Author: Joel (Page 4 of 7)

It was a somewhat stressful process that took longer than I wanted, but as of today we have officially decided that David Jenkinson of Jenkinson Homes has been selected to build our Sudbury River House. David has no web presence, so I cannot add a link. But he has been building and renovating homes in Concord for many, many years. David only works on one project at a time, so we will have his full attention until mid 2026 (fingers crossed).

The selection process started with the architect putting together a preliminary packet with all the known details of the proposed house (although not everything was known). We then asked four different builders to put together a proposal, and we gave them a month to get back to us. All four visited the site (I was there for two of the site visits), and they talked to the architect when they had questions. In mid-December, we got back all their proposals.

Our architect then merged all the proposals into one spreadsheet so we could compare the bids, line by line, as fairly as possible. Not every bid included the same breakdown, but that was cleaned up for the comparison. The bids were similar, which was expected. The material costs should be the same in all four bids and the subcontractor quotes should also be similar, so a lot of the difference in price came down to overhead (the spreadsheet approach allowed the architect to fill in missing line items, so an incomplete breakdown did not mistakenly result in a very low bid). The schedules were all reasonably close.

After we got the bids, I met with each of the builders to hear their pitch and ask questions. We held those meetings in mid-December at my current house. Following that, I asked for and followed up on some references (although did I really expect to hear bad things?). For some of the builders, there would be site supervisors and project managers and I tried to meet those people as well to get a feel for them.

The selection process was not easy. All four builders seemed great and I believe that all would be able to do a good job. My architect had some experience with all of them; and, they all seemed interested in the project. At the end of the day it came down to big versus little. The little builder (whom we ended up selected) is basically a one man shop. He is the site supervisor and the project manager. At the other end of the spectrum, two of the builders were larger firms who build multiple houses at the same time, and use a project manager and separate site supervisor for each job. I was ultimately able to meet the project managers and site supervisors who would be assigned to our project (something I wanted to do before making a selection).

I want to make it clear (since I know at least some of the builders have visited this web site), that this was a hard, agonizing decision and I would probably have been happy working with any one of builders who bid on the project. I am not going to go into more detail about why we chose David Jenkinson, but it was close and I actually had made a different choice at first, but changed my mind after sleeping on it.

Next steps:

We have a structural engineer and mechanical design firm working on details of the house. The structural engineer makes sure that the house will not fall down (which means, among other things, deciding where we may need a steel beam). The mechanical design firm deals with the heating/cooling system as well as energy recovery system and ventilation systems (e.g. kitchen and bathroom fans). Once we have the details of those designs, our architect can put together the necessary packet to give to the town so we can get a building permit. I estimate that we are two to three months from having the building permit.

Meanwhile our newly selected builder says that the removal of the stump in front of the garage (seen below) may actually damage the garage foundation so we may need to consider rebuilding the garage in place. This would require another visit to the Natural Resources Commission (which would happen in late January), but we do not expect any problems getting approval. We will start that process now.

We are also investigating what asbestos remediation the town will require before demolition. That work can proceed as soon as we know what needs to be done.

While all this is going on, Daphne continues the selection process for interior details, fixtures, lighting, doors, bathtubs, etc. We think that we have decided on the siding material and color (Nichiha Vantagewood cement siding in “poplar”), although the color we chose is brand new and may not be available for a few months. We have also chosen the roofing material and color (Enviroshake in “aged cedar”), and the trim color (matte black). We also have the window details (Marvin casement windows in “black” with natural wood trim exterior) almost ready so windows can be ordered soon. It will be a modern look house, with a Class A fire rating and materials that should not need to be replaced in our lifetimes.

Finally, I have started looking for a construction camera that will take time lapse pictures of the process. I will install that on a tree near the wetlands, looking back towards the house, before we start work.

I have been visiting the property every week or so to make sure things are OK and see is anything has changed. Inside the house, I saw places where the inspector had taken samples for asbestos testing (spoiler: there is asbestos). And outside the house, a few weeks ago the arborist came by and put up yellow flags everywhere we will need to add tree protection boundaries. Here is what those flags look like.

The red stake in the background is the property boundary. These flags are on the North side of the lot, just past the driveway.

While I was there, I took a picture of our view from the main floor of the existing house. You can see some ice on the river, at the edges. I was told that the river usually freezes over, although not in the last two years. There were different sets of tracks in the snow, but I was unable to identify the animals since the snow is not very deep.

I just finished watching the December 11th Concord Natural Resources Commission meeting and they approved our plan with no required changes beyond what we had proposed. Woo hoo.

They mentioned a bunch of clauses (by number in the meeting) that we have to adhere to, but I assume those were all expected.

In 2017, Concord, MA passed a tree preservation bylaw to encourage the preservation and protection of trees on residential lots during significant demolition and/or construction activity. Since we are planning both significant demolition and construction activity, the law applies to our project.

