u/SeasTheDay_

My wife and I have been considering building a home using a pre-engineered steel building as the base structure for a barndo. The idea is to have a slab poured, then have a 24X50 steel building built on it. We'd sprayfoam the underside of the roof, then frame out the interior walls with 2x6 studs and something like Rockwool insulation.

We'd hire the plumbing out, but I'd do the electrical myself (I was an IBEW electrician in my younger days). HVAC would be a mini-split on each end, and we'd seal the slab for the concrete floor. One of our ideas is to have a glass panel garage door at the front of the great room that opens onto the deck/patio for an indoor/outdoor living space.

I'm sure other people have done this, so I'm wondering if anyone has any tips or warnings when taking this route.

We're in Western North Carolina, so there are a lot of steel building companies within a couple of hours of the property. If anyone has any recommendations for a good company, I'd love to hear it.

We already have septic and well permits, and there's power on the site.

We currently have a Bryant Evolution heat pump/AC system that we had installed when we bought this house in 2007. By 2018, the outdoor unit died, so we had that replaced. This system came with a programmable thermostat that has been wonky since day one. The outdoor temp is always ten degrees off, and the inside temp gets stuck, and the unit needs to be reset.

Now, the thermostat has finally died entirely (schedule button does nothing, and the interior temp is permanently stuck).

Since our local HVAC contractor will only replace the thermostat with an identical model (for $2000), I've decided to swap the thing myself. I've verified that a SYSTXBBECC01-C thermostat (which is a newer model) will work with this system. Other than shutting the power off and swapping out the unit, what else needs to be done to get this system back up and running?

For background, I was an electrician back in my younger days, and I specialized in fire alarm systems, so I'm comfortable swapping out a thermostat without burning the house down.

My wife and I just closed on 12-ish acres of property in western North Carolina. There's power on the property, and a graded build site. Access is pretty easy (no steep grades).

Back in March, we found a builder with good reviews. They responded to emails fairly quickly, and we had a long phone call with them. Around a month ago, they did a site visit with us. They seemed very knowledgeable, and they told us that they just finished a large project and were ready to take on new work.

The issue is that they take 1-2 weeks to respond to emails. They do not respond to texts at all (after the initial round back in March). We've closed on the property, and want to get work started, but I'm worried that these 1-2 week delays (this is sorting out the basics for what we want in the house) will really push things down the road. We also have no idea what we're looking at cost-wise yet, so this makes it hard to plan anything.

They usually reply to phone calls, but always end with "we'll send you X", and it's another 1-2 weeks waiting. Is this common with contractors/builders?