Deciding Where to Build

The first step in building a home is choosing the right location. The Northern Wasatch Front has many beautiful cities and communities to choose from.. To assist you in this highly personal decision, we have provided a link to every city in Davis and Weber counties with web sites. Simply follow the links to learn more about each of our communities. Once you have chosen your city, please feel free to return to our Directory to find a quality builder to assist you in building your next dream home.

Cities in Davis County

Approximate Populations of Davis County Cities (2000) City Population Date Incorporated Bountiful 41,000 December 5, 1892 Centerville 16,000 May 5, 1915 Clearfield 26,000 July 17, 1922 Clinton 14,000 August 29, 1936 Farmington 13,000 December 15, 1892 Fruit Heights 5,400 August 3, 1939 Kaysville 21,000 March 15, 1868 Layton 63,000 December 30, 1937 N. Salt Lake 10,000 September 3, 1946 S. Weber 4,500 December 2, 1920 Sunset 5,200 August 27, 1938 Syracuse 10,000 September 3, 1935 W. Bountiful 5,000 December 31,1948 West Point 7,300 October 14, 1935 Woods Cross 6,000 September 4, 1930 Unicorporated Davis County 2,500 ------

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 Cities in Weber County

Cities
Farr West | Harrisville | Huntsville | Hooper | Marriott-Slaterville | North Ogden | Ogden | Plain City
Pleasant View | Riverdale | Roy | South Ogden |Uintah | Washington Terrace | West Haven

Unincorporated Areas
Eden | Liberty | Nordic Valley | Reese | Taylor | Warren | West Weber

Finding the Right Builder for You

Choosing a Builder

The Northern Wasatch HBA receives many calls from potential home buyers asking for recommendations and advice on how to select a builder. Building a new home is probably one of the most important decisions you will make. Doing your homework before hiring a contractor will increase the overall success in building your home.
The NWHBA offers a free Building & Remodeling Resource guide containing valuable advice on building a new home. The guide also contains a membership directory, listing all contractors, subcontractors, and associates who have joined the association and by doing so have agreed to conduct business under a code of ethics policy issued by the Northern Wasatch HBA.
If you take the following steps, you will likely maintain a good working relationship with your contractor for the duration of the building or remodeling process. Investigate the list of builders in our directory and compile a list of potential builders. Obtain bids from three or four builders, but remember the lowest bid isn't necessarily the best. Let the builder know you are not only interested in the lowest bid, but quality. An important thing to remember is that dissatisfaction with poor quality far outlasts any pleasure you may get from a low price. There are those who earn their living repairing low bids.
If you compare all builders' bids, be sure each one is based on the same set of plans and specifications, quality of materials, etc. If a builder suggests deviations, ask him to present those ideas as options.
Call the Better Business Bureau at             1-800-456-3907       for further references on the builder you have selected. We encourage you to use members of a homebuilder association because they subscribe to a high code of ethics as mentioned above. Know what each bid includes and make sure to have it in writing.
Before you start, ask these questions from past clients of builders you are considering:

• Did the builder communicate well with you and were there any misunderstandings?
• How pleased were you with the quality of work as it was completed?
• Was the builder ethical and were you satisfied with the builder's business practices?
• Would you as a homeowner buy another home from this builder?
• Were there cost overruns and how were they handled?
• Did the builder fulfill the contract on time?
• Did the builder follow through in a timely manner after the close of the loan to finalize any remaining details?

Ask your contractor for a tentative job schedule. Talk about change orders. Find out the procedure they use for placing change orders. Always get change orders approved and signed for.
Warranties
An important area in selecting a builder is if a warranty is provided on the home. Most reputable builders provide a warranty on their materials and workmanship typically for one year. Having the warranty expectations and your builders promises in writing will prevent any misunderstanding.
Final Walk-Through
Once your home is completed, have a final walk-through with the builder or his representative. Make sure you and the builder write down the items that need to be corrected. Don't be alarmed if you find a few things not up to your standard. A completed home is the sum of many individual mechanical operations and materials. It isn't unusual for small things to be missed. The builder should then give you a projected date of completion for corrections.
Last but not least, move in and enjoy your beautiful new home!
View our 2006 Design and Build Your Dream Home Publication

Find a Contractor

Building a new home? Need new windows or a new furnace? The NWHBA can help you find the right contractor for the job. Submit the details of your construction project to us and we(ll do the rest. Your request will be forwared to member contractors who specialize in the type of work you require. The contractors will then contact you directly to arrange an estimate.

5 Time Management Tips For Busy People

These days it seems that just about everyone feels rushed, with not enough time to get everything done.

It’s very tempting to schedule more activities than we can realistically manage into our day, too. But studies show that the stress of having more to do than we can manage, actually leads to health problems, such as increased blood pressure, gastric problems, anxiety and fatigue.

