How Long Does It Take to Build a Custom Home?

As custom home builders in Pennsylvania, we’ve worked on countless projects over the years. One of the most frequently asked questions we receive is how long a client can expect it to take to complete the build of their custom home. Of course, every project is different, so in some cases it’s hard to say with any reasonable degree of accuracy just how long it can be expected to take. But as a general rule, we can typically construct a home from start to finish in 90 to 130 calendar days.

However, that certainly hasn’t always been the case. At the beginning, our home constructions often took four to six months to complete. This was because we got started just building homes in the same way everyone else did—that was just the standard for how long a project would be expected to take.

Eventually we had an epiphany—these homes were sitting idle for days or sometimes even weeks at a time. Our team wasn’t in control of the construction schedule, and there were too many inefficient processes clogging up our schedule. We had to make some changes and innovations if we were going to speed up our timelines and improve our overall service to our customers.

A new method of home building

With this in mind, we began to spend more time on the front end of the project, nailing down the processes before we actually started building. We made sure all of our material selections were made well before we actually needed them, and brought our subcontractors and vendors into the process earlier on so they were aware of everything that would be happening and could start formulating their plans earlier so they could be more prepared for the build.

We continued to refine this process over time, and every change we made allowed us to become more efficient. Soon we were building houses in half the time it would have taken us to build them when we were first starting out!

It’s difficult to overstate the impact this had on our business. Not only were we suddenly much more efficient with our work, but we were also more profitable, because we weren’t taking too long to complete projects. This opened up brand new opportunities for us—we could adjust our pricing to bring in new potential customers and broaden our market.

We also incorporated a system into our company that allows all our subs, suppliers, project managers and customers to go to a single central location for schedules, plans and selections, and they can communicate to all vital people in the company. It took a while to get this system fully implemented and to get everyone used to it, but now it works seamlessly and has really streamlined our operations.

Now, by the time the shovel goes into the ground, all selections have been made, everything is thought through and you can just sit back and watch your home being built. Always avoid contractors who say “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Instead, trust our custom home builders in Pennsylvania to be fully prepared with your plans.