Kit Home Finishing. Cabinets, Doors, Windows, Siding and More

What this episode covers

Show Notes: An easy going discussion on finishing items such as cabinets, doors, windows, siding and more.  Mechanical system design.  Insulation for an efficient home is discussed along with some structural details and roof loading.  Details on kit home site planning. Transcript: Interviewer: Hey everybody and welcome to episode 25 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me in the studio as usual is the president and founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want exactly as they want across the nation and worldwide since 1993, Steve Tuma. Steve, how are things over at Landmark? Steve Landmark: Very well. We’re working hard taking care of a lot of customers, developing their personalized and customized home plans so that they can build a home that they want and make sure it fits on the land, make sure it’s easy for them to get building permits and make sure it goes through inspections properly. Interviewer: So business as usual over at Landmark. Steve Landmark: Working away. Interviewer: So we’ve talked a lot in the past about the panelized home building process from the ground up and one thing we haven’t gone over all that much are the finishing items for a home building project. You know, things such as cabinets, doors, windows, siding, other details like that. When a Landmark customer comes to you and they’re looking at designs and they want to customize one of the Landmark designs, how do those fixtures and items come into the process? Steve Landmark: Well, it’s very interesting because we are able to let the customer choose the finishing items. What we mean by finishing items are the siding, the windows, the cabinets, the fixtures, the floors, the trim. You know, the kind of details that you see. We supply the plans and then the wood structure, which you generally don’t see after the home is built. But our customers like to personalize it and that’s the advantage. Sometimes they might – you know, people would go to build and there’s a choice of – you know, like Henry Ford. There’s a choice of everything as long as you pick from this one item, which really isn’t a selection. In our situation, with Landmark, people can choose their own flooring, their own siding, their own faucets, the plumbing fixtures, counter tops, cabinets. So there’s almost an endless variety that they can choose from. The nice thing is we can go draw all those details on the plans so that when they’re working with their plumber or electrician, carpeting people, flooring people, cabinet people, they know what’s required. They know how much space they have for cabinets. They know what areas are going to be wood floors, what areas are going to be carpet, what areas are going to be tile and whatever it is. That’s really the bottom line so that dollar for dollar, the people get the house that they want and that’s a key element. So we can put the details on the plans. Sometimes homeowner’s associations need to review the exterior look. Other times it’s just so that customers understand what they want to put on the home. They make final decisions and then it’s clear and the plan is set for the contractor. So it’s very clear. The plans are actually like a communication device when you’re getting estimates that would show, hey, you want a cement board siding or you want a metal roof or whatever the details are, so that it’s very clear. So that – I call it personalizing your home and customizing is also a good word for it. But you can have the colors you want, the materials you want, the look you want, the finishes that you want in the interior and exterior of the home as you choose. That’s pretty cool. Interviewer: You know, that all makes sense. But now the tough part. After we had all the fun of figuring out which windows and doors we wa...