Hill House

Working through all the bids and negotiating with subs has certainly taken some time.  On top of this, our checksheets from the City of Portland for Structural and Soils were fairly lengthy.  The architectural set of drawings referred to the structural set in many cases.  The structural set then referenced the Geotechnical Engineer’s report.  The City didn’t like this at all.  They wanted all the Geotechnical information shown in the drawing set.  Their argument is they don’t think a sub contractor would look in a report.  Maybe slightly picky, but makes sense.  We ended up making a new set of ‘Geotechnical’ drawings to add into our overall set….should work.  We’ll submit them next week and see what happens.

In the mean time, we’ve been looking into the multitude of heating and cooling options.  To get into some basic costs, the Warmboard floor sheathing we have specified in the house runs $22,000 (typical plywood sheathing is $3,000).  This price includes a ‘trade’ discount, which is nice.  On top of this, we have a radiant system that will run $15,000 – $20,000 for pumps, tubes and manifolds, plus water heating equipment (boiler, tankless or tank heater) at another $2,000 – $6,000 depending on the equipment.  On top of this, we have very minimal insulation bids at $25,000 for full perimeter 1 1/2″ flash and batt to $35,000 for 3″ flash and batt.  Flash and batt refers to a ‘flash’ pass of spray foam, followed by a less expensive batt or blown in insulation for the remainder of the wall cavity.  My theory has always been to spend your money on a tight, well insulated building envelope and spend less on smaller, more efficient HVAC equipment that will use less energy during the life of the building.  Keep in mind, we are building 8″ thick walls and 12″ deep roof diaphragm that needs to be completely filled with insulation.  I did stray from my theory towards a more expensive and luxurious heating system that may cost up to $48,000 to install.  In addition, because you don’t turn a radiant system off, you’re wasting energy while you’re away from the house during the day.  A humbling exercise.  We have determined our radiant system to be a fantastically wonderful luxury.

At the moment, we are getting bids on three systems:

1. hydronic radiant heat with a gas fired AO Smith Vertex water heater and another for domestic water

2. Fujitsu mini split ductless heat pump for heat / cooling, Vertex water heater for domestic water

3. Fujitsu split ducted heat pump for heat / cooling, Vortex water heater for domestic water.

Why not a tankless water heater?  With the addition of the ADU in the building, we have a potential of 3 showers and 2 dishwashers running at the same time.  This load if fairly difficult for even the best tankless to keep up with.  Using a dishwasher with an internal water heater can help, but three showers at once is still tough to manage.  We’re working with EcoHeat on pricing.  We’ve found them to be extremely professional, knowledgeable and competitively priced.

We’ve been working hard getting bids from subs.  The prices have been all over the board.  The biggest change however over the past two years is the willingness for subs to negotiate their prices.  Our plan is to make sure we have at least two bids for each trade, pick a sub and see how we can do with pricing.  A good example of this is our electrical category.  I’ll be purchasing all the fixtures myself through a local electrical supply store to avoid further mark up on fixtures, but we have three bids for electrical labor – $17k, $21k and $35k.  This is a fairly large difference in pricing.  The highest bidder also has the most exclusions in his price.  It’s very important to read all the exclusions.  Subs will often include in their exclusions items that are on the plans and even noted to be included – this can be especially confusing when installation happens and you notice you’re not getting what you expected.  With this kind of market, I have a feeling I can offer the job to the lowest sub at $15k and I’m fairly confident he’ll happily take it.

Another big savings so far is windows.  Companies encourage architects to use their products by offering discounts.  If the product is for the architect’s own use, the discount can be more.  Because of this discount process we’re able to afford Marvin Windows – which in my opinion is the best wood clad aluminum window we have access to in the pacific northwest.  To sweeten the deal further, Marvin will extend another nearly 30% discount if we have a public tour of the house.  Luckily, I’m a part of the local 11xdesign collective, so I can assure this will happen.  The entire window package is now at $32k for Marvin’s Ultimate Casement.  This casement window offers an opening 42″ wide x 96″ tall – the largest casement window on the market.  Marvin also threw in the Low-e 366 coating – click here to learn more.

As the final numbers come in, I’ll post about the numbers, what they mean and how we intend to handle them.

As posted previously, we’ve decided to file for an adjustment to our allowed height limit.  Technically, our house is now shorter by 12″, but the overall design has changed just enough the city doesn’t feel they have approved what we were proposing to build.  A neighbor of ours, after receiving the adjustment in the mail suggested we all get together, have a glass of wine and discuss.  We thought that sounded like a fine idea.

The meeting happened during one of our hottest days this summer.  The temperature was around 106 degrees at 6 p.m.  We arrived at our neighbor’s house, were shuffled through the house, handed a glass of wine and ended up on their back deck looking down over our lot.  There were approximately 15 people there included us.  It was nice to see such a concerned group of people taking care of their neighborhood.  After a brief explanation of our design, what we planned to do and what the city was requiring, everyone was happy.  The meeting moved to another neighbor’s house (they had AC) and proceeded into the evening and proved to be a great time.

If anyone is planning on asking for an adjustment, I highly recommend being proactive and discussing your intentions with your neighbors.  Our adjustment closes today at 5:00 p.m. and, knock on wood, we have had no comments – which makes the process move much faster.

While permitting has been going on, I’ve been securing bids and pricing for everything.  I hope to provide some detailed information in the next post about how the costs are looking as well as discuss the possible GC options we’re entertaining.

We submitted for permit June 30th, just in time.  Permitting fees went up July 1st.  The victory was short lived.  We were hit yesterday with our first permitting snag.  Our current design is 3′ over the allowed height limit.  Now, this is where it gets complicated.  We already applied for an adjustment to the height limit and were granted approval.  This approved a total building height of 37′ plus a ‘bump up’ light monitor for a total of 41′.

Through the design process with the engineers, the house design altered a little from the time we were granted our approval.  Our current design stands at 40′ for the building height and no ‘bump up’ light monitor.  This is an interesting point.  Even though we are technically under our height limit, the approved ‘design’ is different.  To compound the problem, the other bureaus will not receive our plans for review until the height issue is resolved…it’s a serious bummer.  To get our plans in front of the structural reviewer (which in my opinion is the most important one here) we either need to apply for another height adjustment, or we need to change the design of the house to be 3′ lower.

We decided it would actually be quickest and least expensive to file for another height adjustment.  The adjustment is now $1,027, up from a few months ago when it was $800.  The one saving grace is the ADU adjustment we filed for but did not need will refund $690 back to us.  We’ll apply for the adjustment next Monday and the plans will then be routed to the other bureaus for review.

While all of this is going on, we’ve started to send our project components out to bid.  I’m going to act as GC on our project, but will hire a project manager to make sure things are progressing on a day to day basis.  I’ll post again about this topic in more detail as we don’t have all the ins and outs ironed out yet.  The big picture with this approach is that I’m taking as much responsibility, purchasing mark-up and management away from a typical GC to avoid the additional fees associated with a standard GC approach.  I’m comfortable with this approach as I have a fair amount of experience doing this, it gives me the most controld and ultimately, when issues arise, I’ll have nobody to blame but myself.  Mike in Seattle is at a very similar stage in his project and just wrote a fantastic post on his House by the Park blog about his experience deciding on using a GC or going with a design/build firm – It’s great information.