Housing 2.0 author Sam Rashkin, formerly chief architect at the Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office, walks through real builder floor plans reworked by Housing 2.0 action groups, showing where design changes improved the buyer's experience and saved tens of thousands in cost.
00:00:06:22 - 00:00:34:20
Mike Collignon: All right. Hello. How's everyone feeling today? If your answer is okay, then you're in luck because it's okay. Day. Yes. That's right. A celebration for one of the shortest yet most widely used words in the world. Now, speaking of. Okay, you might feel like everything is going A-ok for your residential business. Or you might be feeling that things are just okay and you're looking for something that will elevate your outlook.
00:00:34:26 - 00:01:05:04
Mike Collignon: Either way, we've got quite a treat in store for you. The housing 2.0 book and workshops provide a framework for consistently delivering homes with a superior user experience, at a lower cost. Now you might be thinking, yeah, says you stranger on my computer screen, but does the program really deliver on its promise? Well, we're going to take a look at a couple of real life projects that substantially improved their existing designs and experience tens of thousands in cost savings and added value.
00:01:05:06 - 00:01:31:23
Mike Collignon: Now here to walk us through these projects is Sam Raskin, formerly the chief architect at Doe's Building Technologies office. Sam has earned a national reputation for his work leading housing programs that have partnered with thousands of homebuilders and resulted in over 1 million certified high performance homes. Now, he retired from that agency a little over a year ago and is now solely focused on creating and teaching the content for the housing 2.0 program.
00:01:31:23 - 00:01:51:17
Mike Collignon: That content is based largely on Sam's latest book, housing 2.0 A Disruption Survival Guide. The program in power is building professionals to design and construct higher performance, healthier, more sustainable homes at a fraction of the cost. To learn more, you can visit Green Builder Media.
00:01:51:20 - 00:02:15:23
Mike Collignon: 200. Now I need to make sure that I tell you about our sponsors, who are more than okay. The first is Mitsubishi Electric. Mitsubishi Electric promotes sustainable building through the electrification of residential and commercial heating and cooling products. Their mission is to advance technologies to reduce waste output, promote sustainable resource cycles while increasing energy efficiency, and eliminating dependance on fossil fuels.
00:02:15:25 - 00:02:51:12
Mike Collignon: Next is our newest sponsor, Westlake Royal Building Products. They are the North American leader in the innovation, design and production of a broad and diverse range of exterior and interior building products, including siting and accessories, trim and moldings, roofing, stone windows and outdoor living. For more than 50 years, Westlake Royal Building products as manufactured high quality, low maintenance products to meet the specifications and needs of building professionals, homeowners, architects, engineers and distributors while providing stunning curb appeal with an unmatched array of colors, styles and accessories.
00:02:51:12 - 00:03:21:04
Mike Collignon: For more information on them, you can visit Westlake Royal Building Products. Com. Finally, we've got Schneider Electric. They are driving the digital transformation of modern homes with smart and sustainable energy solutions for ultimate comfort and energy efficiency. They're connected home ecosystem of smart energy management solutions provides digital control of energy use throughout a home from the grid via their smart electrical panel to their connected wiring devices.
00:03:21:05 - 00:03:42:25
Mike Collignon: This grid to plug solution makes it significantly easier to create smart solar power and backup power ready homes, both now and in the future. Now, did you know that you can submit questions for Sam? You can simply use the questions box in the go to Webinar Control panel. I'm going to look over those questions and ask those to him on your behalf during the Q&A time.
00:03:42:25 - 00:03:52:26
Mike Collignon: Set aside after Sam's presentation. Sam, how are you feeling today? Okay. That's excellent. Take it away, sir.
00:03:52:29 - 00:04:18:29
Sam Rashkin: Hey. Thanks, Mike. And once again, welcome up in one. Today's webinar is a first thought leader series, and I thought I'd take a chance to launch the series for 2022 with a look back at the work we did with builders across the country applying housing 2.0 best practices for optimizing user experience. And we're going to talk about how we get to better homes for lower cost.
00:04:19:00 - 00:04:45:17
Sam Rashkin: But first, like my great appreciation for these amazing sponsors, you know, this is a unique program. It's not an obvious fit for many of these high performance manufacturers and other product manufacturers. The fact that they step up and bring this important content to you is really so important to us, and we're so thankful. And of course, I really appreciate our work with my partnership with Green Builder Media as well.
00:04:45:17 - 00:05:33:28
Sam Rashkin: So big thanks to our sponsors. And I want to start out today with this hypothesis that drives housing to print out. And it's that the user experience imperative actually applies to housing. So let's look at this. And before we get into looking at some actual builder projects and the data is what what what's so compelling to me when we look at actual return to investors for broad companies and the stock performance over ten years, and we isolate the purpose driven companies, the user experience, leading companies in the country, they are pre times better return than the industry gold standard up to the time of looking at Y or purpose driven companies.
00:05:33:28 - 00:06:04:21
Sam Rashkin: Good to great companies. These are the companies from James Collins Good to great book, where he identified leading companies and their best practices to get amazing return to investors. In this case 300 plus percent net three times that with the user experience leaders and compare it to the S&P 508 X better performance. So amazing data about the business superiority of these user experience companies.
00:06:04:21 - 00:06:35:21
Sam Rashkin: In addition, other data looks at 11 year stock performance. This study by Watermark Consulting and had a similar kind of compelling outcome for user experience leaders versus laggards three times greater financial performance. Again, looking at stock performance over a long decade of data. So this is really compelling. But then Mackenzie actually looked at also the resilience of these user experience leading companies compared to laggards.
00:06:35:21 - 00:07:14:14
Sam Rashkin: And again three times resilience advantage. And that is more shallow troughs and quicker recovery during these recession periods. And just looking at the data. So it really suggests this user experience imperative. And then I look at data for housing, specifically the data about where we spend time every day as individuals. And the research from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab shows that almost 70% of our time every day is spent in our residents, you know, rest of times at work, in vehicles, dining, other indoor locations.
00:07:14:14 - 00:07:38:24
Sam Rashkin: But home is, in fact where life happens. Almost three quarters of our day happens in our home. And this research was done pre-pandemic. I can only imagine this number must be up to 7,580% now during and after the pandemic, as we spend more time working at home and also more time at home in general. So this is a huge realization.
00:07:38:25 - 00:08:28:29
Sam Rashkin: Homes where life happens and what has the 2.0 big y message for our program is we're about homes for life happens better. What can we do to make three quarters of our day be better for all individuals? Which for me is personally inspiring. And the hypothesis that I've put to the test by looking at lots of data and research is documented in my book, housing 2.0, and I've been able to do some analytics, extract data from other sources and references and research, and come up with, for an average 400,000 home savings and added value opportunities across five key experiences that we work with community design, performance, quality sales that ranges from about 130 to $280,000.
00:08:28:29 - 00:08:57:10
Sam Rashkin: And in terms of percentages in general, it looks about 30 to 70%. For typical home is what we can save and cost or add in value combined. Now good friends of mine, says Sam. That's too big a number. You're going to scare people. People don't believe it. So I generally go with better homes for lower costs. Just. But these are the numbers add up to the details tables there in the book.
