Edited by Ted
Cushman
Contents:
Collapse of Overloaded Deck Teaches Useful
Lessons
Franchise Firm Offers Builders a Business
in a Box
Colorado Voters Take Aim at Construction
Liability Reforms
Fish and Wildlife Permits in Limbo as Judge
Vacates "No Surprises" Policy
Industry Experts See Price Relief for
Lumber, Not Structural Panels
Offcuts
Standard residential decks aren't capable of supporting
heavy objects like pools
Independence Day weekend came and went this year without any
reports of fatal catastrophes involving outdoor wood decks or
porches. But as happens every summer, a few smaller deck
failures have made the news, including one case in
Hughsonville, N.Y., that luckily did not hurt anyone, but did
teach a valuable lesson.
Built in 1999, the second-story deck gave way suddenly under
the weight of a large plastic swimming pool. "The lady was
inside putting swimming trunks on the kids when she heard a
boom, and when she looked outside the whole deck was gone,"
says town firefighter and police officer Mark Liebermann.
"These people just didn't understand that you can't put a
freakin' swimming pool on top of a deck."
This was not a little wading pool, says Leibermann: "It was
about the same size as a tank we have for filling fire trucks
down at the station, and that holds 2,500 gallons. It covered
the whole deck except for about two joist widths in front of
the door, and it had about 3 feet of water in it."
This five-year-old deck
collapsed as a result of severe overloading. Decks
built to code should be able to carry a 40-psf load; a
pool placed on this deck weighed an estimated 180
psf. |
While some deck failures are clearly the result of
under-designed or poorly built structures, this case involved
obvious overloading. And because the load that caused the
failure was an evenly distributed mass of a uniform material
(water), its magnitude can be estimated without the uncertainty
involved when the live load consists of people at a party. A
cubic foot of water weighs just over 62 pounds, so 3 feet of
water in a pool would have loaded the deck to approximately 180
psf, more than four times the code-allowable 40-psf load.
| Seemingly
undersized joist hangers still supported the joist ends
at the house ledger after the collapse. At the other
end, there were no hangers. The joists pulled away from
an outer rim member, which appeared to have snapped in
half. |
In any case, the 40-psf allowable live load is intended to
account for the weight of people, and in no way includes any
allowance for pools or other heavy objects. Engineer Frank
Woeste, professor emeritus at Virginia Tech, comments: "In
theory, a code-conforming deck should safely support 7.7 inches
of water in a kiddie pool, neglecting the weight of small
children in it. But without professional verification, you
can't assume the deck is built to code. Even if the deck were
designed and built to support the code-prescribed 40-psf live
load, deck components can deteriorate in service and not have
the strength and safety factor of the original construction.
Heavy objects, such as water-filled kiddie pools, should not be
used on residential decks unless the design specifically
addressed the maximum weight of the object in addition to the
40 psf from the residential code used for the ordinary occupant
live load."
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Franchise Firm
Offers Builders a Business in a Box
In many industries, entrepreneurs looking to open a business
have the ready option of buying a franchise. Want to serve
burgers? Open a McDonald's. Sell cars? Any automaker can set
you up. Want to help the local ladies buff up? There's probably
room for another Curves near you.
But homebuilding? Well, sure. Epmark, Inc., an arm of Dublin,
Ohio-based building company Epcom Group, offers would-be
homebuilders a turn-key package able to establish any qualified
investor in business as a developer and builder, ready to rock
and roll. With 73 franchisees in the network, the company says
its instant builders account for 200 developments completed or
underway, with 15,000 homes built so far.
A few proven floor plans
arranged pinwheel fashion in four-unit condos are a
formula that works for Epmark franchise owners, says
franchisee Larry Lindstrom. Lindstrom uses vinyl siding
in his market, rather than the synthetic stone shown
here. |
Almost half the new builders who have bought the Epmark
dream have no prior background in construction. But the parent
company insists that its franchisees work full-time as
developers, and offers training, help with marketing, an
operations manual, and the power of large-volume group buying
for materials. Epmark also supplies proprietary building plans
for its trademark one-story, two bedroom, two bath, condo-style
units, built four to a building in a pinwheel layout. The
company says punching out basic models by formula works as well
for buildings as it does for burgers, at least if the bottom
line is the top concern — while details aren't available,
Epmark claims franchisees earn net profits averaging higher
than 12%. That's double what NAHB statistics say builders can
expect to earn with new construction.
