Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Email | TuneIn | RSS | More
Show Notes:
You will learn the engineering, zoning, and energy realities of building a custom home in California, navigating regional variations from coastal flood plains to wildfire recovery zones. We examine how to fast-track municipal permits after a natural disaster by matching pre-existing permitted square footage footprints, and how grandfathered zoning setbacks allow historical designs to rebuild without forfeiting lot coverage. Discover the technical compliance mechanisms of Title 24 energy standards, including how architectural solar sun path orientation, eave overhang depths, and roof rafter sizing impact whole-house net-zero calculations. We dispel common misconceptions regarding mandatory solar arrays by exploring state waiver conditions for heavily shaded mountain lots, while breaking down community-specific municipal mandates such as driveway line-of-sight sightlines, parkway planting height caps, and visitability access guidelines. Explore how panelized compares to modular homes when satisfying strict California building departments, and see how our unified engineering allows owner-builders to design your own custom home with fixed package pricing.Key Q&A Highlights from Episode 101
Q: How can homeowners fast-track building permits when rebuilding after a California wildfire?
A: California municipalities often provide expedited plan review pathways for wildfire victims who rebuild a home matching the exact permitted square footage and footprint of the destroyed structure. Expanding the home’s footprint or attempting to rebuild unpermitted historical additions automatically triggers full discretionary zoning reviews, full civil site grading checks, and standard municipal plan check queues.
Q: Can a new home build in California receive a waiver for mandatory solar panel installation?
A: Yes, local building departments grant Title 24 solar exemptions when a parcel possesses physical constraints that render photovoltaic generation ineffective, such as dense tree canopies in mountain regions or shading from adjacent multi-story structures. When solar access is blocked, energy consultants counterbalance the loss by specifying enhanced building envelope measures, such as higher-density continuous exterior insulation or advanced HVAC mechanical efficiencies.
Q: Why does building orientation have a major impact on California Title 24 energy calculations?
A: In sunny California microclimates, rotating a house footprint by just a few degrees can shift extensive window glazing directly into intense western or southern afternoon sun exposure. This exposure creates extreme solar heat gain that spikes cooling load calculations, requiring architects to incorporate architectural countermeasures like deeper roof overhangs, exterior shading fins, or lower solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) window coatings to pass Title 24 compliance.
Q: What planning department visibility regulations impact custom residential driveway design in California?
A: Beyond structural house blueprints, local planning departments enforce clear-vision triangles at driveway street intersections to ensure backing vehicles maintain unobstructed sightlines. These safety mandates dictate exact roadside mailbox placement, maximum street parking curb setbacks, and landscape plans specifying that parkway vegetation cannot exceed a mature height of two feet.
Q: How do California visitability building codes regulate residential front door entryways?
A: Certain jurisdictions enforce visitability guidelines requiring barrier-free, zero-step primary thresholds and clear, accessible exterior circulation routes from the driveway to the front entry. In some communities, inspectors mandate accessible viewer options—such as low-mounted peepholes or full-view glass entry doors—so occupants in wheelchairs have clear, unobstructed sightlines outside before opening the door.
Transcript:
Steve Tuma: You know, the wildfires make the news, they can be disasters, and they are, we all saw what happened with the Los Angeles fires. But the reality is people want to live where they want to live.
Host: Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 101 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today, as he always is, 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’s it going, my friend?
Steve Tuma: It’s a great day. We had another amazing thing happen. Just as we were doing the podcast, I just got through a social media site a customer that contacted us and finished building his house, and he just wanted to let me know it’s beautiful and he’s got certificate of occupancy today.
Host: Oh, awesome! Was that right after the last episode?
Steve Tuma: Yeah, just bam, there it was! Who’s sending this?
Host: It’s funny, because we were talking about people contacting you years later. That’s funny.
Steve Tuma: Yeah, there’s always something fun.
Host: But we digress. We’ve been doing these themed episodes lately, as you know, the top 10 questions asked by potential Landmark Home and Land Company customers, etc. So I thought we’d switch it up and start another series, just to break things up. So let’s talk about building in specific states and see how many different individual states we can create podcast episodes around.