Basically, if you take down any trees over 6″ in diameter, you either have to plant replacement trees (adding up to 1/2 of the total diameter inches removed) or pay $350 per inch into the town’s tree fund. Unfortunately, we are forced to remove a lot of trees as part of this project. But there is some good news. The tree preservation bylaw does not include the trees in the 100′ wetlands zone. The trees within 100′ of the wetlands are handled by the Concord Natural Resource Commission, and although the NRC wants to see replacement plantings, there is no corresponding pay per inch bylaw for those trees.

Here is the current plot plan showing the disposition of the trees. TBR means “to be removed”. Anything to the right of the green line is in the 100′ near-wetlands zone and is not subject to the tree preservation bylaw. (The red line is the required setback for the building from the street, which has no impact on the trees, but has a big impact on the placement of the house.) All the trees subject to the bylaw have been numbered by the arborist (T1 – T15). Four of those trees have to be removed (T3 – T6, also marked a A – D). But two of those are too small to count. That leaves us with two 18″ diameter trees for which we need to compensate the town.

The arborist is proposing planting a total of 6 replacement trees, each with a 2″ diameter. That gets us to 12 total inches. Since we do not meet the threshold of 18 total inches (one half of what is being removed), we have to pay into the town tree fund for the rest – $2,250. We can still adjust the ratio of plantings to payment, and we have not figured out where the 6 new trees would go. But it could have been a lot worse.

Also added to the plan by the arborist are yellow boundaries, which will be tree protection fences. This is different from the siltation barrier that we also have to install during construction to protect the wetlands. The siltation barrier is shown on the plot as a thick dashed line.

By the way, the plan is to cut a wide path from the road through the foliage running between the two yellow tree protection fences, and right through tree D. That will be used as the access point for all construction vehicles and heavy equipment. When construction is done, we will replant that area.

The Natural Resources Commission meeting is scheduled for the evening of December 11th. We submitted our packet on November 20th, and now we wait for that meeting. Unfortunately, there seems to be five projects being discussed that evening so I do not know how late the meeting will run.

We are also waiting to hear back from the four builders to whom we submitted the design packet. All four have visited the property (although I was only there to meet with two of them). None have asked for extensions, so we expect to get their proposals on December 9th. Their details and pricing will then be collated by our architect and we will schedule meetings with each of them during the week of December 12th to select whom we will work with.

We also had an arborist visit the property to evaluate the trees that we need to remove and those we want to try to save. One tree we were hoping to save turns out to be too close to the proposed location for the new septic system so it has to come down. Tree removal is a big deal in Concord. Any trees that are not in the purview of the Natural Resources Commission are subject to a tree removal law, which means we have to replace them or pay the town based on the diameter of the tree. We will end up doing a mix of the two but I expect tens of thousand of dollars just to compensate the town for the loss of trees (welcome to the liberal Northeast).

Tomorrow we get the existing house evaluated for hazardous materials. I know that there was or is asbestos flooring, but we need an accurate assessment since it impact the demolition process. The one builder whom I talked to thought that the demolition process would only take a day, but I think that is being optimistic.

The two builders I did meet both estimated around 14 months for the build process (starting in April 2025). I am not holding my breath, but it would be nice not to have to drag out the process for years.

Finally, last weekend, we actually started the build process. Ben and I went to the property and replaced the old mailbox with a brand new one. One with a working door (the old one’s door had long since broken off). Here is a picture of the new mailbox (sorry, I obscured the house number). Fortunately, the post was still in good shape, since replacing the post would probably have been beyond my abilities.

Today, our engineering firm submitted a packet to the Concord Natural Resource Commission describing our project. Now we wait for the first hearing, which is December 11th. There will probably be a second hearing in January (and hopefully that will be it).

You can click on the text image above to read the whole (one page) narrative for the project. I am not posting the entire package (it’s mostly a lot of forms and a few diagrams). But once we get through the approval, I will add a story page about the whole process.

This morning the Concord Water Department came by the house and ripped out the water meter, literally. This is the first step in shutting off water to the property. The next step is to make a hole in our driveway to turn off the valve.

This has to be done before we demolish the house and I felt that I might as well get it done before winter to reduce the possibility of a water problem due to frozen pipes (even though I have the heat on in the house, set at 50F).

As part of the build process, the water department will have to dig up the street in front of the house and put in a new water pipe from the street to the house. But we will deal with that later.

Meanwhile, last minute preparations are being done to submit our plans to the Concord Natural Resources Commission. The submission is due today (Nov 20) for a first hearing on December 11th. As part of the process, we discovered that the initial survey did not include all the trees on the South side of the proposed house location, and when we corrected that we found four more trees that need to be taken down. Sigh.