Make It Happen
You are past the thinking about it stage at this point and are ready to make it happen. You have read the warnings and know you will be your own general contractor. You should have read about the problems in the My Home story. You are an Active Volunteer, are now now ready to begin serious planning and are willing to write a check for up to $7500 to Chimorel Group LLC depending on the agreement we enter into.
Your next step is to read the guidelines below. It is important to realize that these are anticipated guidelines. As you work through the planning of your construction project, you will determine the specific guidelines on which your guarantee will be based.
Guidelines
Chimorel guarantees that you will save a minimum of 15% based on standard construction costs on a $100,000+ project. This guarantee is contingent on your following guidelines similar to the ones that follow. You will learn to add many details and concepts to these guidelines after you enter into an agreement with Chimorel. As you plan and complete your project, you will:
First Set of Guidelines
- Plan the details of every aspect of your project well in advance of actual construction.
- Have or develop adequate funding to complete the project prior to initiation of construction.
- Pull all required permits before doing any work. Get all required inspections before moving to the next phase of construction.
- Pay our fee and begin planning with Chimorel prior to entering into any contracts with subcontractors, buying materials or pulling any permits.
- Act as your own general contractor, making all essential decisions regarding the project.
- Develop a flexible time-line for the project. Have a “time is of the essence” clause in your contracts. Hold your subs to the time-line with agreements as to what they will do when, with penalties for failure to perform and backups to keep the job on track.
- Complete the project, move in and live in the home for at least one year after the project is completed. This guideline must be completed prior to any refund.
- Establish a figure that determines what the project would cost based on total square feet times a standard per square foot construction cost at the time you enter into an agreement with Chimorel. Compare this with actual bids from three general contractors to be sure the square foot cost is appropriate for the home being built.
At the end of the planning stage, if we genuinely believe you should not act as your own general contractor, we reserve the right to withdraw from the project. We do not anticipate this happening very often, but if it is clear that you do not have the time, temperament or finances to do what must be done, we will tell you and suggest you stop or hire a general contractor to undertake the project. If appropriate, we could hire the general contractor and complete the project for you.
Second Set of Guidelines
- Write tough contracts that take precedence over other agreements you enter into with subs and suppliers. Hold your subs and suppliers to their contracts.
- It is your money, so be sure the subs and suppliers meet your requirements before they get paid.
- Build in some review time after a phase is done to be sure things have been done right before you write your final check.
- When you are sure it is done right, write your check promptly, thus avoiding unhappy subs/suppliers, legal entanglements, and unnecessary expense.
- Buy your own materials wholesale and seek low cost / free sources of reusable materials.
- Have all materials on site just prior to the time they are needed. Verify with your subs that they have what they need before work is to start.
- Monitor waste and theft. Have penalty clauses that you enforce designed to deal with waste and theft. Sell unused materials to your subs or others. Buy once. Buy quality. Buy in bulk. Avoid repeated and last minute trips to suppliers.
- If possible, have someone pay you to tear down an old building/home and specify that you get to keep the materials.
- Hire competent subs. Pay a fair wage. Hold your subs to tough standards. Eliminate extras. Be one of your sub’s laborers.
- Do as much work as you can yourself. Get friends and others to volunteer to help you by volunteering to help them on their projects.
- Some of the things your can do yourself include: buy your own property without a Realtor. Be your own architect by modifying standard plans to meet your needs. Do your own demolition and keep/sell the materials. Take your own waste to the landfill, if you have or can borrow a truck/trailer. Dig your own trenches (don’t dig your own basement), but be careful to disconnect utilities before digging. Help with framing/roofing. Pull your own wire. Have the electrician make complicated connections and connect to the box. Install part of your own plumbing depending on your skill level. Do your own painting. Do minor concrete jobs. Have a professional do big jobs. Do your own clean up and get a discount from your subs for doing so. As you get into the details, there will be many other tasks you can do. Do five to ten of them yourself at least partially.
The above are tentative lists of guidelines. When you enter into an agreement with Chimorel to assist with your construction project, you will agree to specific guidelines on which your guarantee will be based.
4 to 5 Stages
As Chimorel begins to enable you plan your construction project, there will be four, possibly five major stages: 1) Learning, 2) Guideline Development, 3) Planning, 4) Construction and possibly 5) involving a General Contractor. At the time we enter into an agreement, you will deposit $7500 with Chimorel.
