Josh’s Hit List and Shit List

From time to time, as an architect, I encounter products and services that are exceptional: exceptionally good and exceptionally bad. If you think about all the things you must buy to create a building, there are tons. Literally tons. Here’s my list of the “hits” and, well, the “shits.” I’ll continue to update this page when I get new hits and new shits.

THE HIT LIST

A1PNW Concrete: Tommy and Ruben and team totally rule. They build concrete walls with perfection. They are fair and easy to work with. Nothing is difficult with them.

Carstar Collision Clinic: This doesn’t have anything to do with architecture, but they are just so go that they need to be mentioned here. If you need body work on your car, they make this hassle into not-a-hassle! Bruce and his team are amazing.

Digital Reprographics: This company goes above and beyond. They are the lowest drama company I have ever dealt with. Everything is always, “OK, no problem!” And then it gets done (properly every time). They print and deliver drawings with no hassle. They even check our page numbers and let us know if we forget something. When all our computers and hard drives got stolen from our office, they went into work and emailed us every single file that we ever sent them…. and they did this on CHRISTMAS EVE!!! Thanks Clint!

Dunn Lumber: their lumber is slightly more expensive than other lumber yards, BUT their product and service is exceptionally better. The lumber is straight. Near perfect. Wood warps over time, and this makes the labor of installing it expensive if you have to build around a “moving target.” They source lumber from mills that actually properly kiln dry their material, so the carpenters don’t need to waste time building with curvy wood. They also do a great job of recommending the products you need and most importantly, they are very professional when putting together quotes and keeping them updated as quantities and needs change. Their delivery arrangement is also top notch. $40 will drop any size delivery at your job site, and they will pick up no-hassle returns at the same time.

Brondell: this company makes a great aftermarket toilet seat that turns any toilet into a bidet. You can convert any toilet to a bidet, and this will help you to save toilet paper, save water, and to stay clean. Their products work really well, they are easy to install, and they come in a wide variety of options. You can get fancy with heated water, or you can keep it simple with the basics. No toilet should be without one of these.

Grohe: these faucets are nice. Many other brands are nice too, but what separates this brand from others is their service. When I’ve had problems, they just send a new one. No questions asked.

Josh Architects: These guys are good. I’m talking like “chocolate sauce on chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips” type of good!

SSF: Swenson Say Faget engineers has been repeatedly a great structural engineering firm to work with. We do work with many great engineers, but we have done the most with SSF. When Karl and his team are available to take on a project, they never disappoint. Owen and Wade, yea, you guys are good too!

THE SHIT LIST

Electrolux: this was originally a vacuum cleaner company, and their original vacuums were heavy steel masterpieces. Today, they have gotten into kitchen appliances, and there is nothing special about them. They break faster than other appliances in my experience, and their customer service is the worst I have ever encountered. Never buy their products. Ever.

Miele: I want to like their products. They are nice, but when something goes wrong, they are not helpful at all. Their plastic knobs on a stove broke, and they wanted to charge $350 for them. EACH!!! No thank you.

The Building Department: You might be wondering which one? Well, every single one of them. Every government agency somehow seems to be inefficient, unprofessional, and have very poor customer service. It is exactly what we expect, but this is wrong. We should not have to expect this from our governments.

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

What Is High End?

You hear people talking about high-end finishes all the time. But what exactly is high end?

Let’s start by discussing what is not high end. If you would like to build some thing as cheap as possible, the finishes of your home will be mostly carpeting, drywall, thin painted trim work, laminate counters with 4” backsplash on press board cabinets, tub inserts, small and bulky white vinyl windows, and vinyl or hardie siding with thin roof shingles. This is as cheap as it gets. It is essentially a plastic house on the outside and drywall on the inside. These sort of homes are currently $350 or more per square foot in the Seattle area.

Notice the tiny slider windows with bulky white frames, white corner trim boards, the belly band across the middle, and thin shingles. There is a lot more wall than window area, and it is all hardie lap siding with nothing special. This home is nothing but beige drywall in the inside. This is the cheapest house you can build.

For mid-range quality, you can expect most of the same as above, but swap out some of the trim for thicker material (maybe stained instead of painted), some non-carpet floors here and there, granite countertops, some wall tile, thinner fiberglass black windows, and maybe some isolated accent walls on the interior and exterior that are of a bit nicer material. It is essentially a plastic house on the outside and drywall on the inside with better windows and a few natural accent materials for interest here and there. These kinds of homes are currently $400 to $600 per square foot in the Seattle area.

Notice the window frames are black and thinner than the previous example. They are also bigger, so there’s more window area compared to wall area. But, the space between the windows is ideally supposed to look like a thin structural column - not a bulky wall covered in hardie panel and cedar siding. The facade does have a bit of variation, but notice how the cedar siding is arbitrarily flush with the hardie panel siding to the right. This is a nice home, but the concept was bastardized from what was intended to make it more affordable to build.

