Our Process
Gary has spent almost 40 years bringing clients dream living spaces to life through renovations and building custom homes. Even as the owner of Bluffton Builders, Gary still keeps a hands on approach to each project, both to ensure high customer satisfaction, and simply because of his passion for the home remodeling and custom home business . Bluffton Builders keeps you on budget by working closely with local Bluffton subcontractors, suppliers, and review boards to maximize your enjoyable square footage and bring a premium product.
Outlined below is a step by step breakdown of our process to help you better understand each step of the home renovation or custom home design-build process. We hope this builds comfort for both the first timer and those familiar with home remodeling that would like to learn more.
Reach Out To Us
Word of mouth from architects, realtors, community review boards, and our happy clients have led to year over year growth based on their confidence and satisfaction in their design build experiences. You can reach out to us here, and we can set up an appointment at your convenience to discuss your dream home or renovation, right here in the Low Country.
Initial Contact
Whether by e-mail, phone, or video call, we will discuss your proposed ideas and thoughts for your new home or remodel. From there we will schedule a meeting for the estimate.
How To Be Prepared For An Estimate
Have any inspirations you may have found on Pintrest, Houzz, HGTV, or a magazine if you have them, to help give us insight on what it is you are trying to achieve. If already have an architect with conceptual plans, having those ready would be a big help. If you don’t have any yet, that’s fine too! Just relax and we will help you from start to finish.
The Estimate and Quote Process
Through almost 40 years of experience, we’ve learned to listen intently, ask a lot of questions about what you want, clarify your ideas, tell you the pros of those ideas and even what con’s could arise, as well. With that experience, we can tell you a pretty fair ballpark cost to make your new home and renovation ideas come to life.
We will walk around your lot or existing home, look at the rooms you’d like to remodel, and ask you more questions to best understand what you’re looking to create. There’s also a good chance Gary will knock on the various wooden surfaces in your home and tell you what kind of wood was used. It’s his gift. :)
Gathering Numbers From Vendors
At this point in the process, if you don’t already have an architect’s conceptual plans, we will draw out a basic conceptual drawing for you to review, to ensure that we are going in the right direction. Then we can start reaching out to our subcontractors, vendors, and suppliers for a bid.
Our basic conceptual drawing, that you keep, does come with a minimal fee.
This process can take anywhere from 2-4 weeks depending on the complexity of your project.
Proposal
After we gather our numbers and create a quote, we will set a meeting with all decision makers involved, and go over the proposed quote along with your conceptualized drawings.
Our proposal process gives you an itemized list of each stage of the construction process. It gives you as the homeowner a clear understanding of where your money is going, step by step.
We completely understand that you need time to digest all of the information given to you during the proposal process. We will ask if you have any questions or concerns, address any new ideas you may have had from our last meeting, and then give you the opportunity to review and think it over.
We will usually follow up with you a few days later to get a better understanding of your thoughts and comfort level at this point in the process.
Acceptance of Proposal
If you decide that you would like to go ahead with the project, we would then contract with a local architect to have blueprints and renderings drawn up to confirm the pricing of the quote. This point of the process would also give us the opportunity to finalize any major changes to the original proposal.
With our many years of experience, our original quoted price will generally match what the final architectural plans call for.
During the acceptance of the proposal, we will discuss deposits towards the project as well as payment schedules.
Owner financed projects allow for a mutually agreed upon payment schedule between the homeowner and the builder, as where banks (depending on owners lending institution) will have their own set payment schedule.
Signing Contract
When you accept the proposal, we will then present you with a contract. The contract will include a specific scope of work. Most of the scope of work matches what the architectural plans call for. Where the scope will vary, is with your listed allowances for selections on your plumbing, electric, cabinetry, etc. These allowances will have already been presented in your proposal. This allows both the homeowner and builder to have a realistic understanding of the allowances.
The contract will also include agreed upon payment schedules, certificates of insurance, start date, completion date, and warranty of your project.
We will give you the opportunity to review the contract, then you will let us know when you’re ready to sign.
When you are ready, we will get together, sign the papers, and you will provide us with the deposit as per the agreement in the contract.
Permitting Process
The first step in getting your new living space built! The architect will do all necessary submittals and permitting for your communities ARB/DRB/POA. Once those permits have been approved and received by the architect, we will go to the local town and/or county departments to apply for and receive all necessary building permits.
The permitting process generally takes 2 to 3 weeks to complete the above. Once we receive these permits, we will be able to break ground at your location.
Preparing For The Build
Depending on the complexity of the job, you will want to decide if you’re going to stay in your home during the build process. If you decide to stay, it’s helpful to move and secure any personal and valuable items out of the area of work. We take care of the prep and protection of your floors, door openings by sealing rooms, and help you make arrangements for furniture protection, and on-site storage if necessary.
The Build
This is what we have prepared for! From breaking ground, to installing the final lightbulb, we will show high attention to detail throughout each process. There will always be an open line of timely communication. We are very quick to respond to your calls. If you are not living on-site or in town, we will send job reports and photo progress updates when milestones are achieved. If any issues ever arise, we will control and contain the issues, and be sure to alert you with both the cause of the problem and the solution.
We also believe it is very helpful to do several on-site walkthroughs throughout the course of the build. We can help schedule rough dates for when these walkthroughs can be scheduled for. For example, the first walkthrough would be an excellent time for the homeowner and the designer to make final selections on your finishes.
The speed of the build depends on several factors. From experience, the main factors are unsatisfactory weather and client decisions. Timely decisions on selections help speed the process along.
We will help you schedule any bank inspections that are necessary to keep the project running smoothly.
Delivery of the job.
Your final town/county inspections and approval allow for your final DRB/ARB/POA inspections and approval. When we get those your job is complete and ready to be delivered!
You can be assured that your project will be delivered as close to the scheduled time as possible with the highest degree of craftsmanship and integrity.
You will be able to do a final walkthrough and create a punch list on items that you feel need to be addressed that you may be concerned with or have questions about.
Your job is protected by a warranty as listed in your contract, so you have worry free homeownership.
We hope this was a very detailed breakdown for anyone going through a first time home building or remodelling process. Should you have any other questions or you would like us to schedule a quote, please contact us at the information below.