00:08:57:10 - 00:09:23:21
Sam Rashkin: But this is the hypothesis we have for housing. And tonight or today I want to focus on what we've been doing working with builders, applying the design optimization framework and a little bit the and I'll talk about sales as well. So this all happens. And the way we bring this to the industry is what we call the user experience optimization learning system.
00:09:23:21 - 00:09:52:05
Sam Rashkin: That is housing 2.0 program at large. Everything we do is part of a whole learning system, and first thing we have done is we brought forward a framework that's been vetted for over five years with hundreds of building executives, and it includes five user experiences, 19 strategies, and 150 best practices. The first strategies community or the first experiences community with three strategies and 21 best practices.
00:09:52:09 - 00:10:20:29
Sam Rashkin: The second experience is housing design with five strategies and 50 best practices, then performance with five strategies 42 best practices, quality with three strategies, 19 best Practices and Sales with three strategies, 21 best practices. And today I'm going to focus on how when we apply just the design best practices, those 50 best practices, we have all this opportunity for better for lower costs.
00:10:21:01 - 00:10:48:27
Sam Rashkin: Now the process that we go through is pretty basic. One is we first invest in experts and special features where we have a sure thing and user experience that with certainty will transform a homeowners joy and and whole experience living in. So when we have those transformative experiences, we make the wise decision to invest in features and the experts that can optimize it.
00:10:48:27 - 00:11:12:07
Sam Rashkin: So we're spending a little more, but then we're extracting cost savings by getting rid of waste, just getting rid of every part of ways to combine and reducing complexity. So we reduce cost with waste and less complexity. And then we have a net cost savings with all that added value. So effectively now we can sell better homes for lower cost.
00:11:12:08 - 00:11:42:02
Sam Rashkin: That's the simple process laid out that we do with housing 2.0. And it's all in glory. Detail provided in the book housing 2.0 Disruption Survival Guide over 420 pages, hundreds and hundreds of graphics, over 360 citations and references and resources, and seven guest expert essays that are amazing complement to the content you have. The content have information here for how to order the book and join the program.
00:11:42:04 - 00:12:07:03
Sam Rashkin: You'll see this at the end of the presentation as well. Now, the next part of living systems or workshops where we provide context, we lay out the future of housing with certainty by identifying the convergence of five key crises and four innovations that address all five of those crises and create what we consider a huge disruption looming ahead for the housing district.
00:12:07:03 - 00:12:36:20
Sam Rashkin: So that's the context. Then we go right into the concepts and skills for optimizing the five experiences community design, performance, quality and sales, along with a graph and lots of good empirical data about, again, working on actual projects and the goals. Learn to build better with lower costs then the action groups, which I'll be summarizing today is what I call the practice and the action groups that we have done last year.
00:12:36:20 - 00:13:11:13
Sam Rashkin: We're focusing on optimizing design. We customized the framework for the individual builders because they shouldn't have to do that. Everything's in the book. They're their own preferences and tolerances and rocket conditions and climate conditions. A lot of factors have to be weighed in to come up with a framework, but everyone should have a framework. Then we have the participants benchmark the existing designs or 1 or 2 designs to that new customized framework, and develop a draft design and a final, revised design, and then start tabulating the cost savings.
00:13:11:14 - 00:13:35:24
Sam Rashkin: And then the whole idea is we're collaboratively with like minded professionals applying these best practices and learning to actually scrutinize each other's work in a constructive way to make everyone get better, more value at lower cost. And then the last part of the learning system is the thought leader series that we do. This is the schedule for this year.
00:13:35:25 - 00:14:00:08
Sam Rashkin: It's got an exciting layer of speakers who just provide depth, in-depth understanding of many of the concepts that we lay out in the workshops, including the future of sales and help and Comfort peer reviews. But today we'll focus on better homes for lower costs, putting the housing 2.0 hi to the test. And in summary, this is basically how the whole program works.
00:14:00:08 - 00:14:22:20
Sam Rashkin: We have context, which is why should we even bother learning this skills and concepts in the first place? Then the concepts which are the key principles and skills which are best practices? They're all laid out in the book and the workshop. And then we have practice, which is learn by doing. Actually know when you would take like a golf lesson.
00:14:22:22 - 00:14:45:15
Sam Rashkin: It won't do you very much good or almost any good, if you don't go out and practice the skills and embed them in your ability to be useful. So action groups are really important. Next step to kind of practice and learn by doing. And then we have for continuous improvement. The purpose of that is to sustain the excellence that you keep growing with.
00:14:45:15 - 00:15:17:22
Sam Rashkin: And we do that with the Thought Leader series to keep bringing you the best insights we can find. How to keep getting better at user experience. Okay, so let's look at the design optimization framework, but only an overview and then show you how it's applied. And essentially the framework is is a why behind each of the experiences core purpose behind why we do that experience, what is the optimization that we strive for and how the strategy is to get there?
00:15:17:22 - 00:15:49:13
Sam Rashkin: So why we optimize design is because space matters outside the home, inside the home, and details make a huge difference. So what we do is we first optimize location. And how we do that is by optimizing how each home fits to the site. Then we optimize nature. We do that by natural comfort. My good friend Vivian Loftus, we'll call this environmental Surfing and has a great thought leader.
00:15:49:13 - 00:16:16:11
Sam Rashkin: I say the back of the design chapter on this, but basically it's leveraging all nature has to provide for free to take the whole human experience inside the home to the next level. Then we optimize space. We do that with right sizing, which is where we get rid of space we don't need. It's wasted, and we add extra value with insights for how to do that at lower cost.
00:16:16:11 - 00:16:46:10
Sam Rashkin: And then we optimize form. By keeping it simple. We optimize function by integrating all the systems so they're not affricates, and have to be figured out in the field and create extra costs because they're not integrated. That's the basic thing. And with each strategy there's higher level and then detailed best practices. And so the site, what we're doing at a higher level in terms of best practices is first optimizing views, both the natural and design views.
00:16:46:11 - 00:17:19:13
Sam Rashkin: Then we optimize drainage for grading, siting, setback from slopes, regionally appropriate materials, basically managing all the damage function risks at any individual site could be resistance, corrosion resistance, UV resistance, pest resistance. And lastly, we want to optimize community connection and people want to connect with the community. There should be the opportunity to do so. And we do that with rear garages, front porches, and a more controversial one that's not for everyone would be shared backyards.
00:17:19:14 - 00:17:47:03
Sam Rashkin: So in some parts of the country, that's others. They would never think of doing that last one. And then natural comforts about natural heating, cooling, lighting and fresh air. This all happens with orientation, thermal mass storage, solar shading, cross ventilation, orienting to breezes, and just leveraging all these in various combinations to get free heating, cooling, daylighting, fresh air and amazing indoor experience.
00:17:47:06 - 00:18:16:16
Sam Rashkin: Simple is about simple four plans, simple exteriors and simple interiors. And that's all done by really scrutinizing a footprint functionality of our core plans. Then the geometry of the architecture, the functional features that could add richness to the design and actually provide tremendous use. Authenticity is incredibly important with trim, color details, and then simple interior relates to how we do finishes and details.
