Should we give a “pass” to professionals when they are late?

What are our expectations when waiting on professionals to help us?

When you need to see your doctor for something, do you call your doctor and expect to get what you need at that very moment? Not really. You wouldn’t call your doctor personally to make an appointment  since the doctor is busy doctoring. Instead, you would call the receptionist and make an appointment... unless it is an emergency. Doctors are revered as highly esteemed professionals, and we respect their time accordingly. When you are waiting in the doctor’s exam room, and the doc shows up 20 minutes late, it is easy to get frustrated. We should think about the bigger picture though. What was the doctor doing before he or she came to check on your nagging cold? The doctor could have been talking through someone’s surgical options with a life threatening illness just minutes before checking on you and your cold.

When you do have a true emergency, it is EXPECTED, however, that the doctor will help you IMMEDIATELY. This immediate care is essential for your well-being, and it will probably make the doctor late for helping someone else that had an appointment when your emergency occurred. This seems fair when thinking about the big picture, but it’s easy to lose sight of it when you’re sitting in the exam room for a late doc to show up. The doctor is not at liberty to discuss the reason for their tardiness since it’s required to keep the other patient’s medical information confidential.

How does this example relate to working with other professionals? Do doctors get a pass because they are dealing with human life? It seems like it. If your CPA is late for an appointment, do we get upset? Yep. Do they get a pass? Not really, but should they? Your CPA may have been helping someone deal with a stressful letter that came from the IRS, and immediate attention may be necessary to protect their financial security and put their stress at ease. If I was just asking some routine tax questions, I would be OK with my CPA being late to meet with me in that situation. The CPA is supposed to keep other clients’ information confidential, so again, we may never be privy to the reason the CPA might be running late. This is not a matter of human well-being though, so if a CPA was late often, it could simply be the result of the CPA having too many clients. That high work load may be a disservice to the attention you may deserve from that professional. If the tardiness is too common, the pass should be revoked.

How about an attorney? This is another professional that deals with confidential information that typically deals with a stressful, time-sensitive situation in someone’s personal life or business. If your attorney is late for your meeting, it could have a profound impact on meeting a deadline with a court order that could have a major impact on your financial well-being. Many things an attorney does are subject to deadlines outside of an attorney’s control, so it is important for attorneys to schedule their workload accordingly to prevent too many deadlines from happening at the same time. If an attorney is late for your meeting to review a legal question you have, think about the bigger picture. Perhaps they just found some unexpected evidence that needs analyzed before a hearing the next day to prevent someone from losing their home. I would be OK if my attorney was late to meet with me if they were dealing with something like this for somebody else. Again, the attorney must keep these things confidential, so we will not know the specifics and should give the attorney a pass. If this happens too often, it could be the result of the attorney having too many clients for them to manage, so the pass should be revoked. 

Architects also deal with very time-sensitive matters. Like doctors, architects’ decisions protect the health and safety of human life, and like CPA’s, architects’ decisions protect the financial well-being of the most expensive thing a client may ever purchase: the construction of their home. If the architect makes the wrong decision, it could have a major impact on human life - and not just one life like a doctor, but an entire building full of humans. We hear stories about people getting trapped in buildings during fires, buildings crushing people during earthquakes, and freak accidents when things fail during construction. The role of the architect helps to protect human life in situations like these. Buildings are also expensive. They are far more expensive than most medical procedures. The architect must make decisions that result in the way materials get purchased and installed. If done improperly, those materials mail fail, leak, and impact all the thousands of dollars worth of materials and human life below it. This could result in the shutdown of a business which also results in loss of income for that business. Architects must take a high degree of care in designing and monitoring the quality of the buildings they design to prevent loss of large sums of the client’s money and ensure the people in the buildings are safe. Architects also deal with very time-sensitive information. Deadlines from building departments are not negotiable. If an architect is late, it could add a year to a project timeline in some situations. Think of the financial ramifications that could have for a client. If a construction condition arises that needs immediate attention, the architect’s creative problem-solving skills can prevent an unsafe condition for the laborers, or it can simply provide a solution to an impossible problem that results in keeping the labors working. Without the architect’s quick action, the labors could be out of work, and the client’s building will get done late. This could cause financial impact for the laborers who rely on their paycheck and the client who needs to move into their home before their lease on their rental ends. 

