Respect for Construction Cost / November 1, 2023 by Josh Brincko

As an architect, I have been involved with the construction of over 1000 buildings, and 95% of those have been homes. I have seen successes, failures, and have certainly learned from each of those. I know what works and what doesn’t before it happens, and when someone starts explaining an issue, I already know a solution (as I politely let them finish saying what they want to say) since I’ve already seen the same things over and over.

I can very confidently say I am an expert in my craft. They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. I’ve done that over and over, so I must be like a 10th degree black belt in residential design and construction:)

One of the most perplexing things to me is the cost of construction. I have a decent understanding of what things will cost, but the ‘WHY’ is such an interesting topic. WHY do things need to cost what they cost. Here’s what I’ve learned:

Builders have to buy and finance expensive materials. They buy them, and they manage them, and they have to collect a payment from their client for them. They are essentially acting like a bank giving a loan until the client pays them back. They also have to finance the cost of their laborers.
Builders need to buy the correct materials. This may sound easy, but it’s like planning a chess move 10 steps in advance. The builder needs to ensure the materials they purchase will actually properly perform, fit, and be delivered when needed. If the builder is wrong about any of those, the cost impacts are outrageous. You can’t just return most building materials. The builder is stuck with the cost if that happens. Also, if the builder does not order enough, or certain materials get damaged during delivery, storage, or install (or stolen), the builder is on the hook for that too. If they need to order more materials, that could take weeks, and the cost impact of a scheduling debacle is major. This is why builders should be entitled to mark up the cost of the materials they buy. They accept a lot of risk for buying and managing materials.
Builders have to perform labor in terrible environmental conditions. Their work conditions are so terrible that it is not even legally allowed in a conventional work setting. Office buildings are required to have a certain level of light, heat, ventilation, bathrooms, air quality, etc. Builders often have NONE of that. They are subjecting their bodies to very uncomfortable conditions all day and every day, and the work they do is quite dangerous too. If there’s a job that deserves hazard pay, it’s construction. Most people don’t have what it takes to do what builders do every day.
Builders have to work around expensive existing conditions. When installing an expensive light, tub, refrigerator, etc, they are also being installed next to expensive cabinets/countertops, on expensive flooring, and pass through expensive doors, windows, landscaping, etc. At any point, the builder can F those other things up. If they do, you will expect them to pay to fix it. The cost to install a $300 toilet results in the protection of everything around it and under it. The builder is on the hook for the cost of your whole home essentially. Installing a $300 toilet on $5000 of tile with a million dollar home under it that can be wrecked with a simple leak is pretty stressfull.
Builders need expensive tools to do their job. You might use a $2000 laptop with $2000 of software and insurance and such. Builders have that too, AND they also have a bunch of other expensive things like drills, saws, scaffolds, ladders, lasers, trucks, tractors, etc. This list could go on forever, but the point is, your builder has thousands and likely hundreds of thousands of dollars of resources they have purchased to get your job done. They need to maintain, store, protect, insure, and transport all of those items to be able to do your job. The fee they charge you needs to cover those items. And guess what … it is not uncommon that they get stolen despite how well they are locked up. Getting “hit” by thieves once per year is normal.
Just like most businesses, builders need to cover their payroll. They need to find workers, get them to the jobsites, and pay their wages, taxes, and insurance, and they usually do this BEFORE you pay them for the work they did for you. Think about the thousands of dollars a builder likely paid before they started your project, and before you ever paid them. They also probably spent over 100 hours planning and estimating your project before it ever started. This is a lot of overhead expense.

The builders we work with take on so much responsibility, so I really hope our society can appreciate what they do for us. They made the place you are in right now. Someone sanded that trim, drywall, and flooring to make it nice and safe for you. After that person finished that work, he or she cleaned their fingernails and popped their blisters … and they did that for you.

Think about that as you click away on your keyboard in your heated and well-ventilated office. This is why builders need to charge what they charge.