As you read about the following stages, you will begin to see a pattern. We want you to plan and actually build the house of your dreams and save a substantial amount in the process. We have designed our fee structure to encourage you to finish what you start. After seven days $2500 is non-refundable. It includes the commissions to the person who recommended you and/or allocations to Chimorel. It covers the first two stages, whether or not you use them.
Let’s say you used two hours of consulting at the learning stage, you will have used $500 or $250/hr of the $7500. We will provide you with a great deal of the learning you need here, in additional material, with the guidelines. You also want to use your own creativity to learn. There are library book, online resources and you can learn by practicing as you volunteer or support others with their projects. If you have trouble swing a hammer, practice. If you stop at this point you will forfeit $2500.
Let’s say you used five hours at the developing guidelines stage, you will have used $1000 or $200/hr. If you stop at this point you will forfeit $2500. Perhaps you use 20 hours of consulting at the planning stage. You will use $3000 or $150/hr. If you stop at this point you will forfeit $2500 plus whatever hours above $2500 you have used. We bill $100/hr at the construction stage. If you stop at the construction stage you will forfeit the full $7500, regardless of how much you have actually used. Now here is the good news. You can use whatever amount of the $5000 you do not use toward actual construction costs. Let’s say you used two hours at the learning stage ($500), three hours at the guideline stage ($600), eight hours at the planning stage ($1200) and 15 hours at the construction stage ($1500), you could use $1200 directly for construction costs. The important message here is don’t start, unless you are convinced you will complete the project. Once you start, take advantage of every way you can to save money.
1. Learning: During the learning stage, you want to learn as much as possible on your own. We will make suggestions and guide you when asked, but you will save the most by doing as much learning as you can on your own following our suggestions.
You want to determine what phases your project will consist of and determine a flexible timeline. You want to discover who possible subs and suppliers will be at each phase and find potential backups when something goes wrong. Again you want to know when things should be done and when to have what materials on site. You want to know how to do each phase. Your time-line will establish what will be done, by what kind of sub or by you/friends, and approximately when you want things completed.
At the learning stage we bill $250/hr for the first three hours or $750. At the fourth hour, you automatically enter the develop guidelines stage. If you use our suggestions and do not need consulting at the learning stage, you will not be billed.
2. Develop Guidelines: As you develop guidelines for your project, you are actually in your preliminary planning stage. We will start with the guidelines you have actually seen. You will have thoughts. We will have suggestions. Together we will develop a viable agreement to guide your construction project. We will determine the square feet for your project. We will establish a standard construction cost for each element and determine a separate square foot total cost. You will get three bids from general contractors. Using these numbers we will calculate the cost of building your project, leaning toward the higher numbers because construction projects notoriously tend to run over initial projections.
Our goal is to save you as much as possible from this standard cost. As you make changes during the planning and construction stages, the standard cost will go up, but will not go down from the original determination. Developing guidelines should be a very fluid stage which can continue until the planning is done. Changes can also happen during construction, but this suggests planning was not done as well as it could be. We want your guidelines to be very clear. There should be no room for error or misunderstanding. If the guidelines are clear and you complete your project according to these guidelines, you will always save at least 15% over standard costs and there will never be a concern that you are not getting what you hire Chimorel to do. When Warren built his house, he saved over 40% from standard costs, despite an number of unforeseen circumstances.
Once you begin to develop guidelines the $2500 portion of your fee is considered earned. Once again we want you to complete your project. Don’t start if you aren’t going to complete your project. You can apply any funds not used during learning and guideline development to planning and construction, if you do you do your learning on your own and quickly agree to guidelines. The billing rate is as discussed above. The further you go the lower the rate.
3. Planning: Planning is where the real work begins. This is where our assistance will be most valuable in trying to save you money and in avoiding the potential nightmares. If together, we do this well, you will save a substantial amount of money, especially if you are willing to do a fair amount of the work yourself and with volunteer friends. You might use 20+ hours or $3000+ during the planning stage.
4. Construction: Construction will involve managing your subs, volunteers and work you do yourself. We will step into the headaches when asked. If we have done the planning well, there will be far fewer headaches to manage. We will not actually do the work for you, but will bring in a general contractor if needed. Our role is to support you as you plan and manage the headaches.
