Why Building A Custom Home Is Cheaper Than You Think

There is a common idea that custom home building is a luxury afforded only to the affluent. Few seem know that all the benefits of a custom designed and constructed home is well within the means of even first-time home buyers. Custom home building affords considerably more opportunity, both to save and spend money. Learning how to take advantage of these opportunities to save where you want, and spend where you want, can provide the home of your dreams at the price of your dreams. Find out how to unlock the potential of custom home building with Windmill Construction.

The Cost of A Finished Home

Mass builders design and construct houses according to the needs of the market. This generally produces homes that are built to the general expectations of the average buyer, but never your precise needs.

The layouts of these homes are typically standard, and finishes fashionable. To lower costs and increase margins, mass home builders take advantage of the economics of scale, bulk purchasing their materials and factory-building homes according to a standardized layout. While this provides the benefit of consistency for your home builder, it comes at the expense of many design considerations that can provide value for you, your family, and the environment.

Buying a finished home is easier, but this ease comes at a price. Consider, for example, the environmental costs of a finished home compared to a custom one:

Environmental Benefits of Custom Design

Consider ‘Passive Solar Design‘.

Passive design is an architectural theory that requires the design of structure’s to take advantage of specific environmental conditions to manage their temperature passively.

Instead of relying solely on a furnace and A/C system to heat the building in the winter and cool it in the summer, a house built according to passive design principles will take advantage of sunlight and shade for heating and cooling. Designed and constructed properly, a home designed this way can maintain a consistent internal temperature year-round without a dollar spent on heating or cooling.

Mass home builders cannot afford to design and construct buildings according to these principles on a large scale, because each building would need to be slightly different, designed specifically to take advantage of the unique amount of sun/shade it gets on a given lot. Foundations need to be poured such that the building can be oriented to take advantage of the path the sun takes through the sky in the summer and winter. Roofs need to be built to block sun in the summer when the sun is high in the sky, and allow it in during the winter.

Not only does passive design produce a considerably more environmentally friendly building at an equivalent upfront cost to buying a finished home, but it also provides significantly lower hydro bills for the life of a home.

In Ontario, this benefit has special value, considering we pay among the highest prices for residential energy anywhere in the world, and that cost is predicted only to increase. Not only will this save you thousands of dollars over the years, but will also contribute significant value to the sale price of your home as energy becomes more expensive and ecological stewardship becomes a more important aspect of home buying.

The Advantage of Custom Interior Design

When mass home buyers design a home, they do so for broad needs of general audiences. Those that opt for custom design gain the advantage of design for their particular needs, and gain access to a slew of options that can contribute massive value to daily life.
Do you have dogs?

If so, then you understand the daily struggle during the winter with them tracking in dirt, mud, and grime from the streets. No matter how well you towel them off, they’re bound to stain your carpets, mark your hardwood, and make life just a little bit tougher every day throughout the winter months.

Did you know that doggy shower stations exist?

These are systems in your front entry way or mudroom, well hidden from view, that incorporate plumbing systems and a faucet with shower-head, allowing you to properly and easily rise your dogs feet after every walk. Not only this, but it allows you to clean off dirty boots with ease, and save hundreds by bathing your pets at home.

Systems like this don’t see much popularity because they are strictly avoided by mass builders. Though dogs in Ontario are popular, a system like this has no value for a family that doesn’t care for dogs. Mass builders cannot expose themselves to the risk of investing in these systems, because they are valuable to too small a market.

When you are having a home built and designed for specifically your needs, considerations like these aren’t relevant. You gain access to dog-cleaning stations like this, as well as an incredible variety of other options most don’t even know exist, because they are too specific to be considered by large-scale home builders. Little things like this go a long way to making daily life less difficult, contribute massively to peace of mind in a home, and are only available by building custom.

Bundle Services for Cost Savings and Incredible Value

When it comes to buying a completed house, the time and energy it took to build the structure has been sunk into its value. When custom home building, you have the opportunity to instead invest time and energy, instead of money, into its construction.

When buying a new home, you don’t get to choose how you want to manage the cost of labour. When custom building, you do, and this can save you thousands of dollars.
Most think the only choice a homeowner has when custom building a home is choosing either to DIY, or pay a professional to tackle a given job. While these are two valid, options, they are not the only ones available.

A custom home builder will hire a carpenter to frame your home, another to floor it, and (if you’re lucky) find a cabinetmaker to design your mantle, cabinets, built-ins, etc.

Paying three trades to complete three jobs costs considerably more than hiring one to tackle all three.
Professional cabinet making is a luxury not often afforded to mass-built homes. These craftsmen are generally too expensive to justify hiring for anything but higher-end luxury homes. If you manage labour intelligently with your custom build, you can gain access to the work of a master craftsman for substantially less than a builder would pay for three separate trades.

Cabinetmakers are capable of performing the work of a carpenter, but carpenters are rarely able to perform the work of a cabinetmaker. By hiring a cabinetmaker to fully outfit your cabinets, as well as floor your home, build your stairs, and frame your structure, you can get great deals on all these services by bundling them. Not only will you have paid substantially less for them, but the quality of your interior fixtures will be miles ahead of what you would have gotten had you chosen to purchase a finished home.

It’s a popular idea that master craftsmanship is exclusively available to those with large budgets. Those who know how to properly manage labour costs know differently. When custom home building, there are always opportunities to bundle services and manage labour to save money and maximize value. All it takes is knowing how to do so, and luxury-level materials and amenities can be bought for standard-level prices.

Windmill Construction

Its easy to think that custom home building is expensive, but this is not necessarily the case. By taking the opportunity to invest time and energy into your home building instead of just your money, you can save thousands, and produce a home that provides you and your family considerably more value.

To someone who works full-time and takes care of a family, the investment of time and energy can seem intimidating if not downright impossible. Windmill Construction is here to make things easy.

Nobody could reasonably expect you to take the time to develop the knowledge of passive design to create a home that passively saves on hydro costs. Nor should you expect yourself to cultivate expertise on custom home building to understand how to optimally manage labour. Of course, it’s always good to learn of these things, but when it come to securing the expert-level knowledge and experience necessary to build you the perfect home for less than you thought, the only thing you need to do is get in touch with Windmill Construction.