NR3 Zoning In Seattle For Residential Architecture and Construction / June 23, 2022 by S. Joshua Brincko

If you’re confused and not sure where to start for planning a small remodel, or even a large addition, or a totally new construction for your house in Seattle and other areas, you are not a stupid, total idiot:) Even for a seasoned veteran architect in Seattle who specializes in residential architecture, the codes, rules, regulations, policies, etc are very confusing to say the least. If anyone is a stupid idiot, it’s the ones who wrote the codes in such difficult language:) I am here to help, and this post is your guide to help you navigate the thick bureaucracy. (It is also worth noting there is a major difference between the “building code” and “land use code”. This post only dives into the “land use code” to help you understand WHAT/WHERE you are allowed to build on your property and not the “building code” which gets into HOW to build something.)

The land use code classification that is applicable to most single family homes in Seattle is known as NR3 (formerly named SF5000, SF7200 renamed to NR2,and SF9600 renamed to NR1 for larger lots). The “SF” meant: Single Family. The 5000 meant the property is more or less 5000 square feet. The rules are pretty much the same for all these zones except for the bigger lot sizes. The new naming convention of “NR” means “Neighborhood Residential.”

OVERVIEW

The most basic, common concepts in NR zoning are yard setbacks, maximum percentage of lot coverage, floor area ratio, and height limit. Some of the other nuances in the codes are the exceptions to all these rules, tree requirements, and parking requirements. Some projects may also involve various other codes for garages, ADU’s (accessory dwelling units), DADU’s (detached accessory dwelling units), existing nonconforming uses (projects with non-compliant stuff that is “grandfathered in” since it was built before the codes existed), allowable uses (like using your house as a hotel), and ECA’s (properties within environmental critical areas such as steep slopes, shorelines, etc).

In Seattle, I have dealt with zero properties that are straightforward. There is always something weird about each lot such as a part of the existing house that was built too close to the property line, a part of the lot that is considered an ECA because it is too steep, difficulty in determining which side is technically considered the “front,” or a tree the city won’t allow you to remove (which causes the lot to be less than ideal to build on). Because of these anomalies that always seem to pop up, no two projects have ever been the same (and I do about 100 of them each year). The rest of this blog post will dig into each topic separately to attempt to give you some insight into each of the major codes for SF zoning. Although this will give you a basic understanding, please reach out for confirmation since this stuff gets really complicated and must be vetted (we are not liable for your use of the information herein). Also, just because the code says something in “black and white,” the building department may actually interpret it to mean something completely different. And, they are not always correct in what they tell you. I commonly argue with them to show them what the rules actually mean (and not let them bestow their “opinions” on me). There’s usually some compromise, but I’ve never lost an argument with the building department.

HEIGHT LIMIT

Let’s start with the height limit since it’s one of the easiest to understand. The maximum height of a house is permitted to be 30’, and this is measured from the “average ground height” to the top of the highest wall. A sloped roof of a certain angle (4:12) can extend an additional 5’ higher. The average ground height is determined by measuring the height of the ground at the middle of each exterior wall and taking the average of those. For example, if the ground sloped down so the front was 2 feet higher than the ground at the back of the house, and the sides were each 1’ higher than the back of the house, then (2’+1’+1’+0’)/4 = 1’. So in other words, the average ground level is 1’ higher than the back, and 1’ lower than the front. If you measure 30’ up from this imaginary line called “average grade,” the house could be 29’ tall in the front and 31’ tall in the back. The sloped roof can go another 5’ higher, and you’re also allowed to have chimneys, vents, skylights, and dormers of limited sizes within this 5’ bonus area. There’s also exceptions for green roofs and certain features of roof decks. As you can see, it’s not as simple as just saying: your house can be 30’ tall.

SETBACKS

Next, let’s review setbacks. A setback is the distance from a property line where you are not allowed to build (certain things). To be able to determine setbacks from each property line, you first need to know where the property lines are. No, your fence, sidewalk, curb, rockery, driveway, or that thing the old guy showed you once is likely NOT THE PROPERTY LINE. Sorry. It’s probably not. A property line must be determined by a licensed surveyor by taking precise measurements with very technical instruments. Then, they put a surveyor’s pin to mark the location of the property corner (and sometimes these are intentionally not actually on the corner of the property as you may expect).

Once you know WHERE the property lines are, THEN you can determine which is considered the front, side, and rear property lines. This may seem straightforward, but sometimes it is not. This is too complicated to blog about, so let’s talk about this topic on a case-by-case basis. Feel free to reach out since your front door, address location, your actual street address, or your driveway do not technically determine which property line is the front.