00:18:16:16 - 00:18:59:13
Sam Rashkin: So they all work in just the most effective way, with the least awkward conditions and lowest cost for highest value. So that's the basic, simple part of the strategy. And rightsizing as two key best practices leveraging space and enhancing space. And where we leverage spaces with geometry layouts, eliminating rooms need or combining rooms get minimizing circulation built in furniture again, another controversial recommendation not for everyone, but has amazing outcomes and relevance to the current younger demographic that's buying homes and enhancing space.
00:18:59:13 - 00:19:27:12
Sam Rashkin: We're getting spaces to live larger by using techniques that just make rooms feel bigger. Indoor outdoor linkages, very silly heights, quality trim, hardware and finishes, extra colors and optimizing lighting. And then lastly is integrated systems. And again, the overall best practices are the infrastructure systems and livability systems and performance systems on infrastructure. We look at me. Mechanical, electrical.
00:19:27:12 - 00:19:50:24
Sam Rashkin: Plumbing and structure. Livability is about the furniture as a system, storage as a system, and lighting as a system and performance. Two main things we care about will be ensuring water protection. Our design actually does its primary primary purpose of an enclosure, which is shed water and protect occupants, and also more and more with interest in solar technology.
00:19:50:25 - 00:20:33:22
Sam Rashkin: We want to have solutions that integrate solar much lower cost with much superior esthetics. So this is, you know, take a deep breath. This is a lot of best practices. Again, this is why we always start with customization. Figure out what can be brought into each individual boot builders business model and let them grow from there. And when we sum it up and look at all these transformational opportunities, you know, it's used its connection to neighbors, it's again, all that natural comfort has to offer landscaping, hardscape and linkage to exterior spaces, color, lighting, quality furnishings, storage and built ins, integrated design.
00:20:33:22 - 00:21:01:05
Sam Rashkin: These are just in each and every case, transformative for the user or the buyer. And so just to wrap up before I show you the actual homes that we did working with builders, I want to show you just a design I did 40 years ago as a concept for a group of about a dozen builders in Sacramento. There was a study project funded by Smud, but I was representing California Energy Commission.
00:21:01:06 - 00:21:21:20
Sam Rashkin: I basically put this out as a concept home. And what I want to show you is it's only it's less than 1500 square feet, three bedroom home. And I want to show you how in every aspect of that framework I just showed you, we were able to or we have to apply all these best practices. So let's start with the fit to site.
00:21:21:20 - 00:21:50:00
Sam Rashkin: And of course you notice is the rear garage and the front porch. So you know California man is no builder would build without the instance of fencing. Had to stay. So you have to consider your local market conditions. But easy to do this community connection. And then we optimize views. We create art saving solutions and and landscaping solutions in the rear yard with lots of views to them from the inside.
00:21:50:01 - 00:22:19:28
Sam Rashkin: And then we optimize drainage very simply on these lots Sacramento flat. So it's easy to do the drainage. And then in particular with the central California region, wildfires was always the concern I had in the back in the 1980s. And so, you know, I was really insistent on noncompetitive roofing, which was the big lobby I had to do, because the pervasive choice back then was would shake birds, no words.
00:22:20:00 - 00:23:09:23
Sam Rashkin: Everyone was insistent on putting kindling on Earth as the choice of material to cover their home. And it was insanity back then. Finally, now that insane choice is finally transitioned to noncombustible and not combustible, citing is inherent in common use of stucco for the walls and in terms of natural comfort we had on this particular lot. Perfect South orientation helped us with solar heating, solar lightings or cooling and natural fresh air, and particularly because both the orientation work for sunlight and for the the bankable southwest delta breezes that came in every night from the San Francisco Bay area.
00:23:09:24 - 00:23:35:06
Sam Rashkin: So that worked perfectly. And all we did add a little bit of wing walls to block the northeast and northwest sun that rises and sets, respectively, every day from very far back. And then we put in some thrust and capabilities of putting them in that storage. We put a lot of solar shading, both with the overhangs and with trellises from windows were for the ceiling.
00:23:35:06 - 00:24:05:16
Sam Rashkin: And then we had cooler considerations to reflect more light on right sizing. We had an open layout, so it lived bigger. We had hardly any circulation for the entire house. I am very much of a huge built in furniture advocate from the very beginning of my practice, and see how extensive buildings are and storage you get, and clutter removal is just phenomenal.
00:24:05:16 - 00:24:31:14
Sam Rashkin: So built ins everywhere. I will walk you through all these built ins, and my intent back then was to try and use sips for the rose, which gave us higher ceilings sloping in the in the back of the home and a flat area in the middle for storage and mechanical systems. And then indoor outdoor linkages were pervasive looking at at the height, skating and landscaping.
00:24:31:17 - 00:24:55:15
Sam Rashkin: And so I would submit that this three bedroom, 1400 and 80 square foot house moves like a 2000 square foot house as incredibly luxurious, necessary, incredible amount of storage. It has a master bath that has separate toilet area to saints, a full jacuzzi tub and full walk in shower. All bath as so it can be used by two people.
00:24:55:17 - 00:25:24:05
Sam Rashkin: A full laundry room. It has a huge kitchen and island. It had a very comfortable great room with a little office section and the bedrooms with built ins have tremendous functionality. So I would submit this was like 2000ft². So at 100 square foot cost per builder estimate, that's over $50,000 of savings cost just by right now. Integrated systems.
00:25:24:07 - 00:25:49:24
Sam Rashkin: Again, the SIPs allowed us to have both the higher ceilings and a place where mechanical, electrical, plumbing and storage furniture was optimized for flow, minimized wasted space, and the solar cell facing roof is there for future solar systems. And then on simple. This was a fairly simple four plan, but as I started developing housing 2.0, I revisited this design.
00:25:49:24 - 00:26:20:25
Sam Rashkin: And you can always keep evolving. And I made this design even simpler, this 1400 and 80ft². I was able to reduce it to 1300 and 80ft². And I think actually was better. And again, 100ft² times $100. A square foot is another $10,000 cheaper. And number of things. First of all, mass customization. I took this incredibly effective bedroom area plus bathroom area, and I did some purpose it over here for the new design.
00:26:21:00 - 00:26:47:12
Sam Rashkin: And then we have a front porch has a much better view because it's not blocked by the bedroom section. So it's a full view from porch. You have eight foot less width to the home, so it's on a more narrow lot. You have six less corners. You want 8 to 5 corners outside, 4 to 1 corners on the inside uses standard building blocks over and over again.
00:26:47:14 - 00:27:07:25
Sam Rashkin: As I mentioned with the mass customization, the kitchen corner cabinet, we able to eliminate. And then you have a tremendously kitchen, a bigger island, and you have a private office space in this case up front. We can work here separate from the great room. So you can wound up to be a more functional layout, rest square footage. You keep evolving and optimizing.
00:27:07:25 - 00:27:29:20
Sam Rashkin: That's the whole goal of what we try to do in terms of a discipline with housing 2.0. And when I tabulate and did all the numbers and added up the savings and the extra value, I walked through the details. It's about 40 to 80,000. Or again, right on that 15 to 25%. I showed you earlier for the design savings opportunity.
00:27:29:22 - 00:27:56:15
Sam Rashkin: So that's great. But does it work. And last year we had lost construction actually present their design optimization project where they built one multifamily apartment building on the site. And before they built the second, they went through a massive design optimization process and they came up with almost the top of the range, 24% below target costs from the other building.
