Building a New Home on a Budget: How to Keep Things Under Control to Save You Money
Making the investment in a brand-new home will be something that hopefully lasts you for many years to come, but you must be able to do it in a way that makes you comfortable financially. Cutting costs when you’re remodeling or building is extremely important, and keeping these tips in mind can help you to enjoy your new living space while also keeping it financially under control.
Keep it Simple
One of the first things you can do is to choose simple shapes. This can help to keep your costs down, because trapezoids, curves, triangles, and any other complex shape is extremely expensive and difficult to build by a local contractor. Think simply in order to save costs, such as using rectangular floor plans or square floor plans. Another thing to consider is building small.
Square Feet
A big house might seem like a bargain when you look at the cost per square foot; however, even the smallest house will require high-ticket items such as heating and plumbing. Choosing a smaller home and making it easier to heat and cool can keep your energy costs down over the long run. Another thing to consider as you build your new home is the benefit of building compact, taller houses. These provide the same amount of living space, but the foundation and the roof are smaller, making ventilation and plumbing much less of a headache.
Lose the Ducts
Another thing to consider as you put together your plans for your new home that you wish to build is to think about how you will heat and cool it. The decisions you make early on can make installation that much easier, keep your costs down, and allow you to select more environmentally friendly options. Choosing ductless air conditioning, for example, decreases your carbon footprint and makes it much easier to maximize your space, because no ducts are required. The sleek models provided by many modern ductless air conditioning designers and manufacturers make it easy to slot this into any space without being obtrusive, such that you can easily design around it while capturing all of the benefits of living in your modern home in an aesthetically pleasing manner.
Ductless a/c might be the right choice for you, but you need to invest the time to determine if you’ve truly considered everything when you’re making a selection of the unit in your home. You want to strike a balance between a system that keeps the house cool effectively and in an energy-efficient manner, but you also want to know that you’ve taken care to select a unit that helps to bolster your interior design or at the worst, blends in.
James is an internet entrepreneur, blogging junky, hunter and personal finance geek. When he’s not lurking in coffee shops in Portland, Oregon, you’ll find him in the Pacific Northwest’s great outdoors. James has a masters degree in Sociology from the University of Maryland at College Park and a Bachelors degree on Sociology from Earlham College. He loves individual stocks, bonds and precious metals.