The expectation is that managing construction headaches will cost approximately $2000 and will take about 20 hours. If you have done a good job learning, developing guidelines and planning, there will be far fewer headaches to manage. It is possible that you could have $2000+ to apply to actual construction costs. If you have done a really good job through the planning stage, we will manage a few minor headaches and still give you something towards construction. As you approach using up the $7500 fee, you will deposit an additional $2500 or such higher amount as we may agree to. The billing rate will continue at $100/hr. At a certain point it will be appropriate to bring in a general contractor to manage the project.
5. General Contractor: If we bring in a general contractor and you have an unused balance, we will apply the unused balance to the contractor’s fee, which will start at $35,000. The focus at that point is no longer to save you money, but to eliminate headaches and give you a top quality project. You can still buy your own materials, do work yourself and with friends and do other things to save money, but we no longer guarantee you 15% savings.
It is critical to make this decision at the end of your planning stage. If you are well into construction and have to bring in a general contractor, you could have a very expensive, poor quality project that has to be cleaned up before you can live in it. Do your planning well, hire good people, hold subs and suppliers to tough contracts, and work with us to actively manager your project, so you won’t have this problem. Stray from your guidelines and your project could become a real nightmare. Until you hire someone to be your general contractor, you are the general contractor.
If we genuinely believe you are not ready, we will tell you. If you decide to go ahead anyway, we will add up the amount due. You will pay the $2500 to cover commissions, learning and setting guidelines. We will subtract the amount due from the $5000 balance and notify you that we are withdrawing from the project. Once again, we do not anticipate this happening often, but we will approach our agreement from a realistic point of view and will not support your efforts on a project that appears to be financially or otherwise inappropriate for you. Most of the time, if you are not ready, we will suggest taking a deep breath, pausing for a while, and taking the steps to get ready.
Make Your Home Project a Reality
If you are still reading at this point, you probably have what it takes to make building your new home a reality. You most certainly know by now that acting as your own general contractor is not a cake walk. You also know that we will withdraw from the project prior to or at the planning stage, if we genuinely believe you should not act as your own general contractor.
So let’s begin to make it happen. We will make things happen in the form of a series of questions under various headings. This approach starts your learning phase. These are beginning of the suggestions we discussed earlier.
Getting Ready
[] Do you know where you will build / remodel?
[] Do you have control of the property?
[] Have you checked the title and other ownership issues for the property?
[] What problems regarding the property do you have to solve before you build?
[] Have you paid for / can you pay for the property?
[] Can you pay for the project? How?
[] What will you do if you or your spouse lose a job?
[] Do you have a down payment? Do you have Chimorel’s $7500.
[] Can you get financing for the project, assuming standard construction costs?
[] Where are you going to get your plans, drawings, specifications for the project?
[] Who is going to create these plans, drawings and specifications?
[] Where are you going to find out about building codes, permits required, etc.?
[] Who is going to pull your permits? What permits do you need?
[] What inspections are required? When are they required?
The above questions give you a good start on getting ready. When you enter into an agreement to work with Chimorel, we will expand this section by giving you some of answers, places to look and more questions.
Develop a Tentative Schedule for the Project
[] What is the Critical Path Method of Scheduling?
[] What are the phases required? What order are the phases in?
[] In days, weeks or months = how long will it take for each phase?
[] Do I have the property acquisition, financing and plans completed?
[] Do I need to prepare the site? Remove vegetation, demolish building, drain water, take soil samples, layout the design on the site, excavate, backfill, compact?
[] Am I going to use a Cob House style of building? This may be an entirely new concept for you? You can save up to 75%. There are significant environmental and health benefits.
[] How many cubic yards of concrete do I need. How many, what size masonry blocks? Poured wall or block wall foundation?
[] What is the difference between rough and finish carpentry? How many board feet? What sizes of lumber? Metal or wood studs?
[] What interior, exterior and roofing materials are best? What is gypsum board, fire-resistant and moisture resistant board? What are the different types and grades of ceramic tile? What are the best siding and roofing materials? Should I paint, wall paper or what? What size & type of windows and doors?
[] Are my electrical, plumbing & HVAC contractors licensed? How many of each item do I need?
