Friday, May 27, 2016
Beautiful Surfer's Beach: Surviving your building project.
Beautiful Surfer's Beach: Surviving your building project.: The primary objective to keep in mind.... why are you doing this . For us it is a family thing. We collectively, parents and children, l...
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Surviving your building project.
 |
| Our reasons to complete our project...family! |
 |
| Robert chillin at the shack |
Let's start with emotions. The biggest is Fear. Fear of the unknown, Fear of going broke, Fear of loosing your investment, Fear of not finishing... you get the picture. Of course there will also be pure good old fashion stress. This will originate from your shipments not being on time, plans not followed, inferior materials....yada...yada....yada. So what do you do with all this negativity on what is suppose to be an adventure in paradise. I can only tell you what has worked for us. We made a list of pros and cons before we even looked for property. We also went over worse case scenarios on paper. We gave ourselves different time lines based on those scenarios. Did that really cover everything.....absolutely not! Get real...this is life. You will have to deal with a lot on the fly. I think half the battle is knowing that.
Our pre-planning always helped. When we made a shipment we could never tell when it would exactly arrive. We had to be flexible and make several what if plans. That was pretty much the theme for the whole build .....what if? Always, always give yourself an out. A super tight schedule will drive you and your spouse nuts...it will cause major fights...don't do it. I will give you an example. We had a shipment that arrived in Miami from local construction vendors pre-packaged to our Miami shipper. When a shipment comes straight from a vendor to the shipper you will not pay local sales tax. Sounds good...right. It's wonderful until something goes wrong. Our shipper was shut down by the Coastguard for one month. Our stuff was sitting in their warehouse and we could not move it. If you do not pay sales tax it is as if that material has passed through customs. Almost like it is sitting in another country. You cannot touch it. Oh..and no one tells you these things until one...the shit happens or two...you ask exactly the right question. It took awhile for our shipper to fess up to what was causing the delay. We had to verbally beat them up to finally give us some options. First we could send our stuff back to the vendor...reorder and have it sent to a new shipper. That was a ridiculous option. The next was the Miami shipper could put it on one of their trucks and take it to a rival company in Ft. Lauderdale. To get that done it took a good cop, bad cop routine to make them agree. In the end this put our schedule back about a week. Up until then our shipping had gone smoothly. We had planned to be on the job with our materials working during that week. How did Tom and I handle it mentally? Let me recall....mad, frustrated, depressed, I think that covers it. We almost went along with leaving our stuff in Miami. The more we questioned the company's dock workers we came to the conclusion to push them to move it to Ft.Lauderdale. This is where you and your spouse/partner look at each other and say are we going to take this laying down? The answer better be no, hell no! Caution here..... Don't be angry, be persistent, be professionally annoying with a smile on your face. Let whomever is not giving you the correct answer know that you will not be going away until you get what you want.
As you can see time is a factor. Certain intervals will be rush, rush, rush. Then when deliveries are delayed you will be twittling your thumbs. Factoring in how another culture views time will be a new experience for most new builders. Bahamian time runs about two hours late and maybe tomorrow. Nobody works on holidays. They have more holidays than we do. Suggestion...when dealing with independent contractors, pay them when they are done. Fork out a small deposit only. This will keep them more on schedule and less cost over runs. The mentality of gotta have it done "today-itas" will give you an ulcer. We are not saying don't push for what you want but do not push a good contractor away because your schedule is to tight. We take a lot for granted here in the USA. Our cbs blocks were almost made by hand. More than sixty percent of our concrete was mixed by hand. Our loads of sand came from 70 miles away at the other end of the island. We had to take all that into consideration and plan accordingly. Other delays are caused by small problems. If you need twenty boxes of nails, have twenty-four. Whatever you would add in for waste on a building job in the states, we would double it. The hardware store was a good hour round trip from our site. Small things add up to an enormous waist of time. That theory proved to work for tools as well. Have back up tools. Drills and saws go bad fast in a harsh environment. With out the right tool for the job you will be dead in the water.
So what have we gone over up to this point...pre-planning and time. These are two biggies but money is the King Kong. Money is very personal. No one was going to tell us how to spend our money. Even if you have loads to spare don't throw it in the trash with poor planning. Some areas we did superb on saving money, others...not so much. The hidden fees from banks to customs are nasty little gremlins. When dealing with a foreign bank, contractor, shipping or customs agent ask are there any fees. Most of them are in the if you did not ask, they will not tell category until they stick out their hand to be paid. What you cannot do is use your last saved penny. A sound financial plan for a foreign build would be thirty percent over and then cut your project by twenty percent. Yes, that does equal fifty percent. This is just to give you an idea. Doing a cost analysis on your materials and labor is mandatory before you lay one block or put up one board. We consider our home in the Bahamas an investment. With an investment know what you are putting in and what you expect to get out. You should love what you build when you are finished. It should not be a financial albatross. To afford our home long term we knew we would rent it out. We can pay the bills with out using it as a vacation rental but it is nice to have money coming in. This may be something to consider.
 |
| Samantha's catch of the day. |
 |
| Robert at Palmetto Point |
 |
Patch reefs  |
 |
| Samantha at the Surf shack |
 |
| Tom on the hunt at 20 feet below. |
 |
| Trigger and snapper...dinner. |
 |
| Conch/snail coming out of it's shell. |
NOW GO SLAY GODZILLA! YOU CAN DO IT!
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Ten things we learned building a home in the Bahamas
 |
| Tom on second floor getting ready for the roof |
 |
| Panston Gibson, one of our bad ass masons |
 |
| Me on the roof working |
 |
| Tom and the boys hoisting a SIP to the roof |
- Choosing your property: Know the area extremely well. That includes your topography to your neighbors. Do your homework. Plan trips for several different seasons and weather patterns. Be observant of those weather patterns. The weather patterns should be a guide for your land purchase and your building type. Watch how the sun rotates during the day on the property that you think you want. Are you going to bake or freeze. Will the wind blow so hard you can never sit on the porch or will the bugs carry you away?
Will the rain or surf, wash you away or be a pleasant calming experience?
2. Now... you have chosen the ideal site for your home. What next? Purchasing land in a foreign country can be daunting. Persevere! A real estate agent can be a blessing or a real pest. It depends on the person and the country. We were using a real estate agent when we were looking at pre-built homes and land in the beginning of our search. We did not find what we were looking for. We have been going to Eleuthera for twenty years and had established friends who began to guide us toward land for sale by owner. Which ever route you choose you will need a lawyer to complete a sale in the Bahamas. Ask around and choose wisely. That is where the process will begin. It took us nine months to a year to finish our purchase. There will be a back ground check by the government. It will include criminal as well as financial inquiries. So be prepared. Through out this process be an informed consumer...ask questions....ask questions. If you do not understand keeping asking until you do.
3. Are you tired yet? Purchasing the property may have completely zapped you of your strength. Take your vitamins and keep going. Now to plan your home. This was fun for us. We had a ball planning our dream home and putting it on paper with and architect. It was a three story with all the bells and whistles. It was a dream. Then we put that dream to the dollars and cents test. Reality....ouch. We took our dream home through a cost analysts expert in Nassau who worked with our engineer. Yes..we had our home engineered for 150mph hurricane. We thought this was important. So let me back up....first...dream home on paper with USA architect. Next, took those plans to a Nassau engineer and then to the cost analysts process. Yes, that was expensive but worth it. We spent about $1500 in Nassau which saved us $100,000 in over runs. This was money well spent. The only part required in the Bahamas is a Bahamian architect to sign off on your plans or have them do it to begin with. Totally your choice. The design of your home needs to be pleasing, practical, and easy to care for. Building a home that becomes a pain in the ass to take care of in a distant land is a home that will be sold quickly and never enjoyed. The design of our home was a labor of love. My husband put his heart, soul and money into our roof. The roof is his baby. When you design your home think about how it will be built...by you or a contractor. We did both. Some things we did by ourselves, example...staining our concrete floors. Other things were a joint effort with our contractor for instance the roof. Gibson and Sons construction were the real deal. They are expert masons and can do unbelievable things with concrete. The concrete was all them. You will probably redo your plans several times. This is totally normal.
3. How will you finance your home? We used a combination of savings and a home loan with RBC in the Bahamas. We were told several times by well meaning people that a home loan from a Bahamian bank to a foreigner was impossible. We learned to always challenge the so called impossible. The financing part is where many people fail. This plays back to our cost analysts. If you only have a vague idea of what your dream home will cost to build you could be in trouble. Even with proper planning we had close to $30,000 in cost over runs.
4. Once you have a plan for the finance, now you need the builder. The builder may be you or a combination of you and a local contractor or the contractor all the way. If you are the home builder understand what you can do and when you can do it. Give yourself a reality check here. The Bahamas are the islands of lost dreams. Many houses get started but not finished. If you have already built a home in the past then you have a valid idea of your own strengths and weaknesses. If this is your first, we would suggest the combination approach. This is how we did it. We took our time and found a builder who matched our budget, time frame and approach. The contract with our builder was from beginning to end. The end was finished concrete, roofing, and plumbing. All the finish work were bid as separate jobs. Along the way we have had friends who were building in stages and bid each stage out for their own projects. If we build again we may try the stages approach and see if we can stick to a stricter budget. No matter what you choose, you will have to bid out a job or two. The work that is done for you must be checked at critical stages. The beginning parameters must be clear, do not do verbal. Write it down. Keep copies. This is important whether you are doing a formal build or a deal with the local painter. Make sure you have the price for the job upfront not after.
5. Know the building codes for your area. Do not just leave it up to the builder. Be an educated consumer. Meet with the local inspector and get to know them. This should be done before you lay your foundation. Our building was set to close to the road but our builder was able to push it through. After that we paid a lot more attention to those codes. The building codes are set at minimums for the Bahamas. For instance hurricane straps, the minimum is not based on wind load or the maritime environment. Look at where you are and over build. The structural integrity of a building during a hurricane falls apart from the roof down, then the windows and walls. If you are high up, your enemy is the wind. If you are down low, your enemy will be flooding. We looked at lots of buildings with shitty hurricane straps in Florida and the Bahamas. We educated ourselves by calling Simpson Strong -Ties. (Call the manufacturers of the products you feel are important and get your info straight from them not a salesman.) We spoke to their engineers. It was mind blowing. Know everything you can about the structural integrity of your building. We cannot stress this enough. This is where you put your money, skimp some where else.
6. Before you start building from your plans, learn to read them. Make as many copies as you think you will need: two for yourself, builder, electrician, and plumber. Know what every symbol means. Do the math where needed. Make sure things add up. Then go over them with your builder or sub contractor and make sure the plans are correct. We learned to read our architectural plans and engineered plans. We did our own concrete calculations to see if we were on track. We looked at electrical and plumbing and even with all that the plans were not always correct. We looked at critical stages: foundation, plumbing lay out, electrical, 1st floor walls, staircase, 2nd floor poor, columns, etc and matched them to the plans. 80-90% of the time they matched but the times they did not the contractor had to fix it. Unfortunately over there we ate the cost about 50% of the time. Their country their rules. Let me clarify....the labor part of fixing mistakes was covered by our contractor but replacement materials had to be re-imported by us at our cost. Our contractor made allowances where he could to make up for those additional costs. You have to know where to bend and where to stand your ground...give and take.
7. This is where having a construction loan was a good thing. The foreign bank was an investor in our home. They wanted to protect that investment and required periodic inspections. These inspections were critical to our builder receiving his next draw. This put another pair of critical eyes on our project. It gave us the power to keep our builder with in code and build a better home.
8. Staying on schedule was a critical factor and staying in budget. We had certain financial stop gaps that we had set in place for ourselves. We gave ourselves a low, medium and high figure to work with. At one point on our home we had reached our middle figure and we were not where we wanted to be in building. We came to a screeching halt. We took our builder to task where we thought money should be better spent. We went over things like to many guys on the job and over priced concrete vendors. Small things become big things if they get out of hand. At this point we had to make a decision. Do we stop at this stage or have cost over runs that we new were coming? We were at a stage where stopping the job for a year was possible. We decided to carry on. We did end up $30,000 over budget. Some of that was unforeseen some was not. Duty on construction imports can kill you and drive your budget off the chart. For the Bahamas a safe estimate is 50% duty on everything you bring in. It will not always be that. Some things will be 60% others will be 10%. The majority will be in the 35-45% range. The basics of a building budget for the Bahamas should include: Permit fees, price of building contract, materials, duty, shipping, utility hook up fees, inspection fees. Shipping can be an issue. We used Bimini shipping out of Miami and G and G out of Ft. Lauderdale
9. One thing that can drive your personal budget up is where will you stay and what will you drive when you are visiting your building project. This requires planning and making friends. We were lucky our neighbor was a saint. He allowed us to stay with him. We tried to be good guests and cover the costs of us being there by taking care of the food, drink, cleaning and some money for utilities. Amazingly he is still our friend. If staying with a friend is not an option check out where the locals stay instead of the tourists. Let them know you will be a repeat customer. You will get a better deal. For the driving we imported an old Astro Van. It is the beach mobile and a great delivery van. They have changed the car import laws since we did that. You cannot import a car over 10 yrs old. The duty on cars is 60 to 80%. Our next vehicle may be found on the island instead of importing. If you choose an island car, take it to a trusted mechanic and have it checked out. The under carriage takes a beating. Suspension and tires are usually replaced much quicker in the islands. Buy what you need to get you around and carry things. Do not buy for looks.
10. The final product is in the details. Finishing your build, what a great idea. You may find that when you are near the end....you are just beginning. Putting in cabinets, toilets, tile, floor coverings, and paint colors can be mind boggling but fun.
3. How will you finance your home? We used a combination of savings and a home loan with RBC in the Bahamas. We were told several times by well meaning people that a home loan from a Bahamian bank to a foreigner was impossible. We learned to always challenge the so called impossible. The financing part is where many people fail. This plays back to our cost analysts. If you only have a vague idea of what your dream home will cost to build you could be in trouble. Even with proper planning we had close to $30,000 in cost over runs.
4. Once you have a plan for the finance, now you need the builder. The builder may be you or a combination of you and a local contractor or the contractor all the way. If you are the home builder understand what you can do and when you can do it. Give yourself a reality check here. The Bahamas are the islands of lost dreams. Many houses get started but not finished. If you have already built a home in the past then you have a valid idea of your own strengths and weaknesses. If this is your first, we would suggest the combination approach. This is how we did it. We took our time and found a builder who matched our budget, time frame and approach. The contract with our builder was from beginning to end. The end was finished concrete, roofing, and plumbing. All the finish work were bid as separate jobs. Along the way we have had friends who were building in stages and bid each stage out for their own projects. If we build again we may try the stages approach and see if we can stick to a stricter budget. No matter what you choose, you will have to bid out a job or two. The work that is done for you must be checked at critical stages. The beginning parameters must be clear, do not do verbal. Write it down. Keep copies. This is important whether you are doing a formal build or a deal with the local painter. Make sure you have the price for the job upfront not after.
5. Know the building codes for your area. Do not just leave it up to the builder. Be an educated consumer. Meet with the local inspector and get to know them. This should be done before you lay your foundation. Our building was set to close to the road but our builder was able to push it through. After that we paid a lot more attention to those codes. The building codes are set at minimums for the Bahamas. For instance hurricane straps, the minimum is not based on wind load or the maritime environment. Look at where you are and over build. The structural integrity of a building during a hurricane falls apart from the roof down, then the windows and walls. If you are high up, your enemy is the wind. If you are down low, your enemy will be flooding. We looked at lots of buildings with shitty hurricane straps in Florida and the Bahamas. We educated ourselves by calling Simpson Strong -Ties. (Call the manufacturers of the products you feel are important and get your info straight from them not a salesman.) We spoke to their engineers. It was mind blowing. Know everything you can about the structural integrity of your building. We cannot stress this enough. This is where you put your money, skimp some where else.
6. Before you start building from your plans, learn to read them. Make as many copies as you think you will need: two for yourself, builder, electrician, and plumber. Know what every symbol means. Do the math where needed. Make sure things add up. Then go over them with your builder or sub contractor and make sure the plans are correct. We learned to read our architectural plans and engineered plans. We did our own concrete calculations to see if we were on track. We looked at electrical and plumbing and even with all that the plans were not always correct. We looked at critical stages: foundation, plumbing lay out, electrical, 1st floor walls, staircase, 2nd floor poor, columns, etc and matched them to the plans. 80-90% of the time they matched but the times they did not the contractor had to fix it. Unfortunately over there we ate the cost about 50% of the time. Their country their rules. Let me clarify....the labor part of fixing mistakes was covered by our contractor but replacement materials had to be re-imported by us at our cost. Our contractor made allowances where he could to make up for those additional costs. You have to know where to bend and where to stand your ground...give and take.
7. This is where having a construction loan was a good thing. The foreign bank was an investor in our home. They wanted to protect that investment and required periodic inspections. These inspections were critical to our builder receiving his next draw. This put another pair of critical eyes on our project. It gave us the power to keep our builder with in code and build a better home.
8. Staying on schedule was a critical factor and staying in budget. We had certain financial stop gaps that we had set in place for ourselves. We gave ourselves a low, medium and high figure to work with. At one point on our home we had reached our middle figure and we were not where we wanted to be in building. We came to a screeching halt. We took our builder to task where we thought money should be better spent. We went over things like to many guys on the job and over priced concrete vendors. Small things become big things if they get out of hand. At this point we had to make a decision. Do we stop at this stage or have cost over runs that we new were coming? We were at a stage where stopping the job for a year was possible. We decided to carry on. We did end up $30,000 over budget. Some of that was unforeseen some was not. Duty on construction imports can kill you and drive your budget off the chart. For the Bahamas a safe estimate is 50% duty on everything you bring in. It will not always be that. Some things will be 60% others will be 10%. The majority will be in the 35-45% range. The basics of a building budget for the Bahamas should include: Permit fees, price of building contract, materials, duty, shipping, utility hook up fees, inspection fees. Shipping can be an issue. We used Bimini shipping out of Miami and G and G out of Ft. Lauderdale
9. One thing that can drive your personal budget up is where will you stay and what will you drive when you are visiting your building project. This requires planning and making friends. We were lucky our neighbor was a saint. He allowed us to stay with him. We tried to be good guests and cover the costs of us being there by taking care of the food, drink, cleaning and some money for utilities. Amazingly he is still our friend. If staying with a friend is not an option check out where the locals stay instead of the tourists. Let them know you will be a repeat customer. You will get a better deal. For the driving we imported an old Astro Van. It is the beach mobile and a great delivery van. They have changed the car import laws since we did that. You cannot import a car over 10 yrs old. The duty on cars is 60 to 80%. Our next vehicle may be found on the island instead of importing. If you choose an island car, take it to a trusted mechanic and have it checked out. The under carriage takes a beating. Suspension and tires are usually replaced much quicker in the islands. Buy what you need to get you around and carry things. Do not buy for looks.
10. The final product is in the details. Finishing your build, what a great idea. You may find that when you are near the end....you are just beginning. Putting in cabinets, toilets, tile, floor coverings, and paint colors can be mind boggling but fun.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)