LOT DEPTH

When you determine which side is the front and rear property line, you can determine the “lot depth.” This is the distance from the front property line to the rear property line. If you have an alley, the centerline of the alley is treated as the rear property line for this purpose. The rear setback (for a single family residence) is the lesser of 20% of the lot depth or 25’. This rear setback is measured from the center of the alley if you have one. Certain structures like garages, DADU’s, and other items are allowed within the rear setback areas (within certain limitations).

The front setback may be more straightforward and just simply be 20’. If your two adjacent neighbors are closer than 20’ to their front property line, then you can take the average of them. If the neighbor on the left is 16’, and the neighbor on the right is 18’, then your house’s front setback can be 17’. If your neighbor on the left is 16’ and your neighbor on the right is 22’, then you treat the neighbor on the right as 20’, and the 20’ and 16’ average out to 18’. The side setback is pretty simple since it is just 5’ unless it is a corner lot. In that case, the “street side” setback is 10’. Be careful to ensure you properly classify the front property line and street side property line on corner lots. In some cases, these are interchangeable, and in others they are not. It is not easy to clearly see which is the front and which is the street side (and again… no, your front door, or driveway, or address number, or your actual address do not decide which is considered your front property line).

With all of these setbacks, there are so many exceptions to the rules. Certain parts of your home can project into some setbacks like roof overhangs, bay windows, porches, decks, chimneys and some other features. There are limitations for the sizes and heights of these features, so please reach out for help in determining how to take advantage of these “loopholes.”

LOT COVERAGE

The next topic is lot coverage. In SF zoning, you are allowed to cover 35% of your lot with structures. If the lot is less than 5000SF, then you are allowed to cover 15% of the lot plus 1000SF. If your lot abuts an alley, you are allowed to factor 1/2 of the area of the alley into your calculation. Lot coverage is pretty easy to calculate, but the exceptions to the rule do get tricky. For example, decks lower than 36”, solar panels, fences, and the first 36” of roof overhangs do not count against lot coverage, and there are some additional nuances to what counts and what does not.

FLOOR AREA RATIO

Floor Area Ratio (known as FAR) is the last topic we will discuss here. This is a measure of the usable floor space inside a building. So, if you have a 1000sf first floor and 1000sf second floor, then you have 2000sf of floor area used up…sort of. The stair doesn’t count twice, some basements don’t count, certain porches don’t count, and there’s also other exceptions that don’t count against you. In the NR zoning classification, you are allowed to have 50% of the property count against your floor area ratio. So, with a 5000sf property, you are allowed to have an FAR of 2500sf of usable floor area. If you have an alley, you do not get to factor half of the alley into your calculation. This is different than the calculation for lot coverage discussed earlier. This is my current understanding of this new code that was introduced in 2020, BUT I have been told conflicting information by the building department on this alley topic. It does seem that when it matters, the city of Seattle doesn’t let you factor the alley area into your favor for FAR calculations.

CONCLUSION

I hope this post was informative and gives you a basic understanding of the NR3 (SF5000) zoning classification in Seattle to help you determine approximately what you’re allowed to do with your property. I recommend that you do not discuss specifics of your project with the building department unless you first run it by an architect that is VERY experienced in the zoning classification in your area since you may “shoot yourself in the foot” by saying the wrong thing and get locked into adverse interpretations. We are here to help you figure out the specifics since the rules are tricky and there’s a lot of exceptions to the rule that can be used in your favor. As a disclaimer, the the topics covered here are generalizations that could easily get misinterpreted, and you should consult with an expert architect for specific interpretations.

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

How Much Will an Addition to My House Cost? / June 1, 2022 by S. Joshua Brincko

$300,000 and up most likely.

For some folks, you may have seen that figure above and realized your dreams were crushed and decided to stop reading further. It might be cheaper outside of big cities, but nonetheless, the pandemic, supply shortages, and high demand, has rocked the construction world. Home values are up too, so the cost of construction is commensurate with the cost of buying/selling. If you’re still reading, then you are curious about why it will cost at least $300k, or maybe you already understand the cost and have the money available to do it.

At this time, new construction in the Seattle area and many large cities is around $400 per sq ft if you’re lucky, and usually more like $500 per sq ft and up for just basic construction quality (much different than the quality you see in design magazines). The stuff you see in magazines is often closer to $1000 per sq ft. $400 per sq ft gets you a cookie cutter home, with hardie siding, basic trim, clunky ugly white windows, carpet, and drywall everywhere without any nicer finish materials.

For your typical addition, you are usually just adding onto a kitchen, or maybe adding a master suite. Let’s review a random 15’x20’ addition. That’s 300 sq ft. So, at $400 per sq ft, that is $120,000. That seems doable. You googled it, and the Google machine seems to say construction costs are even less than $400 per sq ft, so you may feel that $120k is a realistic construction budget. What the Google machine is not telling you about are the other factors that affect construction cost such as demolition, retrofitting existing conditions, economy of scale, permitting, and professional service fees (which we will explore below).

