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Show Notes:
Adding architectural design details to make the home more enjoyable and code compliant. Interesting conversation regarding building departments and how they work. Mechanical design discussion to benefit your new home project.
Transcript:
Interviewer: Hey everyone. Welcome once again to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me, 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, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how’s it going my friend?
Steve Landmark: It’s an excellent day today. It’s a beautiful day and I think, I think we’re going to talk about architectural plans or something like that, right? Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah, I thought I might ask you a few questions about developing architectural plans and sounds like you’d be up for that. So why don’t we start off simply, let’s just say I’m a customer, a prospective customer of Landmark and I have an idea for a home, how do I go about turning that idea into an actual set of building plans?
Steve Landmark: It’s actually a relatively simple process for our customers. We’ve got the full capability of doing the architectural design, structural design, and details for the building permit. So we basically just need a starting point.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Landmark: And Steve, sometimes that starting point is “I need a three-bedroom, two-bath thousand square foot ranch” for city a lad or sometimes people say, “Well, I need a three-bedroom with a gaming room, convertible room office, you know guess room type thing with a two-car garage, with a bigger garage to the side for motor home parking.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: So sometimes if people have that just general idea, a few sentences we can work from there. Other people will sketch things up. They don’t have to be architects you know or really, really trained. They can just kind of draw what they can on a piece of paper and email or fax it to us or text it to us for review. And basically, we take it from there
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: So what we need to do is just get the concept, what is it you want. People may not know the end result of exactly how they’ll come together but they generally know what they want. They want a two-car garage, they want a basement, they want a three-bedroom, two-bath, the master bedroom being a big suite and then a big eating kitchen. You know with the deck up the back to look at a view of a lake or field or whatever may be that they’re lucky to have on their land. So that’s, that’s a general point, you know it starts with a dream, it starts with the idea and then we could take that idea.
Some people have a set of plans, some people may have gone online or sketch something up themselves that’s a little more detailed then we could take it from there. Others have a complete set of plans and generally, we could work with those as well. So basically, it’s the idea, get us your – get us the idea of what you have and then we can help you carry it along from there. So people shouldn’t be intimidated that they need to have professionally drawn plans or that if they sketch something it’s not to scale or you know even dimensions aren’t right.
We’ve actually had people draw stuff on a napkin, take a picture of it and text it to us and it’s become a house. Other people will just tell us and then we’ll start with an idea and move forward. So the key of it is that they were fully capable of taking the concept, putting it on paper and making it a legitimate set of plans they could turn in for permits as well as use for the building phases.
Interviewer: Hmm. Now, if I, on your website, you guys offer so – oh, I don’t know, it’s so many different plans to choose from for the average customer. But if I – let’s say, I look at the plan that you guys offer and I say I like that basic idea but I want to customize it, what are the difference between using the standard plans let’s say or you know my own kind of adaptable custom plans?
Steve Landmark: Well, we can work with all of them. And what’s really interesting is yes, we have thousands of plans on our website. It was 20 years ago that someone said “I want that exact house.” You know, so everyone does changes whether they’re simple things like add a window, move a door, add a foot to the house or they change 50 percent of the plan and take it from there. So the idea is we can get you what you want in a home. And that’s the key element.
You know we can add different features to it and go from there. But hey, if someone likes the plan as it is, there’s nothing wrong with that. Now, you bring something interesting of standard plans. With the internet, there’s a lot of plan services out there.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Landmark: And they do a good job of giving options and showing a bunch of different houses and different details and supplying some information. They key to it is that with different building sites, different code application and different parts of the country and then also, to tell you the truth, just a limitation of some of the designers, sometimes there’s issues with the design that we need to clean up and adapt so that it’s useable for your exact building site.
So generally, we would draw plans up, make adjustments, make sure they work for what you want to end your building department. So the key element is we’re kind of the filter to make sure the plans are useable. Because sometimes people will go somewhere and have their local friend draw a plan up and you know he gets – that person might get the idea across. But the full structural concerns, energy calculations, site planning details, other details might not be there, so we’re able to wrap it up and get it put together. So that’s a key thing.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: So, Steve, it can literally be a situation where someone could call us up and say, “Hey, this is what I want. Talk to us for a little while and we get the answer.” or they can send us plans that they’re ready to go with.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm. Now, how far into the process can I make changes? I mean, I know that you know as I’m sure there are a lot of customers where you know they want to keep making changes up until the very last second. But how does that process work where we got to look – we pretty much got the house the way it needs to be?