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

Trees And Houses Don’t Mix / October 2, 2023 by S. Joshua Brincko

To set the record straight, I love trees. They provide nice shade, they create nifty shadows, they suck up thousands of gallons of water so it doesn’t need to be sent into sewer systems, they create oxygen, they create homes for animals, they are fun to climb, and they are pretty to look at.

Despite all the benefits, there are drawbacks - especially when they are in close proximity to buildings.

The root systems of trees are very unkind to foundations. They are also capable of destroying underground plumbing. The roots will find their way into nooks and crannies of pipes and foundations and eventually clog and break them. This could be very expensive to repair.

The leaves from trees are also problematic when they fall. They clog sewers, and clogged sewers cause back ups that flood houses. Many people like trees because they are into sustainability, but there is nothing more unsustainable than needing to rebuild something that was already previously built. The leaves also pile up against portions of buildings that can cause rot to occur. Wet leaves not only promote rot, but they create habitats for rodents and other pests that pose a danger to your building (and your health) that result in required replacement.

When trees are nearby a roof, they tend to create excess shade and moisture in that vicinity which will eventually cause moss to grow on the roof. Moss will quickly deteriorate your roofing, and that will lead to leaks. There is nothing sustainable about needing to replace a roof more than completely necessary, or even worse, replacing parts of your house that get damaged by roof leaks.

The moral of the story is to keep your trees in a safe place. By keeping them away from your structure, you will preserve the longevity of your building and therefore be helping our environment.

In the image below, notice how the only portion of that roof that has moss on it is the portion that is below tree branches. Case and point.

Uni-Tasking / September 1, 2023 by S. Joshua Brincko

“Uni-tasking” is the opposite of multi-tasking. We have all heard that you can be more productive when you focus on one thing rather than dividing your attention among several things at a time (like watching Netflix while texting while “working” from home).

Designing buildings is much the same. While it is necessary to have several active projects to keep a business running, we certainly can be most productive if we can focus our undivided attention on one project at a time. Sometimes that means turning off the email and cell phone to prevent interruptions as you work toward a defined goal. All too often, we try to be too accessible to everyone all the time, but that uber-availability could actually be a disservice to others.

Sometimes clients will ask us to just “slip them in” or maybe “we are in no rush, so just work on it when you have spare time.” In their minds, they are being flexible with timing hoping it will cost them less money or something. The truth is that if you set a clear expectation, you can more effectively focus on that goal and have metrics in place to actually achieve it (instead of willy nilly working on something here and there).

To try to work more effectively, I accept the right number and type of projects, I divide their scope into manageable chunks, and I schedule them. I also schedule my production time the same way I schedule my meetings. I also do my emailing at the same part of each day. This enables me to have less interruptions and to have blocked out time to get stuff done.

People often ask me how I manage to get so much done. Planning as much “uni-task time” as possible is my solution. Of course we need to be flexible and be capable of managing unavoidable interruptions when they come at us, but we are in a much better position to be successful if we aren’t already multi-tasking when that happens.

Think about the last time you got overwhelmed. How many things were you doing at the same time? Keep it simple and focus.

If you’d like some tips to get more done in a day, check out this post from a few years ago: www.josharch.com/blog/2016/2/2/how-i-get-so-much-done-in-a-day

10 Things That Make A Cool House / August 1, 2023 by S. Joshua Brincko

Real, natural materials. (Not fake)
Black window frames. (Not white)
Big glass.
No trim.
Two simple, well-defined 3D shapes contrasted (consistently) with color, material, height, and depth.
BIG overhangs. (No, not 2 or 3 feet. 8 feet!)
Two or three materials maximum.
Get rid of clutter.
Exterior materials that continue seamlessly to the interior.
Don’t use so much damn drywall.
This one needs repeating: stop using so much damn drywall! Design a house to be smaller with nicer materials to stay on budget. McMansions are uninteresting giant boxes clad with boring hardie cement board or vinyl lap siding on the outside and drywall on the inside. A smaller home with nicer material is more enriching to live in:)

That’s it. Follow this format, and you will have a cool house.

