Rural New Home Build—School Me Up

BrentD said:
If your drive is "soft", road fabric is your friend, followed by "2" with fines" (our local of 2" unwashed), then 1" with fines or even smaller. Our road rock is mostly crushed limestone, bu your's will be whatever is locally available (it's cheap, it's the hauling that kills your wallet), just start big and then go smaller later (after construction), and again, road fabric will pay for itself if you have soft soils.
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We went with structural geo grid for ours. If you buy direct it's very affordable. We went from a water bed in the spring to rock solid, zero flex
 
As a few have said above,
1. clear trees for road work
2. find your home, shop placement
3. find a contractor, and Home designer, grading contractor “ your builder can recommend these people that he’s worked with.
4. Power and well driller, this can happened during the build. We built our home almost completely with a generator, it took that long for the power co. to connect us.
5. septic and leach field almost last.

Enjoy, I’d never do it again. It also can be cheaper to buy an exsisting home with acreage.
 
Good advice here. Clearly guys here know what they are talking about or made mistakes you can avoid by knowing and avoiding them.
I think the HOA can work in your favor when it comes to road maintenance and nuisance problems within the development (7 acres can feel small if you have an AH living next door).
If it is a county approved subdivision there may be very specific items laid out for development of your lot (house placement, well placement and septic). Montana has a DEQ, DNRC and County Health Department to deal with. I think most of the personnel and rules came from the State of Washington and Oregon(sarcasm).
Was a perk test preformed? If so that is where they will expect your drain field to be. That spot and it’s surrounding area is off limits to a well and unless you don’t mind living out of a cistern and hauling/having water hauled every week or so the well is the number one priority, if the development is hit and miss on successful wells. Our well is at 60 feet and good water. A neighbor has drilled 2 and each is dry. There are a few 400’ wells nearby with crappy water. At $30-35 a foot it can cut into or add expense to ones budget. If everyone around you has a successful shallow well that is great news but drill it first.
Our place required an entire rewrite to develop our property. It was a super fun task dealing with each of the above mentioned entities over months and months. We moved everything around except the drain field. I hope you are approved for type 1 septic.
It was said above about telling a good contractor you are getting other bids. Go see their prior work first hand and talk with the homeowners if possible.
Cost, speed and quality of build. Pick two.
Grade 1 or grade 2 lumber? On the job site working each day or multiple jobs going at the same time? A reasonable completion date (allowing them to leave for emergencies) or their schedule based on their workload at other sites?
I lived on the property and was there every day. We had a quality contractor and brought him back for other projects/builds after completion but still glad I was on site to make a couple of changes along the way.
For us knowing which direction the snow was going to fly and the wind blows was major. We have neighbors with garages facing into the wind, north facing front doors into the flying snow etc.
There are soft costs involved. For us they were roadwork, electricity to the build site 300’ run, septic and well. Outside dirt work and trenching to make our place work around the re-write (Our drive is 350’ long. The well, septic and electrical all required over 300’ of trenching each.
 
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Well, nearly three years later it’s time to update this thread. I took a lot your advice and appreciated all of it.

This past year and a half have hands-down been the most stressful of my life. I’ll spare you all the details, but keeping a hand on all the moving parts while being parents, selling our old house, getting new jobs, making right on the jobs we had, and staying tight as partners nearly wore my wife and I down to nubs. But here we are, in a place we love, a place I’m truly excited for our kids to grow up in. It’s going to take a while for the cortisol to wear off, but I think it’s going to be worth it. Get to finally move in on Tuesday.

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rtraverdavis said:
Well, nearly three years later it’s time to update this thread. I took a lot your advice and appreciated all of it.

This past year and a half have hands-down been the most stressful of my life. I’ll spare you all the details, but keeping a hand on all the moving parts while being parents, selling our old house, getting new jobs, making right on the jobs we had, and staying tight as partners nearly wore my wife and I down to nubs. But here we are, in a place we love, a place I’m truly excited for our kids to grow up in. It’s going to take a while for the cortisol to wear off, but I think it’s going to be worth it. Get to finally move in on Tuesday.

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I'm sure that will be a welcome change from Portland.
 
That is awesome!!! Super happy for you and the family. Kids are gonna love the freedom!!! Glad it's all coming together!!!
 
Damn, Randy Travis!! That’s a fine looking place you got there! Congratulations, man. Happy for you. Way to make it through juggling everything and keeping your priorities straight. You’re the man. Slow down and enjoy it.
 
you can tell how rich a person is by how many peaks on there roof,,,,,

nice build, going thru same process now,
talk about a bloody spot on my forehead
 
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