When you add onto a house, you inevitably need to tear into the existing house to make the connection between new and old. This costs something above and beyond the cost of building the new addition. The more you need to tear into, the more labor there is, the more temporary supports there are (to hold up the house while a wall is removed), and the more the dump fees there are. You could end up paying $30,000 or more in demo costs quite easily which makes that $120,000 addition go up to $150,000. When we design low budget additions, we try to impact the existing structure as little as possible to minimize these fees. Rather than expanding the entire back half of a house outward, it is more cost effective to make the addition “touch” the smallest part of the existing house as possible.

Retrofitting the existing house is one of the major expenses the happens with additions. When you finish the demo, all of the items that were removed will need to be rebuilt (to current code standards) and perfectly married into all the new addition work. This retrofitting of matching old and new is very painstaking labor since it must be done very surgically to protect the old parts from damage, and it simply takes more time build items that are not simple, repetitious tasks.

The more the new addition “touches” the old house, the more retrofitting there will be. Does the new roof impact the old roof? Will you need to re-roof all or part of the existing roof? If so, add at least $10,000 (or more when they discover rot and structural deficiencies in the existing roof). When the siding on the new addition is an extension of an old wall, all of that siding needs to be feathered together to blend seamlessly. It is often easier and cheaper to just remove the existing siding on that wall to just start fresh. Add another $10,000 or more for that to install new siding, trim, and paint on portions of the existing house that need to be redone. There’s a good chance some of those walls will be deficient in some way anyhow, so there will likely be additional scope to repair as needed.

Furthermore, older homes don’t meet the current codes for wind/earthquake or energy efficiency compliance, so once you touch part of the house, that part is now required to be brought up to current standards by filling it with more insulation and covering the walls with plywood and metal hardware to create “shear walls” (since older walls are usually covered in wood planks that don’t do anything to resist the side-to-side movement caused by wind and earthquakes). This will add another $10k or so for each area that needs retrofitted.

The same is true for flooring, ceilings, cabinetry, electrical, plumbing, heating/cooling systems, etc. Anything that gets affected by the demo will need to be updated to be able to tie into the new addition. Can the old furnace power the space of the new addition? Will you need to refinish most of the old floors to match the new ones that must tie in and match? Will the electrical wires need to be chased back to the panel and be updated to the current, safer Romex style? Will the foundation, that will now carry more weight, need to be reinforced (dig below it to add more concrete)? For any of the items above that pertain to your situation, add at least another $10,000 each. Let’s say our example 15’x20’ addition that is already up to $150,000 has 5 of these $10,000 retrofit items…. So, that is now $200,000 or more.

Economy of scale is another item that the Google machine doesn’t accurately portray when researching the cost of construction. When you are doing a small project, you will incur many of the same costs as a large project. For example, since you can’t drive a concrete truck into your back yard in many situations, a concrete pump truck is required. This will be about $1000 regardless of the size of the project. If the pump truck has to come to pump concrete into a 300 sq ft addition, or a 1000 sq ft addition, the cost is the same for the pump truck fee. For either size, you are paying for the cost of mobilization, 1 day of work, and demobilization. The same is true for many other trades like excavation, plumbing, electrical, roofing, siding, painting, scaffolding, and porta-potty rental. Those mobilization and rental fees cost the same regardless of the project size. So, the smaller project will cost more than $400 per sq ft. It may be more like $500 or $600 per square foot (or even more). That would bring the cost up to $250,000 or so for our example 15’x20’ addition. Add tax, and you’re closer to $275,000. Read our post called “Smaller Homes Cost More” if you’d like to learn more about economy of scale.

Permits are another expense. Depending on your situation, the permits might be straightforward, but usually there is a permit intake fee (a down payment for the building department to start reviewing your plans) which could be $2000 or $3000 for this small project (smaller cities tend to charge less). Once the building department finishes their first review, they may charge another fee. Another $1000 perhaps. They might do 2nd and 3rd reviews of the plans and charge another $1000 or $2000 to issue the permit. If there’s any steep slopes, shorelines, or other environmental critical areas, there could be another few thousand dollars for the review fees for the critical area permits. Plumbing, mechanical, and electrical all have their own permit fees too. There’s another $1000 or $2000. It’s not uncommon that permits could be $5000 or more, so now our example project is up to $280,000 or more.