So if you’re good with that, I’d like to start with a state that has a reputation for being somewhat difficult to build in, for one reason or another, or 50, I don’t know, and that state is California. And now that we’ve come up with quite a few questions regarding California as it is thought to be one of the most difficult states to build in, but perhaps you can clear up a lot of the myth from the reality when it comes to that state. And if you don’t mind, I think we’ll have to split this one, even though it’s one state—California’s a big state—so we’ll split this into two parts if you’re okay with that. And the first part, we’ll cover a lot of things that are usually perceived as being specific to California. And then in part two, we’ll cover a lot of ground revolving around permits and insurance, all the nuts and bolts like that. But anyway, if you’re good to go, I’m excited about this one. Are you ready?
Steve Tuma: Yeah, this is a good one. California is great.
Host: So our first California-related question, right out of the gate: How much does it cost to build a house in California?
Steve Tuma: That’s an interesting question, because we’ve worked all over California. I don’t know how many houses over three decades that we’ve helped, but we’ve helped people in Joshua Tree, San Bernardino County—kind of the same area—other counties, Los Angeles, Newport Beach, California. We’ve helped people, they had a very interesting building department. We’re helping customers now with the Los Angeles fires—what was it, 10,000 structures? So we’ve worked there, we’ve worked all the way up the Sierras in different towns, Nevada City, Lake Tahoe. We’ve worked in those areas as well. We’ve worked through Silicon Valley, we’ve worked around San Francisco and all the different communities there, Petaluma being one that just sticks out—very interesting building department.
Host: When you say interesting, is it they’re just difficult, or they’re easy, or what’s different about them?
Steve Tuma: It’s kind of weird, because your question is how much does it cost to build a house in California. The direct answer is it depends on what you’re building and what the building department wants, and are you on a flat piece of land in the desert, are you on the side of the hills in the mountains in the Sierras, or are you oceanfront? So when I say that, it’s interesting, and sometimes they ask ridiculous questions that sometimes remain ridiculous, and then other times you see the sensibility behind it.
So the answer of how much does it cost to build a house in California, the direct answer is it can vary depending upon where you build, what you build, the building department requirements, and just sometimes the natural situations there: Is it a snow-load issue, is it an earthquake issue, is it an oceanfront situation in the type of community that they’re in?
The answer that I can tell you is that a lot of people have told me the cost to build in California what they were told by contractors or general knowledge that they have, and then what it’s cost them and how much money they’ve saved. And a lot of customers have told me they’ve saved 10, 20, 30, 40% compared to hiring a contractor to do it.
So we have some people in California, I think some right now, they’re going about $350 a square foot, which in some parts of the country may seem expensive, but for California is more to the affordable range. And then there are some people building very intricate, very expensive designs in different communities that might end up being at $600, $700, $800, $1,000, and even over $1,000 a square foot.
But what I don’t want to do is scare people by that, because a lot of this really depends on the design. Some people build very architecturally significant homes there, two-story walls that are full of windows. Building a house like that is a lot different than if you had a more of a conventional ranch home with 8- or 9-foot walls.
So the cost, someone shouldn’t generically take a cost per square foot and assume that’s for their house. You’ve really got to look at the house that you want and where it is, and that’s why we suggest that people give us a call instead of going through generalities. Give us a call and say, “Hey, I’m thinking of building this house by San Diego by Valley Center, or hey, I want to build up here in Pioneer or whatever location that it may be,” and then we can help them sort out the specific requirements that they need for their house where they can better target it.
A lot of customers are going online asking questions, “Hey, how much does this cost, how much is that?” And I’ve seen answers that are just plain out wrong. So it’s best to give us a call. We can go through the process of what it is they’re looking to do, and help them refine it to work with a house that makes sense for them.
Host: Wrong answers on the internet, how can that be?
Steve Tuma: Yeah, it’s almost getting more and more interesting with all the AI situations that are coming out there, but that’s part of what we can do is help someone understand their project to target it for something that makes sense. It’s amazing how most people are like they have a general understanding and the budget works for them, but we just like to know that we’re designing a house in a way that continues to work for them for budget reasons, zoning setbacks, height requirements, homeowners associations, and then any other concerns that the community may have.
