……5 Month Build Continued

  With 100 people you can frame an 18,000 sf home in one weeks time. We started this at 7am on a Monday morning in January. With shorter daylight I had light towers set up around the perimeter of the foundation. With the lights we can start work at 7am and work until 6pm without any light issues, it was like playing football under the lights. We finished this on Saturday and the Plumbing, HVAC started on Monday along with the Roofer and Exterior Trimmers. 

  I said earlier that I would teach you how I build custom homes at this timeline and this is one example. You have to think outside the box and execute a plan. Strategize and execute, that is the secret to making things happen in timelines other have not done before. 

  The framing package for this project was way outside the box. No subcontract package was awarded without vigorous vetting and competitive pricing. The framing package was executed much differently than normal. 

  I hired 6 companies hourly to frame this house. Yes I hired the crews hourly, I ran the group boots on the ground myself. I started with 6 different companies and they had no idea they were going to all work together. One company bailed and left before starting, they didn’t want to work with the other companies. 

  It was really stressful that Monday morning, I had to sooth everyone’s anxiety while keeping myself in check. Picture the beginning of 60 Minutes with the clock ticking and everyone standing there, each second was major money. I started laying out the foundation and getting guys to level and install plates, as we moved along it became easier. One of the companies was a trim company that I did a lot of work with. I started the layout of the house from the right to left. One of the master bathrooms (Her Bath) was oval and I started the trimmers cutting plywood for the wall plates and sill plates while I split up the framers. One group continued sills and layout, one crew set girders, one set joists, then one spun back and installed blocking, then sheathing, wall layout, walls, bracing, second floor joists, sheathing, walls, roof, sheathing. The trimmers pre-made (perfectly) all of the curved plates, curved roof rafters cut out of LVL, I even made the bell roof for Her Bath on the ground and craned it on top of the walls (one piece). The interior ceiling followed the compounded curved exterior roof on an oval wall.  

   Lumber came by tractor trailer, we had 2 forklifts which quickly were not enough to keep everyone busy, we added forks to the skid steer, backhoe, and loader. Trucks had to back into the site, we had to block the main road to give them a turning radius. The guys would jump on the truck and start taking off the straps while the truck backed in, they were still rolling as the machines started unloading skids. The drivers of the trucks were not happy but we were like a robotic assembly line and the drivers just conformed. 

  It was organized chaos and smooth. When swimmers make the fastest laps, it looks like they are gliding through the water, we were gliding through lumber. When you are working in this manner you create energy (you need to posses that energy inside first), this energy feeds off everyone, quickly anyone who is not producing becomes an outcast. No one wants to be an outcast and we just got it done. We would have a line of cars every morning and afternoon when people would drive by to go and come home from work. They all stopped to stare and see what we did that day. 

  The sense of accomplishment each day by everyone working on the site continued until the task was complete. It organically conveyed to other trades and flowed up to the end of the project. Yes it was stressful but we followed the plan and strategized. We modified as needed and agreed, if the plan makes sense people will follow. 

  This is a high level overview of how to build something in a short timeline. If you have any questions and want to learn more please reach out:

info@iridiumdev.io