Interior Renderings

Exterior Renderings

Here are some renderings from Res4 of what the finished house might look like:

Elevations

Floor Plans

Here are the final floor plans as submitted to the factory (upper and lower):

DIY

So as we try to figure out where our budget leaves us, and how much of the post-set work we have the time (and competence) to do ourselves, the NYT runs this.

Time for pictures

As most of the process up to this point has not really lent itself to pictures, this blog has been a little wordy. But now we're moving:





Those are from the top of our mostly roughed-in driveway (taken just below the switchback - it's about 1400 feet from the county road at the bottom, and another 200 feet after the switchback up to the homesite). The second pic really gives a sense of how far, and high, it is from the road below.

This road is the most difficult part of this project, I think (of course we haven't had to do anything else yet). It's expensive, it needs to accommodate a 65' long trailer (and a 180 degree turn at that), and it is really big. You don't realize how much you're going to really disturb the land, and how different it's going to look, until it actually happens. This is what the switchback looks like right now:





All the excavators and contractors we've talked to have emphasized how important it is that a road be wide enough that "it can breathe" - get enough sun and warmth that it can dry out when it's wet - and they told us that due to the slope we're going across we need to clear quite a bit just to get a wide enough surface for the road. Seems a little self-serving for them to say that, of course. But everybody on the business end of this project (the Res4 folks included) have consistently told us how strident clients are that nothing get disturbed and how far that is from the reality of construction. Our goal is to have a little house that feels like it's in the middle of the woods - we like that aesthetic enough that we're not even going to clear a site line from the house for a view. But we'll see how close we can get to that...I'll say some more about the realities of clearing the home site and setting a prefab house like this in the next post.

Here are some more pictures from yesterday - first of our boys getting into the spirit, and then the view from a possible hot tub location?!?

First Glitch

And a minor one at that, but John from Res4 called yesterday to say that the factory got the wrong size floor trusses. Their usual module size is 14' wide; they also usually use 2x10s as trusses. Res4 designs their boxes with manufactured 2x12 open web trusses. (You quickly begin to see how much of a step outside their comfort zone these different designs are for the factory - not that they can't do it, but that even the littlest tweaks are potential headaches for them.) The factory had apparently framed all the walls and was ready to begin the floor when they realized the webbed trusses were too short; so now they're stuck. If they wait for new trusses to arrive, this spot in the assembly line is stuck - no work for the factory. So Jason Drouse, our factory rep, called me to basically say please allow us to use 2x12s as trusses so we can keep working as scheduled. Not that big a deal to us - we'll have to drill through the trusses now to wire the bottom of the box for basement lights, but Res4 is comfortable that the stability will not be an issue. Much bigger deal to the factory. So we said fine (actually means $1000 or so back to us).

Met with the well guy today

No change on the road - machine is still sitting idle.

Having to drive two hours to meet with somebody for thirty minutes could get old, though that's the price we pay for not paying a GC to supervise this whole project (and the boys were productive):







Got home to find the driveway permit in the mail.

Going "On Line"

Talked with John at Res4 today about a number of things. I'd received the structural engineer's approved drawings in the mail and wanted to review some little things. As John has explained to me, Simplex takes Res4's drawings and turns them into a "factory building set," which is then sent off to a structural engineer for approval/tweaking. The structural engineer's recommendations (re: sheer walls, truss design, how best to affix the box to the foundation, etc.) are then incorporated and the drawings go to a third party reviewer, which has authority to review the drawings and issue stamped approvals on behalf of municipalities (showing, in our case, that we meet West Virginia code).

Simplex has our box slotted to begin construction next week. This was a surprise to me, as I thought it had begun eight weeks ago. Turns out I had misunderstood the "twelve weeks" of production to mean that they were building the box for twelve weeks; in reality, it only takes two. The balance of that time was the drawing/engineering/approval phase. Hard to believe. Res4 is going to go out to Simplex each of the next two Fridays to monitor progress (we're invited; we'll see if we can make it). Then there will be an inspection by Simplex and Res4 together (to generate the inevitable punch list), and then Sarah and I show up after that for a final inspection and sign-off that we're ready to take possession of the box.

Apparently Res4 has a number of other projects in the works that will try to approach this level of completion out of the factory, which accounts for why they'll be keeping such a close eye on how smoothly the production of our box goes. We're sort of the guinea pigs...