00:27:56:18 - 00:28:24:12
Sam Rashkin: Yet with more performance, better layouts, better functionality. I encourage all of you to watch in the archives for the series. Mike Stefan's amazing presentation. I'll take a step by step all the savings and how he tabulated this incredible cost reductions by just doing good design optimization. So now we want to put it to the test with the people that work through the program.
00:28:24:12 - 00:28:44:19
Sam Rashkin: So we set up an action group process. And I mentioned earlier what the refers to is recognize every builder as their own preferences, tolerances for change, their own market conditions and market research and climate conditions. So the first thing we do is step one is we take the full.
00:28:44:21 - 00:29:11:08
Sam Rashkin: Framework for design best practices. And we we the high priority ones that will become the customized framework for that each individual builder. Then we give them homework, they go back, they take that framework and they benchmark it to 1 or 2 designs, bring it back the next week and show the class the framework benchmark results, taking their new customization, new customized framework for design optimization.
00:29:11:15 - 00:29:37:03
Sam Rashkin: Then they go back after they finish the benchmarking and they they do a draft redesign from the existing product and bring it back to the class. And then a lot of collaboration, feedback and so forth and go back to a final design. And after the final design, they go back and they put pen to paper cap calculator and they calculate the cost savings and added value.
00:29:37:07 - 00:30:04:10
Sam Rashkin: So what you're seeing today will be the results of this process. And the way the collaboration works is the group agrees to share information, and we always insist on feedback from attendees. First. I want everyone to learn by doing. I'm going to be the very last to speak out and give my feedback so that everyone gets into the kind of the mode of putting on those special lenses for extracting waste and costs and adding value.
00:30:04:13 - 00:30:26:05
Sam Rashkin: So that's the goal, what we do, and that's the results of what you want to see. Now, the first builder actually contacted me to work individually with their full team. So this was our work with it, with the action group, with the builder and all their internal people working in the organization. And so you had a marketing person, you had the purchasing a person, the owner.
00:30:26:10 - 00:30:48:14
Sam Rashkin: You had the architect with everyone who was a key decision maker around the table. And we ran through the framework and wherever they got for some fires, we said, this is going to be your customization framework. You write this as a 4 or 5 priority. Let's embed this so that it is effectively dragging the product every one of your designs.
00:30:48:21 - 00:31:20:27
Sam Rashkin: We're going to make the holding to meeting this these best practices. So you can actually go to market and actually advertise all the benefits that accrue from those best practices. So you can see from this red boxes, which are the averages for all the decision makers that fit the site, was really important, a strategy for this group, natural comfort, mostly in solar shading and solar and a little bit of ventilation rightsizing.
00:31:20:28 - 00:31:41:00
Sam Rashkin: Very substantial. Except as I mentioned, many builders aren't ready for built in furniture, so that was a tolerance and preference and backdrop. That and you know, the chair and the hardware, the colors, they weren't sure if they could get into that yet. So no problem. It's not your friend work. Like many builders, one of the most targeted priorities is simple.
00:31:41:02 - 00:32:05:07
Sam Rashkin: And this is a big focus of the collaboration and our integrated systems. Again, a lot of priority to make their homes more integrated for a substantial cost savings and also better esthetics. So this is the design the architect brought in is that we benchmark. The way you can see it set up is we have their customized sheet with all their customized best practices that they add as high priority.
00:32:05:07 - 00:32:26:04
Sam Rashkin: And then we put some notes together. I'll walk you through this one. For instance, is the stairwells right here on an outside wall blocking view. That's that's in the same place to put the stairwell and then block you from a great way to the backyard. Number two was the bedroom. The bed wasn't facing the view. And it is two small windows.
00:32:26:04 - 00:32:48:11
Sam Rashkin: When you have amazing real estate on that back wall to capture a design view. So took this bed and recommended turning it this way. And then number three was the kitchen was blocked from the view from the front because of the entryway. And this pantry number four was great. Room was blocked from the view obviously with the stairs here.
00:32:48:16 - 00:33:10:23
Sam Rashkin: Number five was the entryway. You couldn't see the front door. It's really good people coming to visit that. They can see the front door. And this research porch was substantially blocked by this in front. See if there's an opportunity to do better with that. Number six and seven, we're dealing with the fact that we had a north south orientation and the back of the house face north.
00:33:10:23 - 00:33:39:09
Sam Rashkin: We can maybe do this kind of configuration and get all the state light free heating and cooling ventilation into the back of the house, just with a step roof configuration to put under consideration. And then number eight over here is a recessed pocket which really concerned me because it creates complexity that adds no value. In fact, it loses about 130ft² and have to build about, in this case about 17 18ft more wall.
00:33:39:12 - 00:34:08:14
Sam Rashkin: So you're spending thousands more during the foundation, the walls and beginning of 130 less square feet. And these kind of populated recessed areas are not very good to sit in, and it's very constrained by space. And that was also an issue. Number nine was again made, this front protrusion, something we can look at to simplify ten had to do with the fact that running was buffered from the art preparation area, was way too isolated.
00:34:08:15 - 00:34:31:00
Sam Rashkin: And to do better with that, 11 was suggesting we can even get rid of this door, the main door to the bass to reduce here and just maybe save a whole door and framing encasing a number 12 was this layout was way too complex and get more for less footage 13 was the door was over here. Originally I sang maybe the door from the closet.
00:34:31:00 - 00:34:50:00
Sam Rashkin: Here we got a full straight wall and 14 was. There was no closet in the entry and again the door is facing, not the front. So you see basically how we benchmark, we get lots of notes and then we come back. We have revised design. So now the bedroom has been moved and we have much bigger window views spaced out to the back.
00:34:50:05 - 00:35:16:00
Sam Rashkin: Now have a back patio or again outdoor hard scaping. We have improved front porch and improved view with the front entry. We have about 120ft² less again times 100. That's 12,000 or so savings. If it's 150 square foot, it's, you know, and closer to 20,000 savings. We've got four less corners, and that's another two, $3,000 of savings for plans.
00:35:16:00 - 00:35:42:25
Sam Rashkin: Much more simple. The stairs are located where they don't want the view from any spaces better flow. They have a much improved master bath layout, with more openness and less complications, and the flow to the shower, to the toilet room and so forth. And we have a front facing entry as I mentioned, so much, much better improvements. And then we have more feedback about how to simplify the functionalities.
00:35:42:29 - 00:36:23:18
Sam Rashkin: This dining room is removed from the kitchen over here, the great rooms here. What if we just flip it and have done great room side and done on this side like that? Let's see. Enhance usable space in the hallway. This also the we. This is a warranty closet. When a house of the stature part did better with a laundry room and we thought about maybe a built in bench here as well at the entry and entry closet was missing and reconfigured the hall bath so the plumbing would be on the interior walls, not the exterior walls.
00:36:23:18 - 00:36:45:13
Sam Rashkin: So all these things came up and then we had this final revised layout. So we have we have two sinks with the plumbing in the interior walls and so forth. And on the interior wall we have a full featured laundry room. So just a little closet created an entry closet and a bench. We have integrated systems in terms of the plumbing isn't true.
