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Show Notes:
Learn about how custom panelized homes hold their resale value and appreciate identically to conventional stick-built houses while avoiding the financing restrictions and market stigmas associated with modular or manufactured homes. You will discover how structural framing and energy-heel roof trusses are engineered to physically accommodate required insulation values, and how local microclimates and natural passive solar elements dictate exterior design. Additionally, you will learn how pre-engineered panelized packages comply with strict green building standards using sustainably sourced materials from regenerative forests. Finally, you will understand the critical role of civil engineering in developing grading, drainage, and driveway access plans to satisfy municipal lot coverage limits and protect your home from flooding.Key Q&A Highlights from Episode 93
Q: Do panelized custom homes hold their resale value as well as stick-built homes?
A: Yes, panelized homes are appraised, financed, and valued exactly like conventional custom stick-built homes and appreciate normally with market conditions. Unlike modular, manufactured, or HUD homes that can carry financing hurdles and market stigmas, custom panelized homes maintain strong resale value because they are engineered to local building codes and incorporate desirable, livable design features.
Q: How do custom home plans integrate structural engineering with local energy codes?
A: Achieving energy compliance requires more than paperwork calculations; the home’s structural framing must be physically engineered to accommodate specified insulation depths and energy-heel roof trusses. Coordinating architectural drafting, structural engineering, and energy compliance upfront ensures the physical framing supports the required R-values and mechanical equipment without job-site clashes.
Q: What are microclimates, and how do they impact custom home design in mountainous areas?
A: Microclimates are localized atmospheric zones where wind, humidity, sun exposure, and temperature fluctuate drastically within a single town or zip code due to 3,000 to 5,000-foot elevation changes. Custom home plans must account for these microclimates by calculating specific snow and wind loads, adjusting wall insulation, and utilizing roof overhangs to manage natural solar heating and cooling.
Q: Do panelized home packages meet strict California green building standards?
A: Yes, panelized home packages meet or exceed stringent green building codes, including California’s CalGreen standards, by utilizing sustainably harvested lumber from regenerative forests and designing energy-efficient HVAC and lighting layouts. Because sustainable sourcing and waste-reducing manufacturing are baked into the standard process, complying with green code documentation does not add extra construction costs.
Q: Why do building departments require a grading and drainage plan from a civil engineer?
A: Civil engineering grading and drainage plans verify that rainwater flows away from your foundation without funneling into basement windows or flooding neighboring properties. These plans also establish legal, safe driveway slopes for vehicle and emergency fire access while ensuring total hardscape coverage remains within municipal lot limits.
Transcript:
Steve Tuma: It’s not just the energy calculation process. It’s making sure the structure is right to be able to handle the energy calculation outputs.
Host: How you doing everybody, and welcome to Episode 93 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today as, well, the show wouldn’t be the same without him being here, 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, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you, bud?
Steve Tuma: I’m doing great. You know, I think we have a continuation of last week, right?
Host: Well, that’s what I was just going to say. We’re rolling into Part 2 of our 10-part, 10-question, kind of generalization about panelized homes, and I think some of these questions are important and need to be asked. So if you’re good with continuing, I know I am.
Steve Tuma: Yeah, well, these lists are interesting because a lot of people ask us the questions. So we can help them preview them if they’re listening to these podcasts or checking our website out so that when we talk to them, there’s, can get into deeper questions on exactly how to help them with their home process. Perfect. Pretty cool.
Host: All right, so, well, let’s just roll one out. And the question many people seem to be curious about regarding panelized homes: How does a panelized home hold its value? Do they retain their value, and what about resale value? What are your thoughts?
Steve Tuma: Yes, definitely. I think where people, the people that are asking this question are comparing it to modulars or the manufactured homes, which generally have complications on holding their value. Landmark Home and Land Company’s homes are panelized homes, which are just like stick-built homes. So, yeah, they’re considered a conventional home, and they appreciate like any other home in the market would.