Effectively managing your time does require some planning and persistence. But, the payoff comes in being able to get more done, with less stress in your life. All of that equals a healthier, happier you.

Here are 5 tips to help you manage your time more effectively.

1. Keep a record of your plans.

Making a note of everything you need to do in advance helps you to control your schedule, and ensures you don’t miss anything that needs to be done.

To get a sense of the bigger picture, write down your appointments and activities for the week on a calendar, or a wall planner, then you can plan more effectively as a result.

2. Prioritize

Once you have your weekly plans set out in writing, decide which of those activities are most important, and highlight them in some way. This will help you to see clearly which are urgent, and which can perhaps be rescheduled, or eliminated.

It’s important to prioritize based on what is most important to you, rather than what you feel “should” be important.

Spending time with an old friend may be more important to your personal well being than taking on an extra client, or completing a remodeling project in your home. It’s up to you.

The more you prioritize your time around what really matters to you, the greater the sense of happiness and control you will have in your life.

3. Weed out the unimportant

If you find your schedule is over booked, it’s time to decide which activities you can cut back on, or eliminate altogether.

Perhaps an appointment can be rescheduled to make room for spending time with your family, take a course you’ve always wanted to take, or to simply allow for some chill-out time.

Don’t be afraid to be a bit ruthless in cutting unimportant activities out of your schedule in favour of the things which matter most.

4. Turn off the TV

Television is a wonderful invention, but unfortunately most people spend way too much of their time in front of the box.

There’s nothing wrong with watching a program you’re really interested in seeing, but if you find yourself aimlessly channel hopping, it’s time to get up and do something else.

5. Schedule some time for peaceful relaxation

Though this may seem counterproductive at first, it’s important to recognize the importance of “down time” for maintaining a sense of happiness and well-being.

Taking a few minutes each day to exercise, read a book, or simply engage in quiet reflection, will help to recharge your batteries for the rest of the day.

In fact, timeout to relax and rejuvenate actually makes us more productive when we go back to complete our daily tasks. Remember, constant stress reduces your ability to concentrate and get things done, while lowering your resistance to colds, flu and other health problems.

Ultimately, time management is simply a matter of becoming more aware of how you spend your time, and opting to spend it on what matters most to you.

Melanie Thomassian is a registered dietitian, and author of Dietriffic.com. If you need help implementing a healthier lifestyle, check out her new guide, the Healthy Eating Handbook.

10 Healthy Weight Loss Tips

In this economy, who wants to pay for different liposuction prices when you can just lose the weight naturally? You’ll live healthier, feel better about yourself and work towards a goal. But how do you do this? Well, there are some steps you can take.


1. Exercise is still critical.People are looking at 150 minutes of exercise a week. The good news is that whereas a few years ago when it was recommended to work out five times, 30 minutes a day, now there are benefits to working out three times a day for just 10 minutes each, and it’s just as effective as the 30 minute workout! Park the car further away and walk into work, or get off the bus a couple of stops earlier.

2. Reward yourself. It’s tough to imagine but you have to be your biggest cheerleader. Not everyone is going to pat you on the back every time you lose ten pounds, but why don’t you treat yourself to a nice little trinket under $10 if you do manage that? It’s much cheaper than, say a chin liposuction cost.

3. Find out why you overeat. There are many factors – such as stress, depression, anger, loneliness… Emotions make people eat more, and there are books that deal with these issues and offer alternatives. Or if you really need help, a counselor can steer you in the right direction.

4. Join a weight management group. No matter what you do, you need support from like-minded people. A support group can help you because then you know you’re not alone. You can even share stories of how you fear something like an abdominal liposuction.

5. Make small changes. This is NOT “The Biggest Loser”, if you lose 20 pounds in a week, you’ve lost mostly muscle and water. Ideally, you should lose 1-2 pounds every week, and that can be attained by cutting 250-500 calories from your diet and working out for another 250-500 calories.

6. Portion Control. In this day and age when steaks can be 3 or 4 pounds, it’s hard to imagine that you should only eat half of what’s on your plate, but why not save some of it for a couple of hours from now, to cut down on the “Full” feeling?

7. Eat Slower. This should be common sense. When you eat, it requires about 15-20 minutes before you feel the impact of the food. This is why those contest eaters eat quickly. They don’t feel it until later. By eating slower, your body will react and you’ll feel satisfied more than stuffed.

8. Be healthy, not thin. Many people look forward to getting into that size 6 dress or those size 34 jeans, but you can’t do it if your sole focus is to stay thin. Focus more on eating foods that make you healthy.

9. Muscles are huge fat burners. Work to become stronger. Bodybuilders eat thousands of calories a day because they have so much muscle they need to eat to maintain it. Muscle is active tissue but fat is not.

