What Do I Do If My Custom Home Looks Different Than Expected During the Building Process?
With 25 years of residential architecture experience and a trusted, detail-oriented team of builders, we’ve learned a thing or two about the owner’s perspective during the custom home-building process—the stress, the unknowns, and most importantly, how to correct them. What do you do if your home looks different than you expected it to?
A few days ago, we received a call from one of our clients. We’ve already designed her house and are now in the process of building it. When she visited the site this past week, she called to tell us that the gutter lines didn’t look right—specifically, one roof was slightly lower than the other, making one gutter channel down into the lower gutter, instead of going all the way across the home. While we were on the phone, we decided to pull up the drawings. After carefully reviewing, we discovered this was a change we made on site after we discovered the grade dropped off more than the topographic study showed us initially. In a nutshell, the garage was going to be built a little lower than originally designed. Even though we had made the change to the drawings and reviewed it with the client before building, the client didn’t really understand all of the implications—and we didn’t blame her! As much as we detail the drawings, and as much as we do 3D models, there's just no way for the client to absorb every single change we make throughout the design-build process. It’s a lot to take in!
One reason this happens is that when one little thing pops up, it can create a snowball effect. In other words, when one thing needs to be changed (i.e. one roof being slightly lower than the other), other changes inevitably follow (the gutter lines). In this case, the client didn’t like the change we made to the gutters, even though it’s a common solution we’ve done many times before. So, she asked us to stop construction on that part of the home until we had a chance to see it in person together the next morning. The construction manager had no problem doing this and told his workers to move.
Manage Expectations
When you hire a builder, you need to understand two things: their process and their reaction. Their reaction should be to listen, meet you at the site as soon as possible and help you figure it out. That’s the kind of reaction you’re looking for.
As for their process, you want to know the difference between a design change (making a change before the area in question has been built) and a build change (making a change after it’s been built according to plans). In this case, it was a design change, since we lowered the garage due to the topography. But because she didn’t fully understand the design change, it became a build change, because it was already built according to the revised drawings. We wanted to meet with the client at the site to go over her options. If she wanted to change it, this would be considered a change order, because it was built correctly. For the record, we never expect the conversations to be adversarial in any way. That's one of the considerations of changing something on site—it's expensive!
Ask All the Right Questions
Hiring a builder is a big job on the homeowner’s part. Not only do you want the house to look like you envisioned it, you also want a builder who will make smart, well-informed, and intentional decisions if something does need changed. What do you ask contractors when you’re interviewing them to ensure this happens?
First and foremost, ask for their references. A builder is like a salesman, which isn’t a bad thing. You need to sell your services to get the work, right? But just like a salesman, your builder is going to tell you what you want to hear. That’s exactly why you want to talk to their references. To do this, call at least two or three people and ask them specific questions: What happened in the building process? What went right? What went wrong? Did anything happen that you didn't expect? How did that process go? How did you contact them? What was their reaction? How quickly did they react? How did you feel when they reacted to you? Did you feel like they heard you? Did you feel like they took you seriously? Did they act like it was a huge interruption in their day? Did they get all the people together to figure out a solution?
Use your intuition. If the references tell you they didn’t feel heard, or that it took them one week to meet the client on site—don’t hire the builder. That's not the person for you. That's not the right way to handle things. There are very good builders out there who listen and are determined to solve the problem with you. Whether it’s a tiny home or a large home, never settle for anything less.
Read More: Questions You Should Ask Your Home Builder Before Getting Started
Have any questions?
Although we covered a lot in this post, you may still have some other questions about hiring builders. Whether you’re involved in the custom home process now, or even just considering it, join our free Facebook group—we’ll help you answer any questions you might have! Also, feel free to invite anyone that you think would benefit from this collaborative. You’ll not only get advice from me, but from other people who have been through this, too.
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When it comes to designing and building a custom home, nothing beats having a trusted, experienced team of architects on your side. Let’s set up a call to meet, discuss your goals, answer your questions, and settle your fears. We can’t wait to meet you!