How to get a building permit in Seattle

If you are considering a remodel, addition, or building a new home, this thought has probably crossed your mind: “how do I get a building permit?” You probably have also thought, “how long does it take to get a permit, and how much does a permit cost? You’re in the right place, because I will answer those questions (and more)!

Let’s get the easy one out of the way: how much does a permit cost? This obviously varies, and it depends on size and complexity of the project. The building department has a spreadsheet that calculates estimated permit fees for you: https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDCI/Codes/2024FeeEstimator.xlsx

You can plug in your project type and size, and it spits out an answer. If you just want a basic idea for the cost of residential permits in Seattle, plan for around $5000 for small remodels and additions and around $10,000 for new construction. Those are just estimates, however. They charge you about half when you turn your project into them to start the review, and they charge the other half, PLUS additional time they spend once they finish the review process. The base rate is $257 per hour, and the zoning people charge $439 per hour!! This is much higher than the typical architect charges to design and check plans. Nobody ever said government was efficient:)

Also keep in mind, you may have to pay for other permits like electrical, plumbing, mechanical, demolition, or environmental critical area permits too. Those are often less expensive than building permits though.

Next, let’s talk about how long the permit process takes. This largely depends on how busy the economy is. When things are booming, the whole process can take close to a year or maybe more. In slower economies, the permit process may only take a couple months.

The length of the process also depends on the steps you must go through. There’s a lot of hoops to jump through, so an experienced architect can help save you time and money by jumping through the relevant hoops at the appropriate times.

Here’s what the process looks like for a typical Seattle project that has an ECA (environmental critical area) since it’s common for properties to have an ECA like steep slope, landslide prone, liquefaction zone, shoreline, wetland, etc.

STEP 1: Pre-application

The “pre-app” is basically just to get your project on the city’s radar. This means you need to draw a site plan that shows where you will do the project and what it is, and you submit it through the city portal with an online application form. You also submit a form that says you agree to pay their fees, and yes, they will soon send you an intake fee invoice. You will need to pay this fee to move to the steps below. Once you submit the pre-app, the city will often send an inspector to do a drive-by to confirm your address, determine if you drew the trees on your site plan accurately, document the size and location of nearby water, sewer, and fire hydrants, verify the presence of any ECA’s, and include a few other special instructions for what to include with your full permit submittal when that time comes (like tell you to add curbs, sidewalks, street trees, street lights, or even to put in a better sewer in the street). The city of Seattle calls that a PASV (pre-application site visit). Once this is complete, they assign you a project number in their system.

STEP 2: Schedule Intake Appointment

Once you have your project number, you can now log into their portal (if you have an account) to work through the steps of getting permits. Since most people want to work quickly, we usually schedule the intake appointment right away, and we pick the soonest date available. We have seen these vary from 2 weeks away to over 6 months away. An intake date is the deadline for sending in your full set of drawings to apply for the actual permit. If you miss that deadline, you get fined, and you need to start over and schedule a new intake date (which can be devastating). If your property does not have an ECA on it, then skip down to step 4.

STEP 3: ECA Review

Since most properties tend to have an ECA on them, this step is like a mini permit process that must get approved before the actual building permit process can continue. Depending on your situation, your experienced architect can advise on whether you need an ECA exemption, relief, small project waiver, or variance. In those processes, the building department determines if your project will have an adverse impact on the environment, and they mandate a few items to protect the environment (in their opinion) such as a survey, geotechnical report, certain structural accommodations, or some other sort of mitigation. Once the issue the ECA approval, you now know what to include with your actual building permit application. Think of the ECA process as a prerequisite for your actual building permit process. On complicated properties, it is possible that you may have to go through several subsequent ECA processes. These usually take around 2-4 months each.

STEP 4: Permit Intake

Sometime prior to 7am on your scheduled intake date, you must upload all of your drawings and other forms onto the city permit portal. If you submit early, this enables you to get bumped up sooner if someone else cancels. At your intake, the city staff review your project to determine if you have submitted a complete application. If you forget a form, don’t provide enough detail, etc, they can kick you out, and you would need to schedule a new intake date to submit a more complete application. I once got rejected because 3 copies of the drawings were required, and one copy was on heavier weight paper than the other two. I argued my way out of that one, but it makes me appreciate the online submittal process since it saves the time, expense, and hassle of printing and submitting hard copies. Also, once a permit is accepted for intakes, it is deemed to be a complete application, and the project is vested in the rules applicable at that time. Since permits take so long to review, it is common for the rules to change during the review process. That would be unfair to make people redesign and redraw their project every time a rule changes. That would be like a cop giving you get a ticket for going through a green light because he changed the rule for green to mean stop.

