank or fire marshal. Prior to making numerous copies most manufactures will send you a version of the final plan to review, sign and send back confirming that the plan accurately reflects your order. Do not take this review opportunity lightly. Mistakes are made everyday in every industry. Construction is not immune from this 'Murphy's law' situation. Take the time to go over all of the specifications, notes, elevation drawings etc. Go room by room and make sure switches are in the right place , doors swing in the right direction, and windows are correctly spaced. Check the kitchen cabinet layout and the size of the vanities. If there is something out of order bring it to your builders attention for clarification or correction. Again this is a great opportunity to check your house over one more time before a hundred people are called to action to create it for you. 

Last, with all of the new energy design work you accomplished don't forget to take another look at that final floor plan as well.

One of the first places to start in building an energy efficient home is in the design stage. Most people focus on the floor plan for their new home which is important but do not overlook the entire house design and site layout which can save you a lot of money with some attention to detail. The size of the home, placement on the lot and use of windows and doors all play a part in a great green energy home project being successful. Special attention should be placed on the placement of the home on the building lot. Solar gain and wind protection are working on your home every day, 24 hours a day. These two major natural forces can be used to your advantage by proper planning early in the building process.

Windows and doors play a major part in a new homes style, comfort, and curb appeal. They also play a big roll in a new homes energy footprint. Windows are an expensive part of any building project. Low quality windows will cost the same as premium windows once the time line of ownership is extended using the cost of energy as a factor. When building a new home if the budget needs to be trimmed often using a less expensive window becomes the building specification. This is a mistake. You see ads for replacement windows all the time. Replacement windows is a giant industry because people opted to go with an inferior window and paid the price for that decision and now need to suffer the costs of correcting that decision. Always go for a high quality window when building your new home. High performance glass, tilt in washing features and lifetime window hardware are just some of the features you will get with a better window verses a budget window.

Window and doors in your home design or plan should be sized and placed for greatest energy savings. The forces of nature are working everyday to equalize the temperature and humidity difference between your family room and your back yard. This goes on every minute of the day and night year after year. Your job is to make this tug of war favor your side as much as possible. An on site energy analysis taking into account the views you want to maintain and the gains you want to realize from both natural light and solar gain will result in properly placing the windows in your home for not only enjoyable living but energy savings as well.

People seek out the EnergyStar Logo when shopping for everything from dishwashers to computers. Did you know that you can also build a new home with the nationally recognized Energy Star certification? It is the smart thing to do and provide an exceptional value in addition to the quality and comfort you will enjoy in your new home.

A new home built to the exacting standards of the national Energy Star program results in a home built by specialists that are driven to provide the best home value for their customers. This built in value translates to a much higher resale value insuring your homes investment year after year.

Green energy, LEED Certification and Energy Star Homes are not limited to a style or series. Every home from this luxury modular mansion on the waterfront to a cozy vacation home in the mountains can utilize and benefit from energy saving design, features, and system built construction methods. Every factory built home is designed and built to some very exacting specification. That is the nature of building any product in a controlled setting. Today's best built high performance, eco friendly homes, are being built using factory systems, technology and testing. Energy saving homes are a smart choice when building a new home in today's high energy cost markets.

A new trend in the press for home building is "Green". Green building is simple making sure that home built make the best use of resources and materials to have the smallest impact on the environment. These impacts can affect landfill sites, petro-fuels used, natural and man made materials and a host of other things. That is on the manufacturing or building side. On the end use side, water conservation comes into play as well as appliance usage, home upkeep and a host of other things.

To learn more visit: Green Energy

One of the best energy saving features of any new home is found in the initial design of the home. The position of the home on the lot is especially important as once done it cannot be changed. In the case of this luxury home the front of the house faced south. Maximizing the solar and light gain was accomplished using a crystal front door. Windows also come into play. The window budget should include larger windows where they will add light and available solar gain to the home. Although these items put a strain on the budget it is important to keep in mind they are a one time expense that pay back dividends every day that you own your home. Properly done these features add curb appeal to your home as well increasing it's market value.

The best way to start a new home project is with a list of every thing you want in the house along with a vision of what you want the house to provide for you and your family. This thinking should not be limited to the needs of today but rather project these needs out into the future. Are you thinking of a home based business where a area for a home office will be desirable? Do you have future plans for a relative coming to live with you? Both of these situations are easy to incorporate into your home design early on but much more difficult and in some cases costly to modify later.

In the case of planning for a future in-law apartment it may just be a matter of doing a full bath in place of a half bath and framing for a future door from an adjoining bedroom, home office or study. With the bath fully functional and the door already framed adding a door becomes an easy Saturday morning project. This type of thinking is similar to Radon vent pipes. We add them to every house no matter what. As the standards for Radon and the testing procedures become more confining it is far better to add these pipes at the framing stage and simply cap them off until or if needed.