Bay Area Home Construction – Neil Shroff

Planning for PG&E With Your Project

admin — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:32:36 +0000

After having built 4 houses and working with PG&E on the fifth one, I must say that working with PG&E is the most difficult and frustrating part of any project if you care about finishing on time. Depending on the extent of your project, you may have to rely heavily on PG&E and time is not a priority for them.

Gas

If you are doing a full demolition or need to relocate your meter, you will need to have PG&E do a gas cutoff. A gas cutoff is where they go to the neighborhood gas main, and they cut off the main feed to your meter. To do that, they usually must dig a 4 ft x 4 ft x 4 ft hole at the connection point to the neighborhood gas main to be able to get inside the hole and cut off your gas. There’s no other way to do it and no valve on the line like you would have at your water meter. If you are doing a new construction, they need to cut it off so that there’s no chance a piece of heavy equipment accidentally rips into the live gas line. If you need to relocate your meter, PG&E wants you to replace your main feed with newer materials, and, there’s no way to connect the meter to the neighborhood gas main without running a new pipe. So, PG&E and the City will typically require you to do your gas cutoff before you even start your project. As of now, PG&E will do your gas cutoff for no cost, even though there is a significant amount of work. However, it may take some time. I’ve seen the time range for my projects from 2 to 6 MONTHS. Keep this in mind and plan ahead. Even if you are living in the house and you request your gas cutoff too early, it shouldn’t be a problem, as they’ll take your guidance for the date you want to do the cutoff, even if it is further out.

You’ll need to request that your gas be connected back, which also will take some time. I’ve also seen it take several months but since the last house and new houses are all-electric, I don’t know the current lead times. Before they do the installation, you will need to have a trench done according to the PG&E Greenbook, and it will have to be done with a company that is “certified” by PG&E to do the trenchwork. Because of the limited number of “certifications”, this can get costly. PG&E will give you the option for them to do the trenching, but it will be a lot more expensive and take a lot more time. Regardless of who does the trenching, there will be a significant charge for them to run the new gas line between the neighborhood main and the location of your meter. Many cities in the Peninsula now only allow gas for cooktops and fireplaces (and California is moving away from gas altogether) and going all-electric is great for the environment and can be big cost savings.

Electric

If you are doing a full demolition or need to relocate your main panel in your remodel, you will need to put in an application to have PG&E disconnect your electrical service from the house and connect it to a temporary power pole before you can do the demolition. If you are doing a remodel in which you don’t have to remove the wall that has your current main panel, PG&E, and the City may not require you to use the temporary power pole, and you can skip that step. Given the number of projects each PG&E rep is assigned, engineering lead times, and crew lead times this also may take several months. Again, plan ahead to avoid slowing down your project.

For new construction, most cities will want you to do underground electric. If you are doing a remodel, your city may allow you to keep your power overhead. Underground is going to cost more, but it looks much nicer. To do underground, you will need to dig a trench for PG&E in accordance with their Greenbook. If the closest power pole to your house is not in the corner of your yard, you may want to and may be able to get an exception with your city, but it will take some work. Regardless of whether you are doing overhead or underground, if you are doing a new construction or significant remodel, you will likely need a new, larger electric service. That new electric service will require another PG&E application. On the last project, PG&E suggested that I apply for my new service when I started the construction of the house! I didn’t believe it, but I requested the new service at the start of construction anyway. When we moved in 6.5 months later, PG&E still took an additional 3 months to connect power, so we lived with temporary power until then, always making sure that the car charger or air conditioning wasn’t on at the same time as the water heater or clothes dryer. My family wasn’t happy with me. It would have even been a few months later if it weren’t for daily emails requesting immediate service from when we moved in. So, under realistic conditions, it would have taken PG&E 12 MONTHS to reconnect service from the time I put in the request. Plan ahead!

Bay Area Price Per Square Foot Construction Cost

admin — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 23:56:16 +0000

I am asked this question quite often. What most people will pay to build a house will be different from what I would pay given my experience in building so I can’t give you a good number. The number that I hear most general contractors and homebuilders on the Peninsula throw out is $400 to $500/sq ft. The problem with giving a number like this is that it is always unclear what’s included in that number. When most people think of square footage, they are thinking living space. That’s the number that you see when you buy a house. When you construct a house, it’s more covered space square footage. Garages and covered porches add significant cost as there is still flooring (porches), painting, drywall (garages), finishes, and other items but these areas don’t add to the reported square footage of the house. General contractors will generally add in a certain price per square foot for these areas, but there is no fixed ratio. The other variable is whether landscaping, hardscaping, demolition, permitting costs, school fees, architectural costs, engineering costs, etc. are included in this number or is that actually the construction cost of the house itself.

In addition, a lot depends on the cost of the subcontractors (which can vary wildly by 2-3X sometimes), size of the house, general contractor markup, the amount of change orders, and finish materials (e.g. lights, cabinets, countertops, plumbing fixtures, and amount of trim details). Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter what people mention as the price per square foot to construct. Only the bids you receive from general contractors or home builders matter. Email me if you have questions about budgeting and building costs.

Designing Your Own Home

admin — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 22:08:04 +0000

Everyone has an idea of what their dream home would look like. The style, the layout, the fixtures, and the details are all up to you when you are designing your dream house. That’s both a blessing and curse. Having nothing to start with except a blank slate and the confines of the zoning requirements of your city can make the design process a bit overwhelming. When you think you are 90% there and then you need to incorporate another “must have” into your layout, you may reset back to 50% of your progress to start much of the layout over. Then, balancing the layout with the appearance of the building is another challenge that is immensely important to get right. If this is your first house, working with an architect will be important to design the house and produce the construction documents, but it isn’t required in most cities in the Bay Area. It is, however, required to work with a licensed civil and structural Professional Engineer to design the structure and grading/drainage. Having built several houses, I have designed and made architectural drawings for my two most recent houses instead of working with an architect. Here’s why:

Inefficiency – Architects are busy and the back and forth with architects makes the process inefficient
Cost – If you pay by the hour, the bill will be significant. If you pay by a fixed amount, it’s highly possible, you won’t receive great work product.
Work Product – There are many architects out there (including big name ones), that turn out some truly ugly houses

So how do I do it? First of all, it starts with good software. I use ChiefArchitect. This software is also used by many residential architects and can be a great tool for you to purchase/lease even if you have an architect by cutting down on communication time and making changes in real time. I must warn you that this software has many features and does have a significant learning curve but can be worth it if you find yourself doing more houses in the future. In addition, this software does 3D rendering quite easily which can be a significant cost and time savings down the road when experimenting with different designs and finishes. Many architects charge extra for 3D rendering even though ChiefArchitect makes it very simple.

Now that I have enough experience with the software, with city zoning guidelines, knowing what I want in home layouts, and having my own templates, I save significant time and expense on the upfront design of each house. Designing the house is the fun AND frustrating part and something you will spend a lot of time on whether you are just the home owner or designer as well.

Making the construction documents is the time-consuming part and something you should outsource to a draftsperson for much less time and cost. The other benefit to designing yourself is that when you make changes to your design mid-build (and you most likely will), you will also be able to save significant time in being able to make changes and resubmit to the city on your own with less hold up to the project. Email me if you have specific questions on designing your own house or using ChiefArchitect to do so.