We
asked franchisee Larry Lindstrom, owner of Leisure Villas in
Salt Lake City. Lindstrom was the first builder to try the
Epmark formula in a Western state, and he credits Epmark with
helping him succeed at something he would never have tried
without them.
"I was a little builder," says Lindstrom. I built mostly
between about 12 and 15 homes a year, some spec and some
custom. And with the margins out here, you can make a decent
living, but you are never going to make any real money. Our
goal was always to make ten percent on a deal, and the only way
to get ahead was to get a piece of dirt to develop. If you made
ten percent on the house you could make a living; if you made
ten percent including the lot, you might end up with a little
something left over at the end of the year."
Lindstrom's fortunes changed when he met up with Epmark. "I got
into it by accident," he says. Somebody asked me to partner up
on a deal, and I ended up taking it over." His construction
experience was helpful, Lindstrom says, but he could not have
made the move into large-scale multifamily construction without
Epmark.
Lindstrom had plenty of related knowledge: "I grew up in the
hvac trade, and I've run other businesses. I had done a little
developing, a little building.... Most builders have no clue
about developing, but I felt comfortable with that, and with
the financing too, because I've worked in mortgage banking. But
where I was hard pressed to understand was in the condo stuff
— homeowners associations, the warranty program, all the
entitlements ... Epmark gave me a lot of help and training with
that."
But Lindstrom also credits Epmark's formula approach with much
of his success. "I have gone from being a custom builder to a
production builder. I have been with them for five years,
building the same floor plans right along: two buildings, four
floor plans. If we can't figure it out after building it a few
hundred times, we aren't too bright."
Customizing? "We don't do
changes," says Lindstrom. "I use the same color of vinyl in
every unit, the same color of countertops, the same color of
paint. We are not trying to be everything to everybody —
we have established a niche and we are chasing the niche. On my
projects, I am selling forty or fifty percent to widows. These
are the Eisenhower women: They think vinyl is better than tile
'cause it's not hard on their feet, they wouldn't want hardwood
because they don't want to wax the floor."
Staying in step. The
factory-like efficiency of mass production comes into play,
says Lindstrom, but he doesn't rush things. "I start a building
every so many weeks. I run either a two-week, three-week, or
four-week schedule. And I may adjust it a little bit based on
sales, but I really adjust my sales to meet my building
schedule. If I get too many sales out in front of me I'll raise
my pricing; if they start to slow down, I lower it. That way I
keep my subs busy, and I can keep them all programmed out so
they know where they are for the next six months."
Because all the units are the same, Lindstrom finds it easy to
adjust to a buyer's timing. "Almost all my people have a house
to sell, because of their stage of life. Since we don't offer
changes, if they sell quicker they can move up to a different
unit, and if they sell it slower they can move back to a
different unit. Probably 25 percent of them don't end up buying
the unit they signed up for."
With annual conventions and training sessions, says Lindstrom,
Epmark offers a considerable knowledge base to draw from. Their
guidance is a little stronger than a suggestion, he notes; "If
I want to change anything at all about the plans or methods, I
have to get approval." But he says the company is easy to work
with. "If you have a good idea, they'll support it, and then
they'll analyze it. If it's cost-effective, they might include
it in the system." And Lindstrom says he has found Epmark's
judgment to be dependable: "What you find out is that the
franchisees that are the most successful are the ones that
follow the program closely."
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Colorado Voters Take
Aim at Construction Liability Reforms
Colorado builders are gearing up to resist a threatened
voter backlash against the state's recently adopted
construction liability reforms. House Bill 1161, passed last
year by the Colorado legislature, requires homeowners and
builders to try non-judicial resolution of complaints before
filing lawsuits, and caps punitive damages in construction
defect suits at $250,000. But proponents of a ballot initiative
to overturn the law have already gathered enough signatures to
place their measure on the ballot in November as "Amendment
34."