Sometimes it’s architectural. Sometimes there aren’t restrictions there, but the community just builds a certain type of home—Joshua Tree is one of those places where people like to have a certain look to the house. So there’s ways to design homes to achieve a customer’s need and still cut costs, but still have a good home. And so a lot of it really comes into the navigation of the design, the energy codes, the site planning, the geotechnical reports to make sure that we’re targeting a home project that makes sense for the customer.
Host: When you were talking about rebuilding after a wildfire—and California, that’s just part of the lifestyle, living in paradise you pay a price, and that’s what happens. But how do you even get started? People in the Palisades and they’re still—some of them still haven’t even cleared their land completely after a couple years. How do you rebuild a home lost in a wildfire? Where would you start?
Steve Tuma: We’re working on a lot of the homes that are rebuilds from wildfires, whether they’re in California or other states such as Washington, or Colorado, or Oregon, or there’s been wildfires in Florida—just was odd, but it happens all around the country.
So basically what we do is there’s a couple components to it. Sometimes building departments have restrictions on what you can build to get fast-tracked. So like we’re helping some families in Altadena, and if the house is essentially the same, they will let you fast-track it as long as everything was permitted before. So if you have a house, say you have a 2,000-square-foot two-story, and you’re building essentially that same house, there’s a fast-track process for the architectural, the structural, and the energy codes to make it a little more accommodating. But if you go through and say, “Hey, I had a 2,000-square-foot home, I want to do a 4,000-square-foot home,” they’re going to stick you on the regular track.
Now, what’s cool about this is we have a proven method working across California over decades of our experience, where we are able, because of our knowledge, to take that knowledge of decades, put it together into our permitting and planning process to make sure that plans make sense, have the details the building department needs, and go through and present a complete set of plans. But as people know, most building departments will set you through at least one round of checklist items, and possibly two. So even so, it’s the quick understanding of their requirements and then responding quickly to get it taken care of. So the California building departments do have a reputation of taking a long time, sometimes asking funny questions. But when we have our process that’s a little tighter engineered in the processing upfront of how we develop the plans, we minimize the details that come up.
So we’ve also worked in some very, very stringent building departments—Newport Beach, California, being one, Petaluma, California, being one, sometimes San Bernardino, California, can get interesting. But we’ve worked in Humboldt County, we’ve worked all around San Francisco in the different communities there, we’ve worked in Silicon Valley. The bottom line is they want to make sure that it’s a well-built home and their particular concerns are taken care of. Where the building departments get unique is they may have particular concerns that no one else ever asks, but since we’ve built so many houses, so many experiences, we know how to do this.
So to answer your question of how you rebuild a home lost in a wildfire, Landmark Home and Land Company has a solid process to address the needs of each specific building department and each specific project. So I personally look at every single project, every single building department’s requirements, to make sure that we fend off any potential issues. We can work to make sure it’s designed right, make sure the HVAC is right, make sure the plumbing is right, make sure the structural engineering is right, so our plans have the answers upon the first plan check. And if they come back with a second, which they likely will, we have clear and concise answers that are provided quickly to move the process along. A couple of our customers have said they’ve gotten permits with our process way quicker than other people have in different methods of obtaining it.
So the customer, when rebuilding in a fire, there’s a lot to balance out: the emotional hit of it, what are they going to rebuild, what needs to be done on a cleanup, the insurance processes that they have to go through, and then also navigating the regulations of the building department. Where I tell people they’re going to get caught is the emotion of what just happened—their kind of house was literally burned, their life was burned—but also the rebuilding of the building department requirements, but they should also understand how insurance plays into that. Some insurance companies are a little more accommodating and empathetic, and others are, let’s just say, less empathetic about it.
So having an understanding of your insurance is very important, and this is what I tell people: If you’re building in those areas, make sure you have a competent agent and double-check everything that they tell you, that it’s in writing in the policy. Because sometimes where people go through is they’re buying a home and someone says, “Hey, I got you the cheapest rate on insurance, great.” You need coverage that will be there when you need it. So that’s something that people should look at.
