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Show Notes: We explore the comprehensive process of designing and building custom panelized homes, emphasizing the flexibility and efficiency of this method compared to traditional stick-built homes. It covers topics such as modern and classic architectural styles, specialized homes for various lifestyles, and the importance of detailed planning and engineering to ensure structural integrity and cost control. Real-life examples illustrate how custom designs can cater to specific needs, from equestrian properties to hobby-focused spaces, while highlighting the benefits of thorough planning for achieving a functional, aesthetically pleasing, and budget-friendly home.
Transcript:
Steve Tuma: These panelized homes are basically stick-built homes. They’re just done on an efficient production line where we can control quality, we can control cost, we can make sure it’s done to precision design standards, make sure the right materials are there, and then deliver it to the site so it’s easier for someone to assemble.
Interviewer: Hello folks! Welcome to Episode 58 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. Joining me as always is the president and founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, and that would be Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you, my friend?
Steve Tuma: I’m doing great. We’re going to have an interesting podcast here, a little different angle on some questions, I guess.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Steve Tuma: Again, it’s always a good day. We’re helping people design their homes, build houses, answering questions of customers that have built, maybe want to build again, and then helping customers that are thinking about it, may build in a year or so, or sometimes five.
Interviewer: I keep throwing you curveballs, but you keep hitting them out of the park.
Steve Tuma: I’ll keep on doing it.
Interviewer: It’s actually a really fun podcast to host. Anyway, for this episode and for the past few, actually, we’re going to continue our series of our point-by-point, in-depth look at the process of designing and building a kit home. That’ll include permits and regulations and everything surrounding a kit home build, including what it takes and how easy it is truly to become an owner-builder. Steve, are you good to walk us through some of the finer points of kit home building?
Steve Tuma: Yeah. I think a lot of these, we’re talking about different costs and designs and stuff like that.
Interviewer: Yeah. Again, I’m going to try to throw you a couple of curveballs, but you always have the answer, so we’ll see what happens. We’re going to start off with something that you might find kind of funny, but I’m curious. What is the most inexpensive style of home to build? I don’t mean mud huts. I mean actual homes.
Steve Tuma: Well, it’s actually kind of funny. If you built a mud hut, there are people doing that with different mud products. You’ve got to go through so many different engineering and reinforcement. You still have to hit the same codes that those costs sound high. It becomes high, so it’s not necessarily you just take a pile of mud and build your hut and move in as some ancient civilizations might have been if you were to go that route. Still engineers, still energy codes, still zoning, so it’s kind of interesting. To get to the point, generally the most inexpensive style to build is like the ranch home. Just put four 90-degree corners on it, 24 wide, 40 feet deep, 60 feet deep, whatever it is. Sometimes you start getting over 26, 28 feet, it might go up a little bit more, but most of those are 24, 28 feet deep and 30, 40, 50, 60 feet wide. The reason being is there’s less corners, so less corners on the foundation, less corners on siding, less corners on drywall, less corners on ridges and valleys on the roof, so it’s just less expensive to do labor-wise and generally less materials. But what’s interesting about that question, I’ve got to go a little deeper, throw it back at you type of a thing, is that’s the style of home, but some people still want a house with a little more intricate roofline or more corners or a special entryway or breezeway or whatever it is. There are ways to still add those features and still control costs. So just because you go to a house with six corners on it, eight corners, a dozen, 20 Corners doesn’t mean you still can’t come up with an affordable design if you wanted something a little bit more complex than just a typical all-American ranch home. Now, something else to go a little deeper: sometimes people will say, “Well, I heard slabs are less expensive than basements.” And it may or may not be, depending on what you’re doing. I’ll tell you why. Sometimes people say, “Hey, a slab’s less expensive.” Well, if you have a flat piece of land and you don’t have to do groundwork, that may be true. But if you have a 2,000 square foot ranch home, you have a 2,000 square foot slab.
Interviewer: Oh right. Yeah.
Steve Tuma: If you have a 2,000 square foot kind of boxy two-story, 1,000 square feet on each level, your foundation’s 1,000 square feet. So in some cases, the general rule of thumb of, “Hey, slabs are less expensive,” doesn’t necessarily hold true depending on the design. Because if you take a boxy ranch and then a boxy two-story, you have half the foundation size and half the roof size.
Interviewer: Got it.