STEP 5: Review

After the city staff has determined that your plans include the required pages and forms, then your application waits in a queue until they actually start reviewing it. The review of the work is not just for completeness this time. They are now reviewing it for the quality of the work to ensure it adheres to the codes (or at least their interpretation of the codes). Several different departments will review the drawings such as addressing, zoning, building ordinance, structural, civil, geotechnical, tree, energy, and others. Those departments will each issue a correction notice which requests additional information to be added to the plans. We try to only submit the bare minimum for the initial review since we don’t want the city officials to scrutinize stuff that is not in their purview. The correction notices may ask to add a smoke detector, include another calc for a beam, or add trees, for example. Once all of the departments have completed their review, they send a consolidated report with all of their requests aggregated.

STEP 6: Review Responses

Once we receive all of the plan review comments from the various city departments, we first make fun of a few of them for how ridiculous they are (like being asked to put a big box around a note to emphasize it - we politely tell them to stick to enforcing real rules instead of telling us to bend over to comply with their personal preferences). Then we add the additional information to the plans, and we resubmit using the city online portal. That process can repeat several times until all the reviewers are happy with the info provided. It is common for the reviewers to make mistakes, forget to ask for something, or to completely miss seeing something on the plans.

STEP 7: Approval

Once all the reviewers are content with the plans, they approve them form permit, and each page gets a city approval stamp on it. This doesn’t mean the process is over though.

STEP 8: Payment

Of course the city holds your permit and approved drawings hostage until you pay them the permit approval fee.

STEP 9: Issuance

Once the city receives your final payment for the permit, they take their sweet ass time and eventually issue you the permit and approved drawings in digital form usually about 2 weeks later.

STEP 10: Printing

Your architect will help you to coordinate getting the large drawing sheets printed, so you can have them displayed on site as required.

STEP 11: Inspections

Once you have your permit, you can start building, and at various points throughout the process, you need to schedule inspections for things like foundations, framing, insulation, etc.

STEP 12: Trade Permits

As you move through the construction process, you will need to get other permits for things like plumbing, electrical, mechanical, etc. Usually the plumber or electrician will apply for those permits on your behalf. They are often much simpler than building permit applications and just need a single page filled out. Often, they get approved and issued within a day - if you pay the fee:)

I hope that summarizes the permit process and answers your questions. Feel free to reach out for more specific questions.

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

Flag

This is your flag if you live in the USA.

​ I’d like you to know why I didn't fly our country’s flag​ in the past​, but now I do.
As a younger person, I didn’t know much about where I came from, and I didn’t know my role in my community. I thought I was just here to help myself and to try and make my family proud. I did what I could to be the best I could be. I worked really hard, I did my best to make as few mistakes as possible, and I learned from them when I did. I didn’t necessarily try to do any of this work for the benefit of others. It was mainly focused on me.

And maybe that’s ok. At that time, I was just learning. I was learning my profession, I was learning how to be a good man, I was learning how to care for myself. We all need to be able to take care of ourselves before we can be much of a help to others. In fact, they literally say this on airline safety briefings: put on your oxygen mask before helping others (you won’t be much help if you’re dead). Similarly, we all go through a period of growth before we gain enough substance to help those around us. It’s tough to help your community when you don’t have much skill to offer.

For me, I saw my country as just a place I happened to live. I didn’t feel any sort of connection to it except maybe when the Olympics were on. I didn’t think much about the place I was born, how I got here, how my country got here, and what that all means. I simply didn’t care due to lack of interest.

Then things changed. They came into focus. Here’s why:

I came into a part of my life where I gained the confidence to help myself and others. I developed the skills to thrive. I can create more than I need. I can share my success, earnings, and time with others. I have something to give. I started to think about what I can give. Should I give? What is my role in my community? I am not particularly wealthy, but I realized I can help my community with my skills and time.

