Here is a picture of the house on April 1st, it is amazing on how fast the house goes up.  Not much to report since out back fill inspection.  I can't go inside the house to see how things are progressing.  We have our pre-drywall in just over a week.

Pre-backfill inspection

Today I had my home inspector come out and do a pre-backfill inspection.  This is a chance to inspect the foundation from both sides and a lot of the plumbing that you cannot see that is either under the concrete slab that they pour in the basement (the inspection is done before this is poured) and the plumbing that goes around the foundation.  This is all stuff that you never see in homes because it is buried and completely inaccessible, so this is the one chance to see it.  I paid $175 for the inspection which took about one hour.

Overall things looked really great.  It seems that my project manager took great care to make sure that all looks good, and my home inspector gave it a thumbs up.  Know that everything is good gives me a lot of peace and mind and I would recommend getting a home inspector for the pre-backfill (my project manager acted like it was not needed).  I have heard stories of crazy things that home inspectors find during these inspections and you don't want your home to be the one that has that pipe that can't drain because it is going up-hill.  I also learned a lot (from the home inspector, the project manager was not there) during the process which is why I would advocate you being there for it.  I learned that a poured concrete foundation (which Ryan homes did) is far superior to cinder block, you will basically never have moisture problems with poured concrete like you will with cinder blocks.  Whoever you build with you should ask them if they use poured concrete or cinder blocks for the foundation.  I now understand where all those pipes that will eventually just run down in to concrete run to and what they are used for.

It was also nice to see how our house fit on the property and finally see what our backyard looks like.  It is a bit on the small side; however, it is mostly because my wife and I are used to the large (and flat) backyards of the Midwest.  Overall things are going on quite well and we are happy with the progress.

Siding follow up and more

It has been a over a week since we went out to check on the sidings, but I haven't got the time ot talk about it until now. My wife and I went out and looked at the house that has Autumn Beige siding, and yes I think it is a bit pink. In fact my wife always thought that house was pinkish and didn't realize that was the color we chose! We looked at the other choices and for a darker gray we like, but there was a problem. Ryan homes has very specific choices of door color and shutter colors that you can choose from with each siding. With the color we chose (mountainstone clay) we couldn't get the shutters and the door to be the same color unless they were both green! My wife kept was very vocal about how stupid that was to the Ryan rep. We decided to drive around the neighbor hood and look for a different siding color that we liked or decide on what color we wanted our shutters and door to mismatch. As it turns out every homeowner in the community choose a pattern that had the door and shutters the same color, so it wasn't just us that thought it would look silly to have them mismatch.

While we were out driving around the rep called her supervisor and asked about letting us have both the doors and shutters painted black like we would have wanted. Typically they can't/won't do this, but I think that since they were playing damage control with the autumn beige thing and my wife was vocal enough the supervisor told our rep that we could get both black. This shows that Ryan can bend the rules a little when they want, but I think my wife being vocal about how the situation stunk a whole bunch helped.

In other news they finally started digging. A two week delay in getting the permits. My wife and I saw the hole in the dirt last weekend. They were going to start the foundation on Monday, but the workers were a no show so they started late, but they got going now. I'll do a pre-backfill inspection with my home inspector next week. I should be able to see the foundation this weekend when my wife and I go over to look at the place. This will give us a chance to see how the house fits on the lot for the first time. It is a big house and not a huge lot so this will give us an idea of how big our back yard will be. Of course we saw all the dimensions on paper, but seeing it in real life will put a perspective on it.

Pink siding?

Not our house, but one with the same siding color as we chose.
I can see some pink in it.

I got an email from our rep the other day, after she left a couple voice mails, about our siding color.  We chose Autumn Beige which was a grayish brown.  Turns out that Ryan homes has been getting some complaints about the siding color which apparently shows a lot of pink shades when it covers a whole house.  Our rep wanted to let us know about the complaints, come out and check out a house that has that siding on it (as opposed to seeing the 1 by 2 inch sample in the showroom), and if we want to, choose a different color or to sign off that we are ok with how it looks.  We haven't gone out to see the home yet, we'll do that on Sunday.  Above is a picture of a house that the rep sent us that has the same siding color.  We have half brick so we'll have less siding, but the side and back of the house will be all siding.  The rep says that not everyone sees the pink and a lot of people have been happy with it too, but I think I see what they are talking about.  We'll go out and make a decision on Sunday.  I am glad they let me know and are giving us the option to change it if we want.

Pre construction meeting

Once I am done with this post I'll be caught up with writing about the start of the process of buying our Ryan home and will begin to write about things as they happen.  I want you to know that all the posts up to this point actually happened in a short period of a few weeks despite the dates on the post.

