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A step by step account of Integer Homes Inc's inner city construction projects in Calgary.
Monday 2 May 2016
New website www.integerhomes.com
We have launched our new website at www.integerhomes.com. This will be a better platform to share information about our upcoming news and projects plus it also has a blog section.
Finished landscaping
With the irrigation running smoothly and some great weather the plants and trees now look exceptional given the work has only been done for six months. The new owners really stepped up the outdoor spaces with more plants and furniture. The threeplex is looking great and we can feel good about leaving it in their capable hands.
Saturday 9 April 2016
Sprinkler turn on
Tuesday 5 April 2016
The 30 day basement challenge part 3 - how much did it cost?
Often we get inquiries about how much a project should cost. Estimates vary widely, and without comprehensive specifications we have difficulty ourselves coming up with a number. What we do know, is what it cost to finish our own projects. You could say we have a pretty tight control over what our spec homes cost, because if we do not, we risk losing significant sums of our investment.
Recently we completed a basement in 30 days. It was a considerably effort to do so on that timeline, and it required our sole focus to manage effectively.
We are going to publish a rough itemization of the cost to have the work done below. While this is somewhat proprietary, we do not have a problem sharing the information if it helps others with managing the budget on their own project. There are also various ways to account for the total cost of the job. We are just going to list the bills received to get the job done, and not go into project management fees, financing fees, overhead and other soft costs.
Recently we completed a basement in 30 days. It was a considerably effort to do so on that timeline, and it required our sole focus to manage effectively.
We are going to publish a rough itemization of the cost to have the work done below. While this is somewhat proprietary, we do not have a problem sharing the information if it helps others with managing the budget on their own project. There are also various ways to account for the total cost of the job. We are just going to list the bills received to get the job done, and not go into project management fees, financing fees, overhead and other soft costs.
| framing | 750 |
| lumber | 350 |
| plumbing rough in to final install labour | 700 |
| tile material only | 715 |
| electrical | 1050 |
| tile labour | 645 |
| lights | 300 |
| quartz countertop material and labour | 600 |
| cabinetry supply and install | 850 |
| drywall to paint all inclusive | 6600 |
| carpet supply install | 1825 |
| cleaning and dump fees | 250 |
| plumbing finish supplies | 675 |
| finishing all in (doors, trim, materials) | 1600 |
| mirror and shower door | 480 |
| central vacuum tie in | 200 |
| total | 17590 |
So, now we know the raw cost of the material and labour to do the job. We can convert that back to a square footage price ($29.31) and that can be a guideline for those attempting to manage the job themselves. This is where we get to the fine print. This price would be for a homeowner who (a) has an understanding of market price for labour and gets reasonable deals from the trades, and (b) has the time and energy to manage the effort of 20 + suppliers and workers, and the knowledge to make sure the work is done properly. I would estimate that any full time employed person would not have the ability to do this (while working themselves), nor the experience to manage quality control of the workmanship.
Other costs that would be factored in are city permits/inspections, cost to finance, and project management.
The 30 day basement challenge part 2 - is this a DIY project or do you need a contractor
The tight time line of our basement project left little time to seek multiple bids - by the time we would have been able to get contractors in to get prices, we would have lost too much time to get the job done! We basically had four weeks to do the job, and that was about 22 work days. Each working day we needed to get about 5% of the job done. Hiring crews that could not deliver was not an option.
Fortunately we have some good guys willing to work on our schedule, and given the recession the trades are definitely looking for work, so we had good accountability to our schedule throughout. Notable highlights on this job was having the drywall hung and the first coat of taping done on the same day. Never before have we had that kind of service, it was great. Mainly this is the advantage of small jobs, you can really schedule work and have it done according to the plan, with little deviation. This has not always been true for our larger projects.
Many homeowners would wonder what it would cost to develop their basement, and if they could do it by themselves. I can answer this question in a general sense. For a simple basement it could be done in a month and cost less than $20k, for the individual capable of financing and managing the job full time, and who has all the right contacts to get professional quality work done on time. For the average homeowner, a basement is probably too large to tackle without some assistance. It is highly unlikely a homeowner has contacts with every trade necessary, we used:
Looking back on this list of 25 companies, individuals and tradespeople, we were surprised by the number of people involved in just this one small project. It is no surprise that without someone acting as crew chief, this would be total chaos. Given that we have worked with every individual on this list (and we have alternates) although in this case we used our A team of preferred trades, we have their phone numbers, and we often have a good working relationship with them, it is no surprise we could manage the job effectively and get it done in 30 days.
