Home Builders Kansas City

In building your dream — be it a custom home in KC or renovation of your existing home — you are faced with many decisions. None is more important, however, than your choice of a custom home builder in Kansas City.

Your relationship with your home builder is one of longevity – spanning from assistance with selecting your lot to active participation in designing your custom home to, of course constructing your home, and finally to warranting your home after completion.

The whole experience of bringing your dream to reality should be exciting & fun, and you deserve peace-of-mind that your builder is working for you and with you. You will place extensive trust in your KC builder, given the key role your builder plays in determining the quality of your experience. Ultimately, you will have to take some level of a “leap of faith” by putting your trust in a builder at the onset of your project. We hope to ease you toward that “leap” by describing the principles that drive us and by presenting our business approach.

At Forner – La Voy Builders, premier Kansas City custom home builders, our principles are simple, but uncompromising:

• We believe in honest, straightforward dialog.
• We believe that constructing a home is a blend of art and science…

…Art in the sense that your home starts as a two-dimensional set of blueprints that provides a portion of the guidance required to construct your home. We combine our decades of home building and client service experience with the expertise of many of the area’s finest craftsmen to construct the three-dimensional structure that becomes your home.

…Science in the sense that we believe that your satisfaction is just as much a function of what happens behind the walls as what goes on the walls. And we employ a Our Approach that is rooted in the fundamentals of project management and client service.

• We don’t stray from the tough questions, particularly when it comes to construction cost. While many KC home builders will provide you a low-cost estimate to get their foot in the door, only to have costs escalate throughout the project, we strive to provide you up-front with a completed, final price, not a starting price.
• And finally, we believe you as a homeowner should always be able to “go right to the top”. As such, your relationship will be with the owners of our company. Rick Forner and James La Voy will remain your key points of contact throughout our relationship.

What’s Behind the Walls Does Matter

We have a favorite saying at Forner – La Voy: “What is behind the walls (and floors and ceilings) DOES matter.” A hallmark of Forner – La Voy Builders, and of Rick Forner Builders before that, has always been quality – and not just in the areas you see.

In discussing our building practices with you, we look at your home in two parts: the “shell” or “structure” of your home (foundation, framing, mechanical systems, insulation, etc.); and the “finish” part of your home (light & plumbing fixtures, appliances, tile, etc.). Forner – La Voy will construct your “shell” based on our quality practices. We will then “finish” your home in the fashion most pleasing to you!

Our quality focus is soundly grounded in the principles of Building Science…

…the study of how all systems of a structure function together to optimize building performance and prevent building failure. This includes the detailed analysis of energy and moisture flows, building materials, building envelopes and mechanical systems.

Our quality measures start from the ground up. We take extensive measures to ensure superior foundation strength and longevity, as well as to control and manage ground water infiltration.

Our homes are highly energy efficient and comfortable – from 2×6 exterior walls; to tightly sealing your home with insulating products; to choosing and properly installing high-efficiency windows/doors and heating & cooling systems.

Our use of engineered lumber and specifications for dried & quality dimensional lumber, combined with our extensive framing quality checks result in minimized drywall cracks & “nail pops”, and eliminate binding doors & windows and floor squeaks. And we use insulation and certain plumbing materials to control sound between key rooms.

All together, our quality practices result in a home that performs to the highest Building Science standards, not just in year one but for many years to come. These quality practices have been defined and refined and are at the heart of our approach to constructing your home.

Realistic Cost Conversations

Have you ever discussed your ideas for a home with a builder and, at the conclusion of the conversation asked them for an estimate based on that brief discussion? And the response was probably “well, it depends on a lot of factors,” but then those factors were not defined and quantified; thus, nor was an estimate?

At Forner – La Voy, our answer too will be “it depends”. The difference is, we can tell you what it depends upon.

In discussing construction costs with you, we break costs into two parts: the “shell” or “structure” costs (foundation, framing, mechanical systems, insulation, etc.); and the “finish” costs (light & plumbing fixtures, appliances, tile, etc.). After analyzing actual cost data from the many homes we’ve built, we found something quite interesting. We found that regardless of the house, our normalized “shell” costs fell within a very narrow range. Our “finish” costs, however, varied from house to house.

We then ascertained what it was about certain “finish” costs that caused such cost fluctuations. The net result is, we are able to discuss some general parameters about your house – size, floor plan (one-and-a-half story, reverse story-and-a-half, ranch, etc.), atypical amenities like sports courts or swimming pools, etc. – have you answer a few questions about your finish tastes, and then provide you with a relatively accurate estimate of your construction costs.

In fact, we have collected those questions and built an on-line “Dream Home Calculator”. If you are in interested finding out what it would cost to build your dream home, click here.