The campaign is shaping up as a tough and costly fight, as a
builder group called "Coloradans for Responsible Reform"
squares off against "Property Owner's Rights," a citizen group
founded by 77-year-old Colorado lobbyist Freda Poundstone. Both
sides have scored some hefty cash donations, reports the
Rocky Mountain News: According to the paper, the
builder group has collected $277,000 for direct mail, TV,
radio, and print advertising, including a $100,000 gift from
McStain Enterprises, $75,000 from Beazer Homes Holding, and
$50,000 from Shea Homes. Campaign official Rick Reiter
reportedly said, "I don't have any doubt that there is going to
be a sufficient amount of money to defeat this proposal." On
the other side, Poundstone's group has already spent $235,000
on its successful signature drive, most of it provided by two
Denver law firms who are said to have given more than $117,000
apiece. The owner's rights group says it has spent all its
funds, and plans to rely on door-to-door grassroots campaigning
to counter the builder group's advertising blitz.
The homeowner group is framing its argument in terms of
"government for the people by the people," as opposed to the
"big money" builder interest. But speaking for the builder
group, Rick Reiter derided the initiative as "just kind of a
business plan for a couple of lawyers who had success suing
homebuilders."
The builder campaign will likely focus on the way unlimited
litigation drives up housing costs and makes insurance
unaffordable. According to Reiter, last year's reforms have
brought quick relief: He told the Rocky Mountain News that
construction-defect lawsuits decreased from a total of 109 in
2003 to just four in the first five months of 2004.
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Fish and Wildlife Permits in
Limbo as Judge Vacates "No Surprises" Policy
Building industry lobbyists reacted with dismay to a June
ruling in federal court that suspends the Fish and Wildlife
Service's "no surprises" rule for land-use permits issued under
the FWS Habitat Conservation Program.
The "no surprises" rule, adopted by the
Clinton administration in 1998, has allowed developers to rely
on permits negotiated under Fish and Wildlife's "Habitat
Conservation Program" to stay valid for the duration of a
project, even if new threats to a species are discovered after
a permit is final. The idea is to protect builders and
developers from the wild-card risk of major losses that could
result from the interruption or cancellation of a project at
mid-point, or from an unlimited series of new requirements and
restrictions imposed after work starts.
But in a lawsuit brought by a
California-based environmental group known as the Spirit of the
Sage Council, Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered the Fish and
Wildlife Service to stop applying any "no surprises" guarantees
to Incidental Take Permits or Habitat Conservation Program
plans until the Service has finished rewriting its Permit
Revocation Rule (PRR), a related regulation which Sullivan had
previously vacated and ordered the Service to rework. The PRR
lays out the conditions under which a permit, once approved,
can be revoked. Sullivan said that both the PRR and the "no
surprises" policy were adopted without the notice and comment
period required by federal law, denying the public "the
opportunity to weigh in on decisions likely to have significant
effects on public resources."
The National Association of Homebuilders
(NAHB) plans to submit comments during the new rulemaking
process. NAHB official Duane Desiderio said the loss of "no
surprises" protection would be a major blow to builders. "The
underlying thrust of the 'no surprises' rule is, a deal is a
deal," Desiderio told the Associated Press. Without it, he
said, "A permit won't be worth the paper it is written
on."
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Industry Experts See
Price Relief for Lumber, Not Structural Panels
Lumber industry trend-watchers are looking for a slide in
lumber prices through late summer and into fall. Press reports
in June and July indicated that gradual interest-rate hikes by
the U.S. Federal Reserve could cool consumer demand across the
board (the Fed bumped one key rate up one-quarter percent in
July). Even as the Fed applied its squeeze, several factors
have combined to increase summer lumber harvests in western
Canada, bringing more wood onto the U.S. market. The extremely
tight market for structural panels, however, may not see the
same kind of price declines as the sawn lumber market: Oriented
strand board (OSB) supplies are limited by mill output
capacity, and the new plants scheduled to come on line this
year will barely make up for continued closings of plywood
mills.
A few bugs in the system. A
massive beetle infestation affecting the pine forests of
interior British Columbia is one factor increasing Canadian
wood harvests, the Toronto Globe and Mail has reported. Partly
to slow the beetle's spread, partly to salvage valuable lumber,
and partly to cut fire risk, provincial officials this spring
announced plans to increase summer timber cuts by 30%. An
estimated 80% of B.C.'s lodgepole pine trees may be infested by
beetles; affected trees can die within a year, and the standing
dead trees lose their value within ten years if not
harvested.