00:36:45:13 - 00:37:06:02
Sam Rashkin: And switching the dining room and great room again just would just have better flow to the serving in the dining area. So you can see this door over here just has a slide over one day. So that's kind of how it works. And then they went back and did the have any savings. They came up with about 20,000, $21,000 of cost savings.
00:37:06:04 - 00:37:35:11
Sam Rashkin: That came up with almost 20, 23,000 of value. So net or value in savings is 44,000, which is about 17.5% of the cost of the two 50,000. In the low cost market that would go down. So you see right on the middle of the range that we were targeting and kind of just all this works just by putting on that special lens and say, how can we extract all the ways and how can we add value to make our homes work better?
00:37:35:14 - 00:38:00:17
Sam Rashkin: And I love when I get comments like this back. Our consultation association with Use Transform has transformed our business model. They have a whole new branding. They have a whole new way of going to market and actual brand promise that they can deliver in every home they do, so it was very exciting to see them just do exactly what we hope, which was to develop a whole new way of doing business that would help them do better for the cost.
00:38:00:22 - 00:38:26:10
Sam Rashkin: So that was a first example I highlight. One of my favorite builders came through the action groups was Tim O'Brien homes, and it was because I think Tim made a huge commitment to invest in the process and got some amazing outcomes. So, you know, Tim and the steam, they basically did the customization of the best practices for their company.
00:38:26:10 - 00:38:53:08
Sam Rashkin: And if you look at it, the biggest thing they focused on was a porch on fifth site Natural comfort for production. Bill like Tim, who's I think the largest production builder in his in his state, basically was not ready to go there. So no problems. That's not part of your framework. Then a right sizing everything made sense again with that again controversial built in furniture.
00:38:53:09 - 00:39:18:12
Sam Rashkin: So just leave it out is what we recommended. Simple. Again, I always comes up as probably the highest priority so far for the ten days that come through the action groups as well as integrated systems to these two advisors. And those are the big ones that come up as the highest priority. And so this is what our ten minutes team came back with was all these benchmarking notes.
00:39:18:12 - 00:39:38:06
Sam Rashkin: It was an amazing, great effort to just really study his plan. So this is the lower level. The main plan that he was going to work on. Here are the existing elevations and in the basement. The key things that they noted I highlight were to consider getting rid of the extra left. There's an extra protrusion here right over here.
00:39:38:11 - 00:40:05:16
Sam Rashkin: Remove the fake shutters and size of porch. So it's this little tiny porch area here that you can't even really sit in. In addition, the group came up with optimizing the water heater location. All the bedrooms are here, so you better to locate it next to the bedrooms. Simplify this trunk delivery system for hack and show the basic furniture that will help you sell upgrades to for finished basements.
00:40:05:16 - 00:40:29:08
Sam Rashkin: It will help encourage people to understand what a useful space is when it's envisioned in full functionality and with exciting layouts. And so this is the revised design. Oh, this is the first floor design. Again, benchmark and highlight. Again, some of the key things that came up with was one, it's an outdoor spaces in the back. Right now it's just a step down from the dining area.
00:40:29:11 - 00:40:53:05
Sam Rashkin: Eliminate our possible corners of the pop out here you have this double corner configuration here. As we move the dining room above make the circulation more effective. Look at how much circulation you have. This whole section here is using that circulation that doesn't add value. And and for planned functions. Well that needs just to think about how well the flow works better.
00:40:53:05 - 00:41:20:09
Sam Rashkin: And in particular we'll talk about a few more things like the laundry room is too far from the main area, the bedroom area, which close to the I could not be further away from the negatives. This is going to feed back as a group can added to the self-analysis. Russell talked about maybe simplifying the kitchen layout. This little cabinet here has this big corner corner cabinets extensive, and we're awkward to use and talk to about.
00:41:20:10 - 00:41:51:29
Sam Rashkin: Talk about simplifying the kitchen cabinets and saving money and make it work better. Widening the kitchen island. It's long, but two narrows and would look a lot better if it was wider. Showed the furniture layout with great room so you know it works the same in the master bedroom and the bedrooms. We just have to show all the furniture so we really get the most effective outcome and optimization and then opportunity for valuable master bedroom deck and that here as well, which we again have outdoor indoor space and linkages.
00:41:52:00 - 00:42:12:16
Sam Rashkin: And this is valuable real estate, this whole corner with no windows. And think about the floor plan. How do we actually leverage the opportunity for views with space that will benefit. So rethink that out a little bit. And again the rear the bedrooms the same as the one we just showed two porthole windows and it looks like the bedroom.
00:42:12:16 - 00:42:39:18
Sam Rashkin: That might not be a good view from the bedroom. So luckily due to fix that as well. Master bedroom and a home of the stature probably deserves $0.02. Thought and a long, narrow stairwell in the middle of the house can be kind of. And second, almost a cabin going down into the basement. That experience in general, and you have an opportunity to compartmentalize bathrooms so two people can use it at the same time.
00:42:39:18 - 00:42:58:18
Sam Rashkin: And also tightening up the space. It's just a lot of space with not much use, very low value square footage you're paying for. That's not giving you much in return. And again, deep entries like this with a deep research are deadly. Going into harms. Again, it's like going to a cabin effect and stark. And so what can we do.
00:42:58:19 - 00:43:23:19
Sam Rashkin: Maybe build on that as well. So this is a revised design. I'm going to put it right up next to the designer to show you and then show you how, how much more simple effective and how much better the revised design work. Timo Brian team did an amazing job taking the feedback, applying it, and getting great results. So first I have the optional deck and they're going to go with a covered porch standard I think on the back of the dining area.
00:43:23:21 - 00:43:48:01
Sam Rashkin: Then they reduce the corners from 12 to 8. Before this corners $72,000 and concrete footprint and then the footprint, the walls. And we have a much more simple configuration. All straight cabinets is on all the cabinets, a much wider island, and then the other cabinets here in the kitchen and have this bonus extended pantry kitchen area with a straight cabinet.
00:43:48:02 - 00:44:21:11
Sam Rashkin: Just all easy, simple things to do. Then the secret sauce is this dungeon stair in the middle to this inviting stair off the great room area to go downstairs and make the access so, so much more desirable and make that lower level so much more functional as a useful space. So relocating the stair there and having the low wall so you can see going down there completely transforms the lower level and how well it works.
00:44:21:11 - 00:44:41:14
Sam Rashkin: And then they optimize the laundry. They got it from this dead corner over here to the bedroom area, with access from the master suite and access from the bed and hallway section. Over here they have a much more luxurious mudroom section here, with the extra storage here for lots of things that need storage for benches and other storage.
00:44:41:15 - 00:45:01:26
Sam Rashkin: And it worked out a much, much better, more luxurious mudroom without much worse for footage footage, if any. And then they have a much. They compartmentalize a bath so two people can use it. It's more that way. And then you have a less deep entry because there is less recess. So walking in here is not quite as cavernous.
00:45:01:28 - 00:45:22:02
Sam Rashkin: And then they optimize the hot water system. So it's for the bathroom, which I'll show you in a second. And so they did all that, and they also showed all the furniture layouts, so that all the flow and the how the space works are confident. We're getting the most value from the space that we're building. So amazing job that did in this group.
