Big Remodeling Projects: Additions, Second Stories, Garages, Kitchens, and Whole-Home Design
Host:
Welcome to the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction on News Talk 1310 WIBA. Have a question? Email it to EdgeConstructionRadio@gmail.com.
Now, here is your host, Sean Prebil, on News Talk 1310 WIBA.
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is so easy to remember: 636-EDGE.
Joining us this morning, as we do each and every week, is Mr. Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction. Mike, how are you doing this week?
Mike:
Great, Sean.
I am excited to talk big projects this week.
Host:
We often talk about different spaces and different projects, and occasionally the bigger project stuff comes into that conversation.
These are a lot of fun to do, aren’t they?
Mike:
They are.
I mean, if you survive it physically, they are a lot of fun.
I think it is really rewarding from our side too. It is not that we do not love doing kitchens, baths, and all the inside stuff. But when we have a big project come together, I will not lie and say there is not a little bit of pride there.
When we start looking at those pictures, and we have one finishing up right now, I am right in the middle of the fun part. We are just a couple of days from being done.
So yes, that is a pretty cool thing.
Host:
One of the great things about EdgeConstructionCompany.com, and your Houzz and Pinterest pages, is being able to see those projects.
When you are doing the inside work — which you guys do a lot of, and most of it is interior remodeling — it is great to see. But it also has to be great when you can literally drive down the street and see that craft come to life.
Everybody who drives by that house can see the workmanship you guys do on a project.
Mike:
Yes.
The one we are just finishing right now is actually on our website. The gang in the office put some in-progress pictures up there. It is farther along than it was in those pictures now.
It is a neat thing because every time I stop there, it is in a neighborhood in Middleton where there are a lot of walkers and maybe some retired people.
Whenever you are going out to your truck or getting there, somebody is walking by. More times than not, people say, “Oh, I cannot believe how that turned out,” or “You guys are doing a great job.”
That is not something I think we always hear. It really is nice when people say that to me.
It tells me, okay, you did not build something ugly. Maybe it fits the neighborhood and fits the lot.
I think the temptation sometimes is to focus only on your needs for that project and sort of forget about your surroundings. I think it is important for the neighborhood that it looks like it fits.
Maybe all the rest of the houses on the street should look like this at some point.
But yes, it is a beautiful spot. It is a couple of blocks from the high school in Middleton. I will not tell you exactly where it is, but if you drive around, you can probably find it.
When I look at the before pictures, everybody who has looked at them before us says, “There is no way that is the same house. How did you go from that to this?”
It starts with the designers.
Host:
Is that the one where you expanded the garage?
Mike:
Yes.
We expanded the garage and then put a second story on a small ranch. We went up and out a little bit.
Host:
I have seen some of those pictures. It is beautiful.
As we talk with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction, if you are thinking about doing a bigger project, or even something like a kitchen remodel — which, by the way, if you are remodeling your kitchen, that is a big project.
Mike:
Yes, it is a big project. We would definitely not disagree with you.
Host:
But if you are doing some of that bigger stuff too — additions, going up, going out, those types of things — Mike and the team at Edge Construction would love to talk with you.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Our conversation always starts with the word you mentioned there, which is the D word: design.
With these bigger projects, design is vital. As you were pointing out, it is not only making sure it is going to work, but that it fits the neighborhood.
Design is just as vital during these bigger projects as it is with interior jobs, isn’t it?
Mike:
It is.
I will give you an idea.
This project is taking maybe a little under six months, and I think it spent between six and nine months in design.
There is a lot of planning that goes in.
It starts with brainstorming between us, our designers, and the homeowner.
We are asking, “What do you get?”
This house was basically a two-bedroom ranch. It had a finished basement, more or less. It was a little bit dated, but still very serviceable, and it helped give the homeowners a little bit more space.
We went up and put a legitimate primary suite up there, along with two more bedrooms and another bath.
So we added two baths and three bedrooms, did the kitchen, and basically did everything on the first floor. Siding, the roof, expanded the garage — it was a pretty big project.
These homeowners wanted to live in this spot. There is no doubt in my mind, and I do not blame them.
If you have a Middleton zip code, I am really jealous right now.
