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Home Construction Pennsylvania

Home construction in Pennsylvania has taken a downturn over the past several years as a result of the recession, but it is on its way back up. Home construction in Pennsylvania began more than 400 years ago, when the English colony was first established. The best early examples of home construction in Pennsylvania can be found in the city of Philadelphia, which served as the capital of the United States during the early years of the republic. Many of the homes built with strong brick and mortar during that time, including the house of Benjamin Franklin, are still standing today.

Home construction in Pennsylvania increased greatly during the industrial revolution, as more people moved into cities like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Harrisburg, and again after World War II as the creation of the suburbs made the dream of having a new home popular among middle class Americans. Home building increased rapidly in the 1990s and the start of the 21st century, but has dropped drastically over the past three years. Today, home construction in Pennsylvania remains well below the levels of a decade ago.

Home construction in Pennsylvania has changed with new ideas and technologies, multiple construction methods are now being offered. The traditional method is to allow homebuilders to use generic designs used many times and to let them handle construction themselves. They handle the design, produce construction drawings, oversee bids and contracts and the building process itself.

With more expensive homes where the client wants a specialized design, the contractor can win a project through the lowest blind bid or through the construction manager at-risk method, where the contractor guarantees to deliver the project within a guaranteed maximum price. Instead of simply serving as construction manager, the contractor also serves as a consultant to the owner during the design and development processes.

The design-build method has been increasing in popularity in home construction in Pennsylvania over the past decade. In design-build, the owner doesn't hire an architect to design the project, then seeks bids from a contractor. In this case, the owner solicits bids from a architect/contractor teams, who develop their own designs and include complete design and construction costs in their bids. This is different from the traditional process, where the architect completes the design before the contractors put in their bids.

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