Fortunately we have some good guys willing to work on our schedule, and given the recession the trades are definitely looking for work, so we had good accountability to our schedule throughout. Notable highlights on this job was having the drywall hung and the first coat of taping done on the same day. Never before have we had that kind of service, it was great. Mainly this is the advantage of small jobs, you can really schedule work and have it done according to the plan, with little deviation. This has not always been true for our larger projects.
Many homeowners would wonder what it would cost to develop their basement, and if they could do it by themselves. I can answer this question in a general sense. For a simple basement it could be done in a month and cost less than $20k, for the individual capable of financing and managing the job full time, and who has all the right contacts to get professional quality work done on time. For the average homeowner, a basement is probably too large to tackle without some assistance. It is highly unlikely a homeowner has contacts with every trade necessary, we used:
- drafter (changes to plan)
- framer
- plumber
- plumbing supplier (shower, taps, etc)
- HVAC sheet metal mechanic
- electrician
- central vacuum installer
- drywall boarder
- drywall taper
- drywall sander
- ceiling texture crew
- painter
- finishing package wholesaler
- finishing carpenter
- spray crew (same as painter in this case but usually different)
- cabinet shop/designer
- cabinet installer
- tile wholesaler
- tiler
- stone counter shop/install
- carpet shop
- carpet install
- glass shop install crew mirror and shower door
- cleaner and trash removal dump runner
- general contractor (this was us, integer homes inc)
Looking back on this list of 25 companies, individuals and tradespeople, we were surprised by the number of people involved in just this one small project. It is no surprise that without someone acting as crew chief, this would be total chaos. Given that we have worked with every individual on this list (and we have alternates) although in this case we used our A team of preferred trades, we have their phone numbers, and we often have a good working relationship with them, it is no surprise we could manage the job effectively and get it done in 30 days.
The 30 day basement challenge - part 1 project logistics
Summary – we had to
finish a basement in 30 days. The job
itself was a significant learning event since we are a home builder, not a home
renovator. Without a big push by the
company owner and some careful selection of quality tradespeople that delivered
for us in a big way, the project would not have been complete on time. Full details from our project analysis and schedule information are found below.
Having watched perhaps too much renovation show on HGTV, I
figured doing a complete basement development project in 30 days wouldn’t prove
to be much of a challenge, especially for a home building company that
generally tackles small multifamily townhouse development. Our company has finished more than ten
basements over the last few years, all with one considerable difference, they
were done at the time of construction of the entire project, not as a
standalone. This meant in our experience
finishing basements, the framing and technical trade work necessary was done
with the upper levels of the house. The
basement was part of the overall schedule, so didn’t have a timeline on its own. To us, the effort to finish the basement has
been indistinguishable from doing the whole townhouse project.
In this instance, the sale of the project (planned to be
sold without a finished basement) needed to be changed to close the deal. As part of the sale we agreed to complete
the basement for the new owner at the time of possession for their house
purchase. This left us with a month to
get it finished, from the raw studs to the final touchup.
As we prepared a schedule, it became clear the basement was
going to require the same level of effort to manage as if it was a small standalone
house project. We would need most of the same trades used in our full project
to repeat the same work, just on a smaller scale. The more detailed we looked into the
schedule, the less slack we had in terms of lining up every single component of
the job from beginning to end, with little margin for error. Since finishing the job after the new owners
took possession was not a desirable outcome, we endeavored to get it done on
time, and we had to allocate a substantial commitment of our time and resources
(more than we had originally wanted to).
We developed a few key learnings on this project;
·
Weekends can be your friend – we had framing
done on a Saturday and Sunday, this allowed the trades to get off to a far
better start on Monday than had we not managed to get the framing done on the
weekend. If we started framing on the
Monday following the productive weekend, we likely would not have been able to
get the plumber to start until Wednesday, and if he took more than his allotted
time, we’d have been into the following week to get the rest of the rough in
done. Instead, we had the trades
finished and drywall delivered that first week.
This set the stage for continued momentum for the remainder of the job.
·
Lead times for custom material are going to use
precious days - so order as soon as measurements allow. We tend to order bathroom vanities once
framing is done so we can get the sizing just right. In this project had to use the same style of cabinets
as the rest of the custom house, so no stock material was available. It took 16 days to take delivery of the
cabinet, this was half our schedule. We
picked up the material at the shop and it was installed that same day, if we
had to wait any longer for the cabinets it would have set back our job
considerably. Tile took less time to
ship, but it was still a week and necessitated a quick measurement and preorder
just after framing was done to get the count correct.
