Storms Delay New Home Construction – David Dumont 09/27/2024
So here we are again. The weather is changing and storms are brewing. While it seems like temperatures cooling off would be a good thing to home builders, it’s a fully mixed bag of happiness, relief, anxiety, trepidation, and worry, and here’s why: Weather! Seasonal Storms bring delays to Oklahoma new home construction every year! This article is designed to give you an idea of some of the weather delays that can occur in new home construction in Oklahoma, and stress the importance of making a plan that takes weather delays into account.
I’m an Oklahoma Realtor and a new home construction specialist. In Oklahoma, spring and fall rains can be an incredible hindrance to the new home construction trade. It’s very difficult to manage your construction schedule when you can’t get a pad scraped, footings dug, termite treatment applied, post tension foundation laid out, and everything else that goes before framing. The severity of this problem is illustrated by the fact that even the large home builders that build over 30-40 homes a year have their building process come to a screeching halt on new starts (new starts signifies the first work on the home site) when it rains every 3 days. To add to the problem, if it hasn’t rained for 3 days, that doesn’t mean that every site is workable. The viability of the soil for footings to be poured depends on the soil, the amount of clay in the soil, and most importantly, the amount of rain that fell and the weather since the last rain. To illustrate how difficult weather can make starting the new home construction process, take a look at this tiny segment of the full build process:
- Locate is done. The land that the new home is being built on must be surveyed if it doesn’t already have boundary pins. The position of the home on the land is then staked out per the site plan from the builder.
- Heavy equipment is brought in to scrape the vegetation where the home will be. Weather is a big factor here because when it’s muddy, heavy machinery can get stuck, and/or make a mess of the site and possibly damage the land around the build site. This is especially true on private land where the owners aren’t having a full driveway installed from the street to the pad. This is most common on large lots and acreage where the home might sit 100′ off the street. In most of these cases, gravel is brought in to join the homesite to the street until the actual driveway is poured. This is not a perfect fix because when it rains, gravel still sits on dirt. Driving heavy machinery on gravel when it’s recently rained causes the vehicle to push the layer of gravel into the mud beneath, adding the cost for more gravel. More time is lost when it’s raining because the dirt pits are often closed because of the weather!
- The pad is pulled- Depending on the condition of the land, sometimes dirt is removed and other times dirt is brought in. The pad is shaped and leveled. Once again, the soil can’t be muddy to be walked on, worked, formed, leveled, and completed with heavy machinery involved.
- Footings are dug, re-bar is installed, and the city Inspector is called in to inspect the work. All of this is highly impacted by weather. A builder can’t dig footings in mud. If it’s raining every couple days, inspectors are quite often backed up causing inspection delays. This can be complicated further if it rains enough after the footings are dug to damage or destroy the work that was done! Once the city approves the footings the concrete is ordered and poured as long as it’s not going to rain too soon afterwards.
- Slab forms are delivered and the concrete crew sets the forms. Once again, this work can’t be done in mud.
- Rough plumbing needs to be installed after the paths for the plumbing are trenched through the pad. The soil must be able to be formed, which is another way to say that it can’t be too moist or muddy. Once this is done, all of this work must be inspected by the city inspector. I apologize for repeating myself, however during times of frequent rain, inspectors are fighting the weather back-log as well.
- The concrete company arrives and compacts all of the slab soil, the pad is termite sprayed, plastic is laid out to cover the entire pad as a moisture barrier between the soil and the future concrete slab. The post tension foundation company arrives to lay out the post tension cables per the engineered plan. Now it’s once again time for the city inspector to show up and inspect.
The small slice of the new home construction process I’ve listed above easily makes it clear why storms delay new home construction. I’ve written this article to inform new construction home buyers. My clients hear the same word from me over and over…EXPECTATIONS. It’s always my goal to inform my buyers to the best of my ability. The knowledge of what to expect is crucial to having a positive relationship and making sure that everyone is on the same page, so forgive me while I repeat that storms delay new home construction. While some people don’t mind if their home construction is delayed, others might be stressing out over delays because they are planning on having their daughters wedding at their new home on a specific date. My advice to anyone requiring their new home to be completed by a specific time for a special reason is “let me help you find the right home already built – even a new construction home that’s move-in-ready”. If they choose to move forward anyways, I strongly advise that they go into it understanding that anger, frustration, disappointment, stress…these are all words that will come into describing their mental state of being when things don’t work out perfectly, but these very strong emotions won’t change anything. Extensive weather delays can create negative emotions all around, and an unproductive state-of-mind will hurt the relationships between the parties that are all trying to achieve the same thing…getting the new home completed! I’ve never met a builder that intentionally slowed their customers build project, and I’ve met a lot of them.
IMPORTANT: One way to possibly minimize the truth of “storms delay new home construction” is to plan to have your home started 8 weeks before spring or fall in whatever state you live in. This should allow your builder time to get the home closed in (framed, roofed, and windows installed) so the negative effects of seasonal weather are minimized. You will want to work with your builder to insure that their schedule is created with groundbreaking taking place at the most ideal time. It might even be worth your time to check the Farmers Almanac to see what weather they are predicting around the time you are looking to build: Farmers Almanac
Having a new home built can be one of the most rewarding experiences a person can have. If you feel this is the direction you might want to go in, contact me and we’ll talk about what to expect in detail. Should you choose to move forward, I’m approaching 20 years of specializing in new home construction, making me the Realtor you want on your side. Click here to submit your contact information: Please contact me
David Dumont, Pinnacle Realty, 918-409-5195, [email protected].