Common Hurdles You Can Often Avoid Thanks to Preconstruction Services

Building a custom estate is like building a work of art. The process of building such a home requires careful planning, preparation, and organization. We at Conrado Home Builders believe that building a truly unique and exceptional custom home starts with a comprehensive, thorough, and exacting preconstruction phase. In essence, when you hire Conrado Home Builders to build your custom home estate or luxury remodeling project, you can rest assured that we will take the necessary time to learn about your vision, understand your needs and dreams for your home, share our expertise and recommendations, and do all of the indispensable preparatory work during our rigorous preconstruction phase. Before the first nail is hammered or the first construction truck shows up at the building site, we want to be 100 percent sure that we have completely built your home in our head and are prepared for any potential obstacles that may appear throughout the building process.

Though some people might fear that a prolonged preconstruction phase will add to the overall timeline of the building process, the opposite is true. Taking the time and effort to properly plan every square foot of the construction, draw up a realistic and detailed budget, source the needed materials across the increasingly complex supply lines, and create the best building team for your unique custom estate will most likely reduce the overall construction time. By properly preparing and organizing our work, we can usually avoid common hurdles, setbacks, and other “bumps in the road” inevitable in any custom home construction. Our preconstruction process fits seamlessly with the architectural design and City approval timeline and adds no additional days to the project timeline.

This short article outlines some of the delays and obstacles that can be avoided because of Conrado’s thorough and arduous focus on the preconstruction phase.

A Detailed Building Plan to Avoid Surprises in the Final Product

When a client hires Conrado Home Builders for a new custom estate or a major luxury renovation, we understand that they expect the most legendary quality on the market. Your custom estate will most likely be one of the largest single expenses you will ever make in life, and we want to ensure that your home will last for a lifetime (or two).

In order to deliver this legendary quality, we need to ensure that we completely understand your vision, hopes, and dreams for your custom home. Unfortunately, when many homeowners are handed over the keys to their new custom home, they may immediately find differences and discrepancies between what they had imagined and what the final product resembles.

We want you to be surprised at the quality of the construction, our intimate attention to even the finest details, and the unparalleled craftsmanship that characterizes Conrado’s custom homes, and we want to eliminate unexpected changes in the floor plan or design characteristics that you were not expecting.

Our preconstruction phase starts with sitting down with our clients to learn about their desires, wishes, and plans for their home. We don’t just want to know how many square feet they want and how many bedrooms and baths. Rather, we want to know if they prefer the look of Brazilian Cherry or Tigerwood for your dining room floor. We want them to understand the differences between an HRV and ERV mechanical ventilation system to decide which option will help them reduce their energy bills while ensuring the best indoor air quality. In short, we want to be 100 percent certain that every last detail of their custom home is discussed, planned for, and drawn up before construction begins.

Transparent Budgeting: Our Fiduciary Responsibility to our Clients

Secondly, Conrado Home Builder’s preconstruction planning services allow us to draw up a detailed and comprehensive budget for your home. We believe wholeheartedly that we have a fiduciary responsibility to our clients, and we want to guarantee that every last cent is meaningfully spent. Without a detailed budget, it is common for the final price tag of the custom home to drastically increase over what was first quoted. With Conrado, however, we go the extra mile to quote and source every item to reduce unexpected costs and price fluctuations.

Furthermore, during our budgeting process, we help our clients understand ways to reduce the building costs and the long-term operational costs of the home. After decades of building the most legendary custom homes in the San Francisco Bay area, our building teams have identified the best local materials and subcontractors available. By prioritizing local building materials, we can help reduce the overall cost of the home, avoid potentially lengthy delays that come with the disruption of distant supply chains, and lower the home’s embodied energy footprint.

We are proud to be the leading green builders in the region, and throughout the process of drawing up the budget, we can help you find ways to approach net-zero energy status. Our building teams have decades of combined experience in choosing the best renewable energy technologies, building the most airtight building envelopes, and implementing the most energy-efficient building strategies and materials. The end result of these green building techniques is that our clients should expect to see impressive savings in the operational energy use of their custom estate.

Unexpected Permitting Delays: Another Obstacle Avoided with Preconstruction

One of the most frustrating incidents that often occur in the building of a custom home is the unexpected and lengthy delays due to not having the correct permits in order. Building, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical permits are all required when building a new custom home. Furthermore, the hilly terrain defines much of the landscape in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Monte Sereno, Palo Alto, Los Altos Hills, Portola Valley, Woodside, Atherton, and other surrounding communities; a grading permit is usually required.

If those permits have not been acquired in advance, you may be looking at lengthy delays in the overall build timeline. Here at Conrado, however, during the preconstruction phase, we obtain all necessary permits before construction begins. We don’t want to have a whole workforce on site unable to work their magic due to a missing permit or issues with building codes. To avoid these delays, we have developed solid relationships with local governments, building code inspectors, and other entities to ensure that your custom home has all the needed permits and paperwork to ensure a smooth building process.

Building the Best Construction Team to Avoid Downtime

When you hire Conrado Home Builders for your custom home construction, you will get a project manager who will be in charge of the entire team and hiring all relevant sub-contractors. That means that you will not have to worry about finding a replacement plumber at the last minute if our regular plumber calls in sick. During the preconstruction phase, Conrado will create a custom team that will work together for the duration of your custom home construction.

By having a unique full-time project manager, you can avoid delays in procuring labor and ensure the most qualified experts for your home. We know that the most capable and experienced subcontractors build the best custom homes. Instead of simply referring you to a random architect or using the cheapest subs found on Google, our team-centric approach is focused on tailoring a specialized team to help our individual clients achieve their dream homes.

Depending on the individual case, your custom home construction team might include a project coordinator, a project manager, a field operations manager, a project executive, the architect, the interior design team, lighting specialists, energy efficiency auditors, renewable energy experts, and more. Furthermore, all of our sub-contractors are rigorously evaluated and vetted to ensure that we are able to deliver legendary quality in the homes we build. Legendary quality is our hallmark, and we are committed to delivering quality custom homes that look amazing and will last a lifetime.

Procurement of the Highest Quality Building Materials to Avoid Supply Chain Backups

Lastly, a comprehensive preconstruction phase can also help to ensure that the construction doesn’t stop due to a disruption in the delivery of needed materials. The combination of a global pandemic, rising energy and transportation costs, and economic stagnation has currently led to serious shortages and delays in the procurement and delivery of different building materials.

Your project manager will develop a detailed building plan that determines when specific building materials need to be delivered to the building site. We have long-standing relationships with providers and transportation companies to avoid unexpected delays and interruptions. Furthermore, during the preconstruction phase, we create backup plans to protect against potential supply chain issues that can disrupt the building process.

Conrado is aligned with our clients in wanting to deliver the highest quality home as fast as possible. Because of this alignment, there is team synergy which leads to outstanding homes and enduring relationships.

How to Hire Conrado Home Builders

When you hire Conrado Home Builders, you know that you will be getting the absolute best building teams that can deliver the most legendary quality custom estates on the market. Even better, however, is that you will also be getting a team of builders committed to learning what exactly you desire for the custom home that will be uniquely your own.

Our preconstruction phase is designed to understand your vision, develop a plan together with you, create a transparent budget that saves money, and create a team that will deliver a legendary quality home.. Of course, by taking the time to get to know our clients, we also deeply value the ability to forge enduring relationships and friendships. We care about the homes we build, and we will always be here to help our clients with whatever issue that might come up down the road. Contact us today to find out how we can help you design and build the most legendary custom estate for you and your family in the Bay area.