This made me realize that our community is run by people like you and me. Our country is exactly what it is made up of: you and me. It’s not made up of the government. The government only sets the loose standards to live by, but those rules were set up by people like you and me from a couple hundred years ago. They were people who believed in living in a free land without the control of a royal family or as indentured servants. This country was literally formed not long ago as a refuge for immigrants who wanted a fair shot.

Of course, times were different when our constitution was written, but the intent of it was a direct outcome of the adverse lands that our ancestors fled from. As a result, we now have the basic right to live a happy life without arbitrary rules, taxes, or other requirements regardless of who you are, what your last name is, or where you came from. We believe in a fair start, and our country is exactly what we make of it. If we want something to be better, we have the right to start doing it. If we are being treated unfairly, we have the right to stand up against it. There is no sovereign state or caste system that predetermines who we can be. We are allowed to choose for ourselves. We can choose to help ourselves and others. The people of this country are what makes it a country. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole, but only if we work together with the same common goal to live happily in a fair and free place. By acting on behalf of our country, we benefit ourselves and others.

With an understanding that helping my country actually means helping me, helping my family, and helping my neighbors, I was able to understand my role in my community. I realized I had skills that could benefit others, and it became clear that it is everyone’s civic duty to engage their community by participating in it. Help where you can, and take what you need. Give back when you’re able.

So how does this relate back to hanging the flag?

There’s a few loud mouth ding dongs out there that act with a level of ignorance so profound that it makes it on the news, and they seem to embrace the flag as their symbol. With enough media coverage, the image of the flag can be misconstrued to represent their nonsense. This embarrassing behavior causes real Americans not to fly the flag. Regrettably, this was me for a time.

Let us all remember, this is not who WE are.

WE the people, are not ignorant bigots who think we are better than other groups. This is completely contrary to why this country was founded in the first place. We are accepting of all groups, we build each other up, and we build our community TOGETHER. We are not all the same, and that is ok. It’s our right to be different. We are allowed to be who we want to be as long as it doesn’t create unfairness for others. When one person is successful, it helps our whole community to succeed. WE are our country. WE represent our flag. Our flag does not represent the small fraction of a percent of loud mouths who don’t live the American ideals. Those people are no better than the old world lords of Europe or elsewhere who controlled the land and tainted it for their indentured servants. Our flag represents the freedoms that most of our ancestors were not lucky enough to have.

I didn’t quite understand this until I learned about my own family history. I never had any real cultural family traditions. I didn’t really know much about my heritage or what my ancestors were all about. I always assumed it went so far back that it just didn’t matter. That wasn’t true. At a family reunion, in speaking with my parents, aunts, uncles, and looking at the family tree, I realized my own American history didn’t go back very far.​

​Their grandparents came here from Eastern Europe because they were starving. They farmed land that they couldn’t own due to centuries of lords who controlled those lands and the people on them. They were required to give their crops to those lords as a “tax”, and the lords kept taking more and more land away while requiring more and more crops as tax. Eventually there weren’t enough crops to pay the tax, so the lords would take away even more land. Consequently, there wasn’t enough land to grow enough crops, and there were not enough crops leftover to eat. It was a vicious, desperate cycle that led to starvation and ultimately fleeing the country to find a place where they could have a fair shot without the hindrances of a sovereign power.

America was that place for them and many other families like them. America was a sanctuary for people then - just like it is now. I didn’t really have cultural family traditions because they were intentionally left behind. My great grandparents were happy to become Americans by vacating their oppressed lives and adopting new American traditions.

The inhabitants of this land who are already settled and comfortably established can decide to either accept those in need or to shun them. Acceptance means sharing and welcoming. Starting in a new place takes work. It takes really hard work. America doesn’t give you anything, but it does allow you the opportunity to work for a fair shot, and over time, as you build up your skill, your rations, and understand your own place in your community, you can live a life free of tyranny with the chance to be whatever you’d like to be. And you do all this with the understanding that those before you lived a hard life to enable you to be here, and there will be many more after you to abandon their places of injustice to come and live in this place of freedom.

Don’t lose sight of that.