Generally, when people have this, they’re thinking, “Hey, is this a modular? Is this a HUD home?” or whatever it is, and those generally have different financing, different stigmas associated with them where their value may be affected. So, yeah, the panelized homes are there. They’re just appraised, financed, and valued just like any conventional custom stick-built home.
So I think people will appreciate that, because a lot of people will buy some of those homes, and then when they go to sell it, like the modulars or the HUD homes, and then they find out there’s an issue with financing, or there’s an issue with this, and it’s harder for them to sell, and suddenly the price gets dropped because there’s a certain stigma associated with it. For with these, they hold their value.
And you know what’s also really cool about it? It’s not just the value in market conditions. It’s when someone does a home that they like and add good, good sensible features, like a garage that’s big enough for your truck, or your cars, or your motorcycles, or lawn mowers, or bikes, or barbecue equipment. The house is designed so it makes sense. So there’s a value there when the house is livable.
So do people go to it as it built right? Is the air conditioning sized right? Is the structure right? Are the windows right? The code issues, is there a well-laid-out kitchen? That’s also something that adds to the value because it’s desirable.
And I think our homes are kind of curated by the customers to have features that are typical beyond just standard plans to go out and give a home that’s livable. When you have the garages sized right, if there’s basements, rec rooms, or workshops, usable family areas, usable kitchens, usable suites, and bedroom areas or bonus rooms, the houses are livable. So, yeah, the value is there because it’s desirable.
So that’s a kind of a multi-faceted question, not just in the sale, but also is it a cool house? And that’s why we spend the time to work with people to design the house they want that makes sense for what they want to build and what they want to live in.
So it’s pretty cool, you know, for someone to have a house that they want, that’s cool, that makes sense to live in instead of some cracker box that’s just kind of put together for the purpose of a quick sale. Our customers work to make sure the house is right for them. So the value is there.
Host: Well, let’s get into the green thing, which is, people for decades now have been concerned about green energy and the environment. Are panelized homes energy-efficient, or do they fall well within what one would expect nowadays?
Steve Tuma: Oh, yeah. Yeah, all of our homes meet or exceed, generally they all exceed by far, the energy standards for the state. Some states are a lot more strict than others, but every single one of our homes goes through the energy calculation process.
And here’s the important thing about it: It’s not just the energy calculation process. It’s making sure the structure is right to be able to handle the energy calculation outputs. So the idea being, if you need to have a certain type of insulation or a certain R-value of insulation in a wall, to make sure the wall is big enough to hold it, to make sure the foundation is designed to have the right insulation, to make sure the roof systems, energy-heel trusses, have enough space.
So there’s a difference of making sure the paperwork matches, and then there’s the difference of making sure the house is built to be able to align with the calculations and make sure that for the materials available at the site, it’s taken care of.
So this involves insulation, windows, and doors, and at times orientation of the house to the sun. Colder climates have different things, and some areas have microclimates.
Host: Explain that before we pass over it. Give me the…
Steve Tuma: Colorado’s very, very interesting, you know, because there’ll be little microclimates with the different mountain areas, or different winds, or different sun, where what you do here could be totally different. So in the mountain areas, you could have a situation where in one town, in one zip code, there’s a three, four, 5,000 square-foot elevation difference. And there could be different humidity conditions, different hot and cold variations. So sometimes when we run into those markets, we’ve got to really make sure that the calculations are done properly for that house.
And here’s another thing about energy efficiency. It’s not just the calculation, the theoretical calculation. There’s a lot of stuff you can control, like overhangs. Have a bigger overhang so that the higher winter sun doesn’t get into your windows and create heat. So we can do things with the orientation of the house on the land, the overhangs, and different details to, in a sense, make it naturally more efficient.
The funny thing about home building is, like my family, they were farmers way back in the mid-1800s. I’m assuming if they built a house, they’d take advantage of prevailing wind, have overhangs, do different things, because they didn’t have the push-button heating and air conditioning as we’re all used to now. They’d have fireplaces, or they’d have to have big windows, or they’d have to have overhangs or different things.