Steve Tuma: So sometimes there’s little guides or stories you hear. Just general rules of thumb may work under certain conditions, but it doesn’t always work out every time. Now, that’s why we’re here to help. If someone wants to talk about it, have us price out different panelized packages, we can do it. And then the people can make a decision of what works best for them.
Interviewer: Right. I’d hate to be the guy that had to get permits for a mud hut, that’s for sure.
Steve Tuma: Way back 15, 20 years ago, there were a lot of people going—it was like after the economic crash, a lot of people were getting proper homes and just different alternative methods. There was just like a two or three year period there. And we checked into it and it’s—yeah, by the time you enter even the container homes, you hear people—you’ll see this stuff, “I built this house with a 3,000 container.”
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Tuma: Yeah. And then $200,000 of other things to make it livable. And then you were in an eight by eight by 40 box. So sometimes what appears to be less expensive doesn’t end up being less expensive, which is why we suggest people get plans, price it out, and know what it is instead of just guessing and going. So another thing, let me throw another curveball in there. Sometimes people call and say, “Hey, is there an app that’ll give me pricing?” Or “I found this book or this online guru’s telling me the pricing to build any home anywhere in the country.” I’ve never seen it work. It may make people feel good for 10 minutes, but the reality is people should really look at the design, their land, where they’re building, and get costs for building their exact home on their piece of land. Don’t work off of general numbers that you found online or some app or some book because it just varies too much.
Interviewer: Is it overall less expensive to build a panelized home than, say, a stick-built home? Tell us about that. I mean, it just seems to me panelized homes have got to be economically better. But the way you talk, I mean, it could be—it could be just with all the variables and everything.
Steve Tuma: Well, it’s kind of hard to know exactly because generally all of our customers panelize it. We have thousands of plans on… I’m sorry, customize it or personalize it. So it’s hard to say, “Hey, here’s your custom design on the side of the hill in the Sierras compared to a box home on flat land someplace.” So when people design the home with us, we work to give them all the design details that they want. But where the advantage is that different groups have proven is that it’s the control of it. So sometimes people say, “Hey, your panelized package costs this and the lumberyard quoted me this.” Well, yeah, they don’t give you a guaranteed price. They didn’t engineer the plans. They didn’t do the energy codes to make sure that everything works.
So you can’t just take, in a sense, you can’t call a grocery store and say, “Hey, how much is one hamburger bun and a half a pound of chicken?” and say, “Well, that’s the cost of the sandwich,” because someone has to cook it. Someone has to put it together. Someone has to get the lettuce, the tomato, and get everything. And that, with our panelized process, we’re combining as the one-stop shop—the architectural design, structural design, energy codes, site plan, green codes, whatever details your building department may request. And then providing a set of plans that you could submit for permits. If your building department has questions, we can answer them. And then we supply a panelized home that matches the approved plans. No one else does that.
The bottom line, I think, you look as our company grows, people appreciate it. Some people come back and build a second, third, fifth home with us. They tell friends. And there’s a value. And I think what you see is, at the end, I just had a conversation with a person—his name’s Mike—building in Montana. He said it’s amazing, the help, the support, the knowledge, the being on top of it. That’s where it’s helping him build his home. So my belief is if you go apples to apples, look at the architectural cost, the less waste, not having to go to the lumberyard, not buying things because people miscut them or throw stuff away, the dumpster cost, the quicker framing time, which is faster. So if you’re on your construction loan money or opportunity cost, if you’re financing it with your own cash, the ability to control and get into the home. And then other things that people don’t think about—hassle, stress, pain-in-the-butt situations. We’re able to work with you up front to get it taken care of.
So I think you’ll see that the world is going to a process of manufacturing things in certain streamlined ways because of the efficiency, the lack of qualified labor, the control that our system gives, the control that our customer gives over the assembly of the house. And I think that that’s where it really comes together. When a customer goes through and says, “Hey, the foundation’s going to cost this much. The windows are going to cost this much.” They can work to get the house they want instead of someone saying, “Well, you have a choice of this window company only. You can’t use others or you can’t do this.” So that, I think, is where it is. We always strive to provide the best price. We guarantee our prices in writing. It’s a set price. And that’s where it is. We’re not in the game of lowballing and then nickel-and-diming and driving everyone crazy.
Yeah, it’s just not fun. It’s not cool. And tell you the truth, I don’t want to do all the change orders. So we just work with people. And if they want to add a window or door, you know, move something around, it’s not a big deal, right? So it works out pretty well. Very well, actually.
