All Forum Posts by: Eric Teran

@Jeff Sadosky I’ve used Jason Osser for the last four years. So far so good, his office is in Fairfax and he owns multiple investment properties for short and long term rentals. https://ossercpa.com/

@Leland S. were you able to get the shop drawings from the steel contractor? Be sure you share with him the stair information. I would make sure the steel contractor is on board before you order the stairs.  

@Leland Smith you need 80” clear from the top of the tread to the ceiling. If you don’t have it you can slope part of the ceiling. Doesn’t look great but it’s an option. The other option is to move the stair slightly but I don’t know if that works with your floor layout. Everything with the stair itself looks fine and good catch on the thicker treads.

@Robert Carpenter the building owner has a few options on how much they want to be involved. I have some clients who pay me more during construction and I only report to them when needed if the schedule or budget will be affected. For example, the steel I-beam has a long lead time. They can either wait for it but it may affect the construction schedule or we can determine if there is another option that may affect the schedule and/or budget. If it doesn't affect the schedule or budget then they are usually not notified. I take care of it before it becomes a problem. During construction issues always come up. The majority of them are easily handled and not a big deal. Take this case, for example, I hope I would have caught this during the shop drawings or when the 1st-floor framing was being done. I would fix the issue with the GC and framer and the owner would have never known unless the schedule or budget were affected.  

I have other clients that want to be involved in every decision. I had one client rent the house next door (he was a pain) to see everything that went on. It is either because they want to learn or have a personality that they need to be involved in all aspects of their projects. This is fine but they do tend to be more stressed because they take small issues and blow them out of proportion because they don't have the experience. 

If the owner lives far from the construction hopefully they let the Architect be their representative or hires a project manager to be their eyes and ears. We have contracts with the owner and we act on their behalf. We have no loyalty to the GC so if something is not built accordingly we tell the owner and it is the owner's decision to accept a deviation from the plans. We also document everything so that if something goes wrong there is a paper trail if a lawsuit is ever brought. A lot of small architecture and construction firms don't do this because it takes time and they are not used to it. I only learned the correct way when I worked in a firm with 150 Architects and we documented everything for moments like Lelands. 

If the owner doesn't want to hire a representative during construction then I would think they have a great relationship with the GC and trusts them to get it done correctly or they are much more involved. Even if they are more involved it doesn't mean they understand all the codes and regulations and why something was coordinated a certain way. For example, maybe @Leland S. choose to do floor trusses for the mechanical ducts to go through and have no drop-down ceilings? If someone didn't know this they might think to use regular floor joists and build drop-downs for the ductwork which may save $10k. Saving money sounds good but it goes against what the owner wanted.  

Lastly, it also depends on how big and what type of project it is. I have clients who build a deck or powder room addition. They don't need me to be there that often. Usually, once at the beginning and end. However, for a high-end modern home, I need to be there every week and during critical times of construction. For a traditional home where molding can cover up mistakes, I can go less often because builders are used to building a traditional home, and like I said it is easier to hide mistakes. 

There you go. Lots of options and if you really want go ahead and rent an RV, preferably an Airstream.  

@Nik Moushon brings up a great point about the footings under the wall. Most likely there is nothing there as the concrete contractor had no idea a load-bearing wall was being installed which means it isn't on the foundation plan either. You can order the GC to break up the slab to show proof that a footing is installed. If there is one then you need to pay for the repair. If there isn't one then the GC needs to install one. However, if there is one it begs the question why would the GC install a footing if there was no load-bearing wall to be installed in the first place? 

@Leland S. that sucks that your architect is no longer involved. He takes a big risk by doing that. The industry standard for something like this is for shop drawings to be prepared by the subcontractor and then the GC approves them who then passes it onto the Architect for final approval before proceeding. This is where the Architect would have noticed a new wall that should not have been there. The same goes for the other cutouts you mentioned that they missed. If the GC approved the shop drawings and didn't forward them to anyone else it is on them. Did they forward it to you? Maybe you approved it without understanding what you were looking at. I had a client do that to me before. This client approved a shop drawing and the GC proceeded with the work. A month later there was an issue and since the owner approved it there was not much that could be done. Even though I was supposed to review it first. 