But changes in the province's pricing structure for timber
sales from public lands are also likely to boost output. In
response to diplomatic pressure and trade sanctions from the
United States, B.C. has switched over to a market-based system
for setting the stumpage fees it charges companies to log trees
in the provincial woodlands. But if U.S. firms pressing for
anti-dumping penalties and countervailing duties expected
free-market principles to make their lives easier, they may be
disappointed: a Canadian Press (CP) report says the change has
brought coastal B.C. forests "abuzz with the sound of
chainsaws." Coastal loggers were operating at full capacity in
early June, said the CP report, and union loggers who saw 50%
layoffs last year reported that "everybody who wants to is
working." Plus, a softening Canadian dollar has allowed
stumpage fees to slide along with the price of sawn lumber,
keeping Canadian loggers on the job — and keeping the
wood coming for U.S. builders.
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Offcuts
Massachusetts is set for a major revision of
wetlands enforcement policies, according to the
Boston Globe. The new rules will focus enforcement
efforts on major violators, and devote less time and attention
to reviewing small permit applications that pose less of a
direct threat to wetlands. State officials say the changes will
make enforcement efforts more effective, but environmental
advocates fear the move will amount to a rollback of wetlands
protection.
Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation in June
ordered employees on 29 home construction sites to stop
working when the workers or their employers could not
show proof of workers comp insurance coverage, reports the
Tampa Tribune. The stop-work orders were the result of
a sweep of job sites in two counties over two days. Only the
employees not covered by verifiable insurance were affected,
says the Tribune; legally insured employees were allowed to
keep working.
A Washington State Supreme Court decision gives
change-order procedures the strict force of law in the
state, according to executives of the Bellevue law
firm Berntson Porter & Co., PLLC. Previously, an owner's
general awareness of changed conditions was sufficient to
entitle the contractor on a job to collect for unbudgeted
expenses on the change. But the court ruling means that from
now on contractors must follow all change-order procedures to
the letter in order to be entitled to payment.
When his permit application was denied, a Georgia
developer who wanted to re-zone 34 acres from agricultural to
residential use decided to raise a stink —
literally. The New York Times says developer
Bob Cain decided to dump copious quantities of chicken manure
on the site, claiming that he planned to raise hay. The
stifling stench of the manure was soon accompanied by swarms of
biting flies, says the paper. At the same time, local newspaper
ads appeared offering to lease the property for use as a pig
farm at one dollar an acre. The re-zoning application is
currently in litigation.
An Indiana builder's down-payment gift program has
drawn a homeowner lawsuit based on allegations of
deceptive selling, reports the Indianapolis Star.
Indiana attorney Eric Pavlack is seeking class-action status
for a suit charging that low-income home buyers are led to
believe that a builder gift to cover a mortgage down payment
will give them starting equity in a new home, as well as making
the mortgage loan possible. In fact, charges Pavlack, the
"gift" is a loan because the amount is rolled into the sales
price of the house, and financed in the mortgage. Indiana
consumer advocate Mildred Wilkins said that financing a down
payment defers the time when the owner can escape the mortgage
by selling the house, and puts the buyer at risk.
The New Haven County, Conn., Home Builders Association
has its first woman president. Liz Verna, co-owner of
Verna Builders and Developers in Wallingford, Conn., took over
the job in June after serving on the board of directors for 10
years, says the New Haven Register. Verna joined her father's
company when he asked her to manage a project, and now shares
management tasks with her brother Gerald. Nationally, only 5%
of HBA members are women.
Chicago, Illinois is set to start a comprehensive
rezoning process that will define the look and feel of
city neighborhoods for decades to come. The Chicago
Tribune says the city council has passed a drastic
revision and expansion of Chicago's zoning rules, which had
previously addressed only the height and bulk of buildings. The
new rules aim to shape the character and functioning of
neighborhoods, and to make streetscapes more pleasant and
pedestrian-friendly. New provisions include a prohibition of
curb cuts for driveways in favor of alley access for cars, and
a requirement that walls facing streets must have doors and
windows.
"Who steals my purse steals trash," said Shakespeare.
The playwright made no reference to those villains who would
rob us of our rocks, but outlaws are making a practice of it in
commuter towns outside New York City. A New Canaan
resident told the Stamford (Conn.) Advocate that it
took several weeks for her to realize that one end of a long
stone wall on her property was gradually disappearing. A
neighbor told the paper that he knew of several stone walls
that had suffered similar depredations; his own wall was hit in
1997, he said, by thieves who took only the large, flat cap
stones.
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