Ask someone who has built a house what went wrong, and you will rarely hear about the framing or the drywall. You will hear about a gap. The excavator finished and the foundation crew was booked elsewhere. The plans changed and the estimator did not hear about it for a week. Something failed and two companies each explained why it was the other one’s problem.
Almost nothing in home building goes wrong in the middle of a trade’s work. It goes wrong in the handoffs between them. That is the problem one accountable team is built to solve, and it is worth understanding before you sign with anybody.
How most homes actually get built
The common model is a general contractor who coordinates independent subcontractors. Someone excavates. Someone else pours. A separate designer draws. A separate estimator prices. Each one is a real business with its own schedule, its own crews, and its own other jobs.
That model works, and plenty of good homes are built with it. But every boundary between two companies is a place where information can be dropped and where responsibility can be argued about. When your build has ten of those boundaries, the schedule is only as good as the weakest handoff in the chain.
You feel it in three specific ways.
- Schedule. A crew that is late to your site is not late to their own business. They are on somebody else’s job. Your builder can ask, but cannot reassign them.
- Pricing a change. You want to move a wall. That request goes out to a designer, then to an estimator, then back. Days become weeks, and meanwhile the build waits or proceeds on the old plan.
- When something is wrong. This is the one that matters. If the concrete cracks, is that the excavation, the pour, or the design? Three companies, three answers, and you are in the middle holding the invoice.
What we do instead
Integrity Homes is part of a group of affiliated companies that between them cover the work from the first cut in the dirt to the last thing installed in the yard.
- Site preparation, grading, excavation and foundations are handled by High Grade Concrete & Excavation.
- Outdoor living and pool installation come through Envision 1 Builders and San Juan Pools.
- Design, drafting and estimating happen in house.
That last one is quieter than the others and it changes the most. When the person who draws the change and the person who prices it work in the same building as the person building your house, a plan change comes back to you in days rather than weeks. You are not waiting on three companies to find time for each other.
Where you actually notice it
The site work is not a separate project
On most builds, the dirt work happens before the builder is really engaged, and any surprise found down there becomes a renegotiation. Soil that will not compact, drainage that runs the wrong way, a rock shelf where the basement was going. When the excavation company and the building company are the same organization, that finding reaches the people planning your house immediately, and it gets solved as part of the build rather than as a claim against it.
A change costs a conversation, not a chain of emails
Most clients change something. That is the point of building rather than buying. What decides whether that is a good experience is how long it takes to get a real answer on what the change costs and what it does to the schedule.
Nobody can point at anybody else
This is the whole argument in one sentence. When the excavator and the builder are the same organization, there is no gap for a problem to fall into and nobody to point at. You have one number to call, and the answer is not going to be that it belongs to a different company.
What to ask any builder you are considering
This applies whether or not you build with us. Five questions separate a coordinated build from a loose chain of subcontractors.
- Who does the site work, and do you employ them or hire them? If the answer is a name you have never heard, ask who is responsible if what is found down there changes the plan.
- How long does it take to get a price on a change? Ask for a real number in days. Ask what it depends on.
- Who draws the plan changes? In house or sent out? Sent out means a queue you cannot see.
- If something fails in year two, who do I call? One name is the right answer. Three names is the problem.
- Can I see a home you finished more than five years ago? New homes all look good. Older ones tell you what the work was actually like.
A builder who answers these easily is telling you their process is settled. A builder who has to check is telling you something too.
Who is behind this
Founder Lawrence Balerio has earned 13 Parade of Homes awards across four featured homes during his building career, including recognition for floor plan design, kitchens, master suites, interior design, landscaping, creativity, Realtor’s Choice, and People’s Choice. Integrity Homes builds homes to meet or exceed current Mesa County energy code requirements, with a focus on energy efficiency, comfort, durability, and long-term value.
You can read more about our team, or see how a build runs from first consultation to keys in hand.
Start wherever you are
- Homes for sale across Grand Junction, Clifton and Montrose.
- Floor plans, if you would rather build than buy what is standing.
- Our communities: Monument Ridge Estates, Vista Mesa and River Stone.
- Build on your lot, if you already own the land.
Not sure which of those applies to you?
The Home Design Quiz takes a few minutes and asks about your timing, your budget and how you actually live. We come back with the path and the plans that fit what you described.
Or schedule a private tour and ask us the five questions above in person. Call 970-255-6520.