Interviewer: Let’s go, let’s get into semantics a little bit here. People talk about Panelized homes and prefab homes—I think that there’s a kind of a cross-connect here. Is a panelized home technically a prefab home or are they completely different?
Steve Tuma: Yes, it is. But the word prefab is so generic because if prefab could be the manufactured home, it could be a modular home prefabricated on a production line. It could be a prefabricated panelized home, and then it could also be a prefabricated truss and a completely custom home. So the word prefab is kind of saying, “I want to get dinner,” compared to, “I want spaghetti with marinara sauce and two meatballs with a Caesar salad with two slices of tomato.” So it’s kind of one of these things. It’s kind of interesting when people say, “Oh, Steve, you do those prefabs.” Sometimes I’ll just say, just to prove this point to myself, “What is a prefab?” And it’s kind of like you told me just a Sasquatch. There’s this look, it’s like I’m using this word but I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it means because it’s just around people say prefab, prefab, prefab. So it’s interesting even in custom homes that use prefabricated trusses and a custom stick-built home, you can still say it’s prefabbed. So the prefab is generic.
My belief, just for my own little informal survey, is that when people think of prefab, they’re thinking manufactured homes or possibly modular. You know, the two halves going down the road and then they get put together on site. So generally panelized isn’t—we’re more of a panelized stick-built home. So what we’re doing is providing the customization of stick-built but the quality and cost control of the production line. So we’re kind of putting the best of the best together. It’s kind of cool. Again, it’s control for the customer, understanding of the cost, understanding of the design elements, and understanding of the details for the building department approval.
Interviewer: So there’s a lot of variables. And I think people have misconceptions about, you know, prefab home or panelized home. Everybody kind of melts things and kind of sticks things together in their head about, well, that’s the same thing. And really, it just isn’t.
Steve Tuma: Once people put an inquiry in, talk to us, find out what it is, I think they start seeing, “Hey, wait a second, prefab doesn’t mean anything.” You know, they start seeing—and it’s already there in your own world—you know, what kind of car do you want? Do you want a station wagon? Do you want an SUV? Do you want a sports car? Do you want a sedan? What do you want? So people don’t just say, “Get me a car.” They’re usually like, “Hey, I want a four-door car that can carry five people,” or whatever it may be. And that’s kind of what this is, just a subsection of general building. So, yeah, it falls under the word prefab, but I think the way it’s generally defined—no, we’re not prefabricated. It’s a custom stick-built panelized home.
Interviewer: Right, and it seems to me my understanding has always been that a prefab home is kind of like a box that arrives, whereas a panelized home is like a big giant wooden puzzle that once it’s together you get a pretty amazing house.
Steve Tuma: Right. Yeah.
Interviewer: Let’s talk about designs. We’ve talked about design before in the past on this show, but the different types of—like, is it Landmark? Can you guys do—I know you do a lot of pretty standard houses, what people would look at and say, “That’s a house.” You know, it’s either a Victorian or it’s whatever it is, whatever kind of house. People have an idea, but modern home design is a whole other ballgame. Can I do a modern design panelized home through Landmark?
Steve Tuma: Oh yeah, we do a lot of them. Some of them are, you know, they might be a boxy design but say in the back wall is eight feet tall, the front wall is 12, and they have a single pitch roof, big overhangs, you know, maybe big open ceilings, a lot of windows to take advantage. Yeah, we’ve helped people with modern designs. We’ve done mid-century modern. We can also do modern versions of old designs. Right now, we’re doing a Victorian home, an 1890s Victorian that burned and then redesigning it to the modern situation. So sometimes people like that retro feel and look, but like in the case of a Victorian, Victorian homes had very small closets. People must have only had like three shirts or something, you know, now where closets are small rooms.
Interviewer: So we’re bigger, our clothes are bigger.
