Choosing a Builder

For a successful Passive House or ultra low energy project, it’s important to bring your builder on board early – especially if you want one for a reasonable budget. Material, assembly, and detailing choices will all impact cost, and your builder will have the best insight on these impacts. On top of this, the local construction market is hot right now and some builders are booking a couple of years out. Planning ahead in any case is a necessity.

While a year or two ago, there was only one builder in town who had built a Passive House (shout out to Mark Bernhardt!), we now find ourselves in the enviable position of having several excellent choices.

We narrowed our search to three builders: NZ Builders, Bernhardt Contracting, and Interactive Construction. I have gotten to know all three through the Passive House community and my work at RDH, and all three are passionate about building ultra low energy homes. I mention them all because any one would be an excellent choice depending on the needs of your project. All three builders have at least one Passive House as well as other net zero/ultra low energy homes under their belts.

The downside to having these choices was that we’d have to say no to two of them – something I was not looking forward to. Matt and I took a similar approach we’ve taken when buying a house: establish our criteria, do our best to keep emotions out of it, and make the most rationale decision. Hiring a builder does add another layer of complexity over buying a house, though, because you are choosing not just the end product you think you will get, but also the person you will work closely with over the next year or more.

So what did our choice come down to? Prior experience was a prerequisite, but here are the other criteria we considered:

• Enthusiasm and experience working with the existing house and materials:

How keen were they to work with the existing 100-year-old structure (framing, walls, roof) and existing materials (like our fir floors, solid wood doors, and bricks from our three chimneys)? Yes, it may ultimately be easier (and cheaper) to tear down and build new, but that is not what our design is about. Our existing house has a lot of good material in it. It shows none of the telltale signs of rot or other structural damage, and our design was specifically intended to preserve as much of the existing house form and materials as possible – and to look that way. If we were going to tear down and rebuild, the design would have been completely different.

 

• Crew size and proposed construction duration:

The ability to build as quickly as is reasonable will save us financing costs, as well as the amount of time we need to live/rent somewhere else. Available crew size varied and estimated construction ranged from 7 to 12 months.

• Budget input:

We didn’t ask for a budget, but did ask for their input on whether they thought our budget was feasible. They all said No! The cost of materials has skyrocketed in the past year, and there is a severe skilled labor shortage locally. Our original construction budget of $600-650k, which seemed entirely reasonable a year or two ago, is now laughably low. Let’s all have a good laugh (cry) and move on, because we’re now likely to be pushing the $1M mark. On the plus side, the value of real estate has gone up significantly as well. Such is the inherent risk in development.

Budget projections from all three builders were in the same range for a new build, although a builder won’t do a detailed budget until you have signed on the dotted line. The number can vary widely depending on interior finishing choices that are largely up to us. Renovation costs are also more variable and depend heavily on what we find behind the walls and what we want to do with the interiors.

Hourly labour costs did vary between the builders and this was a factor in our decision-making. But again, difficult to judge whether that automatically leads to a more expensive project – especially if one builder places a heavy emphasis on upfront planning and another flies by the seat of their pants.

As one of our project goals is to reduce our cost of living, we will have to keep a close eye on budget and likely make some difficult decisions to keep costs within a range we are comfortable with.

• Fit:

Fit was the toughest criteria for us to evaluate objectively. Is there a fit with our values, as well as how we think and work? Do they approach their work the way we do in terms of problem solving and attention to detail? How do they respond to our ideas?

I recommend spending a good amount of time talking with any builder you are considering, because this one comes down to intuition more than any other criteria. We also talked to people who have had homes built or renovated by each builder, and toured works in progress. In this exercise, we were looking at attention to detail and quality of finish work (but not necessarily the actual finishes, which reflect owner’s preference not builder’s skill). We were also listening for how the crew communicated with us and with each other.

In the end, our evaluation against our criteria led us to sign on the dotted line with Russ Barry at Interactive. Our signed letter of engagement allows Russ to slot us into his project schedule (likely for late this year, depending on our rezoning timeline).

Now what? Next month, we will meet with Russ and Mark A to hash through assembly details – from a Passive House performance, buildability and cost perspective – and firm up those pieces. This will allow Russ to develop a more detailed budget, and will allow me to refine the Passive House model. Closer to the start of construction, and before he starts ordering materials and otherwise committing financially to our project, we will need to give Russ a deposit to the tune of $30,000.

And of course, we are still waiting on rezoning, so we won’t get too far ahead of ourselves until we clear that hurdle. Stay tuned and enjoy our beautiful summer weather in the meantime!