The Mad Scientist

You’re convinced. All signs point to how building quality homes can grow your top line and boost your bottom line—you know customers will be happier with a comfortable, efficient, and overall well-performing home, resulting in more referrals, fewer callbacks, and lower warranty expenses. But how the heck do you even begin? Improving the homes that you build requires not only changing your construction practices, but also the philosophy of your company and the process of how it operates. So how do you do that?

It’s a good question, one that IBACOS is trying to find the answers to through a current research project called (surprise, surprise!) the Process Research Project.

In order to cost effectively build quality homes, a builder needs to critically assess their operations and processes, and be willing to make changes where necessary. IBACOS has found builders who are achieving higher performance levels are using different strategies throughout the planning, design, and build phases. Builders are also using different marketing techniques to convey the value of high performance homes to consumers. Easier said than done. Many builders often don’t know where to start, what the steps are, or who to ask.

IBACOS is one of only a few organizations looking into the links between operational processes and the quality and performance of the completed houses. Duncan Prahl, who’s leading the Process Research Project, is trying to understand the processes and tools a builder needs when making the transition from conventional construction to building high performance homes. He’s also researching how the industry can develop reliable local resources to support builders.

Our work involves examining what processes are needed, including setting performance standards, developing an integrated design process, measuring results, and documenting what types of activities need to take place. We are also analyzing industry needs, like contractor certification programs to ensure that trades understand the nuances of quality construction, the way to detail construction and purchasing documents to ensure best practices are implemented in the field, how building performance could be a key metric in determining bonuses, and understanding the overall financial repercussions of achieving higher performance. This seems simple in concept, but the hard part, the guts of the Process Research Project, is figuring out exactly how to do it.

“With many of the tools and resources available today, simply developing the ‘kit of parts’ to build better homes isn’t necessarily rocket science. (See “Quality Homes in Cold Climates” in the October 2003 Quality Home® newsletter.) The difficulty lies in the changes to the builder’s operations, processes, and construction methods in order to implement it most cost effectively. Our goal is to develop and document these processes, and develop a support network of local specialists who can help builders through the transition and provide ongoing building performance feedback,” said Duncan. Many builders simply take an additive approach, and are not aggressively looking at how to design for performance from the outset of a project.

An integrated design process is one area where builders can reap big benefits. In a worst-case scenario, a house design is purchased from an architect and given to a structural engineer who provides framing layouts and key structural details. Once framing is completed, the plumber, electrician, insulator, and HVAC contractor are told to “make it work.” They get the job done, but it isn’t pretty. The builder calls the framer back to reinforce all the notched joists, drop a soffit around the plumbing run in the living room and build a chase around the B-vent. The result is, all too often, rooms that won’t maintain desired comfort levels, with inadequately insulated areas and unsightly design modifications.

Using an integrated design process, the builder starts with a set of performance standards developed before the design process begins. These standards lay out the overall performance parameters of the house, and include the strategies that will be used to achieve them (i.e. all ducts located inside the conditioned space, by putting the HVAC system inside a conditioned unvented crawlspace). Then the architect, engineer, and trade partners meet throughout the design phase to ensure that the performance standards are being achieved, and that all the systems and strategies are coordinated before construction begins. During this phase, energy calculations are performed, heating and cooling systems are sized, and all of the systems are integrated with the desired aesthetic and structural aspects of the house. This information is documented on the construction drawings and in scopes of work, so that information from the design phase can flow smoothly to purchasing and to the field.

Adopting an integrated design process is challenging, in that most of the participants have to be encouraged to rethink their role. Few HVAC contractors are asked where they would ideally locate the furnace as the schematic designs are being started. The framer is seldom asked when the room sizes are being designed what the most efficient layout for a wall or floor system would be. And architects have for years relinquished responsibility for balancing the aesthetic, structural, and systems integration in order to come up with creative solutions that meet the project requirements and budget.

Is Duncan and the IBACOS team mad for tackling this challenge? “Actually, my alter ego is a mad scientist…although I am kind of disappointed that we’re not issued lab coats with our names embroidered on them and spiffy anodized aluminum clipboards. I think it would add a whole new dimension to our research.”