Steve Landmark: Well, we can – in the preliminary plan stages, we can make the changes that a customer needs. And some – you’re getting at an interesting point because sometimes people go through and say, “Hey, Steve, I’d like a kitchen like this. I want an island in it and I want my stove on that island.” And then one is drawn up and they think about it, they’re like. “I don’t really want that. I’d rather have my sink in the island so then I can look over the great room and talk to the family.”
Interviewer: Right, right.
Steve Landmark: Or they figure, “Hey, you know the TV is over here, maybe our refrigerator should be closer to the TV,” or you know, they at it. So sometimes it does take a few times to go and draft it and then let people kind of soak it in.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: Now, the double-edged sword to that that you brought up is how far into the process can you do it?
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Landmark: There is a certain point that people have to make decisions and kind of buckle down and say, “Hey, this is the final one.” Because I’ve noticed you know since 1993, when we’ve been helping customers or people just cancel and make changes, they’re kind of like chasing their own tail type of a situation and not really accomplishing things. They’ve just haven’t made a decision. So there is a certain point where we suggest when we’re in the preliminary plan stages that that’s the end of changes. And then once they sign up when we do the final plans and all the details that they don’t do changes.
The reason being is that at a certain point, you’ve got to lock this down. You got to do the architectural design, the structural design, energy calculations, and someone may come through and do something as simple and say, “Hey, I want to take this window and make it into a big, huge patio door.” That can – that will affect the structure. That will affect energy calculations and it will affect the architectural design, so.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm. Right, like a domino effect.
Steve Landmark: Exactly. And then it just takes a little bit longer to get it done. And you know we try to avoid additional expenses but there’s a certain point where you know you’ve got make this…
Interviewer: You have to build your house. [Laughter]
Steve Landmark: Well, that’s ultimately our biggest, you know jokingly, you know someone will say, “Hey, I need to get this done by tomorrow. But can you do these five changes?” You know, so it’s kind of like OK. You know there is the impossible request but amazingly, we get it done. So what I tell people is you know do all the changes in the preliminary plan stage. Think it through, take the time, it’s not a race. You know take time to make sure it’s done right. And then once we go through, you know we like to avoid changes.
That being said, we’re extremely customer service oriented. We have violated our own rules. I just did today for a customer. They needed something that made a lot of sense and I’m working with the engineers to adjust it and move it forward and be very accommodating. So the ultimate goal is to get our customers the home that they want.
Interviewer: Make them happy. We talked a little bit of the last episode about foundations. Now, how much you know do I have a choice of what foundation I want? And how much help is Landmark willing to throw in to tell me you know what the right choice of foundation is for my area, my land, etc?
Steve Landmark: Well. I’ll answer that backwards. We’ll do whatever we can to help a customer determine what’s best. And some designs are a little better for certain foundations and then sometimes land conditions dictate the type of foundation. Yeah, we did talk about it in one of the previous podcasts. But basically, Steve, if someone said “Hey, I want to build the most affordable house and I’m on flat land in an area where there isn’t really a need for a lot of engineering.” Someone could just put something on a slab.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: They could put it on a crosspiece. They could put it on a basement. But let’s just say you took that exact same house and stuck it on the side of the hill in Colorado or California. We’ve got other issues with snow loads, high winds, earthquakes. Let’s just say we took it to Florida, suddenly you’ve got a hurricane issue. So let’s just take the example of that house say, the simple house on a flat piece of land in Iowa. You could do a slab foundation or basement very easily.
You go stick it on the side of a mountain in California. We have the earthquake engineer, the nature of the slope of the mountain, it should probably not going to go with a slab. You might go with a kind of a foundation that steps down. Depending on a slope, it might be a crosspiece or it might be a basement, so that would have generally work in those conditions. There are situations where you can get on that grading but that gets a little deeper.
But then let’s just say you took that exact same house and said, “I want to build that in the Key West. I have a perfect lot, it faces south.” I don’t think it’s probably really good to put it on a slab because the storm surge could be eight feet. It will brawl right over the house. So the code is going to kind of dictate that you have to put that house on piers. So suddenly, it’s not just the choice of what the customer prefers but it’s kind of dictated in the sense by the code and the building conditions.
Now, I don’t want to make that sound negative. Most people that are building on the Key’s want the view. They want to be higher up, they understand it. So, therefore, it makes sense to them to put it on piers.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: So all these things are kind of just the nature, the area, it’s customary for the area and it’s something that we can help with. So to answer your question is we will help them anywhere in the design process to do something to make sure the house fits the land, but also the lifestyle and the target the budget as well.