It is one of the best spots in the state, I think, to own a house. These houses are really worth investing in because you are not going to drive down the street and find another one.
Host:
Are we seeing, across the industry, more and more people saying, “We are going to stay where we are and maybe do an addition or expansion”?
Obviously, there are other factors too, but is that industry-wide?
Mike:
I think it is.
Interest rates hurt these projects a little bit, so that is one reason I wanted to talk about it.
But there is just not inventory out there to buy.
If you were looking for a house in 2009, you had a lot of choices. You could live anywhere, and you could buy them cheap.
Now we have the reverse of that. We just have not recovered, construction-wise, from those dark times.
There is not inventory out there when you are shopping for a house.
I do not have to tell people that. I am assuming everybody who comes to us with a big remodeling project has already been through that process and is saying, “Okay, I cannot find anything.”
Host:
One of the things that starts design, when we talk about kitchens, is often people having been in their house for a number of years and having experiences where they say, “Here is what works, but here is what does not.”
With big remodels, is it a similar experience?
People may say, “Here is what works in this house. The main level works well, or the basement works well, but we are lacking this.”
Maybe they need a primary bath, primary bedroom, or those types of things.
Is that kind of the same starting point for some of these conversations?
Mike:
It is.
A lot of people buy houses when they are younger. Maybe they only had a dog instead of three kids.
You get into a place, and I am pro that at any age. Get into the market. Homeownership is something you need to get into. Get your feet wet.
But when life changes happen, how do you deal with that?
On these bigger projects, I think there must be a threshold where people say, “Okay, my kitchen needs redoing, all the flooring needs redoing, I have terrible windows, I do not like my siding, my roof leaks, my garage is not enough or is falling apart.”
There are thresholds, or size-wise things.
Most of the time, people come to us and say, “This is our idea. Does this even have a prayer? Is there any way to do this?”
With the bigger projects, I talk about this with our designers. When people come with that “Can this happen?” question, or when we are looking pie-in-the-sky and asking, “Can we get everything?” I always feel like if you can get maybe 80 or 85 percent of the way there, then it is probably worth remodeling.
If you can only get 50 percent of the way there, I do not know. Maybe it just needs to be torn down and started over, or maybe there are other options that need to be looked at.
That is kind of a tipping point for me.
If we can get almost there — if we can take this existing structure, modify it, and change it enough to get almost there — then I feel pretty good.
Host:
So some of this is driven by the math as well.
You are literally crunching numbers and saying, “What is the option?”
Option one is to sell, lose that great neighborhood, lose that opportunity, and maybe find something different.
Option two is doing a remodel that checks the boxes.
Option three is saying, “We are going to do a really big remodeling project.”
Option four is saying, “We are going to flatten it and start from scratch.”
Mike:
You hit them.
We do have one in design right now. It is a farmhouse in the country on a beautiful piece of land, but the house has been remodeled a couple of times and is at the end of its lifetime.
It is a very old house. The foundation is not great. It is not terrible, but it is rocks, concrete, and mortar, and mortar rots after a while. It has seen better days.
Probably every window, maybe 30 windows, needs to be replaced. The roof is 20 years old. The homeowners do not like the siding.
There is also not a great way to get the kitchen to join the rest of the house. A lot of our remodeling is, jokingly, getting that kitchen to join the rest of the house.
In this house, because of how it was originally built, that is not possible. It is kind of off by itself.
So it has some issues. It is too small, and that one is looking like we are going to tear it down and build a new house.
We do not build a lot of new houses, but when we do, a lot of times it is something like that.
Host:
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction. The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
I asked about the garage, by the way, and I know that was part of this project.
The house I grew up in was a very old house, and the garage was kind of like a glorified carport. It was literally a roof with a couple of sides. There was no insulation. There was nothing. I think it may have even had gravel for a floor. It was super simple.
Now I see some folks with what are often described as garage-mahal type things.
Garage expectations are different now. For a lot of people, it is more than a place to park your car. It may be a workshop. Sometimes people are doing laundry and other things.
Are you seeing that? What qualifies as a garage is not just a place to hold your car anymore, is it?
Mike:
You need to have room.
For the project on our front page, I kind of think the garage was the start of that whole thing.