Structural Engineering / July 3, 2023 by Josh Brincko

Do you wonder what the difference is between structural engineering and architecture? No … engineers and architects are not the same thing. Watch the videos below to learn more. There will be a quiz later:)

If you would like to learn more, please watch the full video below.

Do You Need a Permit for Your Remodel? / June 1, 2023 by Josh Brincko

This depends.

It depends on the type of work you’re doing, and which city or county your project is located.

As a default, many building departments automatically assume you need a permit for all work that you do. Without even giving you the chance to describe your scope of work, building departments often assume a permit is required, and they often overlook their own criteria that determines when a permit is required. They are quick to request payments for permit fees.

Below, I have included the criteria from the Seattle Residential Code (which is adopted from the International Residential Code), and these rules are similar in many locations. In summary, the code stipulates that you don’t need to get a building permit for non-structural work such as replacing surface finish materials like flooring or drywall, cabinetry, countertops, tiling, ceilings, siding, and even installing patios, abatement of hazardous materials, and adding insulation. The code also allows you to repair, and even replace, deteriorated structural components like beams, columns, joists, etc. without a building permit. The exact or “in-kind” replacement of pretty much everything is allowed by code without a permit as long as you are not making changes and the new components are better than the existing ones. “Better” means: newer, safer, and structurally sound. Furthermore, the code also allows you to make changes to the existing conditions as long as these alterations do not cost any more than $6000 for each 6 months for the fair market value of labor and materials, but these alterations cannot include changes to the structure or reduction to the exits, fire-ratings, lighting, or ventilation. You can even build a shed or similar structure without a building permit as long as its roof is under 120SF (200SF in some cities). Without a building permit, you can basically add or replace any material you want, and $6000 can be spent on changes to the existing conditions (except for the items noted).

Although a building permit may not be required, electrical, plumbing, or even land use/zoning permits may still be required in some situations. For example, you might not need a building permit to build a small shed, BUT, you might need to get special environmentally critical area permit approvals if you are building that tiny shed within a steep slope area, wetland, landslide area, liquefaction area, or peat settlement area, for example. Additionally, although a permit may not be required for certain work, ALL WORK MUST STILL BE BUILT ACCORDING TO THE CODES. You can’t just build a shed along the property line without complying with the required setbacks from the property line which must remain open, and certain items must still have a fire-rating applied to them.

The most common thing I hear when someone tells me a permit isn’t required is: “all my sheds are under 120SF, so I don’t need a permit.” And nearly always, I must inform that person that the 120SF exception is for the roof, and not just for the interior floor, so their roof overhangs take it over the maximum. Also their roof overhangs (or even the entire shed) commonly do not comply with the side yard setback requirements, and those roofs often need to have a fire rating on the underside of them. Many of these unpermitted sheds in Seattle are also built within environmentally critical areas where no work at all is allowed (but people still think they are allowed to build them without a permit anyway… there’s a lot of assuming going on).

Another common misconception is converting a garage to living space. There’s 2 problems here. When you convert one “building use” to another “use”, a permit is always required for this change of use. The building department needs to verify that the old structure is built to the safety level required for the new use since the new use usually requires a higher safety factor. For example, a garage doesn’t have all the safety components that a living space has, so changing a use to a living space does require a permit. Additionally, when you remove a parking space, there’s a chance that your property no longer complies with the parking requirements mandated by the zoning code. In many areas, at least 1 parking space is required, and the parking space is not allowed to be in the street, it’s not allowed to be in the part of the driveway that overhangs into your front yard setback that is supposed to be clear, and sometimes cars must be a specific distance from the front property line. By changing a previously approved parking space in a garage to a living space, you might be shooting yourself in the foot because there’s sometimes nowhere else on the property that can fit the legally required parking space.

As an architect, I know where to find all these rules, I know how to interpret them, and I know how to phrase your scope of work, so you can comply. I also know how to hold the building department accountable in situations where they tell you that you need a building permit, but you actually do not. This happens much more than you would think.

