RE: “Small-time house-builder”

Yep; our house-builder was small-time. Like most house-builders he wasn’t trying to build us a Three-Mile Island or a Nine-Mile Point.
Before us, he had built three houses, one for himself, one for his parents, and one on speculation. Part of my judgment was to analyze what he had done before, and it looked pretty good.
All the houses were on abandoned swamp-land he had bought for a song in a tax-sale. He had previously worked for Kodak, and apparently became aware of the tax-sale because his previous house, a suburban tract-house, backed up on it.
He filled in the swamp with a bulldozer, and dug drainage-swales. He subdivided the lot into four lots, but actually only built on three. The fourth lot received an old house moved from the city.
He also redid our kitchen on Winton Road, and did a good job considering what he was up against; like the foundation was a foot off square.
He had to tear off the old roof and build anew. There also was the hairball of fitting a countertop into an unsquare corner. Countertop #1 was horrible. He thought so, and recommended I refuse it. We did. His countertop supplier had to eat it.
So indeed he was small-time, and I always felt that worked in our favor. A big-time builder would have tried to make me eat that countertop, and accept his short-cuts building our house.
Various Mexican standoffs arose in the building of this house.

First was the windows. He had gotten the shell up and roofed, and now the window-supplier had delivered. I looked at the windows (not hung yet — still in the cartons) and raised the roof. They weren’t even casement; they were double-hung. “I specified casement.” Back they went.
Turns out the window-supplier had delivered the wrong order (or was hoping to reduce inventory at our expense). I have a hunch a big-time builder would have tried to make me eat them double-hungs.

Then there was the grand stand-off over the vapor-barrier. We had specified 10-mil, but all the builder could get locally was 3-mil. He wanted me to cave. “Well we specified 10-mil; it must be available someplace.” So we got on the phone and got it from someplace in Minnesota next-day UPS. The vapor-barrier is 10-mil; much stronger than 3-mil.

And then there was his perfectionism about appearance. A big-time builder would have cut the roof off at the shell-ends. But our small-time builder preferred a two-foot overhang. So did I: that was what was in the plans. It adds almost 200 square feet of roofing-material and plywood.

And there was the issue of the soffits. The builder was planing to add framing to the roof-trusses, which were to be squared off at the shell.
“Why bother?” I said. “The trusses can have the soffit-framing integral if the trusses aren’t squared off, and are wider than the shell. And the soffit-plywood is nailed to two-foot centers.
No noisy posturing about superior knowledge. That’s what he did.

There also was the issue of garage-windows. The garage had a 9-foot-plus ceiling. “Do you want garage-windows even with the others, or the correct height above the floor? If they’re the correct height above the floor, they’ll be lower than the others, and look weird from the street.”
I agreed, so the windows have a seven-foot reach to the top latch. He took my advice. I don’t think a big-time builder would have even asked. “Weird; so what? We don’t sweat the small stuff!”

And then there was the pit vent-pipe fiasco. The Town wanted the pit vented, so the builder had to install a 12-inch PVC pipe.
It cost $500. He didn’t even bat an eye. “Fair is fair,” he said to himself. “I bid them $2,500 for that pit. It ain’t their fault (foult) I blew the vent-pipe.”
I think a big-time builder probably would have tried to pass along a cost-overrun.

And there was the grand fiasco of the final $50,000. This was because he was building the house the same way he built his previous houses: 30 days cash for materials. I.e. every month or so he would bill us for what he had done so far, and we’d pay.
This emptied out our savings, and used the proceeds of our house-sale in Rochester. The final $50,000 was the mortgage. But the bank wouldn’t pay until we had a CofO. The town-inspector wouldn’t issue a CofO until the house was finished, and without the mortgage-proceeds the builder couldn’t finish the house.
So he had to finagle store-credit, hold off his creditors, and not pay his crew until the house was finished.
We had to move in before the CofO; it was like camping. No countertops in the kitchen, and the only water was in the master-bath shower. We had heat, but the floors were bare plywood.
-So I think we did pretty good with our small-time builder. Our house is probably the last one he ever built (his crew-control was poor), but it reflects his integrity and perfectionism, which reflects my perfectionism. (I still think it’s a class act.)
We also had the advantage of owning the property and what he had built. He was only supplying a service; he couldn’t stuff it to us and sell to someone else. A big-time builder would have only built on speculation. Add $3,000 or so for his cost of credit.

“CofO” = certificate-of-occupancy.