Professional services are a major expense too. If you will be building your addition right up to your setback line, if you are maximizing the percentage of your property that is being covered by structures, or if the building department or architect requires a survey to be done for any myriad of other reasons, this could add another $3000-$6000 depending on the complexity of your property. If the soils need to be tested because they are in an area prone to settling, you may need a geotechnical report to test the strength of the soil and make suggestions for the types of foundations needed. That could cost $3000 or more.

You may need an infiltration test to determine how quickly (or slowly) the rainwater gets absorbed into your soil. That could be another $3000. If your addition is large enough, you may be required to design a system to capture the rainwater, so that it will slowly dissipate into the soil (instead of into the sewers). This civil engineering could cost another $5000.

You will need a structural engineer to design the foundation, shear walls, posts, beams, rafters, floors, nuts, bolts, etc for the addition. The structural engineer will also need to analyze the entire existing structure to determine how it will hold up (or be held up by) the new addition. This will add another $5000 or so.

If there’s any kind of water bodies or animal habitats, the building department might require you to hire an ecologist to create a mitigation plan to minimize impact to the environment. This could cost $5000.

If an archaeologist is required by the building department to monitor the excavations and to test the soil for any artifacts, that could add another $3000.

The architect needs to coordinate all of these engineers’ work into a cohesive set of documents that can be submitted to the building department to prove compliance. The architect also needs to measure the entire existing house, so the entire existing house can be accurately drawn which adds another $2000 or so. Obviously, the architect also designs and draws the proposed addition and creates a set of construction drawings and material specifications, so the builder has all the information needed to build the project (successfully). This is generally around 10% of the construction cost which would be around $28,000 in our example.

The total for professional services could be $30,000 to $55,000 depending on the complexity of the property - which could bring the cost of the example 15’x20’ addition over $300,000 (likely over $400k or $500k if it’s a complicated property with steep slopes or if you’re doing anything more than basic quality construction and finishes).

Once a couple more items get added to the scope (which happens in 100% of construction projects), the project will easily surpass $300,000. I hope this analysis has revealed the big picture of what to expect for any construction project. It is better to be well-informed before you start your project rather than to be fooled by salesperson gimmicks or wishful thinking. As architects experienced in construction, we are right with you. We think these numbers as freaking crazy, but this is what we are seeing over and over again from builders on our projects and others.’ To learn more about upper floor additions specifically, read our post here: additions

We have a handy dandy calculator that helps you (and us) estimate rough costs available at www.josharch.com/cost (it doesn’t work on mobile phones or tablets though)

Additions / May 2, 2022 by Josh Brincko

There’s two types of additions: additions above your home, and additions next to your home. This video explores the differences. After you watch this video, please check out this post to learn more about upper floor additions: www.josharch.com/blog/upper-floor-additions

To learn more about other additions, please check out post here: Home Addition Cost

Permitting War Stories / April 1, 2022 by S. Joshua Brincko

Imagine coordinating the efforts of the staff of an architectural firm, a structural engineering firm, a landscape architect, a civil engineering firm, a geotechnical firm, a surveyor, a septic designer, a general contractor, and a client all to create a cohesive and coordinated set of drawings to submit for a building permit application. This coordination of about 20+ people results in a stack of forms and drawings that must have all the specific information and protocols to be accepted by a building department. If one thing is not the way they want it, the building official turns you away. This results in a wasted day, reprinting hundreds of dollars worth of drawings, further updates to the drawings, and a lot of frustration for the design team and client. At least many of the building departments are now accepting digital submittals.

The building department turns people away from turning in a permit application for many reasons: if a form is missing, not the right number of copies, a drawing is not clear, a drawing is missing, a calculation is missing, or even the size of paper, color of paper, size of text, scale of a drawing, or because the architect’s stamp is photocopied.

Building departments have tried to kick me out for all of these things (many times). They have never succeeded.

Why do they deny people from turning in drawings for them to review? I think it is because if they accept the application, then they have to do the work of reviewing the drawings. They don’t want more work. They earn a salary either way, so they exercise the limited power they have in their lives by turning people away.

I have a lot of experience dealing with this bureaucratic nonsense, and I have learned how to surpass it:

I start out by being nice. I treat the reviewers like a friend. I don’t kiss their ass, but I do treat them like a human. This usually causes them to treat me like a human.
I show up impeccably prepared. There are checklists of what is required to submit for permit review, and there are also ordinances that dictate what the building department must review and approve. We follow these to a T and know them by memory (and hold the building department accountable for it).
When the building department reviewers ask for something in a format we don’t have, I am ready with a simple response: I’m sorry I missed that, but here is the info you are looking for… can you review it based on this format? …or I can also write it or draw it real quick on the plans for you. Usually this works.
If they still deny accepting my plans, this is where I get nasty. I remind them that I have clearly provided the info they requested, and next I ask them this loaded question: “is your request a preference of yours?” They always say: “this is how we have always required it.” This is when I say: “I would love to learn more about that… which codified ordinance are you referring to in your municipal code?” This is when the building plans reviewer starts to stammer, stutter, and get nervous. Then they go and get their manager.
At this point, I tell the manager that I am happy to work around their personal preferences on FUTURE projects, but on THIS project, I expect us both to follow the requirements of the municipal code, to review the required content of the drawings, and I will not accept any other way of doing it than what has been enacted by the municipality into an ordinance. This wins every time.
Then I thank them for being reasonable and working with me. I also thank them for teaching me about the issue.

