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Progress as of 7/2/09

Chris — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:18:29 GMT

How things change

Pat in Playa del Rey, CA — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:29:41 GMT

A lot has changed since my last posting. We are no longer going with Viceroy for our home. Our 12 month price lock-in expired in May, and since prices here for labor and materials have really dropped there is no incentive to go with a Canadian company and have the materials shipped in.

We are now designing our own home and having the shell constructed through dry-in by a local contractor that is experienced in ICF foundations and SIPS construction. The plans are being drawn up now and we are pushing to start construction in October,but if we miss that deadline then the snow is going to be on us too fast and will have to wait until Spring to start.

We just ordered our geo-soil test to be done for the bearing capacity of the soil. It's a whopping $4650. Our concept and full construction drawings are running $12,000.

Our financing is presently set to go through our local bank, Pacific State Bank, that allows owner/builders.

Assembling the scrapbook

Donna in Wimauma, FL — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:45:35 GMT

We are scheduled to meet with the designer (Jason) on Saturday July 11, 2009. Between now and then we will be putting together a scrapbook of floor plans we like, exterior designs we like, and some of the details of the interior. It is going pretty well. Having gone to the home show last weekend, we have a small mountain of stuff to wade through. It has actually been fun to look at everything.

So, the scrapbook assembly has begun. I'll let you know what happens after we meet with Jason.

Goldilocks and the Three Architects (cont.)

Mary in Lititz, PA — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:43:33 GMT

On a cool rainy afternoon John and I met with Architect #3 at his home/office. He lives in-town in an older, smallish house … and over many years he completely transformed the interior. Really, I can’t do it justice in a verbal description. In both creativity and craftsmanship the house was beautiful. He created useful, pleasant living spaces without having a massive interior space. We spent several hours there seeing his home and a few photos of his other work and discussing design philosophy and work strategy.

I liked that he was keen to work on smaller spaces, a smaller project. And he said that since he had done the work himself on his own house - he had a good feel for just what was required on construction drawings to really guide work on-site … without detailing things that were not required. He described himself as an architect who had years of hands-on experience in all phases of home construction. We reviewed his typical drawing package and John spent a good bit of time looking through a set of drawings. The Architect emphasized that he likes to be really efficient in his work and spend his time in design and drawing rather than being stuck in researching, e-mailing, and administrative paperwork. As a bit of a surprise, he is traditional in his approach to building techniques. I’m not sure how I feel about that – is that a good thing or not? For example he says that for the $ spent, a well constructed 2x6 instead of SIP or ICF is the way to go (in his opinion). While we’ve looked at ICF and are interested in it, we’re not married to a particular envelope technology and will likely look for good quality and good $ value.

I brought a little packet of info on our project: functions we needed in the house, target sq ft, topo maps noting best views & prevailing winds, and photocopies from books and magazines showing exterior styles that we liked, and a few that showed what we didn’t like. We didn’t discuss our project much during this meeting … it seemed more about him talking about his work and experience – which was fine. I left the packet of our project with him.

After the meeting John and I discussed what Architect #3 vs Architect #2. I felt like I really hit it off personally with Architect #2 (see prev. post) and felt I would likely have more ‘fun’ working with her (based on the initial phone call). If budget were no issue, I likely would have pushed to at least meet with her and see where that went.

But this is the real world, right?

Architect #3 (the one we met with) seemed to have a good match between his typical scope of services and what we really need and can afford. And he had a proven record of designing, constructing and living in smaller spaces (i.e. his own home, under 2000 sq ft). Since we want a smallish, well designed house to meet our needs and fit the site – it seemed like a good fit. So, we decided to go with Architect #3.

Now comes the fun part… Road Trip …SITE VISIT!

Clearing Trees #7 -- Marking More for Removal

Steven in Colorado Springs, CO — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

It seems like we're never quite done removing trees!

Even though the major excavation is finally done we're unfortunately not quite done taking down trees yet. During the excavation we realized that we still had a few more trees to remove, primarily for safety reasons. They fall into two main areas of concern, one that affects Builder Dale when he goes to do his backfill and affecting Tanglewood proper once there's actuall house construction underway.

