The Budget That Didn't Match the Site

The Rivera house is a fictional example. The people, the lot, and the numbers are made up, and the problems are the kind that turn up on real projects.

Alex and Sam Rivera are building a four-bedroom mountain house on Lot 14 at Example Ridge, about 2,900 finished square feet (illustrative). Like most people, they got an early budget against the preliminary drawings so they'd know whether the project worked at all. That's normal and it's smart. The trouble is that a budget built early carries the assumptions of the moment it was built, and some of those assumptions weren't true of this lot or this house.

Here are three lines from that early budget, one thing it couldn't see, and what happened to each. All the numbers are illustrative.

$40,000 in taps on a well and septic lot

The budget carried $20,000 for a water tap and $20,000 for a sewer tap. Plausible numbers for a lot on town water and sewer in some mountain towns. Lot 14 isn't. It needs a well and a septic system.

That's not a small difference in wording. A well means drilling, a pump, a pressure tank, and the line to the house. A septic system means a design based on a soils or perc test, a tank, a field, and its own permit and inspection. Neither one is a tap fee, they don't cost the same as tap fees, and they don't belong on the same line. On a lot that needs both, they're two real pieces of site work with their own risk, especially the well, where nobody knows exactly how deep you'll drill until you do.

The line looked complete. It had a number in it. It was just describing a different kind of lot.

$0 for structural steel, then a steel wall

Structural steel was carried at $0. On the preliminary drawings, there wasn't any. Then the structural engineer worked out the great room gable, a tall wall that's mostly windows, and it needed steel columns to hold it up. Call it $6,000 (illustrative).

Six thousand dollars won't sink a project. But notice how it happened. The budget wasn't wrong when it was written. The structural design just wasn't done yet. A $0 line on an early budget doesn't always mean "none." Sometimes it means "not designed yet."

$53,000 for plumbing and heating, with nothing behind it

Plumbing and heating was carried at $53,000 (illustrative). The drawings that budget was built from didn't specify a boiler, a water heater, or radiant zones. The mechanical design came later, in a revised set.

So the $53,000 was a placeholder for a system nobody had designed. It might have been close. It might not. There was no way to check it, because there was nothing to check it against. That's the kind of line I'd want to ask about first in any bid: a big number with no drawing or specification underneath it.

The slope that wasn't on the topo

The site sloped more than the topographic survey showed. Once excavation started, the plan as drawn would have needed a tall concrete wall at the back of the house, around 15 feet. Instead, the house became a split level, with the great room and kitchen dropped a few feet below the entry and garage. That change was made in the field, which is its own lesson; more on that in every change belongs in writing.

It may well have made a better house. But it was a field change to the foundation, the framing, and the stairs, and none of it was in the original budget, because the original budget was built on a topo that didn't quite match the ground.

What I'd check

None of these were dishonest numbers. They were early numbers that never got tested against the site and the finished drawings. That's the part you can do something about.

When you get a budget or a bid, take the five or six biggest lines and ask what each one was built from. Which drawing set? Which survey? Which assumptions about water, sewer, and soils? A line built from current, complete information is worth more than the same number built from a preliminary set.

Then check the lines that depend on the site. Utilities, excavation, foundation, retaining walls, and driveway all live or die on what's actually in the ground. If the bid assumes town water and you have a well, that's not a detail. It's a different project.

And look for zeros and round numbers sitting next to systems that haven't been designed yet. A $0 or a tidy round number isn't necessarily wrong. It's a question.

For more on what a bid should spell out about the site, see What a complete custom home bid should include, and if you haven't bought the lot yet, Before you buy the lot.

Questions worth asking

• Which drawing set and survey was this budget or bid built from, and what date?
• Does it assume town water and sewer, or a well and septic? Where is each one priced?
• Which lines don't have a finished design behind them yet, like structural or mechanical?
• Are there any $0 lines, and does each one mean "none" or "not designed yet"?
• What does the excavation and foundation price assume about slope and soils?
• When the design is finished, will the budget be updated against the final set?