The Right Panelized Home Plan

What this episode covers

Show Notes: A fun episode in which Landmark Home and Land Company president Steve Tuma recalls some interesting building situations the company has helped its customers contend with.  Landmark Home and Land Company’s reputation for service is well known. Transcript: Interviewer: Hey everybody. It’s once again time for the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. Sitting in the studio with me is my co-host, 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, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, what’s up my friend? Steve Landmark: It’s another great day. Good to talk more about panelized homes. Interviewer: Yours and my favorite subject. Steve Landmark: Yeah, it’s – well, it’s an interesting process. All of us live some place. So it’s kind of neat to have an understanding of an option that’s out there to help people design and build a house that they actually like and enjoy. Interviewer: Well, we’ve been spending a lot of episodes going over just the basic construct and conception of what panelized home building really is and what the processes are and also we’ve been covering a lot of questions from customers and potential customers, which has been great.  But I was thinking I might like to get in a talk today about some of the more interesting situations you’ve come across while helping people build their new homes. I’m sure there have been plenty of unique challenges along the way in your company’s 25-year history. I’m sure that there are – where there are probably – for every 100 customers, that everything goes pretty smooth. You’ve probably had a couple where the customer runs into some problems with their particular area, dealing with permits and such. But does anything strike you off the top of your head right now about the unique situations lately that you’ve run into? Steve Landmark: Well, the key thing is people’s understanding of what’s required for a good set of plans. It’s kind of interesting. As technology progresses, you can jump online and draw your own set of plans. You can buy a simple little program and draw them that way. You can hand sketch them. You can go buy a standardized set of plans and what people don’t realize is the quality of plans can vary considerably. Not all set of plans are the same. So just because your friend won an award in high school doesn’t mean he knows how to draw a set of plans. It’s possible they may work. But most likely, there are a lot of details, especially in the more sophisticated areas where the plans need to be detailed properly. So what we suggest to people is get an idea of the concept of what they want to build and then have us develop the plans because like you take for example standardized plans. They’re typically built for one portion of the country, under a certain code that may or may not apply for what your building department chooses to enforce. The building conditions of those plans, they’re generally built for a flat lot. Well, what if you’re building on the side of a hill? What if they’re designed for a slab and you need a basement? So there’s a lot of different detailed information that we need to put on plans to make sure that they’re done properly. So what we suggest is to contact us with the concept of the plan and we will go through and refine the plans, so they’re suitable for your specific building site, for your specific building department. People will find that to be very important. It’s easy to think that you have an understanding of plans. You probably do have a very strong understanding of what you want to build. But the ability to develop the plans properly, so they’re good for actual budgeting, scheduling, permitting and building is very important. So one hurdle that people run into is they will contact us after they have a set of p...