Your Custom Home by Hepler Homes

Hepler Homes Home Building Process

Get ready to have some fun with your custom home! As a new custom home builder in Winchester, Virginia, the Hepler Homes team works with you to build your dream home. Hepler Homes listens to your desires for your home and works with you every step of the way to help design a custom home tailored to your lifestyle. You get to choose the right products, design, and amenities for you and your family, so your home is exactly how you imagined it.

Our Home Building Process

Hepler Homes’ custom homes are built from the heart. Our team of home contractors has been building homes in the Winchester, VA, and Northern Shenandoah Valley area since 1994. Over the years, we have refined and perfected the home-building process. Here are the five main steps you go through when building your forever home.

Getting Started

Your dream home journey begins with a personal consultation with Dave at Hepler Homes. During this initial meeting, we’ll discuss your vision, goals, and priorities so we can create a clear plan for bringing your ideas to life. Building a custom home involves many decisions, but our team is here to guide you every step of the way. Here are the key parts of this stage:

Questions: We’ll help you consider important lifestyle factors, such as whether you work from home, how long you plan to stay in your new home, and whether you already own land or need assistance finding the perfect lot.

Design: Whether you already have plans or are starting from scratch, our team will work closely with you to design or modify home plans that match your style, needs, and vision.

Estimates: Once your plan is in place and you’ve selected finishes and fixtures, we’ll break down the entire building process. Every detail, from materials to labor, is accounted for to
ensure transparency and peace of mind.

Budget: Our team will provide thoughtful solutions to help you stay within budget while still
achieving a home that exceeds your expectations.

Green Home Builders: If sustainability is important to you, we have the knowledge and tools to
help design and build an energy-efficient, environmentally conscious home.

Pre-Construction

Once you have made the decision that Hepler Homes is the builder for you, the pre-construction phase is used to agree on a contract, which will contain all of the detailed requirements, the home plans, and the pricing. This will be the most critical phase of the building process, as you will have to live with the decisions you make, and for this reason, we work very closely with you to ensure we meet your expectations.

Breaking Ground

Breaking ground is the first step that moves beyond the paper and pencil and into the construction of your home. At this stage, you will visit the construction site and walk through the land with Hepler Homes. This time is used to place the house, establish the setback, and analyze the elevation requirements. The Hepler Homes team will work with you to define which trees should remain and which should be brought down based on the current landscape. This is also the time when the location of utilities is identified, including wells, septic, electric, and everything else that goes into and out of your home. The two main parts of this phase are laying down the foundation of your home and setting up the framing, creating an outline or shell of your dream home.

Foundation: This is the time your dreams start to become a reality. After the site work has been completed, digging and pouring the footings and foundation can begin. This is an exciting time; this phase gives you a greater understanding of the footprint of the home. Hepler Homes utilizes this phase to ensure that reinforcements are properly sized to carry the load and implement a waterproofing system to maintain a dry below-grade area.

Framing: If you found the foundation phase to be exciting, the framing will be awesome. Once the framing crew has completed the first floor deck, you will now be able to walk around your new home for the first time. The framing phase can take from 2 weeks to 2 months, depending on the complexity of the home and weather conditions. Each day will bring significant change; you will be able to observe the installation of the walls, roof, and windows during this time. This phase can also bring the opportunity for some on-site changes. This will be the first time that you will be able to observe actual proportions and architectural details. Often, this phase can accommodate minor changes, such as an interior wall movement or adding or moving a closet.

Rough-Ins

This is the most exciting phase of building your new house. This is where your new home starts to really take shape. During this phase, our construction crew and subcontractors will be installing the inner workings of your new home. At this time, you get to do a walk-through. The walk-through can last anywhere from 1 ½ hours to 4 hours. Your contractor is right there by your side, and you will spend time getting to see and choose how things will be laid out. During the walk-through, we will define the placement of many utilities and home features, such as plumbing and lighting.

We bring a team of people to the walk-through so we have everyone there for support and expert advice. Here is where you get to make decisions on placement of your outlets (do you want extra outlets for candle warmers, higher outlets in the bedroom for cell phone chargers, etc), where the recessed lights are placed, and where the TV and Cable outlets are going. Before the walk-through, we draw out the placement of the Kitchen Cabinets on the floor so you can see where they go. This is where you get to add all of the special touches that customize your new home to your family.

Finishes

The final stage of the home-building process is adding all the finishes to your dream home, which really brings the home together and completes your vision. Finishes range from interior to exterior, to even your backyard, so every inch of your dream home has your finishing touch.

Interior Finishes: Interior finishing includes the drywall, painting, trim, door installation, cabinet installation, hardwood floors, carpeting, and ceramic tile. Once the major features are installed, painting will begin on all interior walls and trim. The painting process can take 1 – 4 weeks, depending on the amount of painted trim in your home. When the painting is complete, light fixtures, countertops, appliances, plumbing fixtures, mirrors, shower doors, security systems, and door knobs are installed.

Exterior Finishes: Simultaneously with the interior work being completed, the exterior will also be completed. The exterior finishes may include brick, stone, vinyl, wood, and Hardi-board. These exterior selections should be decided based on two factors: the character of the home you wish to exude and the weather factors that may make one exterior selection better than another. Hepler Homes will work with you to determine the best option and offer unbiased suggestions.

Landscaping: Once the exterior is complete, landscaping can begin. In our experience, this phase is not considered enough by the homeowner during the planning phase. It is good to keep in mind that the various aspects of landscaping can easily cost more than you think. With this in mind, we suggest that you spend time evaluating your landscape needs and desires during the house planning phase, and you should consider bringing the cost of this phase into your contract.

Less Stress, More Communication

Construction industry exit polls show that most homeowners feel building their new home was a stressful and negative experience. We at Hepler Homes are here to change that image and opinion. We believe creating your new custom home should be an exciting and fun experience. We strive to build strong relationships both within and outside our team to ensure the best working team possible. At Hepler Homes, we do our homework and research to navigate you through the complexities of building your new dream home.

At Hepler Homes, the focus is on being the best new home builders. The Hepler Homes team does substantial research and understands the impacts of the decisions made to build your custom home. Constant, effective communication with homeowners and contractors helps to keep the project on task and on time. Hepler Homes uses only the best materials and incorporates green building and energy-saving techniques wherever possible in our custom home building.

Choose Hepler Homes to Build Your Dream Home

Ready to build your dream home? All you have to do is just give us a call or schedule an initial consultation with Dave! The best part of using a premier custom home builder to help you build your dream home is that you do not have to worry about any of the logistics, planning, or construction. All you have to do is sit back, give your input on customization and personalization, and enjoy the process. Contact Hepler Homes today to get started!