Have you seen immigrants wearing American flag T-shirts that they likely bought at a gas station? You know the ones with a wavy flag and a soaring bald eagle on it? Those folks are extremely proud to wear that shirt. They are so happy to have the chance to live in a safe place that pays them a wage and offers them the basic rights that every human deserves. They didn’t have those luxuries where they came from, so they savor the benefits they experience within this country, and as first generation immigrants, they are working harder than most people ever will even dream of - just to be part of this great country. My ancestors did that same thing, and I have sincere respect for all of them. I am lucky they did the hard work, and I want us all to work together to help others in a similar situation.

Our grandparents were happy to have the opportunity to work for 50¢ a day to build our country’s roads and railroads. My dad and his dad were happy to have a job for them in the steel mills. It was a hard life, but it was much better than the hopeless situations their grandfathers were forced to flee in Europe. This opportunity is what our country offers, and we all need to ensure we protect it. We work together to make our free system thrive, and we must all be willing to work hard to do it. Chances are that we will never work as hard as our forefathers, and for that, we should be proud to live in this country and honor their sacrifice and step up to work hard any chance we get. We need to honor the sacrifice of those who welcomed them, taught them, and worked together to make our young country move forward.

American history really doesn’t go back that far in comparison to other countries that are thousands of years old. It is amazing that in such a short time, we have become a dominant place of hope and opportunity that is repeatedly a caregiver for the rest of the world. In such a short time, we were able to create a place where people have the opportunity to thrive and to assist others to do the same. There are little blips of time where this gets challenged, so let’s not let those adversaries take ownership of an ideal that they don’t even share. Live your best life and ignore that noise.

Once I started to realize these things, I became more open to understanding my role in the community and how lucky I am to be part of this country. I never had a true hardship due to the sacrifices that were made before me. This is pure luck, and I am honored to work hard for the benefit of myself, my family, and my community to protect what we have and to allow it to endure for those after us.

I never served time in the armed forces. I did receive a congressional appointment to the US Coast Guard Academy, but I ultimately turned it down. While serving in the military is an honorable and direct way of protecting our freedoms, it is not the only way to help our country. The military is one facet of our community, and there’s many more ways to be a positive part of our country.

I do believe that serving in the military is the ultimate sacrifice in protecting our freedoms, however. Sure, our world would be better without wars and armies, but that is not the world we live in. Remember, our country was established due to the inhumane conditions elsewhere, and those adversaries will stop at nothing to undo it all. Our military protects us from that. When was the last time another military bombed your town? Never? Other countries are attacked all the time. It doesn’t happen here though. We must remember to feel fortunate that we have a very low likelihood of seeing a foreign army invade our own backyard. We are very lucky to live here. We have food, shelter, heat, water, and safety. Many places do not.

If you’re afraid to honor the fact that you’re an American, you are taking all of the sacrifices given to you for granted, and you are allowing a small fraction of a percent of internal adversaries to steal your identity. Don’t allow them to force you to adopt a new identity. We are more powerful than that, and you are much more kind, caring, hardworking, and intelligent than them. Our country is yours. You belong here. The flag isn’t for one political party or the other. It’s for both. By thinking otherwise, you are being divisive. Be United, and share the flag with your neighbors - even the ones who are different from you. Be respectful. It is your flag as much as it is theirs - just as our county is built upon a system of checks ​and balances. Don’t allow or expect all the power to be given to one side. It is shared. Sharing the flag with mutual respect embodies that sentiment.

If you denounce your country or flag, you’re no better than any radicalized group that claims solo ownership of it, and you’re letting them win. If you denounce your flag and country, then what’s your plan? Start a new country? Live on your own (while still enjoying the freedoms your country afforded you)? We live better together. Mankind does not thrive in solitude. Be willing to be part of your country instead of ignoring it. Like JFK said, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Participate. Work for it. We will all be better because of it. Don’t give up.

One of my mentors was scrutinized because he had a Betsy Ross flag on his wall that could be seen by others during a virtual meeting (this is the first flag of the USA which has the stars arranged in a circle). Although I didn’t know it, that flag was used by a small, radical group to represent itself. This is a group with beliefs that go against what America represents and against the ideals this county was founded upon. It’s disgraceful that a group could tarnish a symbol of our great country by using it to represent their atrocious beliefs.

Here’s the solution: don’t let them.