Now, we’re not in the insurance business. I’m just telling people if you’re building anywhere where there’s wildfires, make sure you have good insurance—sometimes it’s the state policy—and have a real understanding of what’s covered. But so I guess this is an all-around situation, but I want to tell people the scope of the situation that they’re running into, because a lot of people think, “Hey, my house burned, insurance company is happily going to show up with all this money and we’re just going to build a house.” And sometimes it does happen that way, but once they have that sorted out, we can help them, and we can even help them right away after the damage to make sure that the house is designed right. And if they want to be on fast-track programs, that we stay within the guidelines of those fast-track programs to make sure that things are put together. And a lot of those are footprint size, overall square footage size, the general look of the house, height restrictions, and different details.
And here’s something which is very interesting: If a house was built, like we’re doing one in Altadena, I think it was originally built in the ’20s—beautiful old Los Angeles-type home, it’s a beautiful kind of Tudor design—obviously that home was built under different codes than were allowed today, or maybe there were zoning situations that changed, they’ll generally let you build to the zoning situation that the original house was built in. Which is kind of cool for lot-coverage situations or different things where things might have gotten tighter over time.
Host: Kind of grandfather in your codes!
Steve Tuma: Yeah, I mean there’s—it’s kind of interesting of how things change over time. The terrain changes, the neighborhood people want to make sure you’ve got enough lawn there or enough space or proper parking or whatever, and sometimes those codes change. And what a lot of our customers in those situations are doing is also taking advantage of adding an ADU. Which is pretty cool, so they get the other income or other build and they’re able to get all processes taken care of.
So as far as rebuilding a home lost in a wildfire, we’re very experienced in the design, the zoning, the energy calculations, the mechanical details, the site plan situations, and working with the civil engineers to make sure that everything goes together. So you’re working in kind of a hybrid system. There’s kind of some modern codes, but you’re also allowed to kind of deal with the character of the home from the past. But if someone wants to build completely new, that’s fine.
Another thing people have to watch for is a lot of people say, “Hey, I’ve got a 3,000-square-foot home and a four-car garage.” Well, they’ll let you fast-track it if what was there was permitted. So if you have a 4,000-square-foot home, but only 3,000 of it was permitted, they’ll let you fast-track it for the 3,000 square feet. So California gets a little sticky on permitted versus unpermitted things, but either way, we’ve experienced it, we can help a customer navigate the situation.
And we are specifically talking about California, but a lot of these situations kind of go into other places where wildfires are common. We’ve helped a few customers in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Washington State, basically all up the coast. So the best thing to do is give us a call, and we can review the processes with them and kind of help them along. Just sometimes having an understanding of the process is very important, and we can help with that. We do it every day.
Host: It doesn’t sound like you’re trying to scare people off of buying a lot in a wildfire zone. Sounds like it has some unique challenges.
Steve Tuma: Well, there is, and the wildfires make the news, they can be disasters, and they are, we all saw what happened with the Los Angeles fires. But the reality is people want to live where they want to live. Someone could say, “Hey, why am I building in the middle of a city?” It’s like, “Well, I want to go to the theater, I want to do this, I want to walk to work, I want public transportation.” And someone that lives in the country might say you’re crazy, while someone in the city might say, “Why are you living in the country? You’ve got to drive 35 minutes to get a gallon of milk.”
So the reality is, I think people understand that, and there’s risks everywhere. I mean, there’s tornadoes, there’s hurricanes, there’s big snow loads, there’s landslides, there’s floods. So what we’re able to do is help people understand those situations so they can make the decisions that’s best for them on how and where they want to build.
And what’s interesting about it is we’ve helped people build in flood zones, it’s just different rules. And that’s why there are codes, and I think what they appreciate is by our process, we pay attention to those details and work with the building department and zoning departments to make sure that it’s put together properly so that the permitting, the building, and the inspection processes and certificate of occupancy processes are as smooth as possible for them.
The reality is the wildfires make the news, we pay attention to every single house, even if it’s a place with less of a big natural risk like that. Part of our game, it’s what we do every day.