To use this procedure, you need to know exactly what you’re doing. You need to know the rules forward and backward. You need to know what the reviewers are going to say before they say it, and you need to be ready to fire off a concise, firm response that references the requirements in a way that cannot be argued. When I do this, I know I’m saving my client thousands of dollars in time saved, as well as additional costs of things the building department requests us to add to the drawings. Sometimes these items incur tens of thousands of dollars in construction cost. In a matter of 5 minutes, I’m literally saving my client thousands of dollars - often more than they have paid me to design their whole project. It’s very rewarding to help people in this way, and it also helps to earn the respect from the staff at the building department.

I Smell Musk / March 1, 2022 by S. Joshua Brincko

Imagine:

How hard would it be to build a car? …How about build a factory that builds cars? How about building a factory with robots that build the cars? And revolutionize how the cars are sold without dealerships. Oh yea, and the cars can drive themselves … without gas … since they have the most efficient batteries and electric engines, ever. And you made those batteries. No, you didn’t buy them somewhere. You bought land and mined for the elements to make your own batteries from scratch that you designed. And develop those batteries with a gigafactory that you also built, so your cars can use them, people can store them on their wall for collecting backup energy at lower electricity pricing during daytime, and you also provide the batteries you make to other companies. And while you’re at it, take over one of the largest solar panel manufacturers for total domination in the electricity sector. And, if that’s not enough, also make a rocket - that goes into space - and comes back again (so you can reuse it). And also shoot thousands of mini satellites into space, so humanity can have better internet. And when you get bored (and tired of traffic), develop your own tunnel machine that makes tunnels many times cheaper and faster than anyone else ever could. And if you get really really bored, then figure out how you can make microchips that enable your brain to communicate digitally.

Could you do all that? Or just one of those things? Or just one part of one of those things? Elon Musk can, and he did. This guy is the modern day Michelangelo. He has revolutionized our world in ways that define how the future will be. He is the most impressive, productive human I have ever learned about. He inspires me to do more and to think differently. I am excited to see what he will do next. He doesn’t need to work. He just does because he is a lifelong learner with the gumption and courage to act on the ideas he has. Can you make similarly powerful innovations in your industry?

Clarity on Change Orders, Construction Change Directives, and Claims / February 1, 2022 by S. Joshua Brincko

Have you ever been cooking something in a recipe only to realize that you don’t have a key ingredient, like eggs, for example? You can either drive to the grocery, ask a neighbor, or give up (or cook a really yucky meal). In any case, you need to “demobilize” the kitchen by turning off the stove, maybe refrigerating some ingredients, and maybe washing out some of the pans and utensils, so you can modify your game plan. This takes extra time, of course.

Construction projects are much the same, but instead of a 20 minute activity like a recipe, they are often a much more robust, choreographed “recipe” illustrated in complicated construction drawings and specifications that often take a year or more to complete. Think about how many times you might “forget the eggs” in the course of a yearlong recipe.

In a construction project, “forgetting the eggs” is synonymous to a client changing their mind on a design feature, a material no longer available for delivery, a subcontractor that shifted the schedule which affects other steps in the process, an unforeseen rodent issue, mold, or rotten structural problem, or simply forgetting to order the specialty nuts and bolts needed. There’s so many integrated parts and pieces that must be coordinated at precise times, that there will be changes in the construction “recipe.” It is inevitable.

When this happens, the project scope is adjusted in the schedule, budget, and/or desired outcome. There are 3 common ways this is formally done in the construction industry: change orders (CO), construction change directives (CCD), and claims. Let’s discuss the differences.

