Build It Right! was written so the author could share what he had seen with people building or buying new homes. In the Introduction he explains the reasons for the book and what's in it.

====================
Introduction

"Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had," wrote philosopher Sir Francis Bacon almost 400 years ago.

Then in the late 1800s noted architect Louis Sullivan said the same thing with his "IDEA" that "Form Follows Function."

The years go by---but whether it's 1600, 1900, or 2000, some things simply don't change.

Are today's houses the best available for the money? As we will see, most definitely not! As long as more thought is given to aesthetics and little, if any, to function, people will buy what they perceive is attractive. So that's what's built. But why shouldn't you get a house to, as Bacon said, "live in" as well as "look on?" You should and you can.

Welcome to the world of houses and homes, a world as imprecise and varied as the people who live in them. No where does our individuality show more than in our choice of new homes. We have this dream of something that is different from anyone else's, something worthwhile that we personally are responsible for, something that we work for and can be proud to say is ours.

The idea that a new home is the "American Dream" may be a marketing stratagem, yet it has an underlying truth that we all understand. This dream is an edifice that one stands and admires---the flow of the roof, the beckoning of the entry, the magnificence of the whole. Inside, the furnishings are also of dream stuff, making day-to-day living luxurious and relaxing.

The first struggle in making this dream a reality is, for most of us, simply money. Instead of the wooded estate, we know we'll have to settle for the cottage in a neighborhood of peers. Yet we can't forget that dream so we compromise here and take less there, making sure we express ourselves in the process. And we find lots of people who want to help us along the way---people who make a living at helping the dreamers into the real world. They show us what others have done, they find out about our dreams, then work with us to get the best we can with the resources we have.

These helpers we know as real estate people, designers, architects, and builders. They have experience in the many facets of new homes, experience that we must draw on to avoid disaster. Without them our dreams would never leave the realm of the ethereal. And, of course, we know that people are not perfect so we try to find the helpers who will be the best for us and our goals. They will be our advisers as well as the suppliers of goods and services.

We try, yet it doesn't always work out as well as we had hoped. Sometimes we find that we simply cannot have what we want with the money we have. Or there are practicalities like building codes that keep us from getting there. And still other times, and this is the most painful, when we're through with the whole process, we find that our dream isn't as dreamy as we had expected.

The professionals all help us get what we want, but what happens when we don't know what we should want? We learn the hard way---whence come the expressions "if we had only thought of it before..." and "if we had it to do over again..."

Designers create houses they believe are what people want, builders build them and consumers, with their limited experience, buy them. Of necessity, we consumers depend on the designers, builders, and sellers to give us the best we can get for our money. But these professionals, in their efforts to please, produce what people want which is what people buy which is what is produced... From Bacon to Sullivan to today, it's the same story.

Houses are complex structures made of many different materials from many sources. The suppliers of these materials are large industries in themselves: lumber, windows, doors, plumbing, appliances, etc. It is the home-building industry that puts these together into marketable products that are attractive and functional. If there is one thing that characterizes this industry, it is the number and diversity of builders. Unlike other major industries in today's world, there is no big name, no "big three." Most builders do only a few houses a year and even the largest builder (Centex) makes less than two percent of the country's total number of new houses.

Given the large number of builders you shouldn't be surprised to find all kinds of people in the business of home construction. As with any profession, there will be the able and the inept, those who take pride in their work and others who don't care, those who build with the customer in mind and those whose end-all is the almighty dollar, those who are honest and forthright and others who are litigious and a disgrace to their industry. They're all out there.

When you buy a new car, there is a large but finite number of options; in new homes the choices are unlimited. From the new home buyer's perspective, this is both good and bad. There is the opportunity to get exactly what you want and can afford. With this freedom goes the flip side, you better know what you want, what's right and what's wrong for you.

Home building is a complex process involving many disciplines and, ideally, the builder would know every one of them intimately. Practically they won't but one discipline is of overriding importance. Builders are small- to medium-sized businesses and they must understand the business side of what they're doing or they invite disaster. Unfortunately those disasters usually involve everyone around them: suppliers, subcontractors, and customers.

As a manager, the builder should know good and not-so-good materials and workmanship. Scheduling and coordinating material deliveries and subcontractor work are critical and oversight during construction is crucial. Inept and don't-care builders turn things over to the subcontractors and accept whatever happens while good builders stay right on top of the work, with frequent visits to the site to insure coordination and to get boo-boos fixed before they get locked into the fabric of the house.

If the end product is to be acceptable to the customer, the builder must know what's to be built. If it's a custom house, the customer tells the builder what's wanted. If it's a tract or spec house, the question is one of marketability and the builder makes what his research tells him is most likely to sell. The common thread here is that the builder is responding to his/her conception of the marketplace. And as long as buyers don't insist on functionality, along with aesthetics and structural soundness, then functionality will suffer.

