Category — contracting

Yesterday we met with Kamil Krainski from Living Space Builders and Sandy Smith from Trillium at the Trillium offices.

Living Space Builders is a small company (2? people) which does primarily construction management (with particular designs, more on that below) — they don’t have employees, but use relationships and contracts to get work done. (For instance Trillium handles their marketing and office support.) They focus on sustainable (even self-sustainable) energy use, and have spent time researching various materials and methods for achieving this. For instance, Kamil brought in an LED lamp that they’re testing.

The company has been active for about 4 years, and have done 5-6 houses. They also own (run?) a commercial cleaning firm which is their bread and butter, and so “aren’t desperate.” They have stable of potential subs that they call on, and take about 8 months to finish. It was suggested that if we don’t start within a couple of months, we should wait until next year.

Their website has certain “stock” plans (fully customizable), but they will also build from our plans. However, they offer only certain options, for instance geothermal heating and cooling, tankless water heaters (probably would need 2) and spray foam insulation. Kamil indicated that they prefer to stick-build above ground because it’s easier to make the inevitable changes. They also have some “standard” amenities, for example prewiring for solar panels and a car charging station in garage.

Kamil seems to have a modern/contemporary/euro sensibility (he apparently does a lot of their design work), which could be a nice fit for what we’re trying to do, but it could also be too much. We don’t have an overall “vision” for the place so much as a conviction that we want certain spaces to feel certain ways and if we’re true to that then it will all work out. Eventually this style will be called Rustic Modern Eclectic.

We talked over the floor plans, and among other things discussed the pros and cons of granite. I love stone and minerals (I have taken mining vacations, after all), but I’m not particularly interested in having big slabs of rock on my counters (unless maybe it’s lab soapstone). Not even for resale purposes.

We briefly discussed the budget, and unlike the other builders we’ve talked to Kamil didn’t say “ooh, that’s not likely” — he was more positive saying “I don’t know until I see the details” and “We work to meet your budget.” Given their cost structure, I don’t doubt that the bid will be more like what we’ve been shooting for, but I am a little concerned that because they limit their offerings we will find it difficult to make good comparisons.

It was an interesting meeting, and we’ll try to visit their current project in the next week or so.

Spent Saturday lunchtime last week listening to relatively standard—though interesting—arguments that household superinsulation, buying alternative energy, and installing geothermal heating and cooling are smart things to do. Admittedly these were sessions hosted by a nonprofit promoting household energy conservation, DTE’s office selling alternative energy, and a guy who installs geothermal. No little coincidence, eh?

But that’s OK. Somebody has to do it.

Was surprising to sense a lack of adaptation of the message for the self-selected Ann Arbor attendees. After all, we’re from Treetown, and we decided to go to the damned seminar already. We’re probably the highest per-capita density of greenish upper-middle class people in the state, and so it was strange hearing things described that are relatively commonplace. Probably well-known to most folks in the room.

It was essentially a trade show, with folks in the hall at the Ark pitching everything from standard window replacements to insulation to amusing black-box “EMF protection devices”. The presentations were engaging, with relatively few outright sales-lies; the DTE host, at one point, said, “DTE’s Net Metering program pays you retail prices for energy you send to the grid.” Not as far as I can tell, it doesn’t.

Among the vendors who were called up onstage at the end was Kamil Krainski from Living Space Builders — a crew we haven’t heard of before that day. Not sure if they’re new, or have been hiding in the wrong marketing circles, or what. He pitched SIPs and ICFs, specifically saying they can build houses using modern high-tech green materials and methods at no additional cost over traditional materials and methods.

I’d like to see that, so I chatted briefly with him. Didn’t get much chance to pursue the argument, but we’ll probably look them up. There’s a good market around here for smart builders who can follow up on promises like that, and plenty of room lowballing the premium prices the first-movers have ben quoting. We’ll see what happens.

… it means that you won’t like what you hear.

Yesterday Bill & I met with Bob Burnside of Fireside Home Construction. This was our first visit to a builder. We went to his model home, which is also his office and personal residence. It’s a superinsulated timber frame about the size of our plan (though of course much different).

We spent some time touring the house, seeing the mechanical systems (geothermal, radiant heating, HRV, etc.) and the general fit-and-finish of their work. It was quite nice, and Bob played up the low VOC finishes, their attention to insulation issues and the skill of his staff.

We talked also about their process — basically they sit with the client and go through a 3-6 month selection process, where everything that goes into the house is picked out and priced in advance. Once everything is signed off, then the selections and the price become part of the contract, and it is a fixed cost project. Once they break ground, it takes 6 months or so to complete the house. As a recovering engineer, I find this process familiar and somewhat comforting (control freak that I am). However, as a person with the checkbook I’m concerned that there is no room for cost reduction during the course of the project — the risk of cost changes are loaded into the fixed price, which undoubtedly take into account potential price increases but not price reductions.