Change Orders:

When additional scope is requested to be added to the original scope of work (usually by the client), the general contractor will create a change order request (COR) that estimates the labor and materials needed to complete the additional work. This can only be done when there is sufficient time to communicate the change, coordinate a detailed design solution with the architect/engineer (and maybe the building department), and to come to an agreement between the client and contractor on the affect it will have on the schedule and budget. The client may approve this change order, and the general contractor will work with the client to add it to the schedule for a pre-agreed price. The general contractor is not required to accept scope changes, so it is best to avoid it whenever possible. A seemingly simple change could have major impacts. For example, if you decide you want to put tile on THIS wall instead of THAT wall before the tile is scheduled to be installed, the builder may need to undo some of the prep work that may be a substrate for the tile that was already done to THIS wall to redo the prep work on THAT wall. That may involve ordering more tile backer board, calling out a drywall crew again, doing some demo, potentially moving electrical or plumbing around, etc. This causes an impact to the schedule and budget even though it may appear you’re just putting the same tile on a different wall.

Construction Change Directive:

From time-to-time, the general contractor may need to complete work beyond the original scope of work that is small in nature and is a necessity for the scope of work to continue in any capacity without a significant delay. This could be due to a material not being available, vandalism on the job site, an inspector’s demand, or a leak encountered inside a wall. This could also be a result of a client requesting a general contractor to make a minor change to the project that generally fits within the current sequence of construction events. With a CCD, the design change is usually minor enough that it does not typically need to be vetted by the architect/engineer - or maybe a quick 2 minute phone call can address any answers needed. Also, the impacts to cost and schedule are generally minor, so the builder can generally proceed with the additional necessary work at the pre-determined labor rates without delaying the project by spending more time bidding this additional work. With a CCD, the builder can promptly communicate the impact of the change to the client without experiencing a delay. In other words, the project can more or less continue as originally planned - but with a slight modification. Due to the nature of the change, the work is required to be done anyway, so any impact to the schedule and budget is really out of everyone’s control. The builder should endeavor to notify the client of any small changes for advance approval wherever possible, but the builder should have the right to make small changes to the scope of work without advance client approval where the design intent will be met, the result will be code compliant, and the work is necessary to be completed to prevent a delay in the scope of work. The builder should document the work related to the CCD for the client’s reference, so it can be totaled outside of the original budget.

Claims:

Similar to a CCD, a claim is a minor change to the agreed scope of work, but due to the nature of the work needing to be done, it is not practical to get the client’s prior approval to proceed. For example, if a pipe connection outside the scope of work is discovered to be the cause of a leak, the builder should proceed with this repair because it must be done. There is no other choice. There’s no option for how it can be done, and there’s no option for what materials can be used. In this case, the builder should just do the minor work and invoice the client separately from the intended work. If the builder did not do this work, the pipe would end up getting buried in the wall, the problem would grow, and it would be much more costly to fix the problem in the future.

In summary, a change order is a planned change with adequate time for consideration of all parties, while a construction change directive and a claim are unplanned changes that must be completed at the time of discovery. A claim is a minor version of a CCD. A CCD involves a minimal level of advanced communication to allow some level of understanding between parties, but a claim is more of an emergency type of work.

A good architect can help to mitigate changes, and more importantly, even prevent changes from occurring in the first place. Architects experienced in construction can foresee problems before they happen, so including the architect during the construction process will commonly save a client more money than they pay them. It is not uncommon to have a meeting where we save our clients $50,000 here and there. That might seem crazy, but we do it all the time.

BIM Bam Bust / January 3, 2022 by S. Joshua Brincko

Have you heard of BIM? Or Revit? BIM means Building Information Modeling. What does Building Information Modeling mean, and why should you care? Read along, and I’ll explain.

A Revit “model” or BIM “model” is a 3D computer generated view of a building that you can walkthrough, orbit around, zoom into, and look inside. Sounds cool, right? If you are working with an architect, you and your builder can see your building in 3D before it gets built. That can be very helpful to communicate the project.

We do 3D computer models on many projects to help the design team, client, and builder understand the project as it develops, but BIM is much more than a 3D model. The “I” in BIM, which stands for “information,” is the major difference between a 3D computer model and a 3D BIM model.

The “information” aspect that is embedded into a 3D BIM model is a collection of parameters that specifies what the different components actually are in the 3D model. In other words, in a non-BIM model, a wall is just a vertical surface with maybe a photograph of a material on it to make it look like wood or something. In a BIM model, that wall is the same thing and so much more.

Not only is it a visible wall in BIM, but there is an actual list of characteristics grouped into it. For example, if you click on that wall’s settings, it may tell you that it is composed of 2x6 studs, R21 batt insulation, 1/2” primed and painted drywall, 15/32” plywood with a weather barrier, furring strips, painted siding, a wood base board, and crown moulding. All of those properties can be defined in BIM model whereas in a regular 3D computer model, that wall doesn’t really know that it’s a wall… it’s just a vertical plane that happens to look like a wall.

