About Us
|
Our goal is to employ traditional craftsmanship, along with the best tools and technologies from any era, to create beautiful, long-lasting living environments for the benefit of our clients and our community.MICHEAL PARKS CONSTRUCTION, INC.Santa Barbara, CaliforniaCA License # 890408
WA License #
MICHEPC929NK
|
|
|
|
 Welcome to the Micheal Parks Construction e-newsletter! