17 Things Your Builder Will NOT Do…Unless You Ask - Part 1
By David Orr, REALTOR e-PRO GREEN SFR
You’re all excited about building your new home and can’t wait to move in. In that excitement there are myriad things that you may not be aware of - or even thinking about. When building a home, it’s important to think out-of-the-box.
What follows is based on both my experience as a REALTOR and in having my own home built several years ago. To help you stay on track, and not be overwhelmed by your new home and all the things going on with the construction; here are 17 things your builder will NOT do…unless you ask:
1. Cat 5/6 network wiring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_5_cable and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_6_cable ) and jacks throughout the home - even in the dining room (It make become your office one day. Mine did.)
Make sure to have it installed on the patio and in the garage too. Sometimes your Wi-Fi can’t reach a room in the house, so it’s important to be able to connect your room to your router or cable modem via these RJ-45 jacks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_connector ).
2. CATV (coaxial cable for cable TV) jacks ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television ) - at least two per room…EVERY room - throughout your home, patio and garage. You may want a TV or router there one day. It’s much more difficult to add these after the fact, than it is while the house is still in the framing stage.**
The cost to the builder at the framing stage is negligible - maybe $30 or $40, if anything at all. However, if you wait until after the house is built, the local cable company may charge as much as $150 per outlet!
Better to have it done during framing, and let the builder pass that cost on to you as $30 or $40 per outlet.
3. Phone jacks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_jack )- at least two per room. Yes, I know you plan on using wireless phones or your cell phone. However, it’s a minimal cost now - and if you ever do need a phone jack…(See #2 above)
4. Consider using structured wiring (http://bit.ly/strctWire )when building your home. It costs more initially, but will allow you to connect all your home wiring, internet and multimedia for current and future use. And without having to run new wires throughout your home - tearing up the walls and ceilings in the process. You can read more about it on the Leviton site at http://www.leviton.com/connectedhome .
More to come on 17 Things Your Builder Will NOT Do…Unless You Ask - Parts 2 and 3.
Here is a link to all of the resources in this post: http://bit.ly/fNLC0b
My special thanks to Wikipedia for helping make this a much more useful and insightful post. (http://en.wikipedia.org/)
** Personal experience with my own new construction home. In most cases, I didn’t realize I needed to do this, and my real estate agent (who worked for the builder) didn’t know about them and thus, failed to mention them as well.
Copyright 2011, David W. Orr. All rights reserved.