Interviewer: Yeah, it makes sense. I want to hit a little bit on something that we’ve never really talked much about. Well, couple things really but we’ll do, we’ll knock them off one at a time and that’s porches and siding. Now you know, the porches could take on so many unique shapes sometimes. And when – if I want to add a porch to one of my designs, is that like a completely different deal or how does that work?
Steve Landmark: It something that we can typically draft on any design and just add it. Now, there are some designs that are more conducive to it than others. But let’s just say you had a typical ranch home, something 26 deep by 40 feet wide. To put a porch across the font all around it in the back is generally pretty easy to do and we could add details like that. Sometimes people want wood porches, sometimes they want the man-made materials, sometimes they want cement porches.
Some of them want decorative porches, a little four-foot porch to put a chair and some flowers. Other people would like an eight to 10-foot wide porch for you know the outside living room you know type of situation.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Landmark: But then you can go in the other designs where sometimes the – you got to work on blending the porch into the design. And also, you also have to look at the grade of the land and you know make sure everything will flow properly with the land. To make sure that if you have a porch and a staircase off of it, you can access the land below it to enter and leave it. You mention something on siding.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Steve Landmark: That’s a good question because that’s one of the finishing details.
Interviewer: And that’s – yeah, it’s something we haven’t hit on before. I thought it would be good to talk about it.
Steve Landmark: Right. So siding, you can put brick, stone, the fake stone, the fake brick, the cement board which is important in areas with fires. Vinyl, real wood, pretty much whatever material you want, log you can put on this home. We could draw it in and then we could put the specifications on the plans so that your building department understands what it is that you’re going to put on it.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: So yes, you could dress it up. And the interesting thing is a lot of people are dressing their homes up more. So they might put a little stone across the front. So let’s just say the front wall of your house was eight feet tall, maybe the first three feet is some type of stone or brick. Then above it, they put a cement board that they would paint. And then they might put different trim around windows or on gables, put a scallop kind of siding on there.
So it’s possible to put all these different varieties of finishes on. It really personalized and dressed the home up the way you want. The flexibility in options are pretty endless.
Interviewer: And it sounds to me like working with Landmark, you can end up with a pretty unique home without a lot of work instead of living in one of these like ticky-tacky neighborhoods where every single house looks exactly the same.
Steve Landmark: Right. Yeah, I live in the grey one on the left and there’s 50 of them you know. But, and that’s the key thing to it because Steven, whether you have $70,000 to build your house or 50 or a million or two million or five million, you want to be proud of it. You want to pull up through it after days at work and say, “This is cool. My family has got what they need. It’s energy efficient. I can afford it. I like it. I’m proud of it.”
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Landmark: And so irrespective of the budget, I think it’s important to go through and detail it out so that people get a house a little bit different. That’s why people I think work with us because they can go through and get the house they want. Instead of like you said these neighborhoods where it’s like hey, it’s you know the whole Henry Ford thing you know. You can have any cars as long as the color is black. Well, you know some of these trucks, places or whatever, it’s like hey, you can have any floor plan as long as it’s one of these three. And the upgrade is you can have a half round window at the front door.
You know it’s kind of like – that’s a little bit different version than what our customers like where they want to go through and say, “Hey, my family gets together and they like to eat outside on the porch.” Or, “Hey, we cook together.” “Hey, we have big holiday get-togethers.” Or “Hey, the kids need a separate room that’s good for them to live in now and study. But when they leave, it becomes a guest room or a hobby room or whatever it would be.”
So a little bit of thinking up front, you can really develop a house that’s a lot more usable than just any house off the shelf. And that’s where we’re able to help with. It’s more bang for your buck. And to tell you the truth, the buck is about the same.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Steve Landmark: It’s just a matter of taking the time to make sure the house is designed right.
Interviewer: Right. And then yeah, I love that what you were talking about the pride in your house. You know that’s – I think that’s so important.
Steve Landmark: That’s very important. It’s a lot of money in anyone’s home, so might as well get something you like.
Interviewer: Yeah, big investment. Well, sometimes with people, it’s the biggest investment they’re ever going to make and want to get it right. So that was just the couple of things we hit on that we hadn’t really talked much about before. But now, I just you know like to reiterate and kind of get over a couple things for people who haven’t heard everyone on this podcast.