The backfill-related reason is tied to the ordering of construction. Once we have the site completely leveled several things need to happen in relatively quick succession:

Trenches are dug for the sewer and water pipes.
We stake out the final locations for the house corners.
Once we know exactly where the house is going to go (can't change our minds after this!) Builder Dale starts setting up the footer forms while Colleen and I lay down the insulating underlayment for the main slab.
We then put down chicken wire (or something similar) and lay out the main radiant heat loops for the ground floor.
Once this is all in place, the concrete guys come up and pour the slab and all the footers simultaneously. This ties everything together cleanly and gives us a firm surface from which to start stacking the walls.
Once the footers are poured and the whole structure is reinforced by the slab, Builder Dale can begin backfilling against the footers without fear of anything moving under the weight and pressure of the fill itself.

The backfill can't be done from the "house side" because the backhoe would tear up the slab--we're talking some pretty heavy equipment with some aggressive tracks and/or treads. That means he has to do the work from the outside, and that in turn means it has to be done from the "uphill" side of the cut. Since it's too dangerous to get too close to the cut it has to be done from a bit of distance with the backhoe "reaching" into the backfill area--and that means a couple more trees have to come out.

Sigh.

On the other hand there's at least a good secondary reason to take out these additional trees. During the excavation work we necessarily had to cut into the hill a bit (part of our decision a while ago to "push" the house back a bit). Since Tanglewood is in the middle of a rich and dense pine forest, that meant that some roots got cut and/or exposed. As we found out to our surprise a couple of weeks back, some of those trees are astonishingly shallow-rooted--and having trees die and/or fall over when the house is, say, 2/3 of the way stacked would be a DoublePlus Ungood Thing. There's also the possibility that while a tree might be fine today it's taken enough root damage to start turning into a tall matchstick in a year or so (pine trees take a long time to die), something not terribly appealing to have next to the house.

So over the next couple of days (at least it's a weekend!) we plan to take these trees down. It's a good time to do it anyway--we have the heavy CAT to help us move them if we don't get them cut up into nice chunks, and we don't have anything major to do anyway while we await some permit paperwork.

It's hard work but at least I will have a lot of firewood stacked up when all is said and done! And that's always a good thing.

Steven in Colorado Springs

Meeting with the Architects #21 - Going Over Final Details

Steven in Colorado Springs, CO — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

It's somewhat amazing to think as I'm writing this that we're nearing the end of the "planning" portion. I mean, yes we've already started the construction process but it's all been the upfront work that we had to do anyway regardless of what final details made their way into the house...but at this meeting I realized that we're nearly done with the sketching and the drawing and the layout fiddling.

Today's meeting was mostly about puzzling over some of the final details. The house itself is basically done and this was primarily to run through the last few requests we'd made and to confirm a couple of sequencing issues on construction. The first topic of discussion was to ensure that the transverse beam connecting the masonry heater to the house proper had been added to the construction plans. This was an issue caught by Builder Dale in his review of the plans a couple of weeks back that we'd all somehow missed. After all, if the masonry heater stack is going to compose part of the support for the library, it would probably be a good idea if it were physically tied to the foundation so that if Tanglewood should happen to shift it moves as one unit with the house. Otherwise you could very easily end up with a tilting "Tower of Pisa" look and a dangerous pile of brick and rock towering over your living room! Scott had indeed integrated the new transverse beam (basically another footer running under the fireplace from one side of the living room to the other) and it looked like it had always belonged there.

Next up was a quick walkthrough how we probably want to sequence the pouring of the Buildblock walls vs. the pouring of the LiteDeck proper. While it will ultimately be up to Builder Dale Scott had a couple of thoughts about how things would probably be ordered--footers first of course, then the underlayment insulation and the the radiant heat (Colleen and I get to do this!), then the foundation slab, then the main backfill against the exterior. After that things should go more rapidly.

We wound down with a quick walkthrough of some of the "soft" internal stuff I'd done earlier--wiring, electrical outlets, gas lines, that kind of thing--and I got a homework assignment to go over these particular drawings one last time to see if there were any last minute additions or changes. In the meantime Architect Scott will be finalizing the primary construction blueprints and getting ready to turn them over to Builder Dale as part of his final walkthrough and so he can work with the construction loan appraiser so they can do their magic.

Lastly I just updated Scott on what Colleen and Dale had been up to with the excavation and additional tree removals. He was very glad to hear that the major excavation work was finally done...it's been a long time coming with the various rain delays but we're finally ready to move forward!

This is all so danged fun!

Steven in Colorado Springs

We may have a designer!

Donna in Wimauma, FL — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:51:08 GMT

I have spoken to several designers and have discovered that too many of them only have a limited idea of what they are talking about! I think we found a designer that we are comfortable with and are in the "haggling" process right now.

Things are so tight right now, people are willing to wheel and deal, but I don't want to "low-ball" him to the point he is unhappy that he took the bid.