That flag is not theirs. It doesn’t represent their beliefs just because they say it does. This country is composed of millions of people that don’t think like they do, so they don’t get to change the ideals of this country. This country already stands for something despite whatever hateful sentiments they may have. Don’t let their voice be louder. We have the opportunity and the numbers, to be even louder. In a democracy, the majority rules. That fraction of a fraction of a percent does not.

Needless to say, my mentor was also unaware that a disgraceful group used the Betsy Ross flag to represent them. He was devastated to learn this, and he took it down - for a time. After giving it more thought (like explained above), he put it back up because it was the more honorable thing to do.

This flag was a gift to him as a thank you token for deeds he performed that were so profound that no item or gesture could ever come close to repaying him. Many people that know him are aware that he went to college and later served time in the army to pay for it. What many people don’t know about him is that he didn’t just take a desk job as an officer to pass his time to get college paid for. Instead, he understood his role, his opportunity, and his responsibility to our country, and he paid his college tuition back by giving his time in a more directly impactful way: he stepped up and became an elite army ranger.

Army ranger school is no picnic. It’s grueling. It condenses the atrocities similar to that of the poor living conditions our ancestors experienced into a few months of terror as those soldiers are tested and trained physically and mentally to succeed in the worst conditions imaginable. They are capable of doing things that even the best American cannot.

He voluntarily signed up for that.

He also got sent into war to help protect our freedoms (several times).

Luckily he came home without physical harm, and he made significant contributions to helping our country succeed. Without getting into gory details, we owe him a great deal of gratitude, and those that fought alongside him were lucky that he was there with them. He’s the sort of guy we are all lucky to have representing our country, and our flag represents him and those like him. It doesn’t represent the low-lifes that threaten our freedom. The flag that was gifted to him is a reminder of his efforts, successes, and losses as he sacrificed so much for you and me. He paid his country back, and we all reaped the reward for his effort.

This is why I fly my flag.

I am honored, fortunate, and grateful to be part of this country, and our American flag reminds me to do my best to give what I can to you and your family. I hope my flag reminds you of that, and I hope your flag will do the same for you and your neighbors.

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

Josh Published a Book!

Several years ago, I wrote a book for a college course I was teaching because a suitable textbook did not exist. The content was on designing and drafting interior residential details. What is that? It is a sort of architectural drawing that focuses in on a very particular element like a crown molding, handrail, etc. It explains to a builder some of the specific items that should be built into that feature.

I didn’t just start writing a book one day. Instead, I began by including a few excerpts from my various projects that I would hand out to students to use as a reference. Eventually, that turned into a stack of stapled pages that I would hand out. Then, it got more serious and turned into a curated binder with some organization to it. Eventually, I tried to find a text book that could explain what I was trying to explain, but I could not find one. Then it hit me: I needed to write a book.

I took all of that content and re-compiled it into a format that would be easy to use, I added illustrations and additional drawings, and I included step-by-step guides. Then I figured out how to print and bind it all together, so the students would have a useful textbook that would get them through the class and serve them well through the launch of their careers in the design industry. That is where “Details!” started.

I started to work with a well-known publisher who specializes in school textbook production, but I was not thrilled with all the compromise they were forcing on me. I actually met with an attorney to see if I was being unreasonable. He agreed with me, and I decided not to continue working with that publisher.

Instead, I went another route, and now you can find the book on Amazon for a fraction of the cost that the big publishers wanted to charge to starving students. You can find it here:

Details! Introduction to Drafting Interior Residential Details

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

Fed Up

The pursuit of happiness is what our country is built on. The protection of health, safety, and welfare of building occupants is what my occupation as an architect is based on. All too often, power hungry losers at the building departments act as gatekeepers and prevent people from getting one of the most basic tenets of happiness in life: the freedom to build their own shelter on their own terms. Sure, there’s rules in place to keep people safe and even to prevent an atrocious hideous building from negatively impacting a neighbor. This is not what I’m venting on here.

I’m an architect who is completely fed up with building department officials who impart excessive, unfounded requirements on citizens which are not remotely grounded on the role of their job: to protect life and prevent negative impacts on others. I’m fed up with government officials that make citizens compromise and build things they don’t want or need, and I’m fed up with unnecessary delays that cost innocent citizens unwarranted delays (which translates directly to money spent that yields no benefit).

