Shop For Price—Or Shop For Quality?

People spend years collecting books of plans, hoping to come across their personal Xanadu. It rarely occurs. The possible combination of spaces, shapes, sizes and styles for homes is practically infinite.

Homeowners do not always realize that a skillful and experienced designer, who can listen and visualize, can rather swiftly develop a design which takes into account land, weather, and your personal needs and desires— in short, your dream.

Having done so, the designer is perfectly positioned to see that the home is created as a high-quality, enduring and satisfying product. He can do this either in cooperation with a builder, or as the builder—the “Designer-Builder.”

That leads to the other area where expertise is more important than price. The frame of the home is its “bone structure.” Many builders feel that it is sufficient to frame according to accepted local trade standards. In fact, building codes and building inspectors often allow for a lot of leeway in framing techniques, the very techniques which will ultimately limit the movement of the building's skeleton. Except in cases of soil problems, many of the defects homes may develop years after being built are the results of imprecise and corner-cutting framing methods.

In the quest for true quality, the material used for the frame is as critical as the building techniques. Plywood is superior to “flake-board,” and 5-ply is vastly superior to 4-ply. In lumber, moisture content and grain are both critical to dimensional stability. Some builders hand-pick much of their lumber to ensure its quality. Also wherever the design would be better served, “engineered” timber is indisputably worth the extra cost.

Competitive bidding brings out enormous price variations in framing labor and material. It also can be quite difficult to pin down a builder on what he will actually be delivering in terms of quality and technical expertise. Alternately, you can work as a team with a designer and builder you trust to ascertain the costs of the job. This “cost analysis” method ensures that choices of quality versus price will be made by you.