The pre-construction meeting was the first time that my wife and I met the construction manager for our home. Our rep that has been dealing with us so far was also there.  Most of the meeting with the construction manager was about what he does, so I thought I would start there.  He is in charge of lining up and scheduling all the contractors that will build our house.  Ryan homes hires local contractors to do all the work on building the homes.  He is in the home about once every day to see how things are going and to make sure the work is being done. He is also our point of contact if we have any construction questions, like when should I have the home inspector go out there for a pre-backfill inspection.  The sales rep is also still there if we have any questions as well.

One thing that became clear at this meeting (that I think I was misled about earlier) is how difficult it is to walk through your house to take a look at it prior to settlement.  As I mentioned in an earlier post I asked the sales rep if I can walk through the house to make sure things were being done right on a regular basis (I think I even told her once a week).  She said that was doable and to just call the construction manager before hand so he can tell me if there is any dangers on the site.  I found out at this meeting that if I wanted to walk through the house the construction manager needs to be there.  I can call and make an appointment, as long as he has time available, but he indicated he is typically very busy.  The outcome of this is that I don't think I will be able to see the house except at the predefined walk through.  I am kind of disappointed in being misled like this; however, thinking about it afterwards I realized that I wouldn't even know what to look for if I was to walk through the house to make sure things looked fine.  As a result I am a little less upset about it now because I don't think I would benefit from walking through the house once or twice a week, but I was still misled so I plan to that down on the post-settlement survey.  But this leads to another very important topic, hiring a home inspector.  As I mentioned before the construction manager works for Ryan homes and he has dead lines to meet so he receives raises/bonus.  He is over seeing people that were the lowest bidder to build your house, and he is also over seeing maybe a dozen other houses at the same time.  Don't rely on him to spot mistakes, or even to fix them if he does spot them, the one person he does not work for or have loyalty to is you.  As I just mentioned I have no experience with building a house so I found a home inspector to by on my side to make sure things look right.  I asked around and found a home inspector that my coworkers raved about.  This home inspector will do a pre-backfill, pre-drywall, and pre-settlement inspection for me.  I think it is very important to have someone on my side to make sure the house is as it is supposed to be.

I asked the construction manager how scheduling my home inspector works.  I sounds like I just need to let him know what day and time my home inspector will be out there.  I am also allowed to come with the inspector if I can get off work.  One thing to note is they won't pause construction for any inspections.  My inspector told me that I need to be very active on keeping track of the construction schedule and to schedule something about a week out which is his normal availability.   I am already emailing my construction manager about pre-backfill so I know when to have the home inspector come out. 

At the pre-construction meeting we also went over the final selection of upgrades and selections.  We also saw an updated plat with our house on it.  Everything looked as expected. Needles to say my wife and I are getting excitied.

Meeting with the flooring people

You need to meet with two companies in the first 30 days (besides your mortgage people). The first was guardian for you low voltage wiring which I talked about in my last post. The second (you can meet with them in any order) is the flooring people to choose carpet, tiles, wood flooring and anything else.

The company that was doing our flooring is Stonemark Flooring, and I have to say that the whole process of dealing with them has been horrible. When at their show room it was like pulling teeth to get the price for particular upgrades. I asked if I could just see the list in writing and our associate, Rebecca, would say I don't really have an official list that she could print off, they were all on the computer. SO I kept asking for various upgrades and she would sigh every time before telling me the price for the upgrade. Then finding out what selections were part of that upgrade was also difficult. For example upgrade 6 was below upgrade 1 on the shelf, and when I would ask where upgrade 1 was she would waive vaguely at the shelf making it difficult to know where one upgrade started and one ended. They also lacked knowledge about their product. I would ask what the carpet density or number of twists were for a sample and she would say it was on the back but out of all the samples I picked up only one had it on the back. When I continued to ask she told me that the manufacture didn't tell them what it was. If you have ever bought carpet you will know that these two qualities of a carpet is what tells you the quality of the carpet and all carpets have them listed.  I ended up having to compare the wieght of carpets and try to count the twists myself.  Stonemake flooring was useless when it came to providing product information.

Either they were very bad at their job, didn't care because they knew I had to do business with them, or are trying to deceive me by providing a lower grade carpet. I feel completely cheated by the process of dealing with them that I plan to ask my Ryan Rep for the are manager so I can tell them my experience and how I felt that they are trying to deceive me. I'll let you know how it goes.



I know I have gone on and on about certain upgrades being very over priced, but it seems to be very true for the carpet too.  For example they were charging what came out to be $8.00 per square yard for the upgraded pad.  $23 per square yard for a middle of the line carpet.  It seems that you will do better off if you can upgrade your carpet after you settle if you don't need to roll it in to the mortgage.  Pluss you can select from more brands.  Just so you know the base line carpet is of the same level an apartment would have. 