Governments have made housing worse in many cases. They have escalated the cost to build. They have escalated the time to build. They have created a shortage of housing because of their meddling.

As far as I’m concerned, if you work for a building department, I assume you are evil. Is this “job-ist”? No. It’s statistical experience. For all the building department employees I deal with, 1 out of 20 might be somewhat reasonable (do not confuse this with ​"reasonable​"​ since I said ​"somewhat​"​ reasonable). What this means is that these robots do NOT exercise their ability to reason. They only stick to the book, BUT, they are even bad at that! They misconstrue “the book” to make their job easier and to command higher fees for applications, permits, and inspections.

For example, how does it make any sense to disallow a person’s driveway 12’ away from a tree while also requiring th​at same homeowner to plant 4 trees just 3’ from a street? They tell me the one car on the driveway will kill the fucking tree, but they have no concern for the trees to be planted on the planting strip that are inches away from hundreds of cars per day (all while shedding leaves that will clog the city sewer system). What sense does this make? This is only the tip of the iceberg. I have hundreds more examples. Building departments are corrupt agencies that try too hard to create funding to justify their own existence at the expense of the people who spend their hard earned money on one of the most basic human needs: shelter.

I am an advocate for beating this system because it should not exist.​ Utah, for example, stopped plan reviews for residential projects.​ Architects and engineers are highly trained and experienced experts who actually care about their projects and the people who use them. Building departments do not. They don’t care for you or your project. I advocate for dissolving building departments and focusing on the development and regulation of the professionals who design buildings. Does a doctor ever get told to stop, wait, and change their surgery in the middle of it? Like doctors, architects and engineers are highly trained and licensed professionals who perform their work to that standard of care. We don’t need power-hungry, begrudging, disgruntled, lazy, careless losers telling us how to do our work. When we have questions about how to do our work, we ask - and trust that building department officials are not the people we ask. We ask people who actually know what they are doing: builders, architects, engineers, and material suppliers. We apply their expertise to the situation, and we design the best possible outcome - or we tell our clients: no, this is not a good idea. We don’t need building departments to intervene.

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

Know-It-All-Clients

We all like to think we can do things better. “Why don’t they fix the roads, they should put that quarterback on the bench, that tax should be lower, that airline should X, Y, Z, etc, etc, etc.” We have “solutions” for things we really know very little about. This is a repeating situation that builders and architects have to deal with: clients who know it all.

Even though people may have never done a construction project, they seem to know best how to manage one. If I could only count the hours I’ve spent in evenings giving therapy calls to downtrodden builders who call me for a bit of empathy and therapy after clients treat them like shit.

These guys stress their minds out, charge for the material their clients request, charge for the time they said it would take, and still get clients complaining about how long it takes and how much money it costs. They seem to think they could do it quicker and cheaper despite never having done it before.

You know what, 99% of the time, the work is done perfectly, and when it’s not perfect, it’s still done really really well. Clients have no clue how hard these builders work and how different construction is from their tech jobs. I’ve seen entrepreneurial industry “disruptors” try and start revolutionary construction companies where they use technology to modernize the construction process to make it go smoother. You know what happens to them? Nothing! They go out of business! It doesn’t work. At the root of construction, you have a human and their muscle following directions (of someone who isn’t willing to do the work themselves - and the instructions are unclear, incomplete, and not valid). The guys doing the work know how to do it, but the people telling them to do it don’t - and the clients authorizing it also don’t do it in the proper sequence. This is the root of the issue: laborers’ bosses don’t know how to do the work that the laborers do, so the expectation never gets properly set with the client.

For example, every single client changes their mind during construction, and this causes the builder to alter the sequence of construction. This wastes time and material. Time + material = money. Therefor, clients waste their own money, but they blame the builder for it because they have too much pride and too little understanding to take responsibility for their own contribution to the problem. When you change your mind, things need unbuilt, a new schedule needs created, a new budget needs approved, more materials need ordered, and new labor needs to happen (which could have more easily happened with some previous step in the process). It’s pretty easy to paint a wall. Imagine stopping painting several times during that process… you would need to clean brushes, remove the tape, remove the throw-cloth, put things away, and do it all over again. These things take time. Once all the other new dust is in the area, that dust needs cleaned, and that wall need completely repainted to avoid the imperfections that clients will not tolerate. There’s many many more examples just like this one.