As an architect, I take my role very seriously. I understand my attention may be needed at any moment. I may need to shift from one obligation to focus my attention on something more critical. This is part of the job. There has been a few times in my career when I have had to cancel a meeting or show up late as a result of project emergencies. We notify the client when this happens, and we appreciate the understanding since we would have done the same for them if the tables were turned. I mitigate many of these project emergencies by doing 3 things: 

1. Keep a reasonable project load and the right project team. If I have too many projects at a time, it’s not possible to keep up with the obligations. If I don’t have enough projects, I would not be able to pay my overhead expenses. The right balance is essential.

2. I respond to every client request within a day. This enables me to get an early start on all tasks, so if an emergency comes up, I can focus on it without having a major impact on my other projects. Once the emergency is over, I can resume the task that I had already previously started. If I had not already chosen to make progress on it, that task would be nowhere near completion and likely exceed its deadline if I had to start from scratch. Having an early start makes a big difference in getting things done on time. This sometimes means working at unconventional hours of the day or night, but that is part of the role of being a professional.

3. I set expectations accordingly. When a client has a request that is time-sensitive, I work on it NOW. When something is not time-sensitive, I give the client an estimate of how long something may take to complete, and I check in each week to update them as progress is made. Often times, my work is dependent upon the work of other professionals such as engineers, so I must also manage their timing too, and keep the client informed regularly. I also gauge expectations based on the clients’ interactions. If I ask a client a question, and it takes them 3 days to answer, that demonstrates the timing is not critical. I try to respond to clients faster than they respond to me. 

Most projects take at least a year and often two years to design and prepare for construction to begin. There is a lot of work and a lot of waiting during that time as we coordinate the efforts of surveyors, structural engineers, civil engineers, geotechnical engineers, and bureaucrats at building departments. Much of the waiting tends to be from clients making decisions and building departments reviewing documents.

On a few projects, I have added up the number of days of wait time for each party. On all of these projects, the most days of wait time has always come from the client, followed by the building department, and followed by consultants. This is surprising. The building department does take a long time to review plans, but we wouldn’t expect clients to take longer to make up their minds. The is attributed to the large number of decisions that need to be made. Most clients do respond within a day, however. A building department may take 90 days to review plans, but a client easily has more than 90 decisions to make. We send hundreds of emails with hundreds of drawings, and all of these require decisions. If a client takes one day for each decision, that attributes to the long timeline. These decisions all have huge financial impacts, so it is understandable that clients take their time to make informed decisions. We do our best to give our clients the information they need in a timely fashion to enable them to make good choices. We appreciate the opportunity and trust our clients give us, and we also appreciate their patience when we must focus our attention temporarily elsewhere. In the end, we work as expediently as possible and treat all projects with the same level of care. 

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

Jack and Jill Bathrooms

Interconnected bathrooms are disturbing. Let’s explore to learn why this concept, which may seem like a good idea, is disturbing.  

Reason 1: it’s interconnected, and it’s a bathroom. Think about that. The goal should not be convenient entry for more than one person into a bathroom which is the space where privacy is really THE main goal.   

Reason 2: Locking the door is awkward. Jack wakes up in the middle of the night to pee. Jack opens his bathroom door within his own bedroom, enters his shared bathroom, turns on the light, and shuts his door (creak, slam, jiggle jiggle). Then he goes and locks Jill’s door (jiggle jiggle). Jill has a nightmare of a monster attacking her from the bathroom as light emanates from below the door, and she hears that unmistakable sound of pee followed by a drip drippity drip, SLAM ... yeah, Jack is a good brother and put the toilet seat down for his sister...that was the SLAM Jill heard. And finally pshhhhhhhhhh clank goes the faucet as he washes his hands, then jiggle jiggle creak as he exits the bathroom and goes back to bed (while Jill is sweating from the nightmare Jack just caused).  

Reason 3: entering the bathroom from your brother’s room is awkward. Did you notice in the commentary above that Jack remembered to put down the toilet seat, but he forgot to do something else? He forgot to unlock Jill’s door when he was done! So, in the middle of the night, when Jill needs to get up to pee, she needs to go out to the hall to enter Jack’s bedroom to get into their weird shared bathroom. Jiggle jiggle creak as she opens Jack’s bedroom door. Ewww grosssssss she mumbles as she steps in something unknown but likely disgusting on her brother’s bedroom floor in the dark. Then BAM $&@#! she yells as she runs into the dresser drawer that Jack didn’t close in his dark bedroom. Yea, that’s right, your sweet innocent daughter just swore, and it’s your fault because you gave her a creepy interconnected bedroom. Now Jack is awake and yells at Jill to get the $&@#! out of his room. Both kids are now awake, screaming at each other, then they become too tired to do well in school, then they can’t get into college, and they cannot become employed because of the filthy language they developed because of their shared bathroom. Then you have two 30-something trucker mouth kids still living at home and still sharing their bathroom. It’s a self perpetuating problem. Ok, back to the point... The argument ends, Jill shuts Jack’s door, locks it, does her business, and storms back into her room, locks her bathroom door to ensure her creepy brother doesn’t wake her up when he uses the bathroom, and she tries to get a little sleep before school the next morning. She will not get into the deep sleep REM phase where the info in her brain is properly sorted, stored, and easy to recall later. All the studying Jill did for her test the night before was now just a waste. She eventually fails her test, loses interest in school, and soon becomes a goth chick and listens to death metal music and rarely leaves the house.  