Host: California is famous for its earthquakes, and there’s got to be pretty stringent rules as far as earthquake and seismic requirements, I would imagine.
Steve Tuma: Oh, yeah, but that’s our structural engineers take care of that. We go through, make sure the foundation is designed right, we make sure the shear walls, load paths, different situations are taken care of properly, and that’s all part of our standard process to design a house properly. We’re here to make sure that it meets or exceeds the codes while also taking care of the customer’s requirements, their personal requirements, but also zoning, historic areas, whatever it may be.
Host: There’s these rumors that float around that you can’t build a house in California unless you put solar panels on that house. Dispel that myth, or is that even a fact?
Steve Tuma: By the general interpretation of it, it’s true, but it’s also not true. If you were to build and there are giant redwoods around you, they’re not going to have you cut a thousand-year-old, 200-foot tree to use a solar panel. It kind of defeats the purpose of it!
So generally, the house has to be net-zero and work, but if you’re in an area where it doesn’t make sense, like in a wooded forest, it doesn’t make sense to go cut a half acre of trees so that you can use a green solar panel. You’re doing more damage by cutting the trees. Or if you happen to be in an area that was just restricted by other things, natural or man-made—so if, by chance, you were building a little house that’s surrounded by monster houses and there’s no sun getting there, there are ways to get waivers.
So the calculations do kind of push you to go to solar, but if it’s not possible for sun to reach the solar panels, the building departments will generally work with you. They might have you compensate in other ways or work around different things that works, but the energy code guidelines seem to change every few years, and sometimes what they did five years ago contradicts what they asked three years ago.
So the thing about it is they’re just trying to really push for solar, but that’s something that we can work with customers if they are in one of those extreme situations to navigate with our energy calculation gurus to make sure that we end up with a house that’s sensible for them. So I’m very happy to hear that in California, they’re not asking you to cut big pine trees down to use a solar panel. If you’re building in the woods, in the Sierras, and all these other beautiful places that span all of California, it doesn’t make sense to cut a tree down so a solar panel works.
So the answer is, in general, you must have solar panels unless there’s some valid reason that doesn’t allow the solar panels to work, and we have had customers like that, and the building departments have been very accommodating to it. So sometimes these general rules of thumb are good enough, but they’re not always 100% accurate. And that’s what we can help customers if they say, “Hey, how does this work for me?” We can kind of go through and give them the idea specifically of this house on this lot in this area, we can give them a general guideline as to what’s going to come out to it to see if it’s sensible for them.
Host: Well, there’s another rumor about—you would know this better than anyone or as well as anyone—does it take any longer to get plans approved and get your property permitted in California? Does it take longer than other states?
Steve Tuma: Some states don’t even have building departments, or they have a building department you go and have coffee with a guy and he hands you a permit! But of the states that have building departments, what I will say is the timeline is about the same or a little bit longer. And I’ll tell you the difference there: I personally think some of the things that California does are good for the safety and to make sure that a project is planned properly.
So what we do is look at a project of, hey, how are we helping an owner-builder or a contractor make sure that there’s a set of plans that makes sense so they know what they’re doing, so that when they’re building, they’re not out there with a bunch of “uh-oh” moments, big decisions? Instead, they have a well-thought-out process that they can execute.
So in our case, when we work through with it, like in California, say you take something up in the Sierras, in Pioneer, Nevada City, any place where there might be slopes, hills, mountains, whatever it may be, we go through to make sure that the design is proper for the site conditions, the code, the energy calculations, the green codes, and any zoning concerns. So we take that time upfront to properly design the house so that when the plan set is sent in for permits by our customer, it’s very complete already upfront.
Most times, the building department will kick it back and they’ll give you a checklist for one other round, but sometimes those items are more extremely building-department-specific that they didn’t request on an original checklist. So sometimes the rumors of why it takes so long to get approved, I think, are because the original set of plans that were turned in weren’t complete.
