Will My House Be Ready?

11 years ago

We are scheduled to move into our newly constructed dream house on February 27th. Our builder says it will be done by then but we are skeptical. It is the middle of winter in Connecticut and our house is the first one on a new street, therefore it still doesn't have power. We are hopeful that power will be turned on as early as tomorrow January 13th. The house is a 3,850 square foot colonial with a 1,000 square foot finished basement too. We have accepted the fact that several things outside like the driveway and the back patio will not be finished by 2/27 and will need to be finished in the spring. We are concerned about the state of the indoors. Right now the walls are finished and completely sanded. Our cabinets are almost built, off site and our trim has been cut. Also our hardwood floors have been delivered but not installed. Here's my question, In 45 days (minus Sundays) can they finish this house so we can move in? They still need to install the hardwood floors, all the trim and indoor doors, build the staircase, railings, coffered ceiling, fireplace mantle, install all the cabinetry, plumbing and electrical fixtures, electric garage door openers. They need to paint and do all the tiling on the showers and floors in the bathrooms and laundry room. They also need to install all the lights, indoor and outdoor, build the shelving in all the walk-in closets and mudroom and carpet the house. Our builder who has an excellent reputation says it will be ready for us to move in on 2/27. Would love some of your opinions. Please let me know if you are an expert or a builder. Thanks a lot.

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Comments (5)

User
11 years ago
Most of what's left needs heat to dry out the home and for the proper chemical reactions. Heat needs power. And it would be much more than 45 days to accomplish, even were te heat currently activated. Better ready a backup plan.
nini804
11 years ago
IME, no. Actually, this stage seemed to take forever...it SEEMED like "there is only xyz left, how long could it take???" It can take a long time! Ours is about the same size, but with no basement...a 3800 sq ft house has a LOT of trim work! You really don't want them to rush this stage. Plus, do you really want to move in before the driveway and patio are poured? I am not sure if you could get a CO here w/out a driveway. I would want them to slow down & do things right. It's not ideal, but I would look at some temp housing to take the stress off yourself. Best of luck! In the end it will all be worth it!
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wolfj131
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks for the advice. As for the driveway and patio, waiting until spring is not unusual in the northeast. The paving plants are shut down for the winter so they couldn't Pave it even if they wanted to. There will be a temporary drive way laid down. Getting a CO won't be an issue. Also my builder is contracted with the developer to build the rest of the houses in this second phase of my neighborhood so he won't be going anywhere. I think we are going to give it a week or two and see how it's going and then we'll follow your advice and seek temporary housing.

Thanks a lot.
Annie Deighnaugh
11 years ago
Interesting...our town required that we have a paved apron on our drive before they'd issue a co... a real pain as we figured we'd postpone that to stop the $$ bleed, but then found out we couldn't. And who's going to pave an apron instead of the whole drive...so in it went. We also had to have house numbers on the house. All kinds of oddball stuff we had to do. Our building inspector was not the brightest bulb in the box and was stubborn to boot.

As for your initial question? Unlikely...better figure on delayed occupation...
Zoe52
11 years ago
We are about at the same stage as you our home is a bit bigger, but we are not expecting to be in it until late March or April. It is much better to plan to be in later than sooner IMHO. There are a lot of things to install yet and delays can still happen. I was told the second half goes slower than the first. And since it took us over 3 months just to get to wallboard I expect it will take longer to do all the finishing.