sarayale;

You make it sound like its a privelege to work for wages

Jerkylips: The house is 8,000 square feet, plus the basement. We have 5 children and a live in housekeeper, right there we need 7 bedrooms, as my kids don't want to share bedrooms and fight more when they are forced to, like now.

I also wanted a couple of guest bedrooms for my parents or in-laws or sister as they all live out of town from us. My sister has 6 kids and my brother has 5 kids, and my youngest sister has two so far. If we are together for a holiday, that is already 28 people with just my side of the family, so you can see a need for a very large living and dining room.

My husband has thousands of books and needs a place for them. He also works from home when he can (he has a very long commute) so he needs space. I need an office, as I eventually hope to practice law out of the house. My oldest daughter loves to cook and has taken over my kitchen, thus a need for a big kitchen I am forced to share (and who doesn't like a spacious kitchen). My son needs a workshop as he is always building all kinds of projects.

We live by the shore in NJ and it is a summer town, although we live here all year round. It is very likely that as my kids get married and move away, they will move back home, families and all, for the summer. This is a very common occurrence, so if the house is big we can accommodate multiple families.

Yes, of course, we could live in something much smaller (I am in a tiny ranch for the past 10 years) but we like space and want to build our dream home. I have worked hard and so has my husband and we feel this is a great thing to do for our family, to have a big house, where everyone can have their own space, where guests are comfortable and welcome.

I grew up in a small apt in Brooklyn and hated never having a quiet place to do homework or read. I shared a tiny bedroom with 2 sisters and had one bathroom for 6 people. My brother had to sleep in the dining room, next to the freezer which could not fit in the kitchen. I had one drawer into which all my clothes had to fit, not one dresser, one drawer. I guess I am allergic to living in small spaces, where everything is somewhere else because it doesn't fit in the room it belongs in.

We will have a pool so the space also includes a cabana attached to the house.

So there you have it, how our house ended up so big!!

I am not sure what you are reading between the lines or why you are so antagonistic, just because I will be my own GC. When I worked in real estate, I never told people they couldn't sell their house on their own or begrudged them. I just told them honestly the benefits and drawbacks of using a realtor.

And if you are not happy working for wages, then what are you looking for? An easy way to make money by marking up your material costs and hiding it from customers.  I do not mind paying a fair amount for labor, I don't want to pay extra for my materials when I am perfectly willing to do the work of purchasing them myself. And my subs so far, have no problem with that at all, and have been willing to help me with their connections.

People laughed when I applied to Yale Law School. Well I got into Yale and Harvard. And people laughed when I chose to give birth at home. So I am used to doing things unconventionally and have faith in myself.

If I seem antagonistic, its because your arrogance is beaming thru in your comments

So what you are saying is you are also smart enough to to the material take offs for the drywall, corner bead, tape, compound, screws, etc. and just hand it off to the supplier?

Or you plan to rely on the drywall sub that is just grateful to be working.

an attorney I knew it!   I would keep that a closely guarded secret.

#1 on list of who not to do business with ........Attorney, you never get paid

Thank you to the folks who contributed positively to the subject of this thread. Lots of good information here. I wouldn't have guessed a plumbing sub would bid a job per fixture without regard for where those fixtures are spaced throughout a structure - that certainly frees up design, though I would still suggest planning as much plumbing as possible for interior walls so as to preserve the integrity of the building envelope.

yikes, flip off the light switch & put that bag over your head - it's about to get ugly!

MountainStone, You were right the first time, less labor and material is required to cluster plumbing, and it is much better to keep plumbing out of exterior walls for the exact reasons that you mentioned. I think that this is a concept that has a lot of merit, considering the subject of this thread. Having said that, you're talking about a substantial, long term, investment, so you probably don't want to do something that you're going to hate for the sake of a few $$.

Now, I've made my "pitch" for SIPs, as a building envelope system to consider, in several previous comments on this thread, as well as on other recent threads and forums on GBT, that are somewhat related. I'm assuming that you, and others who are in similar positions, are probably sifting through all of these "discussions" in an effort to "separate the wheat from the chaff", so to speak.

In any event, good luck with your research, as well as with your eventual project.

Chris:
First of all, if I had to learn how to do a take off, I am sure I could learn, it is not rocket science ( and I just bought a really cool calculator just for that purpose).

Secondly, I would not mind paying for someone to do a take off for me if I had to. I don't expect people to work for free.
Thirdly, I am sure you don't do your own take offs for all of your materials and do rely on your subs and suppliers. So why is it different if I am my own GC?

But of course, this is not really about take offs, it is just about discouraging someone who threatens you. The fact that a person who is not a contractor for a living can get a house built scares you. Wake up, there are thousands of people who do it every year. And for every person who did it and felt like they had a bad experience, I can name you a person who felt raped by their contractor and wouldn't hire them again.

I am not arrogant at all. I have friends who did not even graduate high school and I respect them. I have friends who are dirt poor and don't feel I am better than them. But my friends have one thing in common, they are genuine and not full of BS and that is what I respect.