Did you do your homework, or did you just throw spaghetti answers to the wall and say, “Why did this happen?” So that’s why initially when you asked, I kind of stalled a little bit, because it’s like let’s be fair: If you turn in bad information to a building department, it’s going to take longer to review and they’re going to give you a bigger checklist. If you turn in a good set of plans like Landmark Home and Land Company sets supplies, you’re going to have a smoother time in the building department.
But that being said, that’s for 90-some percent of the building departments in California. Where you occasionally run into an issue are some of the more sophisticated building departments, say like projects we’ve done in Newport Beach, California, and Petaluma, and other places around Silicon Valley, around San Francisco, where they’ve had different situations where they ask for questions that have never been asked before of us. That being the case, we understand houses very well, so we can answer them.
So let me take a unique one from Newport Beach—there’s two of them in Newport Beach that were very interesting. The HVAC system was in the attic, and it has a condensate line like most air conditioning or all air conditioning systems have. They wanted to know that the condensate line would not create a dripline along the side of the house. And at first you’re like, “Wow, that seems simple.” But have you ever seen a beautiful home and there’s a stripe from a gutter not working, and there’s like—so it sounds picky and weird, but apparently it’s been enough of an issue in the community and keeping a beautiful community like that the way it is and keeping up to standards, they wanted to know. So we had to design a certain gutter system to make sure that the water that was collected from the condensate line was properly drained to not create an ugly stain on the side of a stucco home, or if this was a HardiePanel home.
Another one we had in that same situation, and a lot of these communities where houses are together, they want to make sure that your windows don’t face directly into other bedrooms or bathrooms of your neighbors. People could say, “Well, why are you being so picky?” It’s like, well, be the one getting out of the shower and wave to your neighbor! So in a sense, you could say it’s a little weird, but on the other side, you could say, “Hey, that makes the community more comfortable.”
Now, those details are not on their preliminary plan checklist of what they tell you they need for permits; those are things they point out after they check the house out and see if those conditions apply. So sometimes, and this is that other 5, 6, 7% of picky building departments in California and other states, is sometimes you have to go through the process. But again, it’s the experience we have and the attitude of getting things taken care of to go through and figure out what needs to be taken care of. That’s very important.
Let me get into some other things with building departments. The planning departments get involved, and someone will be like, “Well, what’s that?” Well, it’s just make sure the roads are accessible, make sure driveways are passable, make sure that people can come out of driveways and see the road that they’re backing out to. So we’ve worked in communities where they have very clear and concise rules on how to place a mailbox. So I called one of these guys up and I said, “What’s up with the mailbox thing?” He said, “Well, we have a lot of people with low cars, we don’t want them backing out into a street where the street’s lined with minivans and no one sees the car.” So we have to have restrictions on where you can park, but we also want to make sure that there isn’t landscaping or a mailbox or something else in the way that restricts the view of the person in the car driving into the street.
So we’ve actually gotten into some of these communities where you have to work with landscaping plans to document that the plants in the parkway will not grow over a certain height. You can’t just say, “Hey, let’s put a bush there,” you have to say, “Hey, we have to put this type of a plant there, and you document that this plant does not grow over two feet.” So it’s kind of an interesting situation. So someone might say, “Why are you controlling the height of my tulips in the front yard?” It’s visibility safety to make sure your kid doesn’t get hit. So that’s that.
Another one we had, again in Petaluma, was very interesting: a great family building a house together, and the building department would just come back with things. And this is more on the funny side. They came back and said that we needed to specify the location of the peephole in the door. Because they had kind of a little bit of an accessibility for handicap, but they also had a visitability. And I’m like, okay, that’s pretty cool. So visitability was like could you get out of your car, or walk down the street and know where the front door is and have a natural, obvious passage? Kind of makes sense.
Then when they got to the peephole, we told them we’re going to have a peephole, what the height was, and then they came back and said, “Well, that’s great, but what if the occupant is handicap in a wheelchair? You should have a peephole at a lower place.” And I’m like, okay, if we have to go that far, we could put a peephole there. But then I’m sitting here going, okay, these people are just going to be a moving target, because do we have to start talking the height of the wheelchair, the height of the person, and how does this go?