Steve Tuma: Yeah. So to answer your question, yeah, we could do modern designs, you know, also meaning like mid-century or modern versions of classic designs. So it’s pretty much if someone wants to draw something up or get us ideas of what they’re like, “Hey, I kind of like this.” And a lot of people will do that. They’ll be like, “I like this floor plan but I want this garage, I want this entryway, and I want this roof system.” And then we work together. So yeah, we’ve done modern designs. We’ve done homes that are buried in the sides of hills. We’ve done conventional ranches. We’ve done mid-century moderns. We’ve done variations of organic designs, the Frank Lloyd Wright designs. We’ve done all different types of situations. So we will figure it out. The only thing we can’t do is like someone once wanted a round house, like a golf ball, like a ball. But we can do, you know, sometimes people say those like octagon homes. We can do those because those are actually made up of a variety of flat walls put together to do it. So yeah, we could do octagon homes if someone wanted something like that. So we’re able to really put the whole thing together. And the key to it is not like we’ve spoken. It’s not just the house design. How does it fit on your land? How does it attach to your land? Grading plans, foundation designs, things like that.
Interviewer: Yeah, it brings up an interesting point because there are some areas where the artistic side of people comes out a lot more. You know, you see people who do like cement pillars and, you know, somehow one house will look like a Roman sort of meeting place and the next one will look like some art house hippie place. But all of them are, you know, pretty interesting. But I would imagine you guys get some pretty interesting inquiries about certain types of builds. How—where do you draw a line or do you ever draw a line?
Steve Tuma: I don’t draw the line. That’s actually—all the houses are interesting, but they’re, you know, sometimes people ask for stuff that just like crazy beyond their budget. “I need a 15-foot cantilever,” you know, and they’re trying to do something at a budget that doesn’t allow for a 15-foot cantilever.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Tuma: You know, so that’s it. So no, we’ve had it. One of them, we just did the design up in Leadville, Colorado. There’s a very unique historic district there that—Leadville is one of the highest populated—I think it’s the highest inhabited city in America, like 11,000 feet. And they have a very unique house design that I don’t want to call it Victorian. It’s kind of minor, you know, like miners would have, but then they would add on. So there’s this very eclectic Dutch hip, gable end, you know, all these weird little changes that they want to keep that kind of eccentric feel to it. But it’s not like you can go online and say, “Hey, this is a Victorian. This is a right hand. This is a Georgian.” It’s just really unique to that town. So there’s a whole situation. But, and then that particular family also had a situation where they wanted to have a house where the in-laws could live.
Interviewer: Yeah, that’s good.
Steve Tuma: So it wasn’t just fit these architectural features, it’s put it on the side of the hill, blend the living area of the in-laws. And then when they no longer live there, have that living space blend in for an expanded area for the couple that was going to be the main resident of the home. So there were just a lot of little things. It wasn’t the design of today, but it had to morph into future uses. So we’re helping a man up in the Northeast. Same thing, his kids are a certain age now. So the dining room is kind of a little playroom. He actually called it a war room, but that’s a playroom for his kids. But then as they go on, it’s easily transferred back into the original design concept of a dining room. It’ll probably be more of a home theater at that age, at that time. So we’re able to work with different people on situations like that. And then occasionally we have people that say, “Hey, we want to build this now. But as the family grows or hobbies grow, we want to add on in the future. So could we design this house with the intention that down the road we’re going to add something else?”
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Tuma: And we’ve done stuff like that as well. So you know, the design thing, that’s actually, like I say, it’s all fun. But that’s that extra little challenge where you get to, you know, take a look at it and go, “OK, how do we do it?” You’re kind of thinking out of the box and it always comes together. It’s kind of amazing.
Interviewer: You guys have done a lot of lifestyle homes too. You just mentioned like a hobby home, but like I know you’ve done lifestyle homes. Like you just mentioned home theaters. I’m sure people have wanted to design a home just around a cool home theater. What about like, I know like a family of kayakers or some family does a lot of biking. I’m sure you guys do a lot of stuff like that.
Steve Tuma: We did one on the islands off of Washington state.
Interviewer: Really?
Steve Tuma: The family had a piece of land on an island. So we had to design it, make sure we could get it across to the island, get it built. And their idea was the lower level was to have like a spot for the toys—the kayaks, the canoes, the equipment—so they could easily bring it in and out.
And then downstairs there was like a little get-together room, clean up, you know, overflow of sleeping, party room, man cave, entertainment area downstairs. And then upstairs was more of a typical living room with big windows overlooking the ocean. We’ve also had people with equestrian properties where they want to have certain access or tech rooms in the house or kind of a transition from the horse to, you know, the horse clothes to, you know, wash up and then go in the house.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah.
