Custom Homes

Seven to twelve months of construction for most homes — but the calendar starts well before the excavator. Design runs one to three months and plan approval another four to twelve weeks depending on the jurisdiction, so budget a year to eighteen months from first conversation to move-in. Weather matters too: footings and framing are the stages a wet month actually delays.

On most lots, yes, and it is the cheapest report you will buy. It sizes the footings, tells you whether a basement is possible, and determines whether the parcel can carry a septic field at all. Designing first and testing later is how a finished plan becomes unbuildable. The test itself takes days; redrawing a house takes weeks.

The parcel does. If a municipal main is within reach you tap it; if not, the lot needs a percolation test and enough usable area for a drain field and its replacement area. That answer changes where the house can sit, so we settle it before the footprint is fixed. A septic field also has to stay clear of wells, foundations and the driveway, which is what usually pushes the house off the spot you first pictured.

Setbacks are the minimum distance the structure must keep from each property line; an easement is a strip someone else has the right to use — a utility, a drainage channel, a shared drive. Together they define the buildable envelope, which is usually smaller than the lot you bought. On narrow or corner lots the difference is often several feet on the side that mattered most to you.

Small finish decisions, yes. Moving walls, windows or plumbing after framing means re-engineering load paths and often a revised permit, so it is priced as a written change order and it moves the schedule. We front-load those decisions for exactly that reason, while changing your mind still costs an eraser rather than an idle crew.