[] What kind of floor covering, insulation and vapor barriers do I need? How do I feel about natural vs chemical materials? Do I want to learn about Cob and natural materials?
[] Will I do landscaping now or later?
[] What did I forget?
The above is intended only as a rough guide to give you topics you need to research. Much of the discussion above focuses on materials, but some of the questions touch on labor. The three categories during each phase that you will need to plan for are management, materials and labor. Before you get into the details of each phase, develop a rough time-line for your project that includes every phase you can think of. We will get into much greater detail when you enter into an Agreement.
Agreement
On this day <date>, < YourFullName> [“<FirstName>”, <YourPhone>, the Project Manager, and Warren Goodenow [“Warren”], consultant and Director of Chimorel Group LLC, 614-885-0000, 6306 Home Rd, Delaware, OH 43015, agree as follows:
<FirstName> wants to undertake a construction project at <ProjectAddress>. <FirstName> will be the General Contractor for the project. Warren and his associates will assist <FirstName> to plan and to manage construction issues on the project. Warren will provide certain services and <FirstName> will provide such material, labor and equipment as described under the terms of the attached Supplement(s). <FirstName> will hire others and seek volunteers to provide such additional materials, labor and equipment as may be needed to complete the project. Development of guidelines and planning will begin on the date specified in the attached Supplement(s) or as soon thereafter as possible. Time is of the essence. Failure to begin work as established or complete work in a timely fashion is grounds for cancellation or reworking this agreement.
As indicated, the details of the work to be accomplished will be specified in a supplement or supplements [“supplements” or “first supplement”] which are attached to and made part of this Agreement. The first supplement will consist of the Guidelines which will be used to develop this project. Other supplements may consist of one or more spreadsheets and written specification sheets detailing amounts calculations, payment methods, materials, performance expectations and such other details as may be needed to clarify the services provided and who is to do what. The calculations and details in these supplements are accepted by Warren and <FirstName> when each supplement is signed by or initialed by both of us. All future work agreed to between Warren and <FirstName> shall be considered an extension of this agreement, including all of its terms. Such future work shall be evidenced by signing / initialing future supplements, which are attached hereto by signature thereon.
<FirstName> provides at the time of signing this contract an initial $7500. The details for additional payments, refunds and billing for services will be included in the first supplement. Chimorel Group LLC guarantees that <FirstName> will save a minimum of 15% from standard construction costs, if <FirstName> works actively with Warren to develop guidelines, as well as, plans the project and manages the project according to the guidelines developed. The determination of standard construction costs will be established in these guidelines and will include a price per square foot for each phase, as well as, bids from three independent general contractors.
A copy of the plans will be available to Warren. <FirstName> will work with Warren to develop guidelines, plan the project and manage the project. Warren will act only as a consultant and make suggestions. <FirstName> will be the general contractor and will make all decisions regarding the project. If prior to or after completion of the planning stage of this project, Warren and his staff believe that <FirstName> will not be able to complete the project acting as his/her own general contractor for financial, temperament or other reasons, Warren will tell <FirstName> of his concern. <FirstName> can then pause to address the concerns, decide to terminate the project, hire a general contractor or proceed on his/her own without assistance from Warren.
All issues with this Agreement will be handled by mutual agreement between Warren and <<FirstName>>. In the event mutual agreement cannot be reached, Warren is the final decision maker. <FirstName> has the right to request binding arbitration and will pay all attorney fees for both parties, as well as, all arbitration and/or court costs, if he/she does not accept Warren’s final decision. Interpretation of this Agreement will be according to Ohio law. All changes to this Agreement must be in writing and accepted by both parties.
This agreement is confirmed on <Date> by
________________________________ __________________________________
Warren E Goodenow <YourFullName>
Consultant Project Manager
Take the Time to
Make a Good Decision
We would genuinely like to assist you as you build the home of your dreams and save at least 15%. Now is the time to think about your project seriously. When you are ready, let’s start the Learning Stage. You don’t have to spend any money to start learning. Use our Guidelines to start the process.
Despite our current limit of ten homes per year, if you are willing to take some time and plan ahead, we will be able to assist in making your dream home a reality, I you are an active volunteer with Chimorel who invests more than 100 volunteer hours. Of course, the further you are from Delaware, OH, the more complicated it becomes. When you are ready, Contact Us. While you are here, feel free to explore other areas of our website.
