home building

Ep.59: New Energy Opportunities with Jacob Corvidae

June 24, 2019 00:33:53

“Going green” has been a part of the remodeling and building industries for a while. But much of the eco-conscious activity has been reactive. There’s real movement now to be proactive, and that’s especially true in the energy industry. It’s undergoing a massive disruption — and that has big implications for remodelers and builders.

In this episode, Jacob Corvidae talks about what’s coming in the energy industry, and what it will mean for your business, with Tim and Steve.

Jacob is a principal in the Buildings Program at Rocky Mountain Institute, where he leads the Residential Energy+ initiative. After nearly two decades of work in sustainable community development in Michigan, he now works from RMI’s Boulder, CO, office. He’s also a co-author of The Carbon-Free City Handbook, and The Carbon-Free Regions Handbook, two guides to help local governments around the world take action faster, and reports to support contractors and builders.

Jacob’s focus is on practical methods to get to a cleaner, more prosperous energy future. The discussion ranges from macro to micro topics — from the global impacts to why residential gas stoves can cause asthma attacks. Find out what changes in energy production and infrastructure will mean to the building and remodeling industries, including:

What the dropping price of solar may mean for you
Changes in utility rates
How energy-efficient building will save, and possibly, earn money
Solar on homes as part of a community “farm”
The economics of clean energy
Infrastructure challenges and solutions
The rise of the all-electric house
Enforcement of energy-efficiency through local standards and codes
Staying ahead of the curve to become a local market leader
Educating your customers
The sales opportunities for you
Getting a strategy together
Reaching out to manufacturers
And more …

Including where to go for more information and education. To start, Jacob recommends his own organization and additional resources:

Ep.56: The Ins and Outs of Off-Site Construction with David Cooper

June 3, 2019 00:32:40

Remodelers and custom-home builders are used to being on a job site, building from the outside in, whatever the weather. Modular or prefab homes are built in a controlled factory environment, from the inside out, and have made strides in quality, architectural complexity, and production processes.

In this episode, David Cooper talks to Tim and Steve about modular homes, their history, what the future holds, and some of the misconceptions about prefab homes.

David is the managing director of Connecticut Valley Homes of East Lyme, CT, with design studios in Fairfield and Westerly, CT. David is an award-winning modular home expert. CVH has been in business for 40 years, building more than 1,600 custom homes, and specializes in teardowns, rebuilds, and coastal construction.

Modular home building is a growing industry, spurred by technology — especially AutoCAD — which allows modular builders to create custom homes. Modular builders can construct essentially the same homes as on-site and stick-built homes. They build to the same codes using the same materials, but the process is different. David says his company can have a homeowner move in 120 days (or less) from the time they put the house on the foundation, and he talks about other facets of off-site construction, including:

How they compete on quality
The five types of modular homes
Building in a controlled environment
Energy benefits of modular construction
Sustainable building processes
Having lower liability on site
What the building process looks like
Using robots to frame walls
Getting all the clients’ decisions up front
The differences in inspections
The ballet of coordination in the factory and on site
How the money works out
The beauty of no change orders
And more …

It’s an insightful look at another part of the home building business and the different production processes they use.

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PRODUCTION CONFERENCE ’19: BIGGER & BETTER!
After two outstanding years, we are excited to host the 3rd Annual Production Conference, held alongside the 2019 Remodelers Summit at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida. In addition to hosting the event in the same hotel as the Summit, we’ve made even easier to register for BOTH events at the same time!

Ep.38: Working with Trades On-Site with John Vendafreddo

January 14, 2019 0:28:25

When you’re managing a project, you need your Trade Partners and Subcontractors to work with you, not against you. That means you need to build strong relationships and make them feel like they’re all part of the same team.

The three main things to help that along, says John Vendafreddo, is to do your research to ensure you’re hiring right, pay Subs as quickly as you can after they’re done, and make sure the job site is 100% ready for them on the day they’re scheduled to start.

In this episode, John talks to Tim and Steve about what how to create and maintain great relationships with Trade Partners and Subs.

After realizing the carpenters union was not for him, John called his cousin Brian Hogan to ask if he was hiring, and if he offered health insurance. John started with Hogan Design & Construction in Geneva, IL, in 2005 as a laborer. He quickly learned the skills in the field and was promoted to Lead Carpenter in 2007. From there, he built relationships with subcontractors and homeowners and took an interest management. In 2012, he was promoted to Project Manager. John just completed HDC’s first new-construction home, and is currently managing four other new developments.