But one question your company gets a lot is windows and window sizes and how do you pick that. How does Landmark help someone pick their windows and their window sizes?
Steve Landmark: Well, it’s pretty interesting. Let me point out we don’t supply windows and siding. We could specify them on the plans for people to select exactly what they want and then put in the plans. But basically, on window sizes, we would put suggested window sizes in the first set of plans.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: So that makes sense that meet the egress codes and the light and ventilation codes to make sure that everything flows properly. So we would install, we would put those details into the plans and make it happen and then once the person gets the first set of preliminary plans, they could look at it. You know it’s kind of a basis point, a starting point. They could say, “Hey, I like that.” or “Hey, I want to make it bigger. I only want it single instead of double.” Or “Hey, I want a bigger patio door there.” And that’s how we go through.
So, the interesting thing with windows is window companies are not standardized in their window sizes. So one company might create a three-foot by five-foot window where the next company has a three-foot – one-inch by five-foot – one-inch window. So we’d put the suggested window size in there and then they, in the plans with the window schedule and then they could take it to their window supplier.
And then that window supplier can then go through and give us a rough openings for their exact window size that allows us to build the rough opening right in the panelized wall so that the window just gets installed very quickly and simply on the site.
Now, there’s something else beyond window sizes because there’s tempered glass, there’s different energy efficiencies that may be required. So like say you at a window by a staircase or right by your bathtub. Those are areas where you might slip and fall and fall through the glass, so they want tempered glass.
Tempered glass is more like a car glass. Have you seen broken glass – car – you know breaks in small little pieces.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Landmark: You could like roll it in your hand and it’s not really going to cut you. Where regular glass can break in sharp pieces like swords and obviously do a lot of damage. So that’s the key thing with the window is it’s also not just the size, it’s the feature. Is it tempered, is it not tempered? And then also energy efficiency conditions. Windows don’t perform as well as a fully insulated wall but in their world, they’re getting to be bigger, you’ve all been by windows where you could feel a draft or you could feel more of a cold thing. So that allows you to go through.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Landmark: And Steve, windows are also part of the decoration. Some people might want simple vinyl or tan vinyl. Other people might want a wood window on the inside, walnut wood to have a particular finish and it gets down to you know what kind of hardware. Do you want polish brush – brushed? That’s a tongue twister, brushed, brush. You know what is it that you want, so people can go through and pick that out.
And there’s double hung windows, single hung windows, casement windows, picture windows so that people can sort out what type of window they want in initial location,
Interviewer: Hmm. Now, another one of the topics that we’ve kind of hit on before but it’s always good to refresh, kitchen and bathroom design. And again, especially for women, especially, I mean kitchens and bathrooms are a big thing and we guys, we’re just like oh, whatever if it’s useable, but…
Steve Landmark: Where’s the food?
Interviewer: Yeah. It’s really an important aspect for women, you know the design of the kitchen and bathroom has to be just right, the right size. And how does Landmark go about helping people design kitchens and bathrooms?
Steve Landmark: Well, we go through the process of discussing the design with the customer. Get the preliminary set of plans drawn up and then do a kitchen layout that should work properly.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: You know could add dimensions and then the people can sort out and say, “Hey, yeah, that works.” Or “Hey, I change my mind. I don’t want an island. I want a peninsula.” Or “Hey, I want a bigger island.” Or “Hey, I need my refrigerator over here.” Or “We decided to go with the double stove.”
Because now, the kitchen is kind of becoming the living room you know and a way with great rooms where it’s a central point of activity and it’s a central point for people to get together. With the way people live, they’re not necessarily get sitting down at 5 o’clock every night at a big round table and having dinner. People are doing this and doing that with the different schedules and activities. So we can get them the plans and then they can design the kitchen the way they want it.
Now, what we would do is add dimensions to the kitchen and bath areas, you know wherever they’d have cabinets. And then they could go to their local kitchen supplier or designer and work out exactly what they want because some kitchens can get very intricate.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: So they could go through and say, “Hey, let’s make sure that you know the bread cupboard works out, the knife holder or the tray station you know all these things go through. And then we could design that layout so that it fits into our house and make sure windows are located in the right place, hallway openings, any walls or different situations that they would need. And that’s also pretty important because it ties into our doing an accurate plumbing diagram as well as an electrical layout.
Interviewer: Right, it makes sense.