00:45:22:02 - 00:45:46:06
Sam Rashkin: And so that's here is the water heater working over here over here. And I'm not worried about the kitchen sink being far removed from the water heater, because when we turn on the kitchen sink, we're using the first few minutes just to rinse the dishes. Anyway, we don't need hot water, and so we're not wasting. And it's not an annoyance not to have hot water right away at the kitchen sink.
00:45:46:12 - 00:46:10:08
Sam Rashkin: However, in the bedroom section, this really makes a difference. If any water heater. Here we're create and here's a mechanical system that are located also that is more efficient. So we optimize the water heater for the bedrooms. We have the revised stair. We have a simple simplified HVAC layout. We have the partial layouts showing here how the downstairs can lay out beautifully and provide a lot of extra bonus spaces.
00:46:10:15 - 00:46:30:29
Sam Rashkin: Maybe a man cave over here, whatever it may be, but you see, it works beautifully. And also it shows how you can get the bedrooms over here. You know where your egress when this needs to be. More importantly, if you plan to put index and outdoor spaces over here, you won't be able to put in the windows. Do it nearly as easily.
00:46:30:29 - 00:46:56:16
Sam Rashkin: So they have the house configured to integrate with the requirement for egress windows and bedrooms, and then we can optimize the air handler and the bedroom location. So a lot of just amazing value added to the whole lower level because now buyers whole opportunity to create more and more useful space in the house. And this is how it now works.
00:46:56:16 - 00:47:18:27
Sam Rashkin: Without the extra bump out in front of your simple home, they made the front porch come out deeper so it's an actual useful porch and less recess. Everything about this house just got so much better. And when we actually pencil, paper and came up with the numbers is about $46,000 of savings and about 72,000 of that. That's huge.
00:47:19:00 - 00:47:43:16
Sam Rashkin: That's just the builder self calculations. And you know, this is just insanity, nephew. Leverage that kind of opportunity. And we just saw how much better the design guy. It's simple plus headaches to build everything going the right direction I love feedback we get again our experience with housing 2.0. What new insight to designing our homes for today and tomorrow's bombers.
00:47:43:16 - 00:48:13:15
Sam Rashkin: So you know, this is this is this is just what makes us feel good. And we know we embed the builders and go through the program with a persistent sort of better for lower cost outcomes. And so the workshops are so important underpinning that this is why we push the action group so much so that we can finally get everyone who might go to the workshop to be ready to go, and then make it a lifetime practice.
00:48:13:16 - 00:48:36:22
Sam Rashkin: Now you can come into the workshop, the action groups, without going to the workshop that we always love and prefer to go through the workshop first. It's not a requirement. Okay, next one is Younger Homes. I love this project because serendipity. Danielle Younger, who owns Younger Homes, brought in her first patio home design and then as an afterthought.
00:48:36:24 - 00:49:01:20
Sam Rashkin: She then showed the group for two story design. I wish I what happened with the two star design in her case, just again, to show you how sometimes just one right change. It's not obvious, maybe to the design team at first can transform the house. And so this was the design that came in. This is the extra design she is throwing for extra credit, where she showed how the patio home that's going to be configured for two stories.
00:49:01:20 - 00:49:28:06
Sam Rashkin: So here's the first story design. There's a lot of great things going on this plan, but amazing feedback came out of the action group process for the song. So one was we got all this bump out configuration in the home. Do we really need it? And we'll look more at that. And then we have the stair location over here, which is kind of warmth out, and also a amazing amount of space.
00:49:28:06 - 00:49:59:03
Sam Rashkin: It's wasted zero value to all the space, maybe 80 90ft², no value because it's just to get you again in a dark, undesirable space to the loft space. The other thing that happened was they showed the floor plans, both the patio and the song, with an optional office in this huge closet. And we were thinking as a group that since there's a work at home imperative, why not show the plan with the office and sugar water closet option?
00:49:59:06 - 00:50:20:26
Sam Rashkin: Because virtually every every buyer will, like a huge percentage of buyers, would want to have the office versus that super, super extra large closet. And this closet could be configured for lots of extra storage. So that was a point that was made. Also, you got to show the furniture that we don't know how to optimize if we don't know how the furniture is going to go.
00:50:20:26 - 00:50:47:00
Sam Rashkin: So we have to show the furniture layout. And I always, always know anytime I see small jerks and jogs and turns that there's a way to do better. Okay. And in this case, it's all I had to do. See this job? Why do we have this turn here and have to have this extra complexity? This room. This room could take a little bit of a foot or 16in off of it, and it has no effect on the simplified.
00:50:47:03 - 00:51:08:20
Sam Rashkin: The second thing was this. Why do we have this bump out in the wall space? We don't need that. What don't we just do it like this? This is so oversize for what it needs to be. Just have this as a walk in closet and this is the back and done and make things more simple. And so again, what we are doing and encouraging and teaching to is where are these lenses?
00:51:08:20 - 00:51:29:09
Sam Rashkin: But just when you're there, special lenses, when you look, all the race and complexity jumps out at you and you're working properly. You solve it and almost always come up. So here's revise, here's the plan here, and here's that bump out of the stair from the front elevations on the right side and the right elevations of the here.
00:51:29:09 - 00:51:49:20
Sam Rashkin: And then. There's a lot of complexity over here in the back over here, just because of the bump out for the dining room and what changes there. There's a lot of room to fix that. So they came back with the revised design. There was so much success looking at this kind of just afterthought, showing the two story plan, and they came back with a revision.
00:51:49:20 - 00:52:09:06
Sam Rashkin: So a couple things. Let me walk you through what comments were here. Again. This is again we have the bump out here. Let's get rid of that by just making a smooth wall with a walk in closet and bathroom. Then the stair is in this much, much superior location. So I'm going to go back here and show you that.
00:52:09:11 - 00:52:33:19
Sam Rashkin: Just move the stair where the laundry is and move the laundry with the stairs and just flip these to with, if anything, just better results. So we can go back here. So now the laundry is over here and the stairs over here. And again for all the bedrooms coming down, it's this is their access to you come down.
00:52:33:19 - 00:52:44:07
Sam Rashkin: And so the stairs here with just a front dormer, which at least you would see visually from the front of interest and.
00:52:44:09 - 00:52:49:06
Sam Rashkin: That just works a lot better. But.
00:52:49:09 - 00:53:15:07
Sam Rashkin: Oh, okay. And then on that then, then over here, I mentioned I always struggle with this pop out for the dining room and then this extra pop out here. So a recommendation I had was to what? I would just move this thing all up and make this one smooth wall in the back, and then add the back porch cover for the architectural interest so you can get all the same amount of storage and everything.
00:53:15:08 - 00:53:39:05
Sam Rashkin: And it's just it's less quirky, it's a better layout, it's easier to build. So that was a recommendation. And then the other thing I forgot to mention was on the stair here. I asked that architect to flip it because, you see, you come up the stair here, then you take a job and get into the line, and I'll also come up here and come up on this side and go upstairs on the wrong side.