Like if you look at the older homes, you’ll see they have taller windows that are double-hung, so they could slide the top sash down to let the heat out of the top of the room. They had different ventilation systems to let heat out of the roof, and then generally they had a centralized fireplace that would then heat the surrounding rooms around it.
Well, now with the development of subdivisions and boxy lots, the land is cut up for financial benefits of the people cutting the land. Unless you’re in like 20, 30 acres out there, but people generally put the house in a place that’s convenient. Because not everyone’s got to think about, “Hey, what about the sun? What about the breeze? How are my windows going to work? How’s any ventilation through the roof going to work?”
So with that pushing, the ability to push a button and adjust the temperature of your house relatively quickly and easily, people have gotten away from those kind of organic, natural processes. Well, we understand them, so we can go through and work with people on different overhangs, different type of insulation, different orientation, different types of windows, so that we take advantage of the natural heating and cooling which goes on in the world.
So, yeah. So again, it’s not just is the panelized home… our structure will work with the energy calculations, but if a customer chooses to and the site allows, we can work with them on overhangs and other details to make sure that you take advantage of the natural heating and cooling that nature supplies.
So, yes, Landmark’s panelized homes are very energy-efficient in design and also in the energy calculations, and also the manufacturing of our panelized home packages. It’s a comprehensive package we put together. It works.
Host: Sort of staying on that subject, let’s talk about green building codes. Do panelized homes meet those green codes, or how does that work?
Steve Tuma: Yeah. Well, what’s interesting is in the United States, California is pretty much the only one that has a green building code standard. The other parts of the country might have codes, but they don’t specifically mention them as green and have a separate process for documenting it.
So, yes, our homes go through the green building design processes, make sure the wood’s all from sustainable sources. We’re not using exotic woods and different things like that. We’re all doing it through sustainable sources, but also the design of the home meets the green standards in places that allow them.
Now, we could always have those green standards and apply them to someone else if their building department doesn’t require them. But, yes, like California, every single house we do meets their strict energy efficiency and meets or exceeds the green building codes. And that’s the cool thing about it. It’s all wood from regenerative forests, from sustainable sources, and then our design also goes through to make sure that we’re using energy-efficient HVAC design, lights, different details like that.
So, yeah, the green building codes, I think it’s going to be a bigger thing in the future, but some states are a little behind in adopting codes. Others are far ahead of the group. But if a customer is interested in things like that, we can get involved with them and work through it with them.
Host: How many people that call Landmark and are thinking of building a panelized home, how many people would you say are really… have done any research on the environmental aspects of a home build?
Steve Tuma: Interesting question. Very few have done it to a deep degree. A lot have said, “I want to be green,” but if you say, “Hey, do you want this and that?” they might be like, “No, I don’t want to pay for it.”
So there’s a difference of saying you want green and knowing how to apply it, and it’s not just energy efficiency. And I don’t know why it works that way because, well, first of all, all of our processes are green for the renewable resources of the wood and from sustainable forests. But the thing about it is sometimes certain things can end up costing a little bit more. And in general, a lot of people want to take care of their kitchens and bathrooms, and the look of the house, and the features that they want.
But like in our processes, to do green, to build the green building processes, it doesn’t cost anymore. We’re just documenting what we’re already doing to show that it’s there in the municipalities or states that require it. So for us, it’s a nature of our process, and it really doesn’t cost anymore because we’ve kind of baked it into our process, our design, and our thought processes to get it taken care of.
So when people ask us if they want something green, energy-efficient, they all say yes, and then we help them make sure, just by the nature of our process, that those items are taken care of.
But I would say most people that ask for energy-efficient know they want it, but they don’t know how to achieve it, which is why they ask us to go do it. Because there’s a lot of things we could talk about. We could talk about the benefits of electric cars, or this, or gas engines, or hybrids, or whatever types of things are out there, but how many people really know the full depth of it? They know what they’ve researched, and that’s why customers work with us. We do know the full depth of it, so we can apply the concepts of what they want in the end result to make sure that the house is energy-efficient and green.