Clients would do best by themselves by simply accepting the work they originally approved - or even something close to it. If they don’t, this is where the problems arise. Commonly, a client sees the partway built project, they change their mind, they ask for certain things to be redesigned, and they expect the project to continue like nothing happened. This is a big deal. This is like going on a road trip where someone vomits in the back seat, so you pull off for a wellness break, and then the engine explodes when you try to get on your way again.

The architect needs to rework the drawings, and the builder needs to review them, estimate the new labor, get new material orders from their suppliers, and ask their subcontractors for new bids for the revised scope of work. This takes TIME. This all happens while the work is still underway, and while this is happening, the work underway is not happening optimally since much of that work hinges on the way the newly changed work will integrate with the big picture. The changes really slow the process and ramp up the cost.

When this happens, clients just don’t understand it. Builders do. The builders explain it, but the clients don’t understand it - partially because they don’t want to and partially because they can’t. Similar to how a builder cannot understand an advertising logarithm for online advertisements or coding language for software development, a client just can’t understand the nuances to construction sequences. Clients assume that the low salary of a builder means that the work is simple. Wrong.

The work of a builder is underpaid for two reasons: 1. Builders are not as savvy with selling their service as others. 2. Builders are less greedy. Some of the most honest and down-to-earth people I’ve ever met are in the construction trades.

Let’s honor our builders and give them the respect they deserve by either paying their bills with a smile or by not changing the scope of work when they are in the middle of it (unless you are ok paying for the outcome of your decision).

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

Josh Architects Named as top 10 Industrial Architects in Seattle!

Click the link at SeattleArchitects.org to read about our project with 2 Bar Spirits

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

Impacting Others

While assisting a nonprofit with the design of a shelter for battered women and children, I was using my wife's fancy camera that she uses in her photography business. The camera has a lot of advanced features that I can barely use, and it looks impressive with its interchangeable lenses. As I was taking photos, I noticed a teenage kid eyeing the camera. He was pretty rough looking, and it was a little unnerving that he was looking at the camera so intensely. If I wasn't inside of this housing facility, I would have definitely felt worried that I might be robbed.

After noticing the kid for a few minutes repeatedly checking out my camera, I asked him if he wanted to take some photos for me to "help me do my job easier." He looked a bit shocked and very excited at the same time. He eagerly said "yes!" I stood between him and the exit door, and handed him the camera (just in case he tried to run off with it, I could prevent him from leaving). I put the strap around his neck, and said, "as long as you don't drop it, you won't hurt it, so have fun." I showed him a few buttons to push, and then I instructed him to follow behind me and shoot pictures of the things I was measuring. I offered him a few bits of insight on how he might frame the photos, so they would be more helpful for me.

When I was done, I offered to pay him for his time, but he turned me down. It was obvious that simply using the camera was enough payment. He thanked me and replied, "that was really cool. I'd like to get a camera like that one day." I told him he was really good at it, and he probably would end up with a nice camera if he worked at it.

A few years later, I ran into the director of the housing program, and she told me something that changed my life. She said, "do you remember the boy that helped you with the photos awhile back?" I said, "no, not really, sorry." She explained him a bit further, and eventually she jogged my memory a little. She reminded me that I let one of the teenage kids that lived in the shelter use my expensive camera. She said that he never really had a father figure in his life, and that small gesture had a big impact on him. She explained how it ignited a passion in him and changed him from a fairly disobedient kid to someone who had purpose and meaning in his life. She said he was pursuing an education in photography and hopes to be a photographer some day. She thanked me for my kindness, and I left with a feeling of sadness.

I was sad for two reasons: 1. I was sad that this kid didn't have the basic needs met in his upbringing, so I felt guilty that I was much more fortunate than him. 2. Until that moment, I never realized how big of an impact such a meaningless moment could have on another person. It made me feel like I may have helped or even hurt so many other people without even realizing it. This was just one opportunity that I knew the cause AND effect of my actions.