Reason 4: getting locked out of your own bathroom is awkward. Once Jack and Jill get accustomed to their sibling entering their room, they start to lock their bathroom door from the inside when they are done peeing to prevent the sibling from coming into their room later. The next person who needs to use the bathroom can’t get in because they locked themselves out from their own door and still forgot to unlock the other door. Now you have two locked bathroom doors. At 3am, they come to wake you up... DAAAAD! DAD! DAAAAAD! Or... MOMMMM!!! I can’t get in the bathroom. You reluctantly wake up, step in the gross thing on Jack’s floor and bump your shin on his dresser, yell profanities, and look for something to stick in that little hole on the doorknob to unlock it. You teach both kids how to unlock it themselves, so they won’t wake you up again. You can’t get back to sleep before your 5:30am alarm while wishing you would have listened to your architect about not building a Jack and Jill bathroom. 

Reason 5: it is awkward to walk-in on your brother while he is peeing. Both kids just get accustomed to unlocking their door with the pinhole method you taught them in Reason 4 above, and inevitably, a sibling will see things they never wanted to see when they pick the lock and enter without knocking. It will eventually happen.   

Reason 6: are you really still reading this? Don’t do a Jack and Jill bathroom. Just put the door in the hall, and avoid the problem altogether.  

Solution: for the ideal shared bathroom, we can design a situation where Jack can be taking a shower in complete privacy while Jill is brushing her teeth at the sink and even using the toilet in a private toilet room. It takes up the same space, and our creativity will leave your family well-rested, good-mannered, and your kids will have the life skills needed to be able to move out of your home well before they turn 30 :) 

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

Integration of Architect and Builder

Here's how the design and construction industries integrate today...  

The client hires an architect to design a building. The architect designs it over the course of a year(s) with hundreds or thousands of discussions and decisions made between the client and architect. This immense body of knowledge is summarized into drawings, then we send them out to builders for construction bids. We advise the client to hire the builder with the best reputation, best price, and best understanding of the project goals. We value engineer the plans as needed to make the construction cost lower since it is inevitably always more than the client wants to pay because of clients asking for more than can be afforded. We agree on a scope of work and a construction price, and the builder starts building. During construction, the builder doesn't know the plans as well as the architect (how could s/he), so errors get made. Then the plans need to change to adapt to the error. Or the plans don't have a specific piece of information, so the builder just builds whatever benefits him most (instead of for the client's benefit), then the client doesn't like it and wants it changed. Again the plans need to change. The architect is in the role of protecting the client's investment. This process of misinterpreting the plans happens continuously during the entire construction process because the builder does not understand the plans entirely (since the builder was not privy to the thousands of decisions made before they were selected to build the project AND the builder wants to build quality things in the quickest/cheapest way typically to maximize their profit.) The architect acts as the client's advisor during the whole process to insist the builder builds according to plan, and this creates an adversarial relationship with the builder due to all the inevitable misinterpretation in reading complicated technical drawings representing thousands of decisions. The architect is paid hourly for the efforts of protecting the client's investment, and clients typically do not want to pay for this service. The builder also charges for the time to do quality control by working with the architect, reading and interpreting the drawings with the architect, and communicating all of this information from the architect to the their suppliers and sub-contractors. The builder must be successful in re-communicating information from the plans to the rest of the construction team. Therefor the builder should know the drawings better than anyone. Is that realistic though?

Here's how design and construction USED to be a hundred years ago, and how I am working to change it for the future...

The client should hire an architect to design a building AND MAKE SURE THE BUILDING GETS BUILT PROPERLY. To achieve this, the client is effectively hiring the architect to "build" a building. Newsflash, most builders don't build buildings...they hire other people (subcontractors) to build it for them. So why doesn't the architect just do this? Since the architect knows the plans better than anyone else (and GOOD architects also understand construction better than anyone else), the architect should be the person directly communicating the drawings to the sub-contractors and suppliers.