00:53:39:05 - 00:54:03:02
Sam Rashkin: So when you click it now you come up on this side. You wind up coming up here. Now this is extra space for a closet. So I just added like 15 or 20ft² of useful storage. I'm just getting rid of hallway. That's completely unnecessary. And I wander up with a closet, which is currently missing from the forefront by using the space underneath the steps.
00:54:03:05 - 00:54:27:14
Sam Rashkin: And so you walk straight up into the loft. It's better flow, everything's better. And again, this is this is the stair pop out and we got rid of the bump out in the back. This whole section gets a lot more easy to build, a lot lower cost, a lot more simple. And then I love the feedback Sam was able to.
00:54:27:17 - 00:54:38:18
Sam Rashkin: Save our company thousands of dollars in construction costs and achieve the best possible designs.
00:54:38:20 - 00:55:12:08
Sam Rashkin: You see the best possible design possible for our clients, so I just love that people embrace, apply and then embed all these best practices into the business model. On the last design optimization we're showing is severe poems. This is the original design where they had the solar and the flat roof and this beautiful trellis here, and his courtyards off the bedroom, another courtyard of the main living spaces and the second bedroom area.
00:55:12:14 - 00:55:36:04
Sam Rashkin: How this works. And the first recommendation was to move the solar over the trellis. You say all the costs of the detailed trellis by mapping the solar just on the frame, and then you don't have like 3040 roof penetrations on a flat roof. Less risk, more attractive. Everything works better. So that was an easy recommendation to make. And this is a floor plan.
00:55:36:04 - 00:56:01:16
Sam Rashkin: The way the house works as you have this block is kind of a living space, along with the master bedroom next to the garage, and you have a little linkage section to the bedroom. So that's the basic four point for talking about courtyards here created by fencing. And the similarly there's a courtyard here from the master bedroom. So the key things that came up were to had two.
00:56:01:17 - 00:56:20:12
Sam Rashkin: This is the revised design. I don't have the original design, but it was awarded here, here in this section and water heater here. We said just switch from 2 to 1 water heater with the demand public you don't need to have two. And that would save you 2 or $3000 of water heater employment. So that was the first recommendation.
00:56:20:13 - 00:56:39:08
Sam Rashkin: The other was you have all the storage here uses the housing two point storage checklist to make sure you have all the storage you need for all the things we need to keep in our home. Because the kitchen is so large, this is a great storage center to really integrate the checklist. And then this HVAC was moved here.
00:56:39:08 - 00:57:03:08
Sam Rashkin: So it can be accessed from the garage from the design. So the need service for this HVAC system for the chemical contractor doesn't even need to go to the home to do a lot of records straight from there. There's also a second split system in the children's bedroom area as well. And then the laundry was over here. It was way too far from all the bedroom sections over here.
00:57:03:11 - 00:57:28:28
Sam Rashkin: This great room section over here is all seating. There's no place to put TV for viewing. And notice the dining room table is on the wrong side, so the viewing for the outside views not as good. Also this there is no plan for TV I think was going to go you know what they're going to do. So the recommended TV mounting on this wall here, they had three bathrooms for each of the three bedrooms.
00:57:28:28 - 00:57:57:16
Sam Rashkin: We recommended going with a Jack and Jill compartmentalized bathroom here, which up doing saving the cost of bathroom, which is maybe another 12 or 13 $14,000. But you needed to compartmentalize. So if you can use it at once and then the other bathrooms over here for this third budget, then increase the shared zone. This these work zones are overly, generously recommended, making the town where all the children can hang out together just a bit bigger.
00:57:57:16 - 00:58:20:24
Sam Rashkin: And now this is a canopy area that's covered by solar. So it's really going to be attractive. And so this is the revised final design. And the laundry area is now located next to the bedrooms to redesign the kitchen counter. But they need to make room for a dish rack and food preparation. So recommend going back to this because you can't just have a central character.
00:58:20:26 - 00:58:40:28
Sam Rashkin: And then the HVAC closet is still here and off the garage for service. Because of all the space and some of the revisions, I now have a study office with a separate outside entry, which is fantastic after value in the home, particularly for people who work at home. And then we also have the dining area switch table and along side.
00:58:41:01 - 00:59:03:13
Sam Rashkin: We shift to the great room here with a viewing wall over here. So now that worked out much, much better. And then the this shared zone got about 30% bigger with plenty of room to squeeze these work centers, but for work at home for students. And then we recommended that this would be an ideal design to check. Working with SIPs.
00:59:03:19 - 00:59:27:23
Sam Rashkin: Here's the here's the elevation to show you why it's a flat roof, but just ideally suited this would be to these wall panels in the Texas market where this house is going up is exterior wall panels. The courtyards, the fences block the courtyards that were shown this year. So that was safe design. They actually tabulated 86,000 of savings.
00:59:27:23 - 01:00:03:07
Sam Rashkin: So it's been very impressive, able to achieve substantial savings and better performing homes by adjusting our designs. So again, everything we're striving to do is get builders to and and their whole teams that work together always work towards this approach. Last show you is how the same action group was applied to sales optimization and had great success with equity home builders, so I worked one on one with them as well with just the marketing team, and they really need to think about branding as they're going to apply all these amazing design optimization best practices.
01:00:03:07 - 01:00:34:03
Sam Rashkin: So mainly what I focus was just one of the strategies for optimized sales experience, which is right message. And these are the best practices communicating why leading with it. Power words contrast clarity or an interest with independent certifications. Association with brands like our great sponsors testimonials. So basically they ranked all those five marketing leader and went back to his group.
01:00:34:06 - 01:00:55:09
Sam Rashkin: There's all these things are important. And then we're focusing on the message. And so all of them are high priority. So the next task was to come up with what messages they thought right now were using the most and were the most effective. And so this is a list of messaging I got. I reorganized it and I put this one at the top.
01:00:55:10 - 01:01:24:05
Sam Rashkin: The hard working seven home saves money, builds equity and saves safeguard your family. And the reason I put it up at the top was I kept finding all these. References. Hard working homes or homes that work hard. And clearly there was something going on with this company where hard working was, was really representing something that was intrinsic to their core business value, and that seemed to be compelling reason for why.
01:01:24:10 - 01:01:50:27
Sam Rashkin: And the other thing is, I believe why statements should be seven words or less. So I put hard work in homes that safeguard your family. And the amazing thing that happens with messaging is once you can get your core wide message locked in it, it provides a foundation for all the other architecture messaging, all the messaging architecture that you're building on top of.
01:01:51:00 - 01:02:15:29
Sam Rashkin: Without that solid foundation, the messaging discussant work. So once you do the soul searching exercise, figure out and come up with most effective way to convey what your company is about, like equity did here with hardworking homes that safeguard the family. Everything just flowed from there. So the recommendations words just have all the sub messaging, all build on that.
01:02:16:00 - 01:02:40:16
Sam Rashkin: Hard working for your lifestyle with homes designed, engineered and built for how hard? Working for your budget by avoiding tens of thousands of dollars in utility bills over 30 year mortgage. Hard working for your future by ensuring you get the most from the largest purchase of a lifetime. Hard working for your well-being. With homes certified to include 100% of the health protection recommended by national experts.