We are planning to build a 4000 sq ft total footprint house and I am countering his bid of $5100 with $4,650 which includes full plans, site plans, engineer stamp and 4 copies (3 stamped and sealed for the county) and 1 reproducible set for us.

I calculated it at $1/sq. ft. less the porch and patio area as they are not living space.

Waiting on his reply . . .

Goldilocks and the Three Architects

Mary in Lititz, PA — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:41:47 GMT

From my list of potential candidates I phoned two designers and three architects. The sequence of Q&A varied, but in the end I felt I was able to come away with a good feel for what each had to offer. In my mind, it’s not just what they can do (design-wise), but also how well their services/prices match our needs/budget. Here is how it broke down:

Designer 1: Reasonable cost, likely would not offer the creativity and had little interest in doing site plan. No services beyond delivery of the design/construction drawings.

Designer 2: Emphasized his experience with custom homes, but had seemingly unreasonable (?) fee schedule … 50% non-refundable upfront based on anticipated sq ft, the balance as we work through. They own the drawings. Overall I just didn’t think I would like working with him.

Architect 1: Only minutes from our rural building site and recently struck out on his own from a larger firm. He either didn’t have the skills to articulate his strengths/areas of interest (in terms of design) or he hasn’t figured them out yet… seemed generally unenthusiastic about the project.

Architect 2: Located ~2 hrs away in upscale area, specializes in residential. I saw some of her work on her website and really like it. She offers (as a pkg) design AND construction management (CM) for best control over end results (when using a GC). Her typical clients are in the $850k+ range … way, WAY above our budget. We had a lengthy and interesting discussion. We were both able/comfortable challenging each other - in a good way (maybe challenge isn’t quite the right word here). For example, she asked alot of Q about our intention to OB and I asked about her desire to work on a smaller project with a much smaller budget than what she was used to. She wanted to meet with us to further discuss the project. While I was interested in her skills, I did feel that there was a wide gap between her typical high-end projects and what we planned … would she have trouble with us doing the GC? or budget shopping our finishes? or selecting less-Green options in deference to the budget? Although I didn’t set a meeting during that call, I told her I would definitely contact her to let her know our status or set a meeting.

Architect 3: Recommended by a knowledgeable friend, lives & works close by, does residential & commercial. Our phone conversation was fairly good. He charges in a straight hourly (and a very reasonable rate), would do a site visit, help in site planning, the design/construction drawings and phone consulting during construction – but not on-site supervision. His set of services and fee structure fit well with our needs.

I set up a meeting with Architect #3 to see some of his work (including his own house). I figured we would meet with him, and if all went well, go with him. If there were still some question, we would also meet with Architect #2 to investigate that option. So Architect # 3 is up (face-to-face meeting next) and Architect #2 is on-deck. And for now, there are no Designers in the bullpen.

Milestone - Major Excavation Work Completed!

Steven in Colorado Springs, CO — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

We reached a pretty big milestone today with the completion of the major excavation work!

By "major" of course I'm pretty much just referring to the stuff being done to the house site proper. For the last several weeks, battling rainy weather and the subsequent muddy mess it made of the house site, Builder Dale and Colleen have been working on clearing the build site and getting it ready for the house to be built. Over time they've transformed the site from a sloping, grass-filled field into a mostly flat site ready to place a multi-ton house onto. Everything across the site has been trimmed, leveled, and compacted to within a couple of inches of "final grade". A huge boulder has been removed (well, the top couple of feet anyway) and trees have been generally cut back so none should be threatened by future work (compacting their roots by driving heavy equipment over them eventually leads to a big dead tree standing next to your house--or falling over onto it!).

They done good.

The big excavator equipment stays on site until next Monday (we paid for it after all) in case we need it for anything. We can't really use it for any further work on the site as it's just too big and heavy--the treads push deep enough into the soil that any attempt to work on the last couple of inches just tears up the previous work. As it turns out we just might--we've got a few more trees to clear out along the back of the site and if push comes to shove we can use it to move the trees if we don't get them all cut up before the afternoon rains arrive.

Next up is what I call the "medium" sized equipment (a backhoe I think) for the finer work--excavating the septic tank and leach field, digging the trenches for the septic and water lines, digging out around the well proper for the wellhouse foundation. This is all down the road a bit though, as we finalize paperwork and get the final permits and such.

Pics of the current piles of dirt (awaiting destination as backfill and whatnot) are below.

It is awesome to reach another milestone!

Steven in Colorado Springs