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New House

eiowaarcher

eiowaarcher

Member
I am considering building a new house but of course I have a lot of questions. I am mostly curious what the new septic, well, basement, and electric will cost. If anyone has recently done this any advice or input would be great. Also tossing around the idea of a house/shop building. Just trying to get some figures lined up. Thanks.
 
gundog870 said:
All I know is whatever you figure, add 30%.
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We are building right now. We are on budget for most part, except we underestimated landscaping.

My suggestion. With every bid from each contractor have them sign a contract that this will be the payment unless a change is made.
 
This is MN

Basement $30/$40 k (unfinished)
Septic. $8-10k

Electrical $15--20 grand

Size of home and style makes a big difference
 
Financing for a house/shop is always tougher to financing on the FNMA side of things and you would more than like have to use a small town bank that will do the financing but seeing a lot of smaller banks get out of the mortgage world.
 
Hardwood11 said:
We are building right now. We are on budget for most part, except we underestimated landscaping.

My suggestion. With every bid from each contractor have them sign a contract that this will be the payment unless a change is made.
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As an electrician it might be hard to get an electrical contractor to sign that contract unless you have hired them for sure. The way copper prices fluctuate can make it easy to lose money.
 
If you have a pretty good idea of what you want, then I would take that information to each type of contractor to get a ballpark figure on what you can expect to pay. 8 years ago when we built, it was about $100 - $150 per sqft as a general rule of thumb. I'm sure it's more now. That was in town so a well and septic obviously isn't figured into that price.

As already mentioned, set aside a percentage to play it safe. You will probably change your mind on several items throughout the build.
 
Are you going to general the project yourself? There is no reason most sub's can't give you a firm bid on contract. This time and material to frame a house is a load of crap. Dont know why Iowa is this way. If you know your job you can bid a new project with a dated window or an allowance for change in price for material. Labor is labor, taking into account changes made along the way.
 
Too many variables, but when you add it all up its expensive to build a quality home. 1700 square ft finished upstairs and unfinished basement was over 300k. Depends on what kind of quality your looking for.
 
Bowtech84 said:
Too many variables, but when you add it all up its expensive to build a quality home. 1700 square ft finished upstairs and unfinished basement was over 300k. Depends on what kind of quality your looking for.
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That seems pretty steep! We just got done putting up a 1450 SF Modular on a finished basement (2900 SF total finished space). All told: Grading, concrete work, 28x30 attached garage w/ concrete floor, new water service and line from 700' away, new electrical service with buried line from 700' away, 700' of new driveway ended up right around $250k. Keep in mind though I did a lot of the basement work myself which saved a bunch. I also built the garage myself. Again, big cost savings.

As for the specifics of the original post.

Basement concrete work: concrete floor, 9' ICF walls. $30,500.
Septic: $8,000.
Electric: Service hookup from Alliant. Includes about 700' of underground line. $8,200.
Electric: Local contractor trenching electric line from meter box to house (150' or so) $2,700.
Interior electrical work: $6,300.
Trenching water line from road to house (700') - $3000.
HVAC (including AC unit and furnace) $9,000.
Basement interior plumbing (I did the plumbing under the slab) $4,300.
Dirt work for digging basement: $2,500.
I had quotes for someone to finish the basement, but due to other circumstances, I ended up finishing most of it myself. The quote for labor and materials was $16k.

Shoot me a PM if you need any other specifics or have any questions. We just did ours this fall. If you are looking at building, I would HIGHLY recommend taking a good hard look at modular if you haven't already. It's very high quality (depending on who you use) and very reasonably priced. Ours ended up being around $78/SF. Very cheap compared to $100+ for stick built.
 
IMO you get what you pay for. You can spend 10k on countertops if you want. Trim, cabinets sky is the limit. Modular homes have come a long way but its not the same as a framed home. Both have plusses and minuses. With a prefab make sure you get a top notch cement guy.
 
I was my own general, and it saved a bunch. We moved into our house in September of 2013, and overall the project went really smooth.

Like I said I was my own general, but I really didn't plan it that way. As I started getting bids, everybody was a turnkey bid or a material plus type bid, but most had a big allowance built in to protect them from prices in material. I wanted to know the cost of my materials and the cost of labor for each portion of the job.

So I went back to contractors and asked for a material bid and a labor bid, with the understanding the material bid was my obligation, meaning if material prices moved I took on that risk. Additionally there have been a few contractors not pay their bills and I guess I would rather just take care of my own business.

In the end it lowered the bids, I enjoyed being the general and having control over the subs, and my bid stayed on-track, with very little cost overrun(5%). On the other hand it did take a lot of time, and I'm lucky that my job was flexible and allowed me to oversee the project.

My best advice is to pour over all the cost associated with a house, make a budget for the items you can control(fixtures, cabinets, floor coverings, ect.), and stick with it. The little things can add up in a hurry, I was meticulous when it came to penciling everything out, and I felt like it made a big difference.
 
Speaking of the little things adding up. I remember when we were finishing up and went to buy light bulbs for the whole house. $300+ Ouch! Was not expecting that blow to the pocket!
 
I built 2 years ago, not a traditional house but a 36x36 1 1/2 story barn on a slab. The main floor is 3 horse stalls, a tack room and laundry room with a half bath. Upstairs is one bedroom one bath and open kitchen, dining and living area. We don't have kids and my wife is a horse nut so this worked for us.

My septic was 11,000 for a sand filter system, if you have soil that will perc it should be cheaper.

Total electric was around 13,000. 3,000 of that was to the energy company to extend the highline as it stopped at the neighbors.

Plumbing was 5,000 plus 800 to rural water for a new service

I did the construction and finishing myself with help from friends and the total project cost was around 100,000
 
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