Most schedule slips on a custom home don't happen on site. They happen in the eight weeks before it, when a decision that should have been made in March is still open in May. On Lot 14 in Almaden, the custom home in our projects, we wrote a 26-week schedule in March and handed over keys in week 26. Nothing about the lot made that easy: a protected oak covered a third of the buildable area and the footings had to step around its roots. It held because of three rules.
Rule one: nothing starts until everything is drawn.
Our pre-construction phase on Lot 14 ran ten weeks. In that time we produced a full architectural set, a structural set with 14 sheets, a Title 24 energy report, a soils report with two borings, and a 212-line selections list that named every fixture, tile and paint color in the house. The owners signed the list on the 7th of March. After that date, a change to the list was a change order, and there was exactly one: a different pendant over the island.
That sounds rigid. It is the opposite. A crew that knows the tile is already in a warehouse can set the shower pan on the Tuesday the schedule says, instead of the Tuesday three weeks later when the tile finally arrives.
Rule two: one superintendent, one framing crew, start to finish.
Lot 14 had 11 trades on site over 26 weeks, but only one person was there every day: the superintendent, Luis, who has run 40 of our houses. The framing crew of six stayed from the sill plates in week four to the last piece of exterior trim in week fourteen. When the same six people frame the walls, set the trusses and hang the windows, the second-floor walls land on the first-floor plates within an eighth of an inch, and the window installer does not spend a day shimming.
The numbers: the frame went up in 21 working days. The ridge beam over the great room, a 32-foot glulam, was set on a single morning with a crane booked three weeks ahead.
Rule three: a two-week look-ahead, every Friday, in writing.
Every Friday afternoon the superintendent writes a two-week look-ahead and sends it to the owners, the architect and every trade with work in that window. It lists what will happen each day, who is on site, which inspections are called, and what decision, if any, is still needed from the owners. On Lot 14 we sent 26 of them. Nine asked for a decision. All nine were answered before the following Monday, because the question came with a date attached.
What the schedule looked like.
| Stage | Weeks | Working days |
|---|---|---|
| Survey, stakes, excavation | 0–1 | 7 |
| Foundation | 2–3 | 9 |
| Frame to dried in | 4–10 | 33 |
| Roof, siding, rough trades | 11–16 | 29 |
| Interior finish | 17–24 | 39 |
| Flatwork, landscape, final | 25–26 | 10 |
The three days of slack in that plan were spent on a rain week in April. The schedule had a float column from the start, which is the honest way to promise a date: not "we'll be done in 26 weeks" but "the work is 24 weeks and we have two in hand."
What it costs to hold a schedule.
It costs decisions, early. Owners sometimes ask whether they can pick the kitchen tile "once the walls are up and they can see the light". The answer is yes, and the schedule will slip four weeks, because the tile has a six-week lead time and the plumber cannot set a valve to a tile thickness nobody has chosen. We say that out loud in the first meeting. The owners who want the date pick the tile in March. Most do.
The schedule is not a promise about the weather. It is a promise about the decisions.
If you want to see those 26 weeks, the Almaden case study shows the house at weeks 3, 10 and 26.