Waiting and Pre-Construction

I’ve fallen behind already with posting the current happenings with our house. Let’s jump right back into it…When others have written about “hurry up and waiting” during this portion of building a house with Ryan Homes, they weren’t kidding. The first few weeks are a whirlwind of activity and decision making that the next few are a snail’s pace of nothing.

We did visit our little plot of Earth a few times during this waiting game. Because we are one of the last houses being built on the street, our lot started collecting the wastes of others. It started with one red dumpster…

But then the single container quickly multiplied…

We understood that limited space resulted in the use of our lot for trash, as long as it did not delay our own building process.

About three weeks after receiving our initial mortgage approval with NVR, we finally received a request to set up our pre-construction meeting. This is the next big step we were waiting for! Of course, I did a large amount of preparation for the meeting and compiled a list of 70-ish questions to ask our Project Manager. I shared the questions with and without answers for the benefit of my nonexistent readers.

Our meeting was scheduled from 12:30-2:00 p.m. on Sept. 7, and our SR, Sherrie, was there along with our Project Manager (PM), Dave. We asked our realtor to be there, but Bella’s office scheduled a house closing over top our Pre-Construction meeting. Oh well. Dave had another appointment at 2:00, so we did not have an opportunity to walk the lot with him. Because of the red dumpsters, our lot was not staked at the time of our meeting either (remember we were hopeful the presence of the containers wouldn’t delay anything).

During the meeting, we all had a decent discussion. It began with the general format PMs follow with their clients, but due to time, the meeting quickly became directed by my numerous questions. Some highlights of the meeting:

• working hours are M-F, 8-4, so anytime we need access to the house, it must be during these hours (including bringing in our own inspector).
• Refused to provide a timeline/construction schedule as the schedule shifts daily to adjust to unexpected occurrences
• Weather is the number one cause of issues and delay
• Approximate completion timeframe is mid- to late-December
• Reviewed all selections and upgrade
•  We get ceramic tiles on the floor of the Roman shower (our SR was surprised and thrilled about this)
• The same type of wood floors in the foyer will also be in our mudroom/garage entry
• We will have an attic access in our garage in addition to the mudroom (thanks to our PM!)
• Our PM has been with Ryan Homes for 19 years and has built more houses than he can remember, but 148 in our development alone
• Groundbreaking has been pushed back a week (to the week of Sept. 17) due to not being able to get permits*
• From day 1-30 after settlement, the PM is responsible for anything. After 30 days, we must contact the Ryan Homes Warranty Department

* We have the feeling the groundbreaking was delayed due to not being able to move the dumpsters, not anything with the permits due to several things said during various meetings. Again, we were understanding of the limited space but would have appreciated Ryan Homes as a whole being upfront about it.

We were provided with a plot plan to show where our house will be on the lot, grading, utilities, etc. See below. 

Blue = Structure

Orange = Concrete

Green = Sod

Arrows = Grading

I’m bummed the house is not centered on the lot; we have a mere 12 feet from our house to the edge of our yard on the right (facing the house) and the neighbors on that lot have selected probably the largest structure possible. On the other side, we have 18 feet to the property line. Something we did not realize until this meeting is that we also have a catch basin at the back corner of our lot.

As with the amount of sun that may or may not hit the house with the two massive structures next to us, I do not know if having the catch basin in the corner of our yard is good or bad. I have a feeling it may be more of a hassle than anything else…