One wall looked kind of rotten. It was actually sagging a little bit.
The floor looked like some giant took a big sledgehammer and cracked it everywhere. It was kind of up and down.
It was also small. It had a beam or a post in the middle, and there was not room to get anything but a really small car in there.
I think the homeowner was saying, “I have a mower, and I have some tools.”
In the new design, there is space. It is a legitimate two-car garage now. It has maybe six feet of extra space in front of the second car to do some of those things and organize some of those things.
They are much nicer than the garages you and I grew up with.
Now we generally finish them out, hang drywall at least, and make them look nice. You certainly would not mind going into one of these new garages.
Host:
Does size drive some of this?
You and I both have trucks. I think we are both Ram owners.
I think of trying to park that in some of those older garages. It is not going to happen.
Mike:
There are times where I wish I had a camera to show people the face you make.
Yes. A normal pickup is tall. SUVs are kind of bigger.
We have had projects where people say, “I have this big truck, and I want to be able to pull it in.”
It does not matter that much to us whether the garage door is seven feet tall, eight feet tall, or nine feet tall. The inside of the garage is usually tall enough to accommodate that.
We have had some really inventive ways, and there is some new technology on garage doors that allows you to get the door as high as possible and put the biggest door you can in there.
Even if your ceiling is not that high, some of these doors can really hug that ceiling. You only have literally less than a foot above the door inside to get that door up in there.
There are ways to maximize that space.
Host:
That is really interesting. I had no idea we would be talking garage doors, but it is always interesting.
That is one of the cool things about working with Mike and the team at Edge Construction. You never know until you start that conversation.
Something around the house may be frustrating enough that it is time to upgrade or do some remodeling. You never know what that project is capable of until you start the conversation.
Just pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is so easy to remember: 636-EDGE.
We are talking about some of the bigger projects.
We left off last segment talking about garages, which we really have not talked about a ton. But if possible, if it is part of a bigger project, a lot of folks probably say, “Let’s include that in the bigger project.”
Do you ever get a chance to help folks put together maybe a little workshop or something in their garage?
As a guy who works with wood and as a carpenter, did you ever have a project like that where it is close to your heart?
Mike:
We did one a long time ago.
It was a really nice house on the lake, and they wanted long shelves.
The lady was into horticulture and plants, and she wanted plywood shelving. We painted the uprights and styles and then basically polyed the really nice plywood for the shelves.
I also made a movable table on wheels so she could move it around. It all sort of fit together.
That was a really fun project.
I am probably not doing it justice by talking about it on the radio, but I will try to get some pictures at some point because we go back there once in a while.
It was a fun project. It was a little bit upscale. It cost a lot of hours, so probably not a lot of people are going to go for that.
But that is actually a project that a lot of homeowners, if they are handy, will take on themselves. There are a lot of good resources online and a lot of products made just for that. They are not that tough of an install.
Host:
As part of some of these bigger projects, do you do smaller additions too?
I think of an entryway. If you have four or five kids, or grandkids coming over, having that entryway — whether it is in the front or maybe off to the side — where kids can come in, de-kid, and get ready to come into the house without bringing all their stuff.
Do you guys do a lot of those types of projects?
Mike:
We do.
They tend to be on a lot of the smaller houses downtown. We have done that addition several times, whether it is in the front of the house or the back of the house.
The last one we did was an entry, laundry, and powder bath. It sounds like we got a lot of stuff in there, but if I were guessing, it was a little over 100 square feet, maybe 120 square feet. So it is not a huge space.
You sort of maximize all of this.
If you have a small house down there, you are used to dealing with small spaces, and you do not need an eight-foot-long bank of lockers. You need a place to sit down, take your boots off, and hang up your stuff.
Getting that downstairs bath is really important to a lot of people. We have done that tiny addition quite a bit to get a powder bath on the first floor in one of those small houses.
Those two-story houses downtown usually have the bath upstairs, and that is it.
With an aging population, or even a younger population that is adventurous, people break a leg once in a while. Life happens, and getting up and down stairs gets really tough.
So getting a first-floor bathroom is very important to a lot of people.
Host:
We were talking about Middleton neighborhoods, and then you mentioned the isthmus as well.