It’s pretty cool. But a lot of the things they control, you know, what type of siding they put on there. But I think a lot of the materials coming in home building now are pretty much getting to be more sustainable materials. It’s just the nature of the way the world is going. Luckily, we’re on a front end of it to really make sure things are taken care of.
Let’s put it this way: We’ve had a lot of people that are green experts. We haven’t had to change much in what we already do because we’re already supplying the materials. It’s just more of an understanding to make sure that our process meets what they’re requesting. And it does. It’s pretty cool.
Host: Landmark’s been well ahead of the curve on that. It’s good.
I want to talk about, first of all, it’s going to be a two-parter here, I want to talk about civil engineering. A lot of people don’t have a clue what that is. First of all, if you don’t mind, talking to all of us like we’re third-graders, let us understand what exactly is a civil engineer? And do I need a civil engineer for my panelized home build? I know it seems simple, but I know a lot of people are very interested in knowing about civil engineering and how it falls into the plan of their panelized home build.
Steve Tuma: Yeah, well, to simplify it as in like a third-grader, and civil engineering can get pretty deep, but basically I look at it as: How do you know that your house fits on your land? Not necessarily for zoning or building department, but does it fit so that water flows away, so you’re not in a flood zone, so that your driveway is easily accessible, so that you can walk up to your house?
Now, if you’re building on flat land, it isn’t as much of an issue as if you took the same house and put it in the mountains, around waterfront, or in different locations. So basically, to simplify it, and but even so, people on flat land, we’re working on some projects in Texas that are in flood zones. So you want to work with a civil engineer to say, “Hey, this house has to be a certain level above grade. This is how water’s going to go around it if it does come up. Make sure it doesn’t flood your neighbor out. Make sure you get it taken care of properly for any water that may go on your land.”
But it’s also the access to make sure that you have a legal driveway. You can’t build on the side of a cliff and expect your driveway, your car, to go up a 90-degree angle driveway. It’s got to be safe for accessibility, be able to turn, in some cases make sure the fire department can get in and out if they need to.
So that’s the simplification of how does your house work on the land for access, flood zones, different zoning situations, drainage. There’s a lot of situations there. And what’s interesting about this, more and more areas are requesting a grading and drainage plan. More in the western states, say west of Colorado, and the eastern states not as much, but we’re seeing more and more of it because I think all of us can turn the news on at any random week and there’s a flood somewhere, there’s this going on here, “Oh, this has never happened in a hundred years” type of things, and then the FEMA flood areas are, the maps are changing.
So I also tell people sometimes it’s what you want to do. Sometimes people say, “Well, I live in the city. I don’t have to worry about it. There’s sewers.” I’m like, you do have to worry about it. We had a project in Northern Michigan where I had to work with a customer to explain it was a big, big house on a lot where there was really only five feet around the sides, and it’s like, you don’t want to flood your neighbor out. You don’t want your neighbor to flood you. You don’t want your basement window to become a funnel into the basement. And after going through some discussions, they understood it. In the long run, it ended up being extremely beneficial to make sure that the house was put at the right elevation to make sure if there’s big rains, or snow melts, or whatever else would go on, to make sure that the issues are taken care of, but also access.
And sometimes people don’t realize that if you can approach problems upfront in the design, you can avoid a lot of headaches, and backstepping, and expenses down the road. So this includes: Where is your lot? How big is your land? Do you have a survey? Where are you going to park? Different things like that.
In a lot of states, people will just be like, “Oh, it’s not a problem. It’s never been a problem.” It’s like, well, really? Okay, we’ll see how that works out. And a lot of times it does, but a lot of times people say later, “Steve, it’s good we did this because look at what my neighbor just did with their land. Now they can’t flood us out.”
So to answer the question, not every building department will require a civil engineer, but in some cases someone’s got to have some control of the understanding to make sure the house is set at the right grade so that water flows away from it. And then also in some places it’s got to be formalized with a plan.