In BIM, you can also define additional properties to things like walls. For example, you can tell the software that THIS wall is attached to THAT floor and THAT ceiling, so if you move the ceiling higher, the wall moves up with it since they are attached. This can save time when making modifications to the design of the model. Also, all of these parameters allow you to generate 2D views of the 3D model. For instance, you can orient the view of the BIM model to look down and create a floor plan view or forward to make an elevation view. You can also do this in a non-BIM model, but the software doesn’t understand that you are in a floor plan view specifically. In BIM software like Revit, it is formatted to understand that a floor plan is a view that needs to be “drawn” on a page of a full set of plans, and certain notes, symbols, labels, and graphics can be (somewhat) automatically added to that view to “magically” turn a 3D BIM model of a building into a 2D set of drawings.

This is where the problem exists. This automatic conversion from a 3D model to a set of 2D architectural drawings is a wonderful concept. In practice, it is PAINFUL to say the least.

Let’s face it. Architectural drawings are complicated. Architects go through tons of schooling, interning, and years of professional practice to truly understand HOW to design buildings and more importantly - HOW to communicate them graphically on paper so builders and clients know what it all means.

BIM attempts to circumvent that.

I’m all for shortcuts, but we have all heard quotes like:

“There’s no shortcuts to any place worth going.”

“There’s no shortcuts in the quest for perfection.”

“A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.”

”If you take shortcuts, you get cut short.”

”Shortcuts will get you to the place you don’t want to be much quicker than the place you want to be.”

I can go on. There’s a whole website of them here. In my experience, BIM is designed to be a “shortcut,” and like the sayings go, it’s no shortcut at all. Let me elaborate.

In all of the training and experience an architect gets, we learn how to represent our ideas for complicated buildings on paper. It is very difficult to attempt to take a complex structure and dumb it down onto a drawing that people without the same training can understand. There is so much technical information to convey on plans to expect that a computer will magically do that for you (properly). The end goal of architecture is to create a perfect building, and the main deliverable an architect provides is a set of construction drawings to explain how to build the building (and even these complex drawings are supplemented with countless emails, phone calls, and jobsite meetings to review the plans and work with the builders).

Here’s the exposé I am offering:

The BIM software does a poor job (at best) of representing a building.

The BIM software gets critical parts wrong as it attempts to automate the job of converting a 3D model into a set of 2D construction drawings.

The BIM software gets you 60% of the way there, if you sort of know what you’re doing.

This is the problem. Drafters using BIM software don’t really know what they are doing. They think they do, but that is only because they don’t know any better. They never learned how to actually create the drawings. They either took the shortcut or got shortcutted merely because of their age, time, and place in the profession. You can argue with them, but they don’t hear you because in their mind, “the computer did it, so the drawing is correct.”

How do I know I’m right, and they are wrong?

I have done it both ways. I have used a pencil, autocad, and BIM. I can use them all, so therefore, I can compare them. I did not take the shortcut. I learned, through rigorous experience, how to build a house, how to design one, and how to draw one with a pencil. When it’s you, a pencil, and a blank paper, it’s ALL ON YOU to make it happen. You draw everything that needs done. That exposure gives you the experience needed to understand what the hell you are doing. When you emerge into a profession where some of the work is done for you through automation, you don’t learn, and consequently, you have no fucking clue what you are doing as you try to design and articulate a complicated building on a set of construction drawings. You just don’t. I’ve seen in countless times, in different contexts, with the same consistent errors and oversights.

I’ve seen BIM leave holes in walls, openings in roofs, labels missing, text illegible or even meaningless, omissions too frequent to name, the most basic construction principles butchered beyond belief, magically floating foundations, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc!

So I phrased it as “BIM leaves holes in walls,” but that’s wrong. That’s what “they” say. But BIM didn’t leave a hole in a wall … the ill-trained architect that has no clue what they are doing left a hole in the wall because they are using BIM, they don’t know how to design, build, or draw, and they expect BIM to do it for them. When/if they check their/BIM’s work, they should see there is a hole in the wall. How could you not see a hole in the wall? This is the most basic elementary concept in design, so how could it be missed? Again, it is because the BIM operator doesn’t know what they are doing. They are pushing buttons with no accountability or real knowledge base.

I have a lot of friends who are BIM users. Some are really good. Even then, BIM still produces errors, and those good architects miss the automated errors due to the expectation that it’s supposed to be automated. They don’t (usually) miss holes in walls, but they certainly miss more technical problems that are less obvious.

Like the doctors and attorneys, architects are in a profession where errors CANNOT happen. An error can cause a multi-million dollar lawsuit. An error can cause a multi-million dollar construction delay. An error can cause an incorrect multi-million dollar order of materials. An error can cost a life (or even a building full of them). We don’t have room for errors in our profession. Every error must be caught before it leaves our desk. This requires good systems, software, procedures, protocols, and layers of checking. Although BIM is a great concept, it is a petri dish for errors.

