DRHorton Home Construction Experience (Virginia)

One thing that has occurred to me is that this roof is absolutely perfect for solar panels. The house faces NNE which means the backside of the house faces SSW which is really the perfect angle. Plus, the design makes for a lot of space for panels. Over the past few years I've noticed more and more homes with solar panels around where we live today. With energy prices as severe as they are, the business case has got to be improving. Fun! Another thing to look into down the road. Another noticeable thing about the roof is that there are very few pipes protruding through it. This is a good thing, since less pipes = less likelihood of leaks down the road. I've noticed in our current house that builders have really caught onto this and minimized vertical protrusions. Most vents now go through the walls. Now that the roof is completed, the large external changes are about to slow down for a while. The focus of the work is shifting inside. We noticed in some other homes that there wa

It's been a fairly slow week as there have been some very rainy days.  On Saturday (yesterday) the windows were mounted. This afternoon they are putting on the roof shingles.  They also put in the stairs so we could get upstairs and into the basement without walking through mud to the side entrance. Here are some photos from inside. Looking up from our foyer Stairs to upper level Family Room. Looking onto back yard Kitchen and dining area  Two days ago I noticed a pair of 2x6 studs in the basement that were clearly buckling. We noticed today that they had been replaced. Phew! From this ... To this! Yay. It's hard to believe that it has been just 5 weeks since it looked like this:

For the past week I've been going by the house expecting to see a roof in place. There was definitely progress being made, but it was kind of a slow week. Friday came and still no roof.   And ... of course .. it rained pretty heavily on Sunday. One last rinsing for the framing I guess. The framing pieces and sections for most new homes are pre-fabricated at the factory to a large extent. The framing crew unpacks and assembles the pieces according to a plan. Totally cookie-cutter, right? Not exactly.  After watching for nearly two weeks, I've come to appreciate that there are many smaller tasks needed to make the factory pieces into a real home.  Just preparing for the roof required some extensive staging. Here's a picture of the various roofing pieces spread out for staging:   After a rainy Super-Bowl Sunday, I figured it might be a day or two before work resumed. However, I was apparently wrong. Just a day and a half later, on Tuesday afternoon, I rode my bike to the site

They are working through framing the house.  I ran into the construction manager, George, today at the site. He always makes a point to stop by and ask if I have an questions or concerns. I asked a few questions about the techniques they were using in the framing. It's interesting the way they mount the joists that hold up the floor on each level. They actually use metal hangers rather than fasten the joists directly to the cross piece they mount against.  When you think about it, if the hanger is strong enough, it makes sense since that makes it much easier for every joist to be at exactly the same height, which means your floor will not creak in places. Cool stuff. I also visited another lot with the same interior as our home and got excited. It's going to look good! One thing I noticed is that the bathrooms have lights over the sink (above the mirror) but no lights above the showers. That's really not great since people may read on the can or when you close the shower cu

Well, the foundation appears to be completed, and framing has started! I stopped by the site yesterday and found a crew of framers working pleasantly along. The weather may have been chilly, but they framers seemed to enjoy what they were doing. Basement Bedroom Wall Another view - with utility room wall going up. View of our site from lot 10 upstairs. Bound to change quickly!   It will be fun to see the house actually take shape over the next few days! We're just observers, as we've had no communication with the builder. But it's definitely fun to go by and see what has changed.  We're impressed by the quality of the workmanship of the crews so far, which helps us sleep at night. We've heard again and again that the final product depends a great deal on the actual crews doing the work. So far so good!