Why don't more architects just do it this way? It's because most architects don't have enough money to finance the construction of the project, and they are adverse to the risks that come with construction. The architects are typically trying to protect their clients from risk while also protecting themselves from risk. This risk is worth something. This risk is really what builders are being paid for (even if they never pickup a hammer and get their hands dirty). Architects also have a valuable skill set (that cost a lot of time and money to achieve and maintain), and spreading that skill set to oversee many projects simultaneously is necessary for business model of the professional to work out financially.

Here's a solution I'm working on and have tried a few times successfully...

To mitigate the financial aspect, the client could just pay the subcontractors and material suppliers directly. The architect is already reviewing the builder's invoices anyway to authorize the client to pay the general contractor for work that is completed properly. If the client just pays the subcontractors or suppliers directly, this means the architect or the builder would not need to take on the risk and cash flow problems of paying thousands or millions of dollars to those material suppliers for products or subcontractors for services. In my opinion, the client is already taking on that risk anyway, then transferring it to the builder for a period of time. The builder then upcharges every cost they incur by 20% to take on this risk and make a profit. Instead, the architect could just advise the client as to when to write checks to suppliers and subcontractors, and the client could just keep that risk. Remember the risk is worth something, right? That means the client saves money if they carry the burden of the financial risk, and the builder avoids that part of the risk. Again, the client is ultimately paying the money anyway, so why pay an inflated price to a builder, just so the builder can pay that money to the subcontractors? The builder is essentially being paid to operate as a bank for a series of monthly loans in exchange for their experience with dealing with the construction budget, construction schedule, and monitoring subcontractor’s performance. 

The rest of the risk that comes with construction is in the quality control and integration of the work of the various subcontractors. If the walls are not framed properly, the shower tile will not be straight, for example. Someone needs to be held accountable for all quality issues. Normally, the builder is holding the subcontractors s/he hired accountable for that quality. This is the builder shifting the risk to the subcontractor. This is extra work for the architect, sort of. Architects are already monitoring the quality of construction to ensure it meets the standards in the drawings, but the architect usually has the convenience of just telling the general contractor to "fix it." The general contractor then tells the subcontractor s/he hired to "fix it" if it was not built according to the plans. The architect could easily communicate that directly to the subcontractor (more efficiently) and also take on the work of hiring subcontractors. The architect can still bill hourly for this service, and it will still be a savings to the client since the client would not be paying for the sum of the architect's time, builder's time, and builder's  percentage fee markup of 20% that is higher than an architect’s ordinary fee.

This method effectively puts more work on the plate of the architect and keeps the finances in the hands of the owner. The end result would be at least 25% savings in the cost of construction. This is because there's simply no 20% markup on the cost of construction by a builder, and many of the costs of project management during construction get shifted from the builder to the architect (who is the person who understands the plans more than anyone). This means there would be no misinterpretation of the drawings, less drawings would need to be created in the first place, less communication needed, fewer construction meetings, and less rebuilding any incorrectly built portions of the project. All of these result in financial savings and time savings. 

How do I plan to start doing this? I already have and am scaling it. I have started small and focused on working with the best builders who "get it." This is not be the most ideal method for every project, but it does make sense for many. It will scare some builders. It is atypical. Builders currently build AND currently run the business of managing the build. Separating the two is the goal of this method. Get expert craftsmen to construct. Get highly organized managers to manage. Many builders never went to college but are managing the biggest expense of a homeowner’s life! It is not easy work to manage a construction budget. I will seek out to work with builders (and I already do) who will allow the architect to take on a more leading role in the construction process and are willing to partner in the coordination of getting the projects built effectively. I have already hired every type of subcontractor, I know how to manage them, and I can effectively communicate the design goals and construction parameters using their language. (I also speak enough Spanish to be effective when needed.) The projects I have already attempted in this method have saved the client money while allowing them to have more control, understanding, and confidence in their projects. This revolutionizes the way buildings are designed and built with an architect (experienced in construction) at the helm. It's "design and build", not "design then build."

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

Insulation Nerd

Yea, it’s true. I think insulation is awesome. It keeps our indoor environment comfortable, and it does this in so many ways other than just keeping the warmth inside. It also provides sound deadening, prevents air infiltration, and deals with condensation. The part I nerd-out on is how insulation can most effectively keep your home cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Insulation science has changed a lot over the years, so here’s your crash course on it.