This encounter made me realize that the smallest things we do can have meaningful consequences on others. As an architect, I interact with a ton of people: other architects, engineers, builders, clients, clients' kids, clients' neighbors, building department staff, material suppliers, etc. At any moment, I have the chance to make a difference in their lives. Additionally, as a soccer coach, I have more opportunities to make a difference as a role model to younger people. 

This is a major responsibility, and I hope you will allow this story to help you realize your potential impact and the responsibility that corresponds with your interactions with others. Seize that opportunity by being aware of it.

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

Respect for Construction Cost

As an architect, I have been involved with the construction of over 1000 buildings, and 95% of those have been homes. I have seen successes, failures, and have certainly learned from each of those. I know what works and what doesn’t before it happens, and when someone starts explaining an issue, I already know a solution (as I politely let them finish saying what they want to say) since I’ve already seen the same things over and over.

I can very confidently say I am an expert in my craft. They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. I’ve done that over and over, so I must be like a 10th degree black belt in residential design and construction:)

One of the most perplexing things to me is the cost of construction. I have a decent understanding of what things will cost, but the ‘WHY’ is such an interesting topic. WHY do things need to cost what they cost. Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Builders have to buy and finance expensive materials. They buy them, and they manage them, and they have to collect a payment from their client for them. They are essentially acting like a bank giving a loan until the client pays them back. They also have to finance the cost of their laborers.

• Builders need to buy the correct materials. This may sound easy, but it’s like planning a chess move 10 steps in advance. The builder needs to ensure the materials they purchase will actually properly perform, fit, and be delivered when needed. If the builder is wrong about any of those, the cost impacts are outrageous. You can’t just return most building materials. The builder is stuck with the cost if that happens. Also, if the builder does not order enough, or certain materials get damaged during delivery, storage, or install (or stolen), the builder is on the hook for that too. If they need to order more materials, that could take weeks, and the cost impact of a scheduling debacle is major. This is why builders should be entitled to mark up the cost of the materials they buy. They accept a lot of risk for buying and managing materials.

• Builders have to perform labor in terrible environmental conditions. Their work conditions are so terrible that it is not even legally allowed in a conventional work setting. Office buildings are required to have a certain level of light, heat, ventilation, bathrooms, air quality, etc. Builders often have NONE of that. They are subjecting their bodies to very uncomfortable conditions all day and every day, and the work they do is quite dangerous too. If there’s a job that deserves hazard pay, it’s construction. Most people don’t have what it takes to do what builders do every day.

• Builders have to work around expensive existing conditions. When installing an expensive light, tub, refrigerator, etc, they are also being installed next to expensive cabinets/countertops, on expensive flooring, and pass through expensive doors, windows, landscaping, etc. At any point, the builder can F those other things up. If they do, you will expect them to pay to fix it. The cost to install a $300 toilet results in the protection of everything around it and under it. The builder is on the hook for the cost of your whole home essentially. Installing a $300 toilet on $5000 of tile with a million dollar home under it that can be wrecked with a simple leak is pretty stressfull.

• Builders need expensive tools to do their job. You might use a $2000 laptop with $2000 of software and insurance and such. Builders have that too, AND they also have a bunch of other expensive things like drills, saws, scaffolds, ladders, lasers, trucks, tractors, etc. This list could go on forever, but the point is, your builder has thousands and likely hundreds of thousands of dollars of resources they have purchased to get your job done. They need to maintain, store, protect, insure, and transport all of those items to be able to do your job. The fee they charge you needs to cover those items. And guess what … it is not uncommon that they get stolen despite how well they are locked up. Getting “hit” by thieves once per year is normal.

• Just like most businesses, builders need to cover their payroll. They need to find workers, get them to the jobsites, and pay their wages, taxes, and insurance, and they usually do this BEFORE you pay them for the work they did for you. Think about the thousands of dollars a builder likely paid before they started your project, and before you ever paid them. They also probably spent over 100 hours planning and estimating your project before it ever started. This is a lot of overhead expense.

The builders we work with take on so much responsibility, so I really hope our society can appreciate what they do for us. They made the place you are in right now. Someone sanded that trim, drywall, and flooring to make it nice and safe for you. After that person finished that work, he or she cleaned their fingernails and popped their blisters … and they did that for you.

Think about that as you click away on your keyboard in your heated and well-ventilated office. This is why builders need to charge what they charge.

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help