1. Single Storey vs. Two Storey Home Design

Considerable cost savings can be achieved on your new home design by going to a 2 storey house if it works with your lot or land and you don’t mind walking upstairs to the second level. Why might you ask? One is, assuming the same square footage for comparison purposes, that with a two storey house you have half the foundation area versus a single storey. The other would be the same for the roof area, half the area required for the same square footage of living space. Not only will this save you money in material costs, it will also save you significant costs on the labour portion for these two components.

2. House Design – Jigs and Jogs, Dormers and Bump-Outs

When designing your building footprint and layout keep in mind that every corner, bump out, odd angle, dormer, decorative accent, cantilever, etc. will cost you extra $$$$ as far as labour and materials are concerned from the start of foundation all the way to the finishing stage of your building project. New homes today are rarely built like a square box house (BC Box, as some people call them) but if you can keep the items above down to a minimum you can see significant cost savings in your build.

3. House Design – Large Covered Decks

Whenever I see a set of house plans come in with large covered deck areas all I see is $$$$ and I let the client know up front that these areas are going to have to be considered in the price per square foot on a Harmony Homes package. Why is this area so expensive? Let’s add up all the materials: First, you have the concrete pads and/or piers required for bearing; second, the deck floor system (deck joists, posts, hangers, decking and deck railings); third, would be the roof trusses or rafter system above the deck to make it covered and protected from the weather; fourth, would be the materials for the roof system (roofing materials and soffit materials).  Add all those materials up, plus the labour to build these items, and you can see how it does, in fact, cost several of thousands of dollars.  Real estate agents call these areas as “usable living spaces” for a reason.

4. House Design Material Choices

Your choice of materials in a Harmony Homes package can greatly increase or decrease your package price as well as your building budget. For example a standard set of dual glazed, vinyl windows, with low-e and argon gas, can typically cost between $6,000-$12,000 on a standard house package. Say you want fiberglass windows or metal clad vinyl windows instead, those same windows will now cost you $8,000-$16,000. How about metal clad wood or wood windows? Figure on $10,000-$20,000, although I have seen some high end window packages come through our facility that cost the client up to $40,000-80,000+. You can spend $500 on a front entry door or easily $5,000.  Keep that in mind when choosing and picking your building materials, here at Harmony Homes we tend to start off at a mid-range of products as far as quality and pricing is concerned and can adjust from there to suit ANY budget.

5. Plan Designers

When choosing a company to draw your plans do a little homework and make sure the company or person not only has house design experience to draw plans, but also some experience in the construction industry as a far as structural house design is concerned. With a few tweaks to an initial plan a house designer who has some structural experience can save you thousands of dollars in engineering costs as well as engineered wood products. Here at Harmony Homes we can draw your plans for you utilizing our experienced designer.  However if your plans are already drawn by someone else, don’t fret, as many of the custom homes we build are not drawn by us.

Ready to Chat?

To discuss your new custom home plans, please contact Zsolt Ketesdi of Harmony Homes, zsolt@harmonyhomes.net or give him a call 250-300-7269 for a free consultation!

This article is courtesy of Pacific Homes