One last thing, they did this demonstration on the stain resistance of the carpet. They put two carpet samples in a container of cool-aid. When they pulled it out they showed how the carpet without stain guard didn't get dyed. The problem is they waited until my back was turned to set the demonstration up. I would have wanted to see what the carpet looked like before they put it in the cool-aid. Maybe others can comment on if they saw the demonstration set up or did they wait until your back was turned? I have read that stain guard carpet is well worth the money, but as a scientist not seeing the carpet before the cool-aid made the demonstration useless to me.

Meeting with Guardian people

I met with the Guardian people the other day (I am still trying to catch up on blogging about the whole experience, so it was really over a week ago).  Guardian s the company that will install the low voltage wiring in the walls of your house.  For those of you who don't know, low voltage wiring is all the wiring for phone, internet, cable tc, in-wall speakers, alarm systems, in-wall video cables.  They also offer a central vacuum setup.

The home comes with two phone jacks, and two cable jacks.  The phone jacks have to be in the kitchen and master bedroom.  The cable jacks have to be in the family room and master bedroom.  If you want them elsewhere you should ask, but there is no guarantee that they will do it.  You should know that they use Cat5 cable for the phone lines too, and the jacks they use accept both phone and Ethernet plugs, so if you don't plan on having a home phone system these can still be used for internet.  They were charging me $95 per additional phone, Ethernet or phone line that they put in.  This is something you can do your self after you move in but it involves cutting drywall and patching it up.  If you plan on painting the place this isn't so bad since you will paint the patches.  Even if you don't plan on painting you can paint the patches you make with the same color paint they have. It is difficult to run a line between floors, so I asked them to run a cable line and two cat5 lines (one can be used for phone) up to the attic.  This way I can split the cables from there and easily run them in to each bedroom, I think this was worth the $285.

They also hang a tv up for you and run lines behind the wall to the cable box\blu ray player.  The price for this seemed a bit high, and if you have a little DIY skills you can also do this yourself with little trouble.  What I didn't like about this service is they run a specific number of cables, I believe it was one HDMI and one set of component cables.  If you have more than two devices, or need two HDMI cables you will be out of luck, so think ahead.

They also offer features such as whole house audio, setting up in wall speakers.  Agian, these are things you could do later (and better) if you have the know how for less.  The research I did showed that these things add very little value to your house, so you won't make the money back when you sell the house; however, if it is something you want and don't know how to do it your self it may be worth having guardian do it.

Guardians big thing is the alarm system.  They want to put a wired alarm system in to your house for little cost and then have you committed to paying for their alarm service for 3 years.  This is what they will spend the most time selling you on.  My wife and I wanted an alarm system so we looked at what we got for free plus what we would want to add on.  We only got one control panel, sensors on the doors to the house, and a motion detector for free.  To get sensors on the first floor windows, another control panel and a smoke detector would have been many hundreds of dollars.  As a comparison we could get a wireless system with ATK for $100 installed that had everything we wanted (ATKs package came with more free stuff if you sign a 3 year contract).  The monthly cost was $2 cheaper per month with ATK.  ATK also had the ability to monitor your home from your cell phone, a feature Guardian's wired package currently does not (but it is in the works).  The guardian rep tried to sell me on the idea of a wired system.  It has a couple of advantages, you don't have to replace batteries (ATK does monitor the batteries in all your devices and will call you when one gets low so you know to replace it), and the door sensors can be hidden (the window sensors are not hidden).  The wired package also has some disadvantages, it takes a lot of effort to add on to the system.  If you want to add another window sensor, or glass breaking sensor you can't without having to run wire through your walls.  With a wireless system you just put a battery in and put it where you want.  In the end I decided to not go with guardian for the wired alarm system, although I will consider them and ATK (plus others) for their wireless system.  The guardian guy pushed the alarm system using quite a few scare tactics. When I continued to say no he offered me three months free OR a free smoke detector.  When I continued to say no it turned in to three months free AND a smoke detector.  This was tempting but just wasn't enough to get me, but if you are going to use them for your alarm company try saying you aren't interested, you may get similar offers to mine. 

In the end I didn't get much from guardian except a few cable runs because I plan on doing most of the stuff myself for less money and a better system.  It actually isn't about the money for me on this topic, I really enjoy setting these types of things up myself and doing it the way I want it done.  That might not be for everyone though.  Overall, the Guardian rep was nice, only a little pushy on the alarm system (but not overly pushy) and was knowledgeable about what he was talking about.