10. Eat smart. Everyone sees “fat-free” foods and figures they can pig out on them. Not so fast. The calories in a fat free food are often as many as in their fatty counterparts. And even though 10-15% of the calories are burned converting the carbs and proteins to fat, that doesn’t give a free reign to eat all you want. Watch more than just fat grams.

With these tips, you can be on your way to a healthier and more active you. Why spend thousands in liposuction costs when you can avoid it entirely by making some minor changes to your life?

A Brief History of Kites & How to Build One Yourself

People have been flying kites for a very long time. There is a lack of archeological evidence of kites due to their fragile nature and all that remains are depictions and references to them in paintings, frescos, poems, written records and oral traditions. The oldest surviving kites are about two hundred years old. The oldest reference to a kite is over two thousand years old. One fact that is known for sure is that kite flying is more popular now than ever. There are huge kite festivals all around the world. The biggest being the Indian Ahmedabad Kite Festival which takes place on January 14th of each year where kites by the millions are estimated to fly during the two day festival that mark the end of winter.

Kite flying probably began as a tool to communicate with the spirits of ancient people’s animistic world. The Mayans are thought to have communicated with their ancestors by attaching messages to large disk shaped kites, as practiced in festivals by their descendants today in Central America. The Chinese are 

generally credited as being some of the earliest people to build and fly kites. They                                        Squeaky the

                                                                                                                                                                                                           Octupus

had the ideal materials to work with, silk and bamboo, both light in weight and 

strong. Kite building became an art form that seem to have developed independently around the world then spread and mingled with one another to create a myriad of new styles and design.

Kite 30" Diamond Unicorn                                                              Detonator - Dragon Ball                                              Mahi Fish

                                                        

Curiously Europeans are thought to not know about kites until Marco Polo brought back detailed descriptions of Chinese kites in the late 13th century. I find it hard to believe that ordinary people of Europe did not fly kites until over a thousand years later than the rest of the world. There is a drawing from 4th century BC Greece of a girl flying a kite. It follows that if Greek and Roman children played with kites then pre-medieval European children must have also.
Just as the textile technology enabled kite building on a broader scale, modern technology has spurned the growth of the kite industry to new heights. Using carbon fibers, graphite, Mylar, Kevlar, Tyvek and other space age materials in conjunction with modern design tools like computer modeling and wind tunneltesting, kite designers have been able to work around many of the old constraints of size, strength and weight and have created an enormous diversity of kites. Just about any object can be replicated as a kite and flown.

                                                                                                                         

Jolly Roger Penta Kite                                                                 Spongebob Diamond Kite                          Prism Jazz Stunt Kite (Spectrum)





See More: Kites

Want to design a kite to fly on Mars? Now you can with this nifty kite modeling program developed by a team of NASA scientists from the Glenn Research Center.
Interactive Kite Modeler Version 1.4a
Take the Guided Tour and let NASA explain the math and science principles of kite building and flying.

How to Build a Kite

How To Keep A Tidier House With No Effort At All

Some of us are naturally untidy. We just can’t seem to help ourselves. We place our coffee mugs down on the corner table and forget to take them back to the kitchen. We come in the door, chuck our hat and coat on the nearest chair, and they never quite make it to the cupboard. There are millions of us living with houses that never look their best, with clothes, washing up and hoovering always needing doing.


By changing your mindset and basic rules of behaviour, you can tidy your house without having to do anything. For example, take the hat and coat problem. All you have to do is designate a place where they go – the understairs cupboard and the coat peg – and do not put them down unless it is in the right place. This way, you do not get a proliferation of outdoors weather gear building up by the door.

Another trick is to treat a tidy house as a reward. When things start getting out of control, put away a few things – just 5 or 6. You’ll feel better for it, and the room will look nicer. A little while later, put away a few more things. You’ll gradually reinforce the idea in yourself that tidying brings about a positive response. The most important thing when starting off is only to tidy when you feel like it – make it a chore, and it won’t work.

A further idea, and one that has really helped me, is to tack a little bit extra onto every bit of work I do around the house. Take washing up, for instance. Once you are finished with the dishes and have wiped down the tops, try to do a little 5 minute job that you don’t do every week. Clean out a cupboard, give the windows a quick once over, clean out the fridge – any quick job that needs doing. This way you will raise the overall cleanliness and tidiness of the house without having to make the effort and set some time aside.

Lastly, for all the tea and coffee fiends out there, spoons and dirty cups can stack up quickly. Get into the habit of washing, drying and putting away every spoon you use and you will soon end up with a never-ending supply of clean, dry spoons. And with cups? Clean your mug or cup every time you use it. Just giving it a quick rinse out can leave stains around the top and bottom but a 1 minute scrub is all that is needed to keep it squeaky clean.

And, after all that tidying, you might be in need of a good massage. Alex, who wrote this article, works for The Sanctuary, a London spa that has a wide range of skin treatments and also offers beauty products such as body butter (ideal for hydrating hands stripped by cleaning products).