So kind of wanting to humor myself and find the entertainment in all of this process, I went through, and instead of a peephole, I just suggested to the customer we put a glass door there, which my interpretation of a glass door is you can see through it, it’s most likely the biggest peephole you’ve ever seen! So we turn that in, we give them the solution saying, “Hey, we are supplying a glass door, no peephole needed.”
They came back and said, “We still need a peephole because this visitability regulation was there.” So I had to explain to them of how a 3’x6’8″ door is a very big peephole compared to the little pencil-sized opening, and suddenly their process understood it! So sometimes it’s kind of like, okay, what’s the regulation, but how do you get there? How do you take care of the situation to make sure that the real problem they’re looking at is there?
So this inspector wanted a peephole, I had to explain to them that it’s a glass door, what’s the sense of putting a peephole in a glass door when you can see through the door? It was kind of a humorous thing, but that’s the way we look at it. If for some reason a building department decides to have more unique, or I’ll just say crazy questions, we kind of look at it and say, “Hey, what’s the essence of the code, what are they asking for, and how do we take care of it?” So that’s something that is very, very important.
And another one is drainage. They only want a certain amount of lot coverage in many places to make sure that the rain that falls onto a lot dissipates into the ground on the lot or goes to a controlled stormwater situation. So sometimes that’s why you see driveways, instead of someone having a 12×20 cement driveway, instead they’ll have like a strip where the wheels of the car will go. Sometimes it’s a design element, sometimes it’s a drainage situation.
So there’s a lot to be considered in the whole design thing. But that being said, the point I want to get across is everything that any building department in California or any other state or country sent to us, we’ve been able to understand it and work through the process in a concise, methodical way that’s timely to keep the process from moving forward. So when people say that getting permits in California takes a long time, the actual building department permitting process can be greatly controlled by your understanding of the design, our understanding of the design, the energy codes, the green codes, the architectural details, the zoning setbacks, any homeowners situations, and looking at the complete project to make sure that it’s put together.
I would say most people that say that the building department details have taken long, it’s probably because some of the plans weren’t complete upfront. Some people are of the opinion just throw a bunch of stuff in there and have them give a list and we’ll just give them answers. That’s not the way Landmark works. We look at, hey, what’s there.
The key to that is we provide a set and guaranteed price. So it is in our and the customer’s best interest to do the plans right upfront, make sure the plans get through permitting fast, and then make sure that the home can be assembled quickly, to make sure that the inspections go properly, to make sure that the family moves into the home. So the proper planning helps in the financial situation of the home of less construction interest, or less renting a second home to live in, or just the hassle factor of wanting to get your house built quickly. Everyone’s got a friend, you ask one person to do a job and they get it done, and then you ask someone else, the same job takes five times as much, and like they say, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. That’s us.
It’s a lot of fun, I don’t want to scare people away from it, but it’s a lot of fun, it’s what we do, and it’s actually enjoyable to us. I think the California building process is amazing. We’ve worked in it for decades, we’ve worked probably in every single type of building condition in California, and we welcome people to call us. It’s a lot of fun working there.
Host: I hope this one isn’t too much of a curveball for you, but you would know this again, I say it all the time, as well or better than anyone, but people talk about Title 24. What is that exactly, and how does it affect someone’s house?
Steve Tuma: It’s basically energy codes. And how does it affect your house? They basically want a net-zero home that theoretically develops as much energy as the house consumes.
So where that gets a little tricky is there will be specifics, and I’ve mentioned this in other podcasts, it’s Landmark Home and Land Company’s unified design process where we’re looking at architectural details, structural design, energy calculations, zoning, orientation of the house, and the green codes individually, but also as one project to make sure that everything comes together. Again, kind of like my prior answer is it all comes down to planning.
Title 24 can be a hassle if you’re doing this independently, the architectural, structural, and not paying attention to how it goes together. That’s why we have a process that unifies the design. I’m the central hub of the design team, and then I work with the different people to get all the components together and make sure that they work together.
So where a lot of people will say, “Oh, Title 24 is a hassle,” let’s just say you’ve got a house that needs to have an R-48 in the ceiling, but the rafter’s a 2×6 or 2×8, it might be a little harder to get that much insulation in there, or you might have to use a more expensive insulation like closed-cell to have it fit in the area. Well, if it’s thought out in the planning stages, it’s not a problem. If you’ve framed your house and then you find out about that issue, you’re backstepping a lot.