This doesn’t mean the building department will back down so easily if we call their bluff though. The building department is a government agency that has a budget and relies on payment of fees to operate. They are reluctant to let you off too easily. They want your money.

In one situation, we removed old paneling in a basement to be able to pull new/safer wiring through the old walls. In doing so, we REPLACED the 2x4 studs that were old and deteriorated. This is completely allowed by code - especially since they were non-structural - but even if they were structural, in-kind replacement is STILL ALLOWED without a building permit. We got an electrical permit since the new electrical work requires it. The electrical inspector went maverick and decided to file a complaint that work was being done without a building permit. I quickly showed him that the building code does not require a building permit, and the only permit needed is an electrical permit. We were clearly not trying to pull a fast one on anyone since we did what we were supposed to do by getting an electrical permit as required. The electrical inspector would not stay in his lane, and he would not back down. It became a formal violation, and the building department also played tough. They wanted their fees. We argued a little, but then we decided it was pointless to argue with people that couldn’t be reasonable in light of reading their own codes and not complying with them. Instead, there was an easier way out. Since we already had a separate building permit in the works for a backyard cottage at that same address, we just lumped the basement work onto that permit. It was eventually approved, and all was fine. Unfortunately, it did not go by the book because the building department did not follow their own book. I would have enjoyed the opportunity to fight them further on it, but we won by not fighting their unreasonable fight - and they got no more fees from our client.

Why Isn’t My Builder Calling Back? / May 1, 2023 by S. Joshua Brincko

When getting bids for construction, it can be quite a daunting process. When you reach out to a builder and ask for a bid, you may not hear back for several weeks. What is the builder doing during this time?

I compare construction estimating to going grocery shopping. When you go to the grocery store with a shopping list, you don’t always find exactly what you want. Sometimes you change your mind based on the things that you see at the store, and sometimes you simply forget things on your list. With grocery shopping, you might have 10 or 20 things on your list, and all of them cost under $20. With construction, you literally have hundreds or thousands of things on your list, you have to find most of them at different places, and most of them cost over $1000 each. Additionally many of the items a builder seeks pricing for are not retail items sitting on shelves with prices next to them. Many of the products are specialty items that are priced depending on the situation requiring a bit of negotiating, and others are services from subcontractors like plumbers and electricians which require those companies to spend significant time assigning prices to each step of their work. That might take a couple weeks for the builder to hear back from those subcontractors and specialty material suppliers.

Once you do get the bid from your builder, you may find that the builder is not as responsive as you would hope. There are several reasons for this. The most likely reason would be: the builder is devoting more time to another project that they are already currently building rather than speculating on the cost of your potential project that hasn’t started yet. In other words, your project is less important than the one in the middle of construction (that the builder is being paid to do)! Another reason for unresponsiveness could be that the builder just recently sent out five bids to other clients and is waiting to hear back on whether those got accepted or not. Out of those five bids, two of those projects probably won’t ever happen. One of those projects might get awarded to another builder. And the two remaining projects might actually get awarded to that builder that you’re hoping to work with. The builder might prefer working with THEM instead of YOU.

It is then up to that builder to decide which opportunity is best. The builder will evaluate things like which one yields the best profit. They will decide which one has the most conveniences like ease of parking, suitable space on site for storing materials, or proximity to their home, office, or hardware store. They will also evaluate the relationship with the potential client and whether or not that person will be a pain in the ass to work with. All of these factors play into whether a builder will choose to work on any particular project. YOU might not be as important to THEM as you think.

Finding the right builder is like a marriage. It takes hard work, patience, and a good bit of luck. The best advice I can offer is to work WITH you builder and commiserate with them. They carry the immense burden of building your project properly and on budget. It is no easy task, so being a good partner will certainly help in the overall success.

How To Build A House Cheaper / April 3, 2023 by S. Joshua Brincko

Learn tips and tricks for how to save money when you build a home, remodel, or addition

Seattle Modern Architect & Artisan