Steve Tuma: You know, with type of situation. We’ve had people that are just really into their dogs. So there’s a dog bath, you know, when they come in. We’ve had people with car collections where people go through and they design it. Sometimes it’s a car collection, “Hey, I’ve got 17 whatevers,” other people go through and they say, “Hey, I like to restore cars. I need a lift,” or “Hey, my son and my time is, you know, changing the oil, you know, checking the tires. We want to put a lift. We want to do this stuff,” and it allows us to save, you know, money on repairs and also have a little bit of a hobby. So we’ve had people that restore cars, build certain race cars, collect cars. We’ve had people have situations where the garage turns into a man cave. Other times it’s like in the case of kayaking, the house I mentioned off of Washington state, that was one where they actually kayaked in. But another one, they didn’t kayak into the house—they kayaked onto the land, and they were easily able to bring it into the storage area under the house. Kind of a tall crawl space, you know, basement area, and they had racks and everything for their items. But we’ve also had situations where people don’t live on the ocean or on the river or lake, but they’re set up. So they want their SUV where they could pack it up the night before, put the kayaks on top, open the garage door, and drive out instead of drive their SUV out, then load it, and go. So sometimes it’s as simple as, “Hey, how are you living? How tall is your SUV? Do you want to pack it the night before?” So when you get up early, you can just hit the road. So there’s a lot of situations.
And then one of the most heartwarming ones is kind of cool in Prescott, Arizona. A man called us and he said, “Steve, I’m 78 years old. And when I got married when I was 18, I told my wife I’m going to build her a new home.” And he said, “I better do it before she kills me.” You know, he’s laughing because he’s 78 years old. He goes, “I’m finally in a position to do it.” And I said, “So tell me about it.” He said, “Well, we got a couple acres in Prescott and there’s two things. He likes to tinker in the garage, fix little stuff, you know, the classic grandpa, you know, fix a broken chair, you know, do something here, build something, you know, whatever it would be, you know, clean the car up.” But the wife, the grandmother, loved baking pies. So she wanted a certain window to overlook the two acres so she could see all over the two acres from anywhere in the kitchen. But then inside, we had to have it set up in certain ways for her pie-making method.
Interviewer: Wow. Yes, that’s specific.
Steve Tuma: Well, it was just really interesting because you’re like, “Wow, this is kind of like, you know, some type of gourmet kitchen but custom designed for her making pies.” So we actually did a little drawing showing where the windows are, where the line of sight would be across the land, how they could see, did all these different situations, you know, made sure the garage worked so she could say, “Hey, dinner’s on.” And then also the kids, the kids could be there. And then there was a porch with a big overhang to keep the Arizona sun under control. And we did it relatively simple house, but the amount of thought that went into making sure that she could stand in the kitchen and see the whole piece of land was kind of amazing. And again, that wasn’t a $10 million home. So you can do this stuff and nice, energy-efficient, everyday homes will take the time to do that. And it’s just kind of amazing to see how people put the houses together and the work, the time we’ll take to make sure it’s there. So that’s—I think the prior podcast you’re saying, “Hey, where’s it on cost?” And, you know, cost is important, but getting what you want is more important. You don’t want to be that person that buys a shirt. It’s $10 off. You get it home and you’re like, “Why did I buy this?”
Interviewer: Right. Yeah.
Steve Tuma: You know, you want to make sure it’s thought out. It works. It fits on the land. It fits for your needs. It fits for your budget. And we can take the time during the design process to get those elements into the home.
Interviewer: Hmm. You know, we’ve hit on this before in a couple of the podcast episodes, but I’m still—I’m just fascinated by windows, and we were talking about custom design homes. And it seems to me like windows, if people are building something really specifically custom modern, how do you deal with that? When a customer calls you and they’re just dealing with some real—I don’t want to say strange—but just really unique window settings. How do you guys handle that?
Steve Tuma: Well, we talk to them to find out what they’re looking for because sometimes someone will say, “Hey, I want a wall of windows like this or a chalet,” or “Hey, a two-story living room to overlook something.” And they’ll have pictures. So it’s kind of like, “Okay, so in this picture, what do you see?” And sometimes they’ll be like, “Well, a big open picture window at the bottom. I don’t really care what’s way up.” Other people say, “No, I want three rows of big square windows because I can see the peak of the mountain. I can see the trees. I can see this. I can see whatever.” And so there’s different situations where we get an idea of what they want and then draw it up.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Tuma: And then they can determine what works for them on the actual look. And windows can get expensive. And sometimes the budget kicks in a little.
