Hey guys! Can you help a girl out? I have a few questions.
1. Initial meeting with Guardian, what should we expect? Do they go over where the standard placement of the outlets and such are, or should I go to the model and see?
2. Does lighting come standard or are there choices? When does this take place?
3. How are you guys getting into the homes to take pictures during the building the process? I know one blogger has been locked out. =( Around here, once the dorr handles are on, it's pretty much the same way.
4. How many of you have pretty regular contact with your PMs? How did that occur? Was it their idea? Yours? Just happen?
I'm sure there are more questions...but this all I can think of at the moment. Thanks!
Guardian doesnt go over standard electrical outlets...just extras...like over the fireplace for tv mount...
ReplyDeleteThere are upgrades to lighting...such as recessed lighting...This takes place at your meeting with your sales rep pricing and option meeting...before you sign the contract....
Yeah for a while we didnt have a door knob so it was just left open...now that we do its locked down....plus your supposed to go in with a ryan rep....but who follows those rules??? lol
I email my PM to find out whats going on....some PMs call their people....not us..were not that fortunate...
Hope this helps girl :)
1. Guardian Meeting - There is no standard placement for any of the outlets they do (phone, cable, internet) You can put the ones that come with the house anywhere you want and you can add as many as you like. See my blog for a list of everything they will hit you with...everything from the outlets to whole house audio to central vacuum system.
ReplyDelete2. Lighting does come standard, but standard is really on the cheaper end. There are upgrade packages and you can always do it yourself a little at a time. The upgrade packages are actually very nice and the price(markup) is not too much more then you would pay at Lowes or Home Depot...I was able to compare since our local Home Depot sells the exact same lights that we upgraded to.
3. Since we aren't building yet I don't know, but I can surmise that you can always go in when someone is there working on the house, plus you can always make an appointment with your PM, and I believe someone mentioned on their blog that they just stopped by the model home and they had a key.
4. We have been told that the PM will be in regular contact (at least weekly) to keep you apprised of the schedule. From the blogs it sounds like some PMs automatically just call and update where others have had to initiate the contact. Based on what we have been told it is an expectation of Ryan Homes that there be regular and frequent communication with your PM.
After reading the previous comment I realized you may actually have been talking about electrical outlets, so here's my two cents worth on that. You can sit down with your sales rep and go thru the actual electrical plan for your house. We had a bunch of ideas/needs for electrical outlets (see our blog for a list of all the additional outlets we added for ideas). We probably spent 2 hours just going over the electrical plan. The outlets that come with the house in each room are dictated by code...ie it goes something like this...from the opening of the door there has to be an outlet within 6 feet...then every 12 feet from there. There are also additional specs for your kitchen and bathrooms that have different code requirements. Visiting the model will give you an excellent idea of where all the outlets will be placed as well as switches. Things you won't be able to tell exactly from the model is which outlets might be controled by a wall switch which in most rooms it doesn't really matter except your bedrooms...if you already know how you are going to place your bed, you might want to see if the switched outlet is near the bed. Also when you visit the model you won't know for sure if the lighting you are seeing is standard or optional...for example a lot of model homes have under cabinet lighting...this is NOT standard.
ReplyDeleteHope this helps...good luck
I think those two pretty much covered it! I will add that we didn't really research where our electrical outlets were going to be at all, and there was no Sienna model near us to look at. But I am pleased with where they are....I don't think there is a single thing I would change. I'm sitting in my living room right now and I can see 9 outlets...not counting the ones in the kitchen. But if you are talking about cable/phone outlets, we had to choose where we wanted them, but the Guardian rep gave us suggestions based on where other people have placed them. We kind of had an idea how we wanted the rooms set up, so it was pretty easy to do. Also, our PM called every time there was an important new thing going on....like when they started the framing, started the siding, started the electrical work..etc. But we could call him any time we liked and he would call back right away.
ReplyDeleteMy PM called us on a regular basis. At a minimum weekly.
ReplyDeleteWe were able to go into our house at anytime by stopping at the model house in our development and asking for the key once our house had been locked.
For the lighting the sales rep should be able to show you what the light fixtures look like and the upgrades available. They don't put overhead lights in every room so you have the option to add those or do rough-ins (either ceiling fan and light or just light) and add them yourself later. They have a switched outlet in every room so you can have lamps on the switches. We didn't add too many electrical outlets - just ones that needed to be higher on the wall for tvs and one in the walk-in master closet.
ReplyDeleteThere is an official policy on visiting the house and I believe it says that you're supposed to go with either the PM or sales rep - I think it's a liability issue. Our PM said he doesn't mind us stopping by any time and once it's locked then we'll just have to stop by the model to get the key from the sales rep.
Every PM is different in how often they update. Ours said that he'll only contact us when needed - to schedule meetings or communicate major changes. He is always available via phone or email and returns messages within 24 hours.
I think everyone covered your questions. Whenever the door was locked (which wasn't often) we just stopped by the model to get a key. They were very good about that.
ReplyDeleteOur PM was in touch with us at least once per week. We're still getting calls from him.
If you are planning on a fan rough-in to install a fan/light combo, you can request them to have two switches - so you can control the fan and light separately rather than pulling the cords to control. We chose tray ceiling in the Master Bedroom - requested an outlet behind the tray ceiling so we can run the lights behind them.
ReplyDeleteWith Guardian - i confirmed that all new installations for flat screen TV rough-in come with HDMI 1.4 specification (which is needed to work with 3D TV)