A high-end house uses nicer, natural materials. Real stone, real wood, and exposed steel, concrete, and/or wood structure. There is not much drywall exposed. Instead, it is either covered with a nicer material or, better yet, the finish materials are an integrated part of the actual structure of the building. The exterior fits into the natural environment with its use of natural materials, and the windows are larger with thinner frames and either no trim or very well conceived trim that integrates with the architectural elements of the building. A high-end home also has more advanced systems for heating, ventilation, structural framing, home automation, insulation, and waterproofing. These kind of homes are usually around $1000 per square foot or more. Most homes you see in magazines cost over $1000 per square foot.

Notice the structure is exposed. It is not covered with siding. The glass abuts all the way to the structure, and the window frames are essentially non-existent. There is barely any use of drywall on the interior since the actual structure is exposed and glass spans between that structure. Also, notice how the exterior materials continue to the inside. This home has more window area than wall area, and this is very expensive to build.

Early in the design process, we help advise our clients on construction cost, and much of this is factored into the types of finishes desired. The same floor plan can be later developed to be high end in any style, or it could be kept simple and cheaper. The cost is all in the details.

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

Exceptional Trees

Trees are beautiful. They provide shade, they suck up groundwater to prevent basement flooding, they look pretty, and their roots hold hills together. They do provide a lot of benefits.

They also cause problems when they are too close to buildings. Their roots ruin foundations, the leaves clog gutters and sewers, their acidity ruins roofs, and they cause damage or injury when branches fall. For this reason, it is best to keep trees away from buildings and high use areas and to prune any nearby trees before they become problematic.

In many cities, you are not allowed to just cut down a tree or even prune it. There’s often rules about where trees are allowed to be cut down, how many are allowed to be cut down, and what size trees are allowed to be cut down. Many land use codes refer to large trees as “exceptional,” “significant,” or “protected.” These are trees that have strict limitations for removal due to their size. The size is commonly measured by the diameter of the trunk at “breast height,” which is 4.5’ above the ground. Different species have different thresholds of trunk diameter that cause them to be considered exceptional. Typically, if a tree is considered exceptional (or whatever special term your city uses), you simply cannot cut it down, AND you can’t even build or disturb the soil within a certain distance of it.

If a tree is classified as exceptional, most cities will require you to hire an arborist to document the species and size of the tree, and that arborist will be required to write a report to describe how it must be protected during construction with fences, excavation methods, and other techniques. Additionally, their report also prescribes the “dripline” which is the outer ring of its canopy. Generally, the roots stretch out as far as the branches, so the dripline distinguishes the land that often cannot be disturbed. In some cities, the dripline is divided into an “inner root zone” and an “outer root zone.” The inner root zone is an area that absolutely cannot be disturbed, and an outer root zone is an area that might be allowed to have certain minimal disturbance with special monitoring and expert oversight from a certified arborist.

This really puts a burden on construction since additional setbacks from exceptional trees paired with other limitations like setbacks from property lines, setbacks from steep slopes, limitations to the percentage of land allowed to be developed, and other limiting factors really makes it a challenge to build. With so many factors limiting development, land gets harder and harder to build on, it becomes less valuable while causing other available land to become increasingly more expensive, and consequently less housing gets built which contributes to the ongoing housing shortage and overpriced homes.

As a homeowner with trees on your property, you really need to be diligent about this. If a tree is getting larger and larger each year, at some point it might be considered “exceptional,” and you won’t be allowed to remove it even though it will literally start to destroy your home (and maybe even you). It is best to remove these beasts before they become a problem. Small problems are easier to solve than big ones (cheaper to remove smaller trees too). As a tree gets bigger and bigger, at some point cutting it down would cause it to fall on your home, and that causes tree crews to expensively dismantle it limb by limb to avoid costly damage. It would have been much cheaper to remove that tree when it was a little twig. Or better yet, it would have been best to just plant it far from your home in the first place.

In Seattle, there is new legislation that categorizes all trees into tier 1-4. Tier 1 trees have historic historic significance and cannot be altered. Tier 2 trees are any with trunks 24” in diameter or greater (and additional smaller trees on a special list). Tier 3 trees have trunks 12” to 24” that aren’t on the special list from Tier 2. Tier 4 includes all trees with trunks 6” to 12” that are not on the special list. When removing or pruning trees that are Tier 1-4, there are special reporting requirements and permit fees depending on the situation. More detail is provided at https://www.seattle.gov/DPD/Publications/CAM/Tip242B.pdf

The moral of the story is to remove your potentially problematic trees before their trunks become 6”, or you will have a hard time (and expensive time) dealing with them once they have matured. The other main point is to be very thoughtful about where you plant trees. Remember that they grow up to become monsters that will damage your property if planted too close to your home.

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