Interviewer: Sure. Yeah.
Steve Tuma: And make some adjustments. But what’s interesting about that is if you took like a chalet design, a 20-25 foot ceiling with a bunch of glass. It’s not just the windows. It’s how is that wall being reinforced? Because when you put that much glass in a wall, there isn’t as much strength from the wood.
Interviewer: Sure.
Steve Tuma: So we have to go through separate engineering processes to make sure that that wall is strong. And most people think of, well, the weight of the roof or snow load. They’ll say, “Well, I’m not in a lot of snow. We don’t have to worry about it.” I’m like, “Well, you probably have wind.”
Interviewer: Oh yeah.
Steve Tuma: Or even small seismic situations where then we go through to make sure that it’s there because you don’t want a wall like that to bow. And then over time, you end up with these little cracks in your wall. So it’s really got to be engineered right to do it. What’s interesting, and people should really watch, like, “Well, my building department doesn’t require engineering.” It’s like, well, your building department may not realize they should on certain designs like super tall walls. You know, that’s why we do stuff like that, so you don’t run into a problem down the road. You don’t want just someone guessing on how your wall’s not going to flex.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Tuma: You know, and that’s what we do because that affects the roof design, the wall design, floor designs, foundation designs. It’s all tied together. And that’s what we take care of. So yeah, I got a little sidetracked on engineering based off of windows, but that’s what we’re here for. But that’s what it is. And I guess I went that way because it’s not just the window, it’s the structure that’s holding the window in place. And then in some places where energy codes are considered more important for the permitting process, when you have a lot of glass, it can affect the energy codes and heat getting out but also sun coming in.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Tuma: So it can get pretty interesting, but we have the system so someone can ask us, we can walk them through it so that they understand it. And then we’ll take care of the details.
Interviewer: It’s interesting.
Steve Tuma: It’s deeper than people think. You know, they’re always like, “Oh, I just want a big window.” It’s like, well, “Hey, you’ve got a 40-foot wall and you want to put a 39-foot wide window in there.” What? You know, so that might be a little extreme, but it gets the point across.
Interviewer: The things you guys have to deal with. And I don’t mean have to, I mean just the things—it seems like you have fun dealing with, you know, just different issues that come up. And I’m sure there’s a variety of things that come up every single day.
Steve Tuma: Well, that’s what it’s about because people don’t realize it. They don’t understand that, hey, there’s this situation, this situation. Someone might tell them, “Oh yeah, you can just put a window in any wall.” Well, generally you can, but there might be things that need to be done to make sure the structure is strong.
Interviewer: Sure. Um, yeah, if you’ve got time, I’ve got one more really good question and maybe kind of in-depth or you may be able to just—what is it? Let me know. It’s panelized homes versus the standard stick-built home. Give us the pros and cons from a guy who builds a lot of panelized homes.
Steve Tuma: Well, what’s interesting is these panelized homes are basically stick-built homes. They’re just done on an efficient production line where we can control quality. We can control cost. We can make sure it’s done to precision and design standards, make sure the right materials are there, and then deliver it to the site. So it’s easier for someone to assemble. And amazingly, a stick-builder assembles it, right? We’re taking a lot of process. So in a stick building, a framer might order a bunch of two by sixes, cut them up, make a wall, stand the wall up, and go from there. In our case, the wall’s there, you just stick wall one up, wall two up, and go that way. So the advantages are in the efficiency. We can guarantee a cost. We can guarantee a cost based on the plans that we drop, get all the details put together. And we can also help through the whole design process, engineering, and building permit process. So it’s kind of the one-stop shop. But when you look at the actual product for product, if you took a stick-built home and we put our panelized home next to it, I don’t think many people would know the difference. The only difference is where two panels come together, you have two studs instead of where you stick-built, they might not have the two studs.
Interviewer: Right. Got it.
Steve Tuma: So the end result is—and like we mentioned earlier, stick-built homes are probably going to have trusses, but if someone wants a stick-built roof or a more dramatic ceiling or exposed beams or something, we can do it. So what it really comes down to is the process that we supply at Landmark where we go do all the design, all the engineering work, a thorough and complete set of plans. That then allows us to supply the panelized package to match it. And this is a point that people don’t understand. They think all plans are the same. So someone will be like, “Well, you know, in my town this one person always does plans,” and they’ll send us copies of them. And there’s just a lot of missing details, and they’re like, “Oh, the builder will figure it out on site.” It’s like, well, if the builder’s figuring it out on site, how do you know what he’s building and how are you controlling the cost when there’s so many open-ended things? You know, we’ve gotten plans that have been approved by building departments and you don’t know how tall the ceilings are.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah.
