Things We Learned Building Our House

2019 House Finishing

Happily, we got most of these right, though we learned a few of them too late…

Stonework

  • the mortar for setting limestone veneer should be wetter than you think, and the scratch coat should be dry – the scratchcoat pulls the water from the setting mortar in about 15 seconds, and then the veneer sticks tenaciously
  • when pointing the stones, wait for the mortar to start to set before tryng to tool it, that will keep the stone face from being stained
  • if you build a jib boom, you can use an ordinary loader tractor to move stone and mortar to someone building a chimney on the roof

Contractors

  • add a clause to every contract requiring written approval of any overruns or additions, before the work is done – you’ll still pay for the routine overruns but they can be somewhat controlled
  • Update 2022: We used Angie’s list with great results to vet contractors, but, sigh…, HomeAdvisor now controls “Angi”, and you can no longer get independent reviews on contractors

Soil

  • soil thaws from the bottom up (from the heat of the earth) – Thanks Jim Vail!
  • even experienced site contractors won’t put enough pitch away from the house – keep after them until it’s obviously sloped away

Heating

  • you MUST put a CO detector in a project when using portable propane or kerosene heaters

Finish Woodwork

  • you need to have sophisticated tools and be prepared to hold tolerances to 10 mils or less when doing finish woodwork
  • use drywall screws behind the base molding in the corners to square and true the corners before nailing in the base

Electrical

  • no holes in engineered structures such as trusses or joists
  • only meet code on arc-fault breakers, use regular breakers elsewhere – they’re an expensive nuisance
  • GFCI for all kitchen outlets, not just 6′ to sink
  • staplers for Romex only work for about half the cabling, plastic straps with nails for the rest

Tile

  • mortar the mortarboard to the floor before screwing it down
  • a mortar and tile shower is worth the considerable expense and time

Deck

  • get stainless wire railing parts from a marine supplier, not a deck supplier (half price!)
  • use 70 lb/sq ft design limits instead of 50 for a solid deck (we used 70 for the trusses, and 50 for the cross-beam, with nice results)

HVAC

  • put in as many zone dampers on your forced air system as you can afford – at least 3
  • have a contractor put in A/C compressors – early failure is common and you want no warranty questions

Plumbing

  • use copper elbows to bring PEX out of the wall, don’t bring the PEX out
  • using a contractor for waste plumbing reassures the building inspector
  • septic designers drift toward overkill designs which are more readily approved, but can be very expensive to install – get recommendations for the designer from your installation contractor

Carpentry

  • you will own every type of pneumatic nailing/stapling machine before you are done building – hammers are only useful to finish the occasionally machine-driven nail that doesn’t set

Foundation

  • don’t accept 3 steps into the house – push to use top-bearing floor joists, and carefully plan how grade interfaces with the foundation

Utilities

  • just because a utility says they will serve a site, doesn’t mean they will serve a site – CenturyLink (confirmed availability) wanted $3000, MidCom wanted $30,000 and Xcel (confirmed availability) gas wanted $300,000

Money

  • yes, it will cost more than budgeted

Great Contractors

  • Vail Builders
  • Dalum’s Electric Service
  • Hugo Painting and Drywall
  • Penguin Insulation