The BIM “shortcut” truly is the “quickest way to get you to a place you don’t want to be.” Actually, it’s not even quick at that either. Using BIM is so incredibly time intensive. As the name suggests, Building Information Modeling,” requires you to make a 3D model of INFORMATION - not just a 3D visual model. To input all of the information of the components of a wall or a door into a BIM model, takes an excruciating amount of time. In the non-BIM way of doing things, two lines is how you draw a wall. Done. Easy. Fast. In BIM, there is a whole spreadsheet of data that you need to input to define what those two lines for a wall mean.

This causes the design process to really shift. Instead of quickly drawing a preliminary design concept in a few hours, BIM requires you to input all this extra info, and a simple task can take days or weeks. This leaves minimal time for making changes to the design drawings since the majority of the design budget gets spent just trying to “draw” the preliminary concept in BIM. Since the BIM model carries so much data, there’s a lot of baggage to input and also the manage when changes need made.

With the non-BIM approach, we can be light and agile. This allows fast results. If we need to move a wall, we move it on the floor plan, section, and interior drawings to make it coordinate throughout. In BIM, you move the wall in one drawing, and it moves “automatically” in the rest of the drawings - but there’s problems. In non-BIM, those problems are still there, but they are easy to manage and see. In BIM, those problems are so buried in the spreadsheets of data that must be input that they are time intensive to change and not apparent to find (it is easy to miss things). Furthermore, as explained earlier, most of the BIM users don’t know what they are doing anyway, so they don’t even know what errors they should be looking for. They just assume everything is fine and dandy. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

If BIM is so problematic, then why do people use it, and why do they even brag about using it?

The principals at design firms are often dinosaurs that don’t understand technology, and they are very interested in the “bottom line” (saving money). 20-something interns fresh out of school come in and tell their bosses that there’s a software thingy that can make the process automated. The boss doesn’t understand but thinks that sounds fantastic. The boss buys the software. The firm starts using the software, and everyone struggles adopting it (like you would expect any new software). The 20-somethings tout that they know how to use it, and the 30 and 40-somethings reluctantly buy into it because their boss demands it. Then the boss hears the 20-somethings saying they know how to use BIM, so the boss directs the 20-somethings to train the 30 and 40-somethings. Once the firm gets entrenched with their projects in the BIM software, the 30 and 40-somethings realize that the 20-somethings can navigate the software, but those newbies have no clue what they are doing in terms of how to design or draw a building. The previous generation of interns knew how to draw stuff, so the boss’s expectation is that the current interns also know how to draw stuff. But they don’t. They can only make a building in BIM with a shitload of errors that they don’t understand (and they will argue that there are not errors). Then the boss (who really doesn’t know what is going on) assumes that the 30 and 40-somethings are just having a hard time adopting to the new software, so the boss fallaciously tells the staff to stick with it and get help from the 20-somethings. A year goes by, and all the projects are over budget with no time left to make changes or finish the design process. So, the boss hires outside consultants to come in and train the staff. These outside consultants are really just non-architecturally trained techies that are employed by the software company. They know everything about the software, but they know nothing about the actual practice of architecture. When you ask them a question, they have no idea about the relevance of it and how it relates to the creation of construction drawings. Those consultants are even worse than the interns. They are useless. Nonetheless, the bosses still brag about this automated magical software they have, but it’s only because they don’t understand enough to know better. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

To really be successful at using BIM, you need to: 1. Already know how to design and draw WITHOUT it. 2. You need to check the work with much more scrutiny than normal, so you can detect all the errors. 3. You need to spend a lot more time in the early phases of design to input all the extra information into the model, and be willing to spend less time on the later phases of design (even though that time is really needed later). 4. You need to be OK with being inefficient even though the software is marketed as an efficiency tool. 5. You need to know when to abandon the software because it may not be appropriate for every project.

Designing Costco’s (which are all fundamentally the same) is a good project type for BIM. Designing custom, unique homes, is not a good project type for BIM since there is no repetition.

At my firm, we use 2D drafting software (CAD) to draw construction drawings. We use 3D modeling software (not BIM - it has no embedded “information”) only to depict the appearance of buildings. We use hand sketching to communicate complicated construction details. We are extraordinarily fast and thorough at these methods, and we can blow any BIM user out of the water. This is because we know WHAT we are doing, and we know HOW to draw it.

Hopefully I haven’t offended everyone in the industry since many people fit into the narrative above. I do hope this sheds some light on the pitfalls to enable everyone out there to up their game, make good choices, and design successful awesome buildings.

Seattle Modern Architect & Artisan