Do we see a lot of this in neighborhoods and areas that have become very popular, where the homes are a little older?
Previous generations were a little more practical. People today may say, “We love the street. We love our neighbors. We love that we can walk to the grocery store,” or whatever the reasons may be.
But the one thing they do not love is how the house works for them. So they say, “Let’s make it so we can actually have a family in this house. Let’s make it so we can retire in this house.”
Mike:
Yes.
When I first started working down there, you could buy those houses really cheaply. They were reasonable.
Now fixer-uppers are pretty expensive.
You can look at that two ways.
If you are living where you want to live and you are getting into those rings around the Capitol, those have become very desirable houses. They are worth investing in.
In houses built 100 years ago, the kitchen tended not to be a common space. It was tucked in the back corner, hidden away.
We have to figure out ways to open things up and make them a little bit bigger.
Usually, you are hemmed in by something: a stairway or a chimney.
So we open things up where we can. We have learned to design those spaces so they work a little better and accommodate people.
People like to entertain, too. It is not just, “I want to raise a family there.” It is, “I want to have my friends and family over.”
Host:
You do bigger projects on a smaller lot.
What about on big lots?
As we sit here in Fitchburg at the radio station, I drive away from Madison to go home each day, and it seems like every time I drive that way, there are new houses popping up and remodeling going on.
I see a lot of your trucks. I have told you this before. Anytime I see one of your trucks, I either send you a picture or shoot you a text when I get home.
Some of these suburbs are very desirable too. They have the lot space.
People may have an older farmhouse, or they may be starting from scratch and saying, “Let’s do this.”
That is a popular option too, isn’t it?
Mike:
It is, because it is so much easier when you have more space — not just in the house, but on the lot.
A lot of the challenge of adding on to houses in Madison proper is that lots are not really that big, and there are rules. You can only go out so far.
Whether it is a percentage of the backyard or whatever rule you are up against, that will dictate what you can do to that house.
When you get out in the suburbs, you have a little more space.
One thing that has happened is people want to live here. There are people moving here from states where real estate is worth more money.
If you are coming here from the East Coast or West Coast, you bring those dollars here, and you can get what you want.
People are not afraid to find a house they like and add on to it or fix it up.
Host:
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig of Edge Construction.
If you have that house and you are saying, “We want to get a little more space and make it more conducive to where we are in life,” Mike and the team at Edge Construction would love to talk with you.
Just pick up the phone and give them a call this morning at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
We will continue our conversation with Mike about big projects next as the Home Remodeling Show, presented by Edge Construction, continues right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
You are listening to the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction. Email your questions to EdgeConstructionRadio@gmail.com.
Once again, here is Sean Prebil on News Talk 1310 WIBA.
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
We have been talking about some of the great projects they have been doing, including recent projects posted on the website. There is a very large project they have been working on in the Middleton area posted at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
It is a great opportunity to see some of their work.
Also, if you are looking for ideas and want to see the work they do at Edge Construction, there are links from EdgeConstructionCompany.com to Houzz, Pinterest, and Facebook.
That Houzz one is a huge resource and a really good place to go for ideas.
Again, just head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We are talking this week with Mike about some of the larger projects they do and things you can have done when it comes to a home remodel — additions specifically, whether you want to go up or out.
I think we talked about this a couple of years ago, as this explosion was happening with people saying, “We want to do these additions. We want to stay where we are and make this house a bigger thing.”
Is any house potentially a candidate for expansion?
Obviously, there are physical restraints. You cannot get too close to boundaries and things like that.
But structurally, are most houses able to either add a second floor, add some type of addition, or have some type of area you can work with?
Mike:
I think mostly there is always a way to do it.
There have been times where it just did not make sense.
I looked at a house several months ago. It was a big old farmhouse, and it had been added onto a couple of times. It was kind of big, but really disjointed.
For one of the very few times, our design staff just could not come up with a good plan for this house.
The homeowner was already teetering between, “Do I take this down and build something new, or do I try to fix this?”
There is some guilt associated with tearing down a house that is livable. I get that.
We did come up with a plan, but the cost to do it was prohibitive. They were not hemmed in by anything else. The foundation was fine. Their setbacks were okay. There was plenty of room.