We are all mostly familiar with the pink, fluffy, itchy stuff that you see rolled out in attics. That is called batting, or batt insulation. It is the default, cheapest insulation, and it provides an R-value of about 3 per inch. That means a 1” thick layer of batt insulation would “resist” (that’s the “R” in R-value) the flow of heat through itself by a unit of 3 BTU’s per hour. Don’t think too much about that…just know that the bigger the R-value, the better. Batts have a relatively low R-value when compared to other types of insulation. Also, batts are squishy, so they tend to slump down within a wall due to gravity over time, and this leaves parts of the top of a wall un-insulated. The top of a wall is the worst place not to have insulation since warm air rises. If you look at a thermal image of a wall in an old house (see below), you can usually see the blue areas (cold temps) are concentrated at the top of a wall where the insulation has fallen over time. This is also because fluffy batts get wet through condensation or leaks, and that extra weight pulls the batts down within the wall. Batts are like a sponge, and they don’t dry out easily. Because of this and their low R-value, I prefer other forms of insulation.

Thermal image of a stud wall

There are a bunch of other types of insulation that are fluffy like batting and have a similar R-value per inch. These include loose cellulose, roxul, wool, cotton, and denim. Some people believe they are being “green” by using recycled denim for their insulation, but in reality, the R-value is quite low, so all these insulation types don’t do the best job of keeping the heat in your home during the winter.

The higher performing insulation types are rigid - not fluffy (like a cooler...you know coolers don’t have a fluffy lining. You better believe that $300 Yeti cooler has rigid insulation). The rigid types can either be sprayed into place, or they can be purchased in panels. The rigid insulation types have higher R-values per inch and include polyicynene (R-4), expanded polystyrene known as EPS (R-4.5), extruded polystyrene known as XPS (R-5), phenolic (R-8), polyurethane (R-8), and polyisocyanurate known as polyiso (R-8). The R-values listed here can vary over the life of the product as they deteriorate over time, but they are still superior to the R-value of the fluffy insulation types. Not only do the rigid insulation types resist more heat, but they also create a tighter “envelope” around the building since the seams between rigid panels can be covered with tape and caulked. This prevents the passage of air through any cracks or weak spots known as air infiltration. Imagine wearing a puffy coat, but not zipping it up. The cold winter air will make you cold, and the coat doesn’t do much good. If you zip it up, your body heat is trapped inside the coat. Rigid insulation gives us this capability of “zipping” our home shut tight, and trapping the heat inside. Fluffy insulation is a bit more loose fitting, and it does not have the capability of continuously wrapping the house. The fluffy stuff just sits in between the studs, while rigid boards can also be used to cover the studs continuously on the interior and/or the exterior sides of the wall. See the image below, and notice how the polyiso board with its reflective coating reflects the heat into the interior space, and all of it’s seams are covered with a reflective tape to prevent air from flowing in between the panels.

Another advantage to some of the rigid insulation types is that they can be spray applied. This means you can hire a certified installer to wear a space suit and spray every single nook and cranny with insulation, and it expands to completely fill all voids. This is tough to do with rigid boards that must be cut to fit into each and every little void. As the spray-applied foam expands, it is also filling any hole where air could infiltrate through a wall. This is yet another advantage of spraying insulation into place. The downside is it can be 2 to 3 times more expensive than batts. You get exactly what you pay for. Your can see a photo of spray foam here: https://static.diffen.com/uploadz/f/f2/spray-foam-insulation--1.jpg

The last point to address with rigid insulation is the difference between open-cell and closed-cell. They can both be spray-applied or purchased in panels. The open-cell types are a pliable type of foam and have a lower R-value and are less expensive. The closed-cell types are a more solid type of foam and have a higher R-value and are more expensive. The main selling point for closed-cell insulation is that it does not allow moisture to permeate through it since it is so dense. This includes liquid moisture and, more importantly, water vapor (which is water in gas form like when we exhale, take a steamy shower, or have equipment that puts off vapors). Preventing water vapor from passing through the insulation is very important, because we MUST allow any moisture to dry out or mold will develop. We go through a lot of effort to keep our attics and other void spaces ventilated by allowing air to flow through and evaporate or carry out any moisture in the air to prevent mold from developing. The closed-cell insulation types are so dense that they do not require us to ventilate our roofs or other spaces (when installed properly) since they simply do not allow moisture to pass through. This is a huge benefit along with its superior R-value, sound deadening, and prevention of air infiltration by creating a continuous air barrier.

Feel free to ask about different approaches to keeping your indoor environment comfortable through the use of insulation. The type of insulation to use is just part of the equation. HOW to use the insulation is the fun part and varies in each application. We can help you design the perfect construction details to keep your building performing at its best.

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help