Communication is the key to building relationships, and John walks you through the process of how he interacts with his Subs. That starts early, with a verbal heads-up on another job, followed by a formal welcome letter. He talks about the importance of having everything ready on site and — in HDC’s case — on BuilderTrend, giving Subs access to the plans, selections and schedule information. He also talks about how to:

Keep Subs loyal longer
Control Sub’s prices from jumping up
Learn from previous inspections
Manage change orders and maintaining proper channels
Put two Subs on-site at the same time
Figure out which Subs can overlap
Manage them once they’re there
And more…

If you want to learn how to manage your Subs better, streamline your production schedule, and get more jobs done on time and on budget, there’s a whole lot to consider in this episode.

Ep.36: Creating Comfortable Buildings Through Energy Efficiency with John Viner

December 17, 2018 00:28:42

Remodeling solutions that make people more comfortable in their homes, while saving energy, are becoming more important to remodelers and homeowners. Researchers and specialists are diving into this, and manufacturers are creating new products that will achieve those goals.

But it’s still not simple. You have to look at the building itself — not just the addition you’re building or the rooms you’re remodeling — as its own unique system, says John Viner.

In this week’s episode, John talks with Tim and Steve about working toward zero-energy buildings, and what that takes.

John’s a Senior Project Manager at Seventhwave in Madison, WI, a non-profit dedicated to solving technical problems when transitioning to clean energy, and working with state, government and local utilities to save energy. He develops and manages education programs for residential, commercial, and industrial building professionals. His specialty is working with energy-efficiency programs, working with customers and trade partners to identify knowledge gaps, and creating content that empowers utilities, builders, and consumers to change their energy use. As a technical expert, John keeps his skills sharp with in-the-field projects as part of Seventhwave’s research and program evaluation program.

Also, much like Consumer Reports, Seventhwave test products to make sure manufacturer’s claims about energy-efficiency actually work in the real world.

So many factors combine to make a building energy-efficient, comfortable, structurally sound, and healthy. Making buildings tight has consequences if it’s not done right — affecting indoor air quality especially. The right solution for one house may not be same for the next one you work on. John talks about how to find what works for you, including:

Refining rules of thumb
Vetting new products
Why newer homes are more complicated
Tailoring the system for your climate region
How remodelers can stay in the know about best practices for energy efficiency
Why local codes aren’t always the last word on efficiency
Gauging you team’s capabilities and learning curve
Perfecting your system
And more…

John recommends two easy-to-understand websites for remodelers to check out to learn more about energy efficient building systems, Buildingscience.com and GreenBuildingAdvisor.

Seventhwave is holding the Better Buildings Better Business Conference devoted to helping builders and remodelers build-in energy efficiencies specifically in cold climates — and Tim will be speaking — Feb. 13-15, 2019, in the Wisconsin Dells. Tim also reports the hosting resort has an awesome indoor water park. Just FYI.

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Ep.12: Making the Transition from Home Building to Remodeling with Kevin Gregory

June 18, 2018 00:25:57

The industry-wide squeeze on labor demand has led to remodeling business owners turning their focus outside of their specific areas of construction to grow their teams.

Home building, commercial construction and specialties such as roofing, framing and even landscaping have been looked at as fertile ground for finding that next great team member, or even leader.

Making the transition from home building to remodeling can be tough, and in Episode 12 Tim and Steve welcome an industry veteran who has successfully shifted his focus from one to another.

Kevin Gregory, Owner of Boulder Builders in Colorado, joins the show to talk more about some of the challenges he faced as he not only entered the remodeling business, but started his own firm as well.

Kevin successfully transitioned from his role as a Project Manager for a Large Production home builder, to Production manager of a large-scale remodeling company. Kevin then founded Boulder Builders in 2015 and by 2017 had doubled in size every year with more than $1.5 in annual sales.

Tim, Steve and Kevin explore the differences from one form of construction to another, including:

The amount of attention focused on quality vs. speed of the job
Shifting from working with sub-contractors to adding staff/team members
Transitioning new team members from home building and general construction to remodeling
Wearing multiple hats as a remodeling business owner vs. structured environment in home building
And more

To learn more about Boulder Builders, visit their website: http://www.boulderbuilders.com/

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