It was just that, at some point, the budget got ridiculous. This house had all those additions, and there had never been a central plan for the house.
So it was going to be tough to come up with a good one.
Host:
We started this conversation talking about design.
I would love it if you just give it to me straight, and that is one of the things with you. I have never known you not to give it to me straight.
It really is that you do not know what you do not know.
As a homeowner, what always amazes me is that when you and I talk each week — and we have been doing this for over a decade — there is always something new I find absolutely amazing.
I get the opportunity to talk with you each and every week.
For homeowners, you do not always know what can be done until you start that conversation.
Do you get people who say, “We know something needs to be done. We just do not know what”?
I always have this vision of the person saying, “Here is what I saw. Here is what I want to do.”
Do you get the other side of that, where people come in and say, “It simply is not working. We know there is a problem, but we do not know if there is a solution. Help us”?
Mike:
I think that is pretty common.
If you have been in a house a while, you are going to identify things you do not like, but you also get tunnel vision where you are just used to it.
When we come in, in our heads we might be thinking, “Okay, we are going to fix this, this, and this,” because we have fixed it in 100 previous jobs.
Maybe it is a plan that was pretty popular when it was built, and we know what the best fix is.
Homeowners might not realize it is even a problem because they are used to having 12 inches of counter space around the stove. They have always made it work and made great food.
Sometimes it is hard to get out of that tunnel and come up with new ideas.
If there is a great big wall walling you off from the rest of life in the kitchen, homeowners will usually say, “Is there anything we can do about this wall?”
They get that.
But it is more the nuances that might not have occurred to them because they are just used to it.
Host:
I look at that project you have been working on in Middleton. I have seen the before pictures and the in-progress pictures.
If I were that homeowner, there is no way I would have ever thought what you guys were able to do at Edge Construction was possible.
Especially at the start, how does that work? How did you guys come up with that?
Mike:
When they knew they wanted the second floor, that was the only option.
Now you have to get a stairway going up there, and you have to pretty much redesign everything.
Once you get it into CAD, that is a real advantage a designer has over just standing in the space.
When you have this top-down view of things, you know what elements you want. You know you want a couple more bathrooms. Okay, we are going to plunk those in somewhere, and we can always move them. We can grab them, move them, and rearrange those elements.
It is like a kitchen. We know it needs a dishwasher, sink, fridge, and stove. Where do those main things go?
We are not going to put them all in a row. We are going to find good spots for them and make sure there is counter space around them.
Having that top-down view really helps.
I am going to get the gang to post some of the renderings we did before we ever got to contract and before we ever started the project.
That part of this business has really changed things. Now you can get a pretty realistic view.
I have so much fun going back and looking at the renderings and saying, “Oh my gosh, look at how close this is.”
I will tell you where it helped us in construction.
This last week when I was in there, we did some shiplap around the fireplaces.
Host:
They are very, very happy you are using that. Do not say their name.
Mike:
I would say they are not to be named.
It is just a couple of touches.
But I wanted to get an idea of what the designer and the homeowner really felt like. I could actually page through, and the designer had printed bigger plan-size pictures of what all these elements were supposed to look like.
So I had a good idea of what the backsplash was going to look like before we ever built it and how that kitchen was going to end up.
There was a little dry bar area off to the side with some floating shelves. What does that look like?
Then I looked at the renderings of the mantel for the fireplace, and it showed me exactly what it was.
For a homeowner, what an advantage to be able to see that in living color.
Host:
When we talk about additions as part of some of these bigger projects, let’s say you are going out.
A lot of older home bathrooms were very confined.
If I do an addition to my home, could you add a bathroom or kitchen in that area?
I am thinking about plumbing and all of that. Is that a lot of stuff?
Mike:
We routinely do it.
It is more common than not to say, “Okay, we are going to put the kitchen out in the addition,” or “We are going to build a primary suite in the addition.”
You have issues to solve mechanically. You have to heat it and cool it and get water and pipes out there.
But that is pretty routine. It is not as big a problem as you think.
Host:
As you were talking there, I just thought about another benefit.