And where does all this leave you, the prospective new-home buyer? The first flag should be the necessity to find a competent, honest, caring builder. And this is as true for tract and spec houses as for custom. The second flag is the need for you to know as much as you can about what you want---not only in the size and location of the house but also in its design and workmanship. And, most importantly, being able to make functionality a part of the design.

While we won't change the way the housing industry does its business, you can sure do something about your own new home! In most cases there is little conflict between form and function, between aesthetics and how it works. Rather, it's simply a matter of remembering function. And it's not difficult. None of the facets of home design and construction" and you're on your way to a better home.

And it doesn't matter whether your new home is one that you're going to have built to your specifications (a "custom" home), one that's more or less a copy of an existing model (a "tract" home or a "semi-custom" home), or one that already exists (a "spec" home). In the first case you'll want to know what to have and not have in your specifications. For the others you'll want to be able to evaluate models to decide which is the best one for you. And after you decide, you'll need to know which of the available options to choose and what you should try to have the builder do that's different from the model. Many of the decisions you should make are the same regardless of which road you take to get your home---in fact about the only differences are that with a tract house there will be some builder's decisions you cannot change while with an existing spec house you can't change any of them.

The many decisions which have to be made in getting a new home will inevitably involve compromise. You'll need to prioritize your objectives, to decide which of the many things you'd like to have are the more important and which are expendable. Cost is the biggest factor but it isn't the only one. While the stress in Build It Right! is on functionality, don't hesitate to express yourself by making something look better to you even if you compromise functionality in the process. But make these decisions knowingly; don't just let them happen. It is one of the purposes of Build It Right! to help you understand the pros and cons of each compromise and so make your new home reflect your personal likes and dislikes.

This revised edition has been completely reorganized. Subject matter has been made more visual---there are sixty eight photographs instead of thirteen and a hundred and nine drawings instead of forty one. Thirty two pages have been added. The scope has been expanded in a number of areas to make the discussions more comprehensive while some less important items have been deleted to make room. The book has been broadened to make it useful to anyone buying a house. The reader is reminded again and again that the subjects covered in the book are not routinely considered in home design and construction---it's very much up to you if they are to be a part of your new home.

Every time I talk to someone about their new home I am reminded again about how many decisions must be made. The book couldn't possible cover all of them because everyone's situation is different---and we wouldn't really want it otherwise. On the way to making your dream a reality you'll have to make a number of compromises usually involving costs and personal likes and dislikes. But availability of materials and the skills of the tradespeople can also make you veer from what you'd really like. With Build It Right! you'll have a better understanding of what youÕre getting and giving up.

The material in Build It Right! isn't sensational. It won't make 60 Minutes or 20/20. It doesn't deal with what happens in a few dramatic disastrous cases but with what happens day in and day out in house after house---in other words with what's likely to happen in your new home if you let it. And what's nice is that you don't have to be a graduate engineer or an interior designer to take advantage of the information that's here. You'll find that most of it is just a matter of having it pointed out to you and you can take it from there.

Part I of the book starts with an overview of what's involved in getting that dream home---tract, spec or custom. The second part deals with the systems that are a part of the whole house and with pieces and parts that are found in every room. Part III is about the kitchen, that most talked about and most abused room in the home. Part IV is about the rest of the rooms: bed, bath, etc. Part V has two appendices that are broad in nature and do not deal directly with the building process.

Finally, there is the back matter---a glossary, a list of references for additional information, and the index. In 1994 I reviewed 697 floor plans that I had collected from many different sources---almost a third of them from custom and tract houses I had been through. I looked for 9 different design flaws in each plan to get a statistical feel about how often they appeared. The frequency of occurrence is mentioned where each flaw is discussed in the book. As you will see, user-hostile designs are common.

A word about Caveat Emptor (or Buyer Beware). This is used in the book to draw attention to the importance of a particular subject. It is not meant to indicate that someone may be trying to cheat or take advantage but to warn you to beware of the subject at hand; the perils may not be self-evident.

And, before we're through here, there's another matter which must be covered even though it may seem out of place: gender. To simplify the writing and the reading of the book, builders are referred to as "he" rather than "he/she" and is in no way meant to downplay the ever-increasing number and importance of women builders. From my observations women bring a somewhat different set of priorities to home building than do men, particularly in making homes more user-friendly. Regardless of efforts to make the workplace, and even the home, asexual, we still raise our girls to be women and boys to be men. And in the process women learn a different set of values which have been generally ignored in home design and construction. When I've heard "it was built by men" in reference to a particularly unthinking arrangement, it was usually a pertinent observation because it was indeed built by men and it was something a woman builder would be much less likely to do. You'll find more than one of these described in the book.

The concept that homes are not necessarily designed and built for the people who use them is not new---and, generally, it's not likely to change much. But you can do something about yours. It'll take work and perseverance. Good luck.

T
o
p
 
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^

T
o
p