Steve Landmark: Right. Steve, if you have an island, you know you’ve got to put a circuit or two there. But that may be someone’s kind of office you know situation or a little homework station or whatever it may be. So getting that laid out properly and that’s actually you know an important part of what we do. But let’s not undercut you know the man caves, you know the entertainment rooms.
Interviewer: Hmm, right. The important stuff.
Steve Landmark: Yeah, all these other areas they come up to where someone says, hey, you know my family likes to work on our bikes or you know we have off-road vehicles or trucks or boats or a hot rod or whatever. And suddenly, the man cave, you know the little extra area in the garage. There needs to be electrical circuits or a countertop or whatever it may be there to you know to be put together.
So we could work with those, the Wreck Rooms, the future Wreck Rooms. A lot of people are doing the short-term rental you know apartments you know things like that. And in some areas where they’re kind of sneaking in a second living area in one house. We’ve got to design that right. A lot of these building departments don’t want a full kitchen in these areas or they’d consider it two homes and it violates zoning.
Interviewer: Right. Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: So sometimes we’ve got to develop a certain type of kitchen for that secondary area.
Interviewer: How far into the process would I as a customer who’s designing my own house, how far in would it be OK to make significant changes? And I mean big things like let’s talk about roof pitches. Lets’ say I decide, yeah, I’d like the pitch of my roof to be a little steeper or a little less steep, where does that fall in when it comes to you guys in your advice?
Steve Landmark: Well, a big change like a roof pitch or big feature like a roof pitch, people generally know upfront.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: They’ll be like “Hey, I…”
Interviewer: You hope.
Steve Landmark: Yeah. “You know I’m in an area. I like this design. It needs to be a steeper roof pitch.”
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Steve Landmark: So we like to get that stuff done upfront. But if they needed it later, we can do it. They kind of depends on the situations, But there have been situations where people, mid-project while we’re designing it, get transferred. We had a person, they work for an airline in St. Louis, then they got transferred to Dallas, another hub. So suddenly, they wanted the same plan but they’re two different areas. They wanted a different look. So we were able to make the adjustments for them to do it.
Now, that’s pretty rare that someone you know is going to say, “Hey, I don’t know if I want to build in Florida or Colorado or New York State.” Generally, people have an idea so we could work with them on the design that makes sense. But I think the point you’re getting at is they might possibly have a plan with a 6-12 roof pitch is basically six units up, 12 units across. That’s a simple way to think of it.
And they might say, “Hey, I’m going to be building in a smaller area or a bigger area,” or “I just like the architectural look of a steeper design.” So we can go through and change that. And it’s not just roof pitch, its overhangs, its eaves, you know just different details that can be added to it. So we could do that and that’s – we’d like to do all of that in the preliminary plan stage where we can go through and draw it up so people can look at it and see what it looks like.
Interviewer: But it sounds to me, I mean my question really was you guys don’t freak out too much if there are even big changes come along? It sounds like you kind of feel those as they come and you’ve probably seen everything.
Steve Landmark: Yeah, we’ve been doing it since 1993. So freaking in us out is probably going to be a pretty interesting thing. But hey, have you do it? You know I’ll be happy to laugh along and go while you got me. But now, I mean if – the idea is to get people the house that they want. There’s no sense in spending the money and not getting the house you like.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Landmark: So we’re able to do the changes and – but people should understand that at a certain point, they should work to make decisions that make sense and move forward.
Interviewer: Of course. Now, I’ve got all my plans together. We’ve worked them all out. We know what we’re going to build. How do I know the building department in my area is going to accept my plans? And does Landmark help me with that, dealing with building departments?
Steve Landmark: Yes, building departments are interesting. There are places in the country where building departments don’t exist. Or if they do exist, they just really want to know “Hey, are you building a house?” It’s more for government tracking. Then there’s others which are extreme and they could have a list of 5, 6, 700 items that they need in the house plans. Either way, we contact the building department, find out what it is that they need and put the details on there. Every single one of our customers that submitted and gone through the process has gotten building permits.
So the key to it is some building departments are a little more tricky than others. So some will take a set of plans and say “Yeah, that’s good. There’s your permit.” You walk out with it five days later or sorry, five minutes later. And then there’s other places where they just need detail after detail after detail even though it isn’t on the list of what they tell you they need.
So in that case, we just work with the customer and it’s part of our process to supply the details that they need so that they get the permits that relate to our portion on a home – you know the building permits type of a situation. And some building departments ask for some pretty interesting things.
Interviewer: You dove it sounds like with some very picky building departments.
Steve Landmark: Oh yeah. We’ve had some stuff where I scratched my head and say where did this one come from?