·
Using the right crew is absolutely essential –
we used the same crew to hang, tape, and sand the drywall, and paint the walls
and spray the trim. This was a major
time saver because we were able to have the basement boarded and first coat of
tape done on the same day. With the need
for drying time the zero wait between early stages of drywall was a big bonus.
·
Significant management effort is involved in a
tightly scheduled project to keep it on track – this basement occupied a site
supervisor/project manager/cleaner type person almost full time for the month
long project. Dealing with getting the
floors shop vac’d at key intervals, and the garbage hauled away is a costly and
time consuming task. We had little choice
but to tackle this ourselves.
·
The faster timeline allows little opportunity
for quality control - we worked extra hard to identify and repair the
inevitable bad studs and rectify any issue that would show after the drywall
(i.e. too late). The more experience the
company management has with this the better and more professional the end
product will be.
·
Budget is hard to estimate before the full range
of finishes can be calculated – we had a rough idea at the start of the
project, but the end product was slightly over budget. The bulk of that additional cost went into
the bathroom budget, for tile, cabinetry, quartz counter and plumbing finishes,
toilet, sink, tap and shower trim. We
made every economy possible except for substituting inferior materials.
Thursday 10 March 2016
Finding land...
With lead times for a future multi family project possibly approaching two years from land deal to shovel in the ground in the Calgary inner city, we always need to make sure we have our next parcel ready to go. On this issue we have certainly failed miserably, given that we are currently almost idle with our project complete, and we lack a new project to begin this spring.
With the major downturn in the economy now into its second year, we predicted that by late winter, good deals could be had on land, either in the form of distressed inventory from builders that over reached during the boom, or motivated individuals looking to dispose of dilapidated houses.
Instead, we have found, now that late winter has come and spring is around the corner, that most of the good land was bought but stubborn builders who haven't yet felt a motivation to sell. They are still holding out for a 2013 land value, or $20k more than what they paid whenever they bought it. The lack of logic in the multi family land space is quite puzzling, but in part it is a function of the inability to rezone land within neighbourhoods into multi family zoning from R2 zoning. R2 zoned land is in a glut at the moment due to overhanging inventory, however, it is also overpriced relative to what finished homes are actually selling for.
We are making use of a quieter period to catch up on research and networking as we both look for new land opportunities and try and expand our construction knowledge and contact base. We have been considering a larger townhouse project with a partly underground parking structure. This would increase our unit count, but could also result in costly and time consuming overbuilding of fire barriers, sprinklers, and other difficult site challenges that could render a great looking project a construction budget nightmare.
Stay tuned on this blog site as we will announce any land deal immediately.
With the major downturn in the economy now into its second year, we predicted that by late winter, good deals could be had on land, either in the form of distressed inventory from builders that over reached during the boom, or motivated individuals looking to dispose of dilapidated houses.
Instead, we have found, now that late winter has come and spring is around the corner, that most of the good land was bought but stubborn builders who haven't yet felt a motivation to sell. They are still holding out for a 2013 land value, or $20k more than what they paid whenever they bought it. The lack of logic in the multi family land space is quite puzzling, but in part it is a function of the inability to rezone land within neighbourhoods into multi family zoning from R2 zoning. R2 zoned land is in a glut at the moment due to overhanging inventory, however, it is also overpriced relative to what finished homes are actually selling for.
We are making use of a quieter period to catch up on research and networking as we both look for new land opportunities and try and expand our construction knowledge and contact base. We have been considering a larger townhouse project with a partly underground parking structure. This would increase our unit count, but could also result in costly and time consuming overbuilding of fire barriers, sprinklers, and other difficult site challenges that could render a great looking project a construction budget nightmare.
Stay tuned on this blog site as we will announce any land deal immediately.
Sunday 28 February 2016
Threeplex project is complete
Finishing a multi-family site in Calgary is a marathon of a project. It requires considerable effort to achieve not just construction completion but all of the sales necessary to truly finish the project. Once the sales stage is complete there remains a warranty phase and also preparing the condo board to take over the building financial management.
Our threeplex is now officially sold out and as of the end of March the building will be fully occupied.
Right now we are starting a serious land hunt as a few solid property leads and offers made to buy land have collapsed. We are also engaging with our local community to see if they are interested in supporting any row house type projects that we'd like to develop.
As soon as a land deal is made we will update the blog site with details.
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