We’ve had situations, like in California, Colorado, different places, and a lot of other states, where they need to know where the water, rainwater or any other water that comes on your land, where does it go? And some of these, some of these designs, generally in California they’re way more strict, you have to have certain amount of hardscape. It could be affected by any irrigation that you have for your lawn or your landscaping. How much water is being brought in, and where is it going?
Because even though some of these areas might be dry, when there’s a storm, there’s a storm. So like some people might say, “Hey, why, I’m from the Midwest. I see these driveways, and there’s cement ribbons 12 feet wide going to the garage door. Why do I go to California and there’s a strip?” Well, that’s because there can only be a certain amount of lot coverage.
And that brings something else in. Let me get into a little bit deeper. It’s not just the storms. A lot of communities want to make sure that there’s green space. Okay? So they don’t want you to have a 100×100 building footprint and have your house take every square inch of it. They want to make sure there’s yard, green. It’s just better for communities. Make sure that there’s space for yards and to have a certain type of design element within the community.
Now, some communities have zero-build lot lines, and that’s fine, too. But a lot of them, some neat areas with big old trees or older communities, they want to keep a kind of a park-like setting that’s there. So sometimes it’s also just to make sure that your lot coverage is right.
So they may say, “Hey, you can’t have over 30% lot coverage.” So if your lot is 10,000 square feet, you can’t have over 3,000 square feet of lot coverage. And someone will say, “Well, my house is only 2,000. I’m fine.” I’m like, well, wait, your garage, your driveway, your sidewalks, potentially the overhangs of your roof are considered in this.
And that’s a lot of where we can help guide people on, can we draw something up in the site plan, or is it something you need a formal civil engineer to develop the plan? But it sounds like a lot, but we’re fully set to help people through the processes, to help them understand and guide them through so that we get the right information from the right people to make sure the design’s right, so that the building department is satisfied, and then theoretically you’ve got the best build possible.
So that’s kind of a deep question. You asked a third-grade question, “What’s a civil engineer?” I’m not sure a third-grader would understand that. The point is, Landmark Home and Land Company, we can help you with grading and drainage ideas, working with civil engineers, helping your house fit on the land, and matching it together.
And I think our prior podcast, we’re talking about, “Hey, how much does a panelized home cost?” Well, we’re supplying all these details, and support, and knowledge as part of the purchase with our panelized home. That’s an extreme value that I think until people are in the process, they don’t realize how valuable and very important it is.
Host: Yeah. When I say speaking to us like a third-grader, I’m sure you deal with it every single day and always have, but to you, Steve Tuma and Landmark, I don’t think there are any stupid questions. And I do it all the time, “Oh, this is going to sound stupid, but I just need to know this.” And you guys seem to treat every question as the utmost importance to the overall planning of a build.
Steve Tuma: Well, it is, because, and I’ll wrap it in our last podcast where the question is, “Hey, how much does a panelized home cost?” Well, that’s important. Making sure it’s designed and built properly is just as important.
And the array of different customers we have: Some people have never built a house, some people are extremely experienced, some people are professional builders, some people are father-son teams, some people are small development companies, but we’re getting more and more customers that are very technical. They are engineers of some type. They are civil engineers.
And when you get into these projects, sometimes if someone doesn’t understand, they’re like, “Why do I need someone to tell me how to run water away from my house? I could just tell my guy, ‘Put a 2% slope away from the foundation.'” And I’m like, well, that’s cool, that’s the beginning, but how do you know other water that’s coming into your land? That 2% slope, what type of rain is that for? Is that a standard rule of thumb that’s just been passed along, but no one knows the information that it took to create that standard rule of thumb, so therefore your house does not fit within that standard rule of thumb?