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Landmark: But the point is we have the right people to get those answers and get them taken care of so that they have the set of plans. Because it’s pretty rare that a building department asks for something that’s completely senseless, they are probably asking for it because they’ve run into a situation before and they want to avoid that situation. So generally, most building departments are you know pretty understanding. Some communicate better than others but were able to work through the process.
Interviewer: And we talked about some things on the last maybe the podcast before but I kind of want to reiterate a couple more things if you don’t mind. But you guys are very helpful when it comes to dealing with things like energy codes and site plans and we talked about mechanical system design. And can you just once again go over for maybe some of our new listeners who haven’t heard how you guys go about all of that?
Steve Landmark: Well, we’ve got a – this is our kind of wrapping up the complete plans set for the building department. Some building departments want a site plan drawn up. And a site plan is basically saying hey, how does the house fit on your land? OK, whether you’ve got a city lot that’s 50 feet by 100 feet or 200 acres you know somewhere in the rural area. They still want to know, “Hey, where is your well, septic, water connection? Are you within the setbacks? Where’s your driveway?” And we can draw that information up.
And it’s a key point because you do want to make sure the house fits on the land you know. And you know on 50 acres in the country in the country is not as big of an issue. But on a 50 by 100 lot in the city, there are certain setbacks that you – the house has to fit within. So it’s good to have a site plan and lets people understand what they’re doing. It also helps your scheduling and the actual processes of going through in building the home.
Energy codes, not every building department requests. But what energy codes are, is a theoretical calculation showing, basically gives you the end result of how you need to insulate your home. And in some cases, what type of furnace to use, what type of hot water heater and trap in the pre– you know just a little while ago, we’re talking about windows. They may go through and say you need a certain performance factor in your window to make sure that your home is energy efficient.
Now, this is one thing that’s interesting. A lot of people say my building department doesn’t require energy efficiency. It’s not necessarily that you need to satisfy the building departments. You want to know that you’re building a good home so your energy bills are less. So that’s it. And then – oh, you asked about mechanical system design.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Landmark: Mecahnicals are basically considered plumbing, electric and then heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. So some building departments will just want to know a plumbing layout showing hey, where does the water come in and where does the water go out? Others will want to know pipe sizing. And others, plumbing is also gas pipe, the black pipe for plumbing. So some building departments will ask details and the size of piping, how long the pipe has to go and other stuff like that. We can supply that.
We can also do the electrical layouts and complete electrical engineering if the building department or the customer requests it. And also mechanical system design. The manuals S, D, and J which basically sort out you know heat loss calculations. It all sorts out the sizing of the furnace and it also shows a ductwork layout. So that’s – those are important things if someone wants to monitor and understand what is going on with their home because – especially with HVAC design, the heating and ventilating is – a lot of people will go get an estimate and say hey, this guys is one price and this guy is half the price.
Well, you got to wonder why the guy is half the price. Maybe one guy is too expensive, maybe one guy is not giving you the right amount of ducts to heat or cool your house properly. So we can help with that if the building department requests or the customer requests, we can supply those details to make it there. It’s one of these things you take a little bit of time doing it right. Now, the building will be easier and the enjoyment of the home will be better.
Interviewer: Hmm. Well, this has been a pretty informative podcast. But that’s going about wrap at us – wrap it up for us for this episode of the Prefab Kit Home Building Show. But before we leave, Steve, tell our listeners how best to contact you guys over at Landmark Home and Land Company.
Steve Landmark: We’re very easy to contact. You can call us at 800-830-9788. And if we can’t answer your phone call right away, we will get back with you. We’re very responsive, we’re very proactive, and we’re very communicative to work with you to understand your project so we can help you best. We have our website, our company name is Landmark Home and Land Company and the website is basically lhlc.com. So, L as in Landmark, H as in Home, L as in Land, C as in Company, lhlc.com.
And then you can also email Mike. Mike generally works with people upfront at mike@lhlc.com or if you’ve got questions for me at landmark@lhlc.com. And like I say, we’re responsive, supportive, we’re on top of your projects. So whatever we can do to help is fine and people shouldn’t be embarrassed to contact us and ask questions. It’s – we understand it could be someone fifth time around or it could also be their first time around. So whatever we can do to help, we’ll gladly do it.
Interviewer: And there you go! So for Steve Tuma and myself, thanks for joining us once again on the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. And we will see you next time.
Steve Landmark: Well, thank you.
