Started with a construction loan from Citizen's Bank. They wanted a set of prints - thanks Randy for putting the plans in Autocad! And, they wanted a detailed cost estimate. I can post our Excel workbook that we used to build our estimate. The workbook has several worksheets. But, the two that the bank wanted to see were the base estimate - how much the house was worth - and the one showing how much we were covering since the bank will only finance 75% of the homes value. That one was a little tough. According to our estimate we were going to come in just at 75% which doesn't leave any allowances for additions/corrections/changes along the way. But we were approved and away we went.
First Mistake - It's right here that we should have looked into the tax breaks and how to get them. We should have had two paths - EnergyStar or LEED. Both require a lot of up front planning and we missed the boat some here and lost points. The plans also have some requirements that you can kill the whole project if you don't allow for them early on. For instance, we were using a friend to design our HVAC system and another to install it. Well to meet EnergyStar requirements, you need to use an EnergyStar certified HVAC installer.
So, now we're pointed down the path of LEED. Both have different sets of requirements so you have to review them both. One or the other will likely be better for you. Both can get you the tax credits.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Intro
Well it's finally time for us to build our new home. We're going to be the builders and hopefully do at least some of the work ourselves. We would like to get our house LEED Silver certified in order to get the federal and state tax breaks. We'll see how we do.
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