So there’s other situations that can come into it. And what’s really, really cool is our customer base is made up of a lot of extremely interesting people, some champions in some very interesting industries out there, and they understand it. So that’s why they work with us, to say, “Hey, here’s someone that understands it.” They’re not just selling me a pile of wood and calling it a house. They’re saying, “Hey, let’s put this together,” because they understand the value of it.
Way back, this was 20 years ago, we worked with a person that was, they worked with the buildings and grounds of an extremely large steel mill in Northern Indiana. And I asked him, I said, “Why are you doing this?” It was out of curiosity, I was kind of picking his brain. He goes, “Steve, in the last 10 years, we’ve had 300-year floods.”
So a lot of people say, “A 100-year flood? They had the last one five years ago. I got 95 years until the next one.” That’s not the way it works. You have a certain percentage of chance every year, and you may get it.
So I think that’s why we get into it. We’ve just worked on it a lot. And even though some people might say, “Oh, this is a hassle,” well, it’s a little bit of work to do it right upfront, but it’s nothing compared to taking care of a flooded basement or finding out that your house was built wrong.
So that’s why it’s important. Man, this is going to get deep, but I think people see it. When you look at putting the house on the lot for zoning, the setbacks, height restrictions, and then you look at any flood elevation details, you look at any grading plan details, you look at green code details, you look at energy efficiency, and then overall, what does the customer want? Tie those things together. That’s the thing, the whole package, the complete one-stop shop that Landmark Home and Land Company puts together that I think a qualified home builder is going to be like, “That’s exceptional. I can’t find that anywhere.”
And to do it in a one-stop shop, they call me up, we work together, I work with them to put all the details together. The customer understands what’s going on. I work with the designers in the production facility. It comes together in one smooth operation, and a panelized home package that’s complete for their building site.
That’s the key: We design the home for the home that the customer wants for their exact building site. And that’s a key element, and it sounds simple, but it’s a lot of work, and it’s our expertise. That’s the cool part of what Landmark Home and Land Company does that’s pretty amazing. And we’ve evolved into it because of our desire to help people and do it right.
It’s also just a lot of fun. It makes every day an interesting and fun day. Every single project is different, there’s always a challenge, and it’s just really cool to help people that want to do it right. So, pretty amazing.
Host: Great set of answers, as always. And that’s going to about wrap it up for this edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. But before we let you go, Steve, as I always sort of ask you to do, please let the listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company.
Steve Tuma: Well, the best thing to do is check out our website at LHLC.com. That’s like the initials of Landmark Home and Land Company, but we just have LHLC.com. We are Landmark Home and Land Company.
Check out the website. There’s these videos, podcasts, discussions on what we supply, and I think what most people want to see are the plans. We’ve got thousands of plans, some kind of standard plans, and then other plans. The key to it is people can customize their plans or come up with their own set of plans if they want with us because we’re concerned about the codes, the energy efficiency, different civil engineering things. We draw the plans from zero for your exact project. So we’re able to customize and put the details in there that you want, and then go through and make sure that the house package is together.
So I’d say check out the website, put an inquiry in through the website. You can on some of the plans, you can put an inquiry in. There’s also a button there to email us directly, or you can give a call to 800-830-9788. Again, it’s 800-830-9788. Mike will answer the phone. If he doesn’t, he’ll get back with you right away if you leave a voicemail. We are very proactive in talking to people, wanting to know what their project’s about, what their family priorities are so we can help them build a cool house.
Once they work with Mike and they get to the point of doing plans, it gets passed over to me where I will get into the project and really get the details worked out.
But if someone did want to call me directly just to talk and say, “Hey, I heard this podcast. I want to see how this works for me,” my direct cell phone is 708-205-2043. And thank you. This was pretty cool, pretty intense stuff, but easy for us to help people with.
Host: You never seem to have any problem fielding questions from me though, so that’s good.
And there it is, folks. Thanks again, Steve, and thanks to all of you for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma and myself, have a great week ahead, and we will see you next time. Thanks again, Steve.
Steve Tuma: Thank you. This was really deep. Kind of really got into some details we haven’t talked about a lot. So, thanks.
