The home team: a peek inside reveals how people work together to construct a swell place to dwell

Career World, Jan, 2005 by Sarah Humphreys

It takes more than a hammer and nails to build a house. A house under construction in Dana Point, Calif., is a perfect example.

By the time the house is finished, which will take nearly a year, more than 20 people will have contributed their skills to the project--from checking out the soil the house will sit on to inspecting its highest shingle. This custom home will receive not only plenty of hands-on attention but also lots of brainpower.

COMING UP WITH A PLAN

The first team member was Matt Macarewich, the house's designer. The property owners, who will live in the house when it's finished, hired him.

Macarewich checks with the city's planning department about zoning requirements--the city's rules about things like how and where buildings can be constructed, the number of bedrooms a house can have, and even the size of the garage. He also checks with local homeowner associations, which dictate even more rules about the look and size of a house in a particular neighborhood.

"Sometimes that's where local knowledge pays," says Macarewich, who lives near the house in Dana Point and does most of his work in the area. "Some cities have a lot of local restrictions."

Once the design parameters are set, Macarewich says, he hires a surveyor, who confirms the property boundaries. The surveyor provides Macarewich with a topographic plan, or a contour plan, of the property. The plan tells the designer where he needs to remove or add soil to the house's foundation.

Next Macarewich gets a geological survey. A soil engineer or geologist drills several holes that show what's underground. For instance, is water present in the soil? Is the property on a fault line? These are especially important factors in California, where a house and its occupants may fall victim to a landslide or an earthquake. It's important for the designer to know what needs to be done to put a house on solid ground. Is the soil on the property unstable clay or silty sand? Will the house need an extra-thick foundation? Is there solid rock underneath the site, or will the house be built into a hill? Will dynamite be needed to blast a flat surface?

Macarewich also considers design elements that are important to the owners, like views and the number of cars that must fit in the driveway.

Macarewich, who comes from a family of builders and was formerly a builder himself, is a designer but not an architect. Because of his many years in the business, combined with the architectural drafting courses he has completed at a local college to earn an associate's degree, he may take the difficult, math-heavy test to earn an architect's license, even though he doesn't need it for his profession.

"Anybody can be a designer," Macarewich explains. "There's no requirement other than having the ability to learn how to draw a legible set of plans and get them through a building department."

Once Macarewich designs the house, he submits the plans to a structural engineer for review and then to the city's planning department. This is the stage in the process in which the owner shops for a builder, also known as a general contractor. After the engineer reviews the plans and the city approves them, it's building time!

Macarewich passes the torch to the person or company the owner has selected to build the house. In this case, it's builder Mark Bucknam, who pulled (received) the permit from the city planning department and became the contractor of record.

THE PLANS BECOME A REALITY

Like architects, general contractors in California must also be licensed. The license allows the contractor and his crew to do most of the building work. For some jobs, such as installing sprinkler or air-conditioning systems, putting on siding, and shingling roofs, the general contractor hires a subcontractor. Subcontractors are not allowed to hire another layer of subcontractors to work for them.

At the house in Dana Point, Bucknam's crew of three is pouring concrete, framing and finishing the walls, putting in the cabinets and closets, and installing the plumbing and wiring. A crew can include one lead foreman, who is generally experienced, needs little instruction, and gives the orders to the rest of the crew; one or two workers, who do the actual construction; and one or two apprentices, who assist the foreman and workers. On this job, Bucknam is both builder and foreman.

"It depends on the size of the company," says Bucknam of the structure of the crew. "And it depends on how the guy runs it."

Doing the hands-on building work is why Bucknam who holds a bachelor's degree in construction management, left his previous job handling big commercial projects. While still working for the other company, he studied for his contractor's license, took the test, and passed. "I came back into [building] because I like working with my hands," he says.

What Bucknam doesn't like about his profession is the competitiveness. A lot of contractors are fighting for the same jobs, and many forgo licenses--which is illegal--to avoid the insurance costs.