Brain Dump of Important Tidbits

After a couple of days of making calls and gearing up for my next tasks, I've accumulated the following pieces of information that I wanted to record here. They should prove useful to many readers. Remember, this info is specific to South Louisiana:

• Builder's risk insurance policy is available from State Farm. They're not including damage from wind or hail in new policies, so I'll need to get the dreaded (and ludicrously expensive) citizen's insurance


• The builder's risk policy won't cover any thefts until the house is able to be locked and materials are secured behind lock & key


• Nothing special is needed before I sign up for the policy, but I'll wait until I'm about to start construction so I don't waste money


• They "recommend" that I sign up right away to cover the full expected value of the home instead of slowly increasing it as the project progresses. This is because I might "forget" to increase it later. No thanks. I think I'll raise it incrementally as I go to save money.


• Get lien waivers signed by everyone who physically does work on the project and everyone who sells materials for use on the project (either purchased by you or a subcontractor). This includes any employee of any of your subs that works on your house.


• Open a separate checking account in order to carefully track house-related expenses. Have checks printed with lien waiver verbiage printed on the back near the endorsement area. Something along the lines of "Endorsement and/or deposit of this check is an acknowledgement of payment in full for all amounts due and signifies a waiver of any lien rights against the property."


• The vibration method for driving pilings is apparently against parish code for building a residence. If they know you used vibration instead of traditional pounding of the pilings, they're not supposed to approve it.


• Pump sand is the best thing to use when building up the ground under the slab. Not clay or soil as I had inquired about


• Write full specs out for each subcontractor. Don't depend on the plans to tell them everything they need to know.


• I bought books on wiring and plumbing from Taunton's For Pros by Pros series. I plan to review them so I can be knowledgeable about directing and inspecting the work of these subs.


• I got more contractor recommendations today from friends and family connected to the construction business.

Here are my next upcoming tasks:

• Get plans stamped by the engineer who works with my designer (2 copies)


• Go to the parish permits office and start the permit application process. The best time to go there is at 7:00 before they open and put your name on the list at the desk. Then wait for them to open and start seeing people.


• Contact Entergy about the new utility pole they said they would put in at the front of my property. This is the best way to get the power line from across the street and not hang down over my front yard.


• Mark out the boundaries of the house and garage and get enough sand dumped there to build up about 1 more foot.


• Get sand spread


• Get temporary electric pole setup. May include digging trench to go ahead and run electric to south side of house where meter will be.


• Get pilings driven


• Get plumber to rough in the stuff that goes under/in the slab


• Get slab formed and poured

Plans Complete!

This is one of those times when pieces just seem to come together at once. I picked up my final plans from the designer today. But leading up to that, some things just fell in line.

I had been waiting about a month since the last time I heard from him. Then he had another revision ready, and for the very first time I got to see things other than the basic floorplan: lighting plan, slab plan, piling plan, etc. He said that I should review and get back to him quickly so he could wrap my project up by Friday. If I was to go over a week, then he expected me to pay him at least half of what I still owed him. I See. So, it's okay for him to take weeks to do his part, but I need to give him a quick turnaround and wrap everything up because it's convenient for him?

For the floorplan, we went through about 5 revision cycles. Now, I'm certainly ready to move ahead on this, but I wasn't about to rush through everything else without thinking it through or at least understanding the notes and diagrams for the new parts of the plan. I turns out that it really wasn't a rush.

Well, one of my biggest questions centered around the elevation of the slab. There's a local regulation that your slab needs to be the higher of the base flood elevation or three feet above the crest of the street. The plans had been drawn up with a total slab height (slab + footings/chain wall) of 2 ft. I didn't understand if the designer made assumptions about the present elevation of the lot or what. How did he know I didn't need three feet to build high enough?

I asked him, and he said they made assumptions, but if it turned out I needed a taller slab they'd modify the plans. The survey would tell me if this would be enough. Thus the other piece that fell nicely in place: I had ordered the survey about 4-5 weeks prior, and I had been on the phone with them lately trying to get it done. On my way out the door to bring my last revisions to the designer, the survey company called. It was ready to be picked up. And it turns out that my lot is roughly one foot below the required slab height. That means the slab plan they came up with is fine. It'll be about a foot out of the ground, and the chain walls will be about a foot in the ground.

My other questions were answered by the designer and some research on the web. For example: 6x6 2.9/2.9 WWF is "wire welded fabric", or highway wire, the large chicken wire type stuff they put in concrete to reinforce it. So I got all my questions answered and revisions made, and today I picked up the final plans. I can still go back if I discover some final tweaks are needed by next week. Otherwise, I need to pay the designer the rest of what I owe him and take two copies to the engineer to have them stamped. Then I can go apply for the permit.

I'm going with the post-tension slab instead of traditional rebar reinforced concrete. It's a bit of a risk because none of my family knows much about this method. But I hear from friends and professionals that it's a solid concept and it's good to use in our area. I'm starting to see them used more and more around the area.

Finally, I also got a bid for my pilings. I need 54 of them, and the bid is cheaper than I expected. I braced myself for $10k-15k, but the bid is around $8,000 (~$165 per piling). I also know now that I need to put some more sand down where the house & garage will go. About another foot. So as soon as I can get over there to stake out roughly where the boundaries are, I'll schedule the delivery of the sand.

Use a Lawyer!

All the books I read strongly recommend having everything in writing with each of your subs. This starts with a written contract. Several books include a sample contract inside, or they have a website where you can download one. I read them and put together my own contract template by piecing together clauses that I thought were important.

But I don't want to leave myself open to anything, so I'm having a lawyer look over my contract. He's an older man who used to be a construction manager. He's been a criminal lawyer for years, and he's extremely thorough. In fact, he's the same person I used for the act of sale on the property I'm building on.

His first thoughts after reading my contract were to call me and make sure I know what I'm getting into. He went over items like making sure each sub has all the required insurance on himself and his employees, providing detailed written specs for ech tradesman, securing waivers of lien from every worker who touches the project and also their suppliers, keeping watch for contractor scams, etc. Once I told him I've been studying up on contracting & owner building for months, he felt better that I know what I'm taking on. Next, he's going to modify my contract so that I have maximum protection.

Having a solid cntract is a good starting point. But I know that it's still going to take a lot of diligence on my part to avoid legal dangers. I'm thankful that I've found someone as thorough as this lawyer to keep me on my toes!