Breaking Ground

We knew it had to happen eventually - lots of trees come down.

Visit to the Simplex Factory

Today I met the Res 4 guys at the Simplex factory in Scranton, PA, to review the plans for the house, get a tour of the factory and sign our contract.

What'll it look like?

So we've met with the Res 4 guys a few times and exchanged lots of emails and phone calls and we're getting closer to a design.

This is what we're looking at right now:

More Catch Up

The other big thing we've done this fall is decide on an architect. We love the Dwell House (who doesn't) but assumed something like that would be out of our price range (we're also committed to keeping this a small project size-wise - we're envisioning renters who are interested in see what a prefab project looks like from the inside, not groups that need a four bedroom house for a weeklong vacation). I was able to talk a bit with Joe Tanney from Res4 during the Building Museum symposium on prefab, and after explaining the intent of the project by email we set up an appt to meet in NYC to go over some options.

Res4's prefab designs are all premised on combining factory produced 16' wide (and as much as 64' long) boxes into whatever size/shape house you're looking for. They work with a conventional modular home manufacturer in Pennsylvania (Simplex Industries) that produces about 600 modular units a year (that's about 250 finished houses); after working with a few different manufacturers, it sounds like Res4 has settled on these guys as pretty good partners. We thought just a single 16'x 64' box would be perfect for us: 2BR,1BA, an open living space and lots of glass to take in the woods and view. Ideally, the box would be delivered as close to finished as possible for all the reasons that prefab makes sense: most efficient building process, defined build time and cost.

Joe and his partner Rob Luntz were both enthusiastic about the idea and had been curious to see just how much their module manufacturers could get done in the factory. They had already done some rough sketches for us, and we talked rough numbers for budget and $/sf targets (they ballparked a 90% completed manufactured unit at between $125 and $150/sf, which would translate to about $150K for the house, all inclusive - decks, appliances, floors, the whole house). They explained the timeline, which was a bit longer than we'd thought we might be able to get all this done in (we were being much too optimistic about that, something I'll take up later) - about a year, they thought, from engagement, maybe a bit shorter for our project (fewer permits - surprisingly, the manufacture time isn't really affected by the size/number of boxes involved). They also indicated that they were very excited about the possibility of seeing just how inexpensively they could get a simple project out the door, as well as in having a project to which they could direct potential clients ("go rent this house for the weekend; see what you think" kinda deal). We had a great meeting (nice to be back in NYC, even if just for the day); John and Rob said they'd get a formal proposal (scope of project, fees, schedule) out to us that week. We signed on and began the process of working with the Res4 team on a preliminary design (basically by phone and email).

(For those wondering about other options: I'd had some back and forth with the weeHouse folks, who were awfully nice (that Minnesota charm). We decided that their homes would be less appealing to potential buyers down the road should we choose to sell. We love all of Michelle Kaufmann's projects, but unfortunately she's not working out here on the east coast yet. I'm also a big fan of the LV and the Luminhaus, but it's a bit stark and there's already one of those available for renters just around the corner from us.)

Lots to catch up on

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted. I'll try to run through everything (I've been keeping good notes...).

We closed on our land in Lost River, WV in August (the top picture is a view from one of the potential building sites). There's a great state park (Lost River State Park) just a mile down the road and a fresh water lake with a white sand beach about ten minutes away (that's the picture on the bottom). About 2.5 hours door to door from DC. There's a pretty vibrant second home community in the Lost River Valley these days, with a lot of visitors drawn to the Lost River Guest House.

As I noted earlier, the parcel is 30 acres, with some steep grades and tricky access issues. It appears this was priced into the $/acre, though we'll see what access finally costs at the end of the day. We've met with three different excavators, all of whom say we'll be able to get a suitable road up to the good building sites. Access remains a question mark, but we're moving ahead with fingers crossed.

Living Green at the NBM

On my birthday we celebrated by going to the National Building Museum to hear the symposia on pre-fab. The editor of fabprefab spoke on the history of prefab housing and why the sudden revival of interest in architecture and design circles, and Michelle Kaufmann and Joe Tanney both spoke about their firms and their designs. We've been talking with Res4 a bit by email about their projects and hope to meet with Joe in NYC next week to talk some nuts and bolts. Their "single bar" design - the foundational component of their custom prefab homes - seems about perfect for us at this point. Modest size and price, relatively quick turnaround time, and a great looking house. We'll post more after our meeting.