The Process of United States House Building
Jun Yong Hu
City
College of the City University of New York
Abstract
It takes more than two years to build a house by owner self. It includes purchasing the land, predesign, design, construction and post construction. Decide to Purchase the vacant land or old houses is the first step. Communication with architect to make a proposal is the second step. The third step of build a dream house is construction. The last step of process is post construction. Every step is important and requires owner to take it seriously.
Keywords: design, construction
Introduction
American dream is the best way to express the philosophy of United States. A house may be the most significant part of American dream. It takes more than two years to build a house by owner self, which is less efficient than buying a ready-made house. However, self- built houses means owner can customize most of the features of the house which makes the house become a dream house. Additionally, self-built houses means owners can live in a new house which located at the ideal location. Of course, the process of building a dream house is complicated. Owner have to invest plenty of man power, material resources and financial resources on it. Purchasing the land, predesign, design, preconstruction, construction or post construction, any mistake in above steps could turn a dream house become a nightmare house.
Process of House Building
The first step in the process of building a house is purchasing the land. This step is the prerequisite for the next steps. There are two options to this step:
- Buying a vacant land.
- Buying an old house and tear down to rebuild a new house.
Vacant land is the land which has no building on it and is never have been used. Buying vacant land has a lot of advantages. The most important one is affordable. Comparing to buying an old house, buying vacant land is much easier and affordable. There also a disadvantage of buying vacant land. For example, it’s hard to find a satisfying location since it’s 2019, not 1719. Buying an old house could cost a lot more money than buying vacant land. The cost of tear down the old house also should be under budget. In addition, the owner has to hire a professional person to do a survey before the owner buy the land because different land has different usage. Owner has to
find the right land according to the zoning map. Zoning number decide what kind of house owner can build. For example, land with zoning number R4 only was allowed to build one- or two-family house, if the owner wants to build a four-family house, he should not buy this kind of land.
When the owner prepared the land, the next step is designing. This step asks the owner to have good communication with the architect. The owner should well explain his idea to the architect. The architect will plan for the following process according to the land situation, budget, and the requirements of the owner. After the architect explained the design proposal to the owner, the owner has to sign an agreement with the architect. Architect and his design team will start to design the house only if the agreement was signed. The owner does have the right to change his idea after architect finished his design or even in the middle of construction, but it will waste a lot of time and money.
The third step of build a dream house is construction. This step requires the owner to deal with the construction team and supplier. There are multiple ways of paying for construction. First one called “lump sum” which means the owner pays a fixed fee to the construction team. This method is suited to projects which have a well-defined scope before starts. The second method is called “Cost Plus a Fee” which means the owner pays general construction cost plus an added fee. This step usually cost around 2 years for a normal residential house. It’s the major process of building a house. Sequential construction is the best and most common way to process. Sequential construction means each major phase begin only after the previous phase is complete. Phased construction can reduce risks if elements built early to come to conflict with later design decisions. An owner who doesn’t have enough time or experience to manage this step is also recommended to hire a professional construction manager to assist. A good construction manager can monitor construction, control the project site, manage trades and suppliers, and coordinate communications between construction team, design team, and owner.
The last step of the process is called post construction. When the construction team finished their works the first step owner should do is checking if all the requests are fulfilled by the design team and construction team. After verified the house the next should be a complete inspection of the electrical system, water delivery, and plumbing systems. The last step is to post construction cleaning. All the building and surrounding area should be cleaned carefully in case there are some dangerous elements was reminded form construction. For example, glass, toxic chemicals, discarded nails or screws.
Conclusion
Building a house is one of the most important things of a person. Most people don’t have experience before they start to build their first and only one dream house. Purchasing the land, predesign, design, preconstruction, construction or post-construction all the steps have required the owner to treat it seriously. Hiring a professional person to help is necessary.
The first assignment is “Technical Description”. I was asked to write a process description or mechanism description. During the assignment, I was the first time learning transfer my own knowledge to a technical description. There is always a difference between what you know, what you want to convey, and what the readers receive. An excellent technical description should allow most readers to accurately understand the author’s intentions. This requires that the words and sentences of the article must conform to the reader’s language habits or established standards. At the same time, I also need to learn to elaborate my point of view from various angles. In my technical description, I learned to use charts, metaphors, and examples to express my thoughts. Through this assignment, I did learn how to write a standard technical article and learned how to make my technical article more advanced.
