Our Process
Early Involvement
Being involved with our clients, the architect and design team from the earliest possible stages of the project provides a benefit to not only us, but to everyone. When all parties are on board with the project early on it allows for maximum clarity and early value engineering to ensure that time and money are not wasted.
Site Evaluation
After meeting with our clients, one of the first things that we do is visit the building location and look for any potential issues that may arise, such as location, positioning, utilities and more. We also make sure to keep in mind any subdivision setbacks and regulations if applicable. We provide any insight and recommendations on building placement on the property based on our expertise if needed.
Estimates
Shortly after the initial set of drawings are completed, we will start doing our preliminary estimating to see the range of where the budget will be based upon years of historical expertise with estimates. These early estimates are effective in assisting the design team in knowing which directions they can go, and it informs the clients about the status of the budget.
Budgeting
When the preliminary budget is set, it makes a big difference for both the owner and the design team, because now if the budget and cost estimate do not line up properly it is easy to make adjustments early on rather than seeing these conflicts later on and having to adjust when it is too late.
After estimating is through with, the design team can then complete their process and we go through another stage of pricing, which can become fairly involved depending on the scope of the project. Once this stage of pricing is complete, we hand it off to the construction team.
Scheduling
For scheduling we use a project management system called Buildertrend, which is a document control center that also keeps an updated schedule and marks key decision dates. It is consistently up to date, and the architect and owner have access to this at all times. The biggest thing that drives the cost of a project is the schedule, making Buildertrend a vital part of our process.
We typically update scheduling on a monthly basis, so that there is always a critical path for the design team and the owner, whether it is for decisions on tile, or a final design for the roof. Buildertrend makes sure that everyone is on the path to finish and clients are in the loop.
Post Construction
Once the construction process is done with we do a final walk-through with the client to make certain that everything is up to standards and cover the important things to know about the home, especially electrical.
When we finish building a home we stay in touch with the owners forever, we provide maintenance and assistance for homeowners we have worked with. Our clients are clients for life.