Unexpected Collapsible Soil

If you’ve been following along in stories on instagram then you know, we are building a new house!  We broke ground middle of December.  It took about 2 weeks to complete the excavation which included collapsible soil which required us to excavate down an extra 12 feet in some spaces, bring in 32 truck loads of gravel + build taller foundational walls. The extra concrete and gravel ended up costing us… drumroll… an extra $58,000 we did NOT plan on spending.

I’m sure you can imagine this is a HUGE hit to our contingency funds. (the reserve we had set up with the bank for unforeseen issues), and I’m sure your next question is what can you do to prevent this from happening/why wasn’t this checked before you started building.  Well let’s dive into that.   The land developers are required to test 4′ down in soil.  4′ down however, didn’t have any issues so we had no suspicion that there would be soil issues.  There are other homes surrounding this land which have built without soil issues, another reason to not suspect anything.  

But if there was no suspicion how did you find out?  

Well I can’t claim to know all the ins and outs of how this happened besides the excavator noticed some different coloring in the soil as he was digging and told the builder.  The builder chose to get the soiled tested and what came from that was collapsible soil.  This basically means there’s a bunch of air pockets in the soil so the sudden influx of moisture over time can cause the soil to shrink and in some bad cases literally collapse the floors and walls of your home.  Upon sharing this in IG stories I had several DM’s come in with nightmare stories of cars literally falling through garage floors, and houses falling off the sides of mountains.  While the cost was super expensive to fix this/prevent this from happening, I feel super grateful for a builder who wants to go above and beyond to make sure his clients are safe and happy in their home.  

Most banks put into place a contingency fund so thankfully we are covered (and they are covered), but it also means we are running tight on our budget and our home is like 4% complete! This is where Honey Built Home starts brainstorming all sorts of things. 

Since we are building a custom home I have already been given the green light to come in and perform any sweat equity I want during the build. 

Here’s a few things I’m considering doing to help bring the cost of the home down/help with our budget. 

1. Build the cabinetry in the home.  I was already planning to do the builtins myself once we were living in the home, but now I’ve been researching how to build nice white oak, walnut and maple bathroom vanities from scratch.  I’ve built one bathroom vanity and it turned out pretty good, so maybe just maybe this is an option I’ll be taking on in the next few months (spoiler alert: I already bought the plywood and white oak). 

2. Tile the bathrooms.  This is something I know how to do, but with so many bathrooms needing to be completed all at once I didn’t think I wanted to tile them all, but now am leaning towards tiling a few if not all of them myself. 

3. Limit the finish work done by the finish carpenter.  No pantry shelves, closet shelves, accent walls, etc.  I know that I personally will end up ripping this stuff out to do custom closets and shelves, so why spend the money having a temporary solution installed.  I am a lover of IKEA PAX for closets so it makes sense to me to buy the bare minimum of those systems for each closet, and upgrade and customize over time. 

4. Not finish the basement.  This is one we already planned on to save on initial expenses.  Over the years I have finished every basement we’ve lived in (3 basements) and that has saved us a lot. 

5. DIY Casita – I designed this house to have a casita attached with the thought that in the next few years family will need to live with us.  But is also gives us an amazing opportunity to have an income property (rental apartment).  In this space I am planning to finish it myself.  Lay the floors, build the kitchen.  This should save us a ton PLUS once it’s finished and we can rent it, we now have supplemental income! #winwin

6. Lance_scaping.  If you’ve been here awhile then you know Lance is the grass king.  A huge huge cost savings will be us doing our yard, mostly ourselves.  Since the fiasco of the grass on our side yard last summer, Lance has already come up with the ultimate plan to get perfect grass, the first time.  We will be hiring a landscape architect to help us design the yard, but then it will be Lance executing it.