Steve Tuma: So when someone gives you a price, what is that? Is that an eight-foot ceiling, a nine-foot ceiling? Is there a big cathedral in there? You know, there’s just different situations there. So that, I think, is it. It’s not just the stick-built, panelized building system we have, it’s the planning process that allows the customer to understand what it is that they want, make sure that it’s on the plans, and that’s what gets permitted and that’s what gets built. So it makes it easier to permit, makes it easier to build, makes it easier to go through inspections, makes it easier to stay on budget and stay on schedule. That’s the thing. So it’s our process of designing and then using the panelized home package that really, really helps the customer along to control the process.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Tuma: It’s one of those things that kind of doesn’t make sense. And the reason it doesn’t make sense is people assume that a local designer does a complete set of plans. And it is exceptionally rare to almost never that that happens. We just got some—someone spent upwards of a hundred thousand dollars on plans and stuff’s missing.
Interviewer: Wow.
Steve Tuma: Yeah. You’d think. And so I called the architect. I said, “So what’s going on?” “Oh, they figure that out on site.” I’m like, “What did he get paid for?” You know, you don’t want to put a customer in a position where there’s an open-ended budget, you know, which is why we give a guaranteed cost. And we go through and then with our complete set of plans, the contractors know what’s to be built. They’re not out there going, “Oh, does the customer want an eight-foot wall, a nine-foot, or 10-foot? Well, I’ve got eight-foot studs, so let’s just give them an eight-foot because it’s not clear on the plans.” Or then the customer gets change orders. There are certain people that run the framing business and building business where they lowball a price and then they make their money on the change orders. You don’t want to be in that position, right? You want good plans that are clear so people know exactly what it is to be built.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Steve Tuma: So that’s a value that people don’t think of. You know, they’re thinking, “Hey, stud for stud or header for header, what’s the difference?” It’s like, wait, look at your whole picture. Look at what you’re trying to achieve. You have a raw piece of dirt to a finished house. You want to stay sane, be on budget, be on schedule, and get the house you want. That’s what we’re able to help customers with.
Interviewer: Pretty cool. It’s kind of deep. You’re a deep guy.
Steve Tuma: Yeah.
Interviewer: Well, this has been another great show, Steve. Interesting as always. And as usual, before we let you go, I’d like you to tell our listeners the best way to connect with you guys over at Landmark Home and Company.
Steve Tuma: Best thing to do is check out our website at L H L C dot com. That’s kind of the initials Landmark Home Land Company. L H L C dot com. They can see what we have—a bunch of podcasts, videos, conversations, plan options, whole bunch of ideas. People can email us from there. They can send inquiries on specific plans. If they’d like to call, they’re always welcome. We are available. We answer the phone. If for some reason you do get our voicemail, we’ll call you back right away and have a one-on-one conversation to find out exactly what you need and how we can best help you. Michael works with customers up front. And then once they get to a certain stage, I work with the customers to work out the final details of the project and get the plans going and get every nitty-gritty detail on the home. So that’s the best thing to do. And we’re communicative and proactive and have a lot of knowledge, a lot of great history, and most of all just a passion and a desire to help people. Like I kind of tell them, it’s like we want to work with great people and build cool homes. That’s what it’s about.
Interviewer: That’s a great mantra. Yeah. Great people, let’s build some cool homes. And there you go. Well, thanks again, Steve. And thanks to all of you for listening in to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. We hope you’ve come away with some useful knowledge and feel more confident with that knowledge as you move forward on your journey to becoming a kit home owner and builder. So for Steve Tuma and myself, have a great week ahead and we will see you next time. Thanks, Steve.
Steve Tuma: Yeah, thank you. This was fun. And I think it’s number 57 or 58 that we just did. So there’s a lot of podcasts people can listen to on our website or whatever streaming service.
Interviewer: This is 58. Pretty cool. Congratulations.
Steve Tuma: Congratulations to you. That’s a lot of cool stuff to talk about.
Interviewer: Yeah. I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface yet. Alright. Well, thanks, everyone. And we will see you again. So thank you.