I meant to respond about the "clustering" of plumbing before but I forgot.  I think that what you've heard is related to using copper vs. pex.  I had this same conversation with my builder.  It used to be that pex was actually a little more expensive than copper, but labor costs were lower because it could be pulled in one length without having to solder 90's & stuff.  The pex connectors, which are needed in some places, are kind of expensive, though.  With the price of copper through the roof, the pex materials are actually cheaper now, PLUS the labor is cheaper.  I think some of the "clustering" benefits have been mitigated.  It's probably still cheaper to do it that way, but maybe not by much.  I agree with Sipper - if you're planning to be in a house long term, is it worth it to put a fixture somewhere other than where you want it so you can save a couple hundred bucks?  Maybe not, but on the other hand each "couple hundred bucks" adds up.

sarayale;

You right your not arrogant, looks like you have it all figured out! When you get it all finished in 4 years please let us know how it all worked for you.

Mapnerd, ask your banker for a list of builders who will look over your shoulder for a flat fee. This arrangement worked very well for me. You get qualified subs; you deal directly with them. If they don't show up, you complain to your consultant, who presumably will jerk their chains. This last is the curse of the owner/builder. If a sub has to disappoint someone, you don't want to be the guy he'll never see again.
I am on my own this time building in an area where I know no one. I got plugged into a network of reasonable subs fairly quickly just by asking for names. It isn't hard to figure out who are the good guys.
Last point: if you aren't scouring Craigslist and auctions for surplus building materials you are leaving a lot of money on table. I wound up buying rebar for my ICF sub. Found a place selling 20-foot #4s for $4 a stick.

ToddM, Thanks for the tip. I was thinking about asking my banker something along those lines. I like the idea of being somewhere in between an owner/builder and having a GC. That may also be a good way for me to have some honest conversations about my budget and where we could maybe save some costs. Craigslist rules! I also like the Habitat for Humanity Restore and our local architectural salvage yard - lots of builder overruns and quality secondhand stuff.

eric,

I think the problem now is one of two things - 1) as you described, I am not being realistic about the building costs or 2) I haven't got my drawings and specs specific enough. It seems there are a lot of "assumptions" in the prices and quantities/areas. It may very well be a combination both 1 & 2 that's my problem.

I plan to go through the bids and tighten up my specs and add some detail to our drawings. I'm very open to having someone look at our plan and give us some honest opinions. Send me a message offline if you'd like to discuss (mapdork At gMail dot com).

Mapnerd, the appeal to the builder in this arrangement is more money for little time expended. I suspect that you will find more resistance to it in this economy because most builders have lots of time but little money. You don't want them, except maybe a retired builder; you want the guy who is still working. Same goes for subs. The best are as busy as ever. Recessions peel off, in order, the guy who just painted his name on the pickup, the guy who cuts corners, the guy who charges too much.
You also have an equalizer in scheduling conflicts. Even the best subs have problems getting paid. Whip out your checkbook at the earliest opportunity. Your name will get around.
Don't forget auctions. Go to auctionzip.com and search for construction or building materials.
There is a temptation when you find deals to upgrade. #3 rebar at $3 a stick, for example, cost me $400 because I installed it 12" OC in 1000 sf of slab, or $500 rather than $100 for rewire. Discipline, discipline, particularly at auctions.

I would suggest as MountainStone does that clustering the plumbing is a good idea. Down the road, should something break, it's all in one area, minimizing damages, rather than (for sake of argument) a pipe that runs the length of the house that can burst anywhere along the length of the house.

There are many good reasons to cluster plumbing other than saving a few dollars on install.
Short distances from water heater to fixtures means hot water faster with less wasted water.

Shorter drain runs means a quieter house and less problems with stopped up pipes.

Any plumber that just bids "by the fixture" without looking at the layout is both lazy and not too smart.

While clustering plumbing sounds good, what good does it do to build a new home and have sinks and bathrooms where they are not convenient, just so they are clustered? I personally put my kids bathrooms near their bedrooms, so they don't have to walk down a long hallway half naked. Yes I could have clustered them, but that might have meant not having windows in some of the bathrooms or having them far from the bedrooms.

I would not make blanket statements about plumbers. Most of them that I have met do bid by the fixture. It does not mean they are lazy, it simply may not be worth their time to nickel and dime the customer for each fixture by distance, and it makes it easier for everyone to have a set price for each fixture. It also does not mean they are not smart, they simply choose to have a different fee structure than you like. These blanket statements are way too broad.

Never said that clustering plumbing should over ride the design that works for the eventual homeowner.
I just pointed out that there were more reasons to cluster the plumbing than just the install cost (such as the efficiency of the systems).

If a plumber bids "by the fixtures" and bids two homes, one with stacked wet walls and the other with the same number of fixtures at opposite ends of the house, and he bids them the same, then the person with the clustered plumbing overpays and the plumber makes less on the less
efficiently laidout house.  Therefore my assumption he is lazy and not too smart.

I prefer to bid jobs based on how much labor and material goes into that job, not an average cost per fixture.

Bidding by the fixture averages out from the plumber's point of view.  When it does not, the plumber raises the price per fixture for everyone.  Needless to say, it does not average out for the homeowner that clustered the plumbing.  Here in the South I gave up a long time ago on trying to save money by clustering the plumbing.