This article comes from Angie’s List.

How Long Does It Take to Build a House?

Everyone loves the idea of designing and building their dream home – in theory. In actuality, it takes time — building a standard house with a full basement can take anywhere from four to 12 months depending on the size, finishes, and permit process.

It’s important to understand the process and what’s involved before breaking ground. With Payson’s expert guidance, we’ve mapped out a typical construction timeline for building a house. Keep in mind the timeline can change depending on the factors mentioned earlier.

The Design Phase

Usually, the first few meetings are spent with the designer getting to know the client and their wishes, then working out a very general design. Once there’s an overall picture of the design concept and basic floor plan worked out, then it’s usually a few more meetings (and e-mails) to work out the more specific criteria for finishes and move toward a final design.

Contract and Permits

Once the final design is worked out, the process turns into an estimating project and client proposal. Estimating the cost of the construction and signing of the contract can take two to four weeks. Once the contract is signed, the building permit process begins, which can take another two to four weeks.

Pre-Construction

Typically, each new home build has a project manager to oversee construction. The project manager will then start the process of setting up the construction schedule and tentatively contracting with the various tradesmen to complete the construction within the timeline.

“While the project manager is setting up the tradesmen, our interior designer is working directly with the homeowner on selecting the various finishes which are to be incorporated into the overall design,” Payson says, a process that usually takes one to two months.

The interior designer and project manager work together to make sure the various materials are available for delivery to the project worksite when needed.

Construction

Once the permits are approved, the actual construction begins. The total length of time can range anywhere from four months to a year or more. Construction usually starts with excavating the basement, then moving to concrete to pour the walls and floor for the new basement and installing a new slab for the garage.

From there, it’s framing the shell (floors, walls, and roof) of the new house, then installing windows to make the new structure weathertight.

Once this is complete builders move to the detail finishes such as trim, cabinetry, paint, lighting, and finish plumbing fixtures.

The last steps of construction include a final grading and backfilling around the foundation, installing exterior lighting fixtures, sidewalks, and driveway surfaces, and seeding the lawn to complete the project.

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