Then we showed him the basic plan and exterior of our house and described some of the details. After he suggested that we remove a closet door and add space for an elevator, he said “I’m going to be honest with you, you can’t build it for your budget.” He was suggesting a cost of about $200/ft² (give or take) was reasonable. Now, I am not a fan of square foot costs because not every square foot is the same, and I know the budget is tight. But I was disappointed anyway, and more than a little disturbed that we seem to be so far off. I was also concerned that he right away questioned decisions we’ve spent months on (“Are you sure you don’t want a first-floor master? Is your dining area big enough?”). It shows a certain level of assumption on his part, and makes me think that he thinks that clients don’t know what they want so he will give them what he gives everyone.

We talked a little about mitigating factors — if the house is in the Spring Showcase we could get a little discount from suppliers, but we’d probably have to buy more expensive stuff than we want and we couldn’t live in the house until after the show (in June 09).

So here’s the result: based on one short meeting and tour of their model, Fireside seems to know their stuff about superinsulated houses, and they charge a premium for it. They have very tight control of their process, and charge a premium for it. I would have to talk with former clients to determine if they build what the clients want, or what they think the clients need. I’m all for suggestions about methods and improving the building process — I’m less keen on the “are you sure?” types of questions.

Though who knows? This is only our first builder visit. They could all be that way

We wandered out to the lot today, to see what the rains have brought. There’s a bit of mud next to the driveway, and of course the ground itself is kind of squishy, but we didn’t see any water on the lot that looked like it might be a nascent lake.

These shots were taken from the northest-east stake, where the phone junction is. The boundary for the back part of the lot goes another 20 feet east once you get to the breast of the hill. Our lot is roughly rectangular with a small rectangular bite out of it in the northeast.

I’m trying to find a good place to take time-lapse photos. It’s difficult to do it now, since we’re not quite sure where the house will be sitting, though so far the plan is to put it into the hill that you can’t see because the land is all the same color. But for now, the stakes will do.

While we were out there, we met the neighbor who is currently building. Seems like a nice, knowledgeable guy — he’s acting as his own contractor, and has plenty of experience to back it up.

We’re trying to decide if we want to be our own contractors, but are a bit worried — it’s kind of like being your own lawyer, you have a fool for a client. I have some pretty strong project management experience, but I don’t know much about construction. We might consider hiring our neighbor as a construction consultant to make sure we stay on track and to use his contacts for subs.

We’ll see. It’s early days yet.

I spent some time poking about the Washtenaw County Well & Septic website today, and I think I have finally figured out the rough order of business:

• Preliminary
  1. Survey/Topo [done]
  2. Proposed Site Plan [done]
• Apply for Soil Evaluation
  1. Dig 6ft holes with excavator and sanitarian to find a good spot, hopefully where we want it per the plan [done]
• (assume dug area is ok)
  1. Figure out where the septic, well and house are going to go [done]
  2. Proposed plot plan¹ [done]
  3. Apply for Well and Septic permits² [well done]
• Get Water
  1. Drill well [done]
  2. Get water sample [partly done, arsenic & nitrates ok]
  3. Submit well logs and water sample
  4. Get final inspection (can be done during a septic inspection)
• Build Septic
  1. Excavate field
  2. Get excavation inspection
  3. Place field and tanks
  4. Get final inspection
  5. Cover up field and tanks
  6. Get grading inspection

I’ll update this post as I learn more. (Updated 6/3/08 moved water drilling earlier, because we’re “well-first”)

Calling various utility companies to determine what’s available, and what we might expect:

DTE Energy (gas) 800.338.0178: There is service available at the site. Once we’ve got construction underway, and we we know where the meter will be (and the building is in the “appropriate stage of construction”, whatever that means), we call them and they’ll bring the appropriate crews and equipment out and attach the meter to the house. Expect 4 to 6 weeks for this to get done, once we call.

Well and septic placement: Spoke with Todd Pascoe from Atwell-Hicks, who did the original site topo survey and well and septic perc drawings. He said to re-place the septic field away from our current approved site we should contact the Washtenaw County Health Department for a soil evaluation, pay them and they’ll dig some holes and tell us the bad news. But that it shouldn’t be a major hurdle. We chatted about the topography there, and I let him know that when the hill was leveled for the driveway, the entire lay of the land was changed (badly). So we’ll start over. The big issue is trying to time the survey with the potential purchase of the adjacent land, which would allow us to at least smooth the terrain a lot more to the west. We’ll see.

Called Charter Communications and asked Lee there about cable (and most important, broadband internet access). He pointed out that there is service at 5601 Walsh Rd., and at 4984 Walsh Rd., and since we’re 5195 there is a strong chance that said service would go by our front doors. But that when we’re ready to get it, they’d need to appraise the technical challenges, if any.