01:02:40:20 - 01:03:09:11
Sam Rashkin: Hard working for convenience with advanced technology, smart home teachers. Hard working for authenticity with homes that celebrate timeless suburban traditions and values. Hard working to live better with performance certified to the top 1% of homes don't nationwide, and this is a zero home target. Performance. Hard working with quality products carefully selected for design, performance and durability. Hard working, exceeding your expectations with five star home buyer reviews.
01:03:09:11 - 01:03:35:29
Sam Rashkin: So all I was doing is taking all their messaging and now building it into a strong one core value message and having a total message architecture. So you always emphasizing the core of your company. And then we work with them to teach how to do this with power words, how to do it with contrast, how to do it with independent social media brands, testimonials.
01:03:36:00 - 01:04:04:01
Sam Rashkin: So then the work is useful. Then we're just applying proven solutions that will know change behavior all around. A brand promise that defines this particular company. So, you know, just the way the action group concept works for design, it works equally well for sales. It was amazing what came out of just forcing the thinking to have that that discipline the first a great line and building messaging around it.
01:04:04:08 - 01:04:41:01
Sam Rashkin: I love this is Jane Barnett's husband, Dave Barnett, who has a separate market consulting group working with her, have been bragging to Jane about how much it had already helped. And, you know, I wasn't sure in the beginning. He was sold on doing this for me and it was a great result. So again, this is all amazing to me, to, you know, to take this hypothesis, put it to the test, actually work with builders in this basically collegial, collaborative and tremendously enjoyable working groups.
01:04:41:02 - 01:05:02:16
Sam Rashkin: My big message to those of you that are builders that are here today watching this webinar, we'd love to fill out some more of our action groups. The limited spots wanted to do at most six builders for working group. So if you want to lock in for this year's action groups, I really hope you contact Mike and let them know that this is something you want to do.
01:05:02:18 - 01:05:22:07
Sam Rashkin: It's just very exciting to see the results that we get, empirical results, and the amazing members that builders themselves are tabulating in terms of cost savings and value. So I hope this made sense. Mike, I'll hand it off to you if you have any questions.
01:05:22:09 - 01:05:42:14
Mike Collignon: All right. Thanks, Sam. Appreciate it much. And get back on here with you. We do have a couple of questions that have been sent in, but if you have any others, please send them in to the questions box. We're going to start off with Joseph. He wanted to know. And it's kind of a funny question, but we've run into this once or twice in the action group.
01:05:42:14 - 01:05:51:25
Mike Collignon: Sam, why don't architects and builders leave enough room to install traditional HVAC and recovery systems?
01:05:51:27 - 01:06:19:12
Sam Rashkin: Well, why do they put them in addicts in the western part of the country, you know, the most egregious place to locate. And then they put often they only have the, you know, the 22.5in by 16 inch at a catch. So it's time to replace the system. There's no way to get a new system up in the air when they put them in closets for the hard to work on, it's it's just again, it's the questions we want to ask during the design process.
01:06:19:13 - 01:06:37:06
Sam Rashkin: What is the time to think about these things? How do we integrate all the systems in the home so they perform better, they service better, and they cost less. So it's a great question that I keep asking myself as well. So we're kindred spirits in that one.
01:06:37:08 - 01:06:54:13
Mike Collignon: And I'm glad to say that you pointed out on the CVS homes plan the water heater, because I remember that discussion as well about the place of the water heater and trying to optimize that for usage and stuff. So it applies not just to the vacuum recovery water heater systems and other systems to.
01:06:54:16 - 01:06:56:21
Sam Rashkin: Yeah.
01:06:56:23 - 01:07:11:23
Mike Collignon: Also had a question from Sabine. Wanted to know what we're talking about here with the housing 2.0 principles. Is this also possible to implement on additions to existing older homes?
01:07:11:25 - 01:07:56:03
Sam Rashkin: What a great question. Very much so. I think it's hardly any difference. But you know, the big challenge you have to do on existing homes is you're constrained by the existing infrastructure. So the structural systems, the mechanical systems, the electric systems, so the optimizations all have to get the most from the existing infrastructure that's forming the house. And the whole part of doing home additions is to identify high value spaces, preserve those, identify the low value spaces that can be upgraded or re-engineered to work better.
01:07:56:06 - 01:08:16:01
Sam Rashkin: Often when the trickiest things like a lot of times adding a second floor is the best place for the stairs. It's always going to be the secret sauce for when you're adding second floors, but it's, you know, the same concepts apply and we want the flow to work. You want to think about community connection, what you want to think about views.
01:08:16:03 - 01:08:39:09
Sam Rashkin: You want to think about how you can leverage right sizing techniques and combine rooms. A lot of the same best practices that work equally well. Obviously you'll be constrained applying natural comfort and natural house is set so it doesn't allow for that. But you know again wave customized for a business the design best practices that meet your preferences.
01:08:39:09 - 01:08:44:26
Sam Rashkin: Each existing home will have to have almost a customized approach as well.
01:08:44:28 - 01:08:53:00
Mike Collignon: And I know the question was about additions. Can you touch a little bit on remodels to.
01:08:53:03 - 01:09:16:20
Sam Rashkin: Well, additions is when we add space or remodels as we take the existing space and try to make it work better? And so same thing. Often a lot of people are redoing kitchens. They're in the existing space there, maybe tearing down a wall and combining rooms and all those things apply. It's just it's the same concepts going for the same desired outcome.
01:09:16:21 - 01:09:37:12
Sam Rashkin: Can we get more functionality at the same scare footage? Live better? Can we integrate systems so that we have less pump out bump outs or or have more storage or whatever it needs to happen? So remodels, additions, it's pretty much the same answer.
01:09:37:15 - 01:10:04:21
Mike Collignon: Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't see any other questions, Sam. So thank you very much for sharing your time and your knowledge with us today and walking us through some of these case studies. As someone who has been participants in all of those action groups, it's I obviously know what the punch line was here, but I think for our audience to see how some of this truly translates into real world dollars, I think is quite opening.
01:10:04:21 - 01:10:07:18
Mike Collignon: So thanks for walking us through that, Sam.
01:10:07:21 - 01:10:16:22
Sam Rashkin: All right. Thank you, Mike. And I hope those of you that are thinking back join the action group to hold them. Mike, as soon as you can.
01:10:16:24 - 01:10:37:19
Mike Collignon: Yeah. I want to thank our audience for attending and asking those questions. And thank you to the BC Electric West, Lake Royal Building Products and Schneider Electric for their general sponsorship of the housing 2.0 program. You know, we're going to be right back here in two weeks for another webinar in our Thought Leader series. We're going to that'll be Wednesday, April 6th at 2 p.m. eastern time.
01:10:37:19 - 01:10:57:18
Mike Collignon: We're going to have Dennis Web of Fulton Homes here to discuss the future of home sales. So don't miss that. And finally, if you did enjoy today's webinar and you'd like to learn more about the housing 2.0 strategies, you can register now for the Q2 workshop series. That six part series will begin on Thursday, May 12th at 12 p.m. Eastern Time.
01:10:57:21 - 01:11:02:25
Mike Collignon: Just go to Green Builder Media.
01:11:02:28 - 01:11:11:27
Mike Collignon: Two to find out how to register for that. Until next time, stay safe on those job sites. Stay healthy and take care. So long.