With kitchen remodels, we often talk about upgrading plumbing, electrical, and those types of things to current standards.
If you are leaving that stuff behind and literally pulling that old piping out, now everything is fresh and new in the addition.
Mike:
That is a good practice anyway.
If we are doing a kitchen, we are going to go back as far as we can and put in new stuff.
Otherwise, it is like this thing where you start adding onto it and it is kind of an octopus that grows out. Anytime there are those connections, it is a potential issue.
I am not trying to worry anybody, but it is just prudent for us.
We get one shot.
If this is a great remodel with good products, it could last 30, 40, or 50 years.
We expect the pipes and all those things you cannot see to last that long too, so we have to do that stuff.
Host:
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
We will continue our conversation about bigger projects next.
In the meantime, if you have not been to the website yet, check it out: EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
More of the Home Remodeling Show is next right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Before the break, we were talking about how, oftentimes, when you are doing an addition, kitchens and other spaces are included.
One of the things I love seeing is technology and better, more efficient products.
Historically, kitchens were often in the back of the house and closed off. If there was a window, it was that one little window above the sink, and that was it.
Then I look at some of the projects and additions you guys have done with kitchens, and I see nice tall ceilings, open space, and windows.
Not only is the design better, but the products available and the efficiency of those products make them practical now too.
Mike:
Yes.
Nobody says, “I am really annoyed with all these windows. Can I get a few less windows?” That would be ridiculous.
For a lot of reasons, people want them.
They think it is for natural light, which is great, but we are going to daylight your space anyway. We are going to light it. You are going to be able to control it, and we are going to have all the lighting you need.
But there is something healthy — maybe therapeutic — about looking out a window.
I love to look out windows. I am not spying on neighbors. I do not really have neighbors. But it is great to look out and see nature and the neighborhood.
I am encouraged when people want to do this because usually you are giving up something to put in windows.
If you are adding windows in a kitchen, you are giving up some cabinets and storage. So you are making an active decision to say, “It is more about how this space feels, and I am willing to give up a little bit on the storage end.”
Maybe we have too much stuff. Do you have too much stuff, Sean?
Host:
I do have way too much stuff. Do you want some of my stuff?
With that, in an addition, you can control much better how that storage is configured.
Where do you want your things to be stored? How do you want them to be stored?
Obviously, with a remodel you can do that as well, but you have much more control if you have that completely blank slate and can say, “This is how we want this space to work.”
Mike:
Yes.
Homeowners go through this process of elimination a little bit, saying, “These are the things that are really important to me.”
Generally, if you are making the kitchen bigger, which we do a lot, you are gaining some space to store.
We have had homeowners joke that half the reason for the remodel is to make them get rid of some stuff.
You do not get organized just to store more quantity. You get organized so you can get to the things you use most often.
We have talked on other shows about all the organizational things you can put in cabinets.
If you have specific spots for things, then you are not crowding those areas with random stuff.
Technically, you can get less in those organized spaces. I do not know if that makes sense, but it does. It is a more efficient use of those options.
Host:
Before we wrap up this week, I wonder about additions.
Obviously, there are always inspections and those types of things for very important reasons.
Are there different levels of permitting with additions?
Or if you are in a neighborhood with covenants and those types of things, is there a different level to additions than there is to other remodels?
Mike:
Not really, but I think it is harder for the inspectors and harder for the people in construction.
We frame a lot of new houses for builders in Madison. It is a pretty predictable process.
An inspector walking into a new house is going to know that the trusses are all going to span, the weight is going to be on the outside walls, and you do not have to worry about transferring weight down the middle as much. Beam loads are all normal.
When you get into an old house and there is nothing normal, you have to figure out where stuff goes.
We have a load-bearing wall we are taking out in an old house downtown Madison in the next couple of months.
Inspectors at plan review, as we submit everything to get a permit, wanted to know where that weight was going. We had to figure out where it transferred all the way down to the basement and down to a footing in the basement.
Inspectors want a lot of that stuff figured out ahead of time now, which I get. It kind of streamlines the process, but it makes me very glad that we have designers in house.
Host:
It is a great day to meet with those designers and meet with the team at Edge Construction.
All you have to do this morning is pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show right here on 1310 WIBA.