Anyway, I do find it odd that they didn't show a wood girder truss framing the opening. This is not a 35' opening. It is only a 4' x 11' opening. The double truss should have been spanning 20' from left to right which would sit on the exterior structural walls. From these two trusses, you form the opening with another double truss. Something like this:

The bad news is you can't do this anymore unless you remove a lot of the floor framing. Also, I DO NOT KNOW all the loads and other scenarios happening from above. Another issue you now have is that you can't just cut back the truss to add the 35' trusses to frame the opening. Trusses are calculated and not designed to be modified easily. Can the opening become smaller so that a girder truss is placed on the inside of the opening? This allows for all the truss members to remain in place but may destroy the stair design. 

You can also have a dropped beam but I don't think you will want that as the ceiling will no longer be flat and it may drop too low. Is this a flip, rental investment, or your home? I ask because if it isn't your dream home where you will live for 30 years then you may need to compromise. For a rental investment or a flip, it may not be a big deal to have some type of wall or post in that area if it doesn't affect your returns. At this point as much as I hate to say it you may need to compromise for something you may not want to do and take it as a lesson learned for the next project. 

@Leland Smith I’m an architect and designed an open floor span with 24” wood trusses that spanned 35’ the entire length of a 60’ house. However, I used a structural engineer and we went back and forth for about three months on how to accomplish this. We looked at strength, beams, point loads, foundation support, and so on until we determined the best solution for the design and price.

With that big of an opening I am surprised your Architect or permitting jurisdiction didn’t ask for a structural engineer. This should have been figured out before construction started. However, the contractor should not have built that wall without your permission. Anytime they deviate from the contract plans they need to get your permission first. Your contract (I’m assuming this) is with the contractor and not the framer so it is the contractors fault that their framer did this.

With that said maybe what was designed was not going to work. As I mentioned above we used 24” floor trusses. Do the plans allow for such a big floor package? Maybe it does but then will the stairs fit within the space provided with the added height? If you add steel you might have to change the foundation. Trying to figure this out during construction was a bad way of doing it. Did they already build the second floor?

Right now you need to get the Architect, GC, and framer together at the job site to figure it out. Even better would be to also have a structural engineer at the meeting. Once a solution is reached then you can play the blame game and see who owes who money.

Gold luck.

@Syed Younus I use Jason Osser, https://ossercpa.com/. He has STR and long term investments. Good luck!

@Mike Warder

Did your handyman get a building permit to dig a window well or is it to make the basement room a legal bedroom? It would be safer to say it is legally being changed to a bedroom for document purposes. Just be sure the window sill is less than 44” from the interior finish floor and the window and egress sizes are per code to be considered an egress well. Here is a good link, https://buildingcodetrainer.com/egress-window-requirements/.

As far as $1,500 goes for the permit that sounds fair for this area. If he submitted the plans with your approval then he should be paid. If he did it without your approval then it is up to you if you want to fight. The construction cost sounds reasonable but it depends what your are doing? If the egress well is a concrete wall or block it should be more. However, if it is a prefabricated metal half circle type of installation then that sounds right.

Good luck.

@Russell Brazil thanks for the mention.

@Franky Aikens I am the Architect to a few high end homes in the DC area. My biggest so far is a 12,000 SF home near BWI that will be a net-zero home. In DC I have a few between 5,000 to 9,000 SF. One of them has a roof top Pool so the owner can enjoy the 4th of July fireworks from his hot tub. There are also a few in NOVA and one near Harpers Ferry that is 10,000 SF on 15 acres of land. It isn’t so much the size but how the design is laid out to maximize the space.

When I lived in Southern California I worked at a firm that designed ultra modern homes in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu and so on for a homes that sold between the low price of $10 to $50 million dollars. Even those clients had budgets.

I’m happy to answer any questions you have about Building in this area. When you build a high end home the likely hood is that almost everything has to be upgraded. That includes items such as a bigger water meter, work in public space, updating the energy efficiency, fire sprinklers, and so on. If the design involves the BZA (board of zoning appeal) or historic the process just takes that much longer. BZA is backed up five months so it takes around 6-8 months to get a building permit if BZA approval is required. Good Times.