So basically Title 24 will affect your decision on insulation, the type of insulation, how much insulation, where it can go. It will affect your structural design, it’ll affect your architectural design, it’ll affect the efficiency of your heating and cooling systems.
And what’s also interesting is the orientation of your house, basically in direction of the sun, can also greatly affect it. So if you had a house that faced west in an open area and you had a bunch of windows there, that afternoon sun is just going to turn your windows into a magnifying glass and greatly heat your house up. So they want ways to compensate for that by over-insulating, changing the orientation, putting overhangs or different deflectors to keep the sun out.
So that’s why we look at the whole project: Where are they building, what are they building? So again, just like the California codes, we’ve done a lot of projects in California and other more stringent places, we look at the overall project. And that’s what differentiates Landmark Home and Land Company from other panel suppliers, is we’re looking at your project. We’re not just saying, “Hey, here’s a piece of wood, good luck making a house.” We’re saying, “Here’s the answer so you have a successful build.”
Again, this is kind of an interesting—I don’t know if people expected this answer, they probably wanted to hear about energy calculations. I’m trying to say, “Hey, let’s look at the overall project to make sure your Title 24 energy calculations work for your exact building site to make sure your house is designed right, your plans are accurate, so the customer can understand their budget and their schedule to build, and then work with the right subcontractors to get it taken care of.”
So maybe a little bit more of an in-depth talk compared to how to calculate heat loss and stuff, but that’s the way that we look at it is, sometimes just changing the orientation of a house 2 degrees, 5 degrees, 10 degrees can greatly affect the energy efficiency of your home. The overhangs can affect it.
So it’s pretty amazing, and sometimes there’s a counterbalance: To have a little less over here, you’ve got to build it up a little more over there. But that’s what we do and we review them with the customer, so we’ve got a great process to help people build homes in California. We’ve been doing it for decades, and we enjoy it. It’s a lot of fun, actually.
Host: There’s going to be a part two because California is a different state, it’s big, and it has some far-reaching issues when you want to come in and build a house. But for now, we’re going to wrap things up just for this episode and this edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. But again, as we always do, Steve, let the listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company. That would be great.
Steve Tuma: Best thing to do is check our website out at LHLC.com, again that’s LHLC.com, kind of like the initials Landmark Home and Land Company. They can check these podcasts out, they can watch videos, they can see different details on what we supply, they can choose from the thousands of plans that we have, and get a good understanding of how we help owner-builders and contractors around the country. And from there, you can submit an inquiry, you can find a plan, send an inquiry in on a specific plan, you can send a direct email to us, or you can give a call.
Mike will answer the phone—if for some reason you do get voicemail, he’ll call back right away—but you can call 800-830-9788, again that’s 800-830-9788, and have a direct conversation. Mike will talk to you directly about where you’re building, what is it you want, what are your goals, what are you looking to do, how much work are you going to do, those types of things. Then once it gets to a different stage, where they’re moving along, wanting to get plans going, I’ll communicate with the customers and just get deeper details, get things sorted out for the plans for California or any other state or international projects as well.
But if someone wanted to call and just talk to me and pick my brain and get to know each other, call me on my direct cell phone at 708-205-2043, and we’re also on all the major social media platforms. So we’re here to help people build houses, and whether they want to start today, next month, two years from now, five years from now, we’re here to help them get in position so that the design, the plans, the schedule, the budget makes sense for them to move forward.
Like I say, it’s a lot of fun. Just cool, a lot of details, but we help cut the learning curve and make it efficient for our customers.
Host: Well, there it is: episode 101 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. We want to thank you all for listening to the show, and Steve, thanks again, because I always enjoy these conversations. It’s always beneficial for me as well as the listeners. So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma and myself, have a great week, and we will see you next time. Thanks again, Steve.
Steve Tuma: Thank you. This is really cool. I’m looking forward to 102 or the second half of California panelized home building. Thank you.
