I’m not upset about the pressure since it’s valid that the weather has gone to hell where I live and he needs to close up the house ASAP.
I know you’re all going to howl but we went through our options with our lawyer yesterday. We also sat down and used suncalc.net to run through simulations at the site for every time of day throughout the year.
Since the orientation of the road is more North-South than East-West the difference caused by flipping the house isn’t as bad as I had thought. We will have sun on the covered deck from 10am-4pm every day all year round. If we were in the other orientation it would be from 2pm to sunset. In the Spring, Fall and Winter that isn’t a very long period of time. We can add an infrared heater for evenings. We can also put up better blinds in the dining room and reduce the heat load in the summer.
The mirroring doesn’t have any impact for solar on the roof if we decide to do that in the future.
So, we’ve decided to continue. We discussed the refund and he moved enough that we’re happy with the resolution.
We honestly have very few options for building sites in the region that are close to our offices and other desired amenities, and not also postage stamp lots. The lot is 70x115 which is no more and no less than we want. The house is exactly the right size, and has a bit of an odd master layout that is exactly what we need. It ticks every other box (with the modified kitchen layout). We could go and get an architect to design a similar house, but would have no means of buying a lot for a couple of years at best. We’re at a point with our current house where we are going to need to sink significant money into windows, doors, and the exterior in general if we stay here any longer. These would be costly upgrades over the next 2 years that would not have an equivalent positive impact on the value of the house.
We’ve spoken to his clients (knocked on doors) who were satisfied with the experience of building with him.
Now the kicker in all of this is that I work in construction (commercial/industrial/institutional) so I am very well aware of how mistakes are made. We will be watching like hawks from here on out.
I’m sure some of you think we are idiots (I have my concerns), but we have to make the decision together and it is not being made in a vacuum. We looked at all kinds of options through the summer and fall before starting this contract.
So it was not a good start. I’m hoping that we have a better ending.
I mentioned before that we built a couple of years ago, so I 100% understand how you feel about not wanting to back out of the process now. Once you've gotten started, made all the layout changes, picked the lot, are imagining yourself living on it, etc., personally it would have been next to impossible for me to back out at the point you're at. So I absolutely understand why you're going forward.
I'm glad you're happy with the builder's resolution, and also that you're planning on watching things like a hawk as the build continues. We made a point of walking through at every "major" stage, i.e. framing, electrical, dry walling, painting, etc. Our builder was pretty spot-on accurate, but one thing that went wrong is our accent wall in the great room was painted decidedly the wrong colour, and we noticed it because we just happened to stop by one day and popped into the house. Not a huge deal, but they were able to fix it right away (it would have been annoying to have them have to come back after we'd moved in to repaint it).
I think it's key that you and your DH are firmly on the same page about moving ahead with it. Hopefully you can put this glitch behind you, and not let it dampen your excitement - good luck with the rest of the build!
Post by Velar Fricative on Nov 20, 2018 10:27:17 GMT -5
I'm glad you're happy with your decision. While I concurred with most of the advice here, at the end of the day, it's your house and you have to be comfortable with what you can tolerate. And I can only imagine that walking away is much, much easier said than done.
Having said all that, with all of the additional things you'll need with the orientation not being what you planned, are you planning to ask the builder to throw all that stuff in for free? Blinds, heat, etc. Or is he still giving you $3,000 and that will be enough to cover the changes you'll need?
aprilsails, at least you found out upfront that you need to be on the lookout going forward. And he knows you'll be watching him closely, so hopefully, this is the last major mistake you have to deal with during the building process.
Post by sandandsea on Nov 21, 2018 14:02:34 GMT -5
I think you’ll be fine from here on out. He knows you’re watching and you’ll get the house you want! It sounds like you e thought t through and know what you’re doing.
I recently heard a quote, but don’t know the original source...”There’s an easy solution to every problem, and it’s always wrong.”
The solution seemed so easy to everyone here...but we only had a handful of paragraphs of information, only from one person’s perspective, and we’re going to side strongly in your favor because we “know” you. You have a lot more information, know the dynamics of all relationships, the specifics of what you need in a house, etc. If you feel confident in your decision, you are probably right.
I hope everything goes smoothly from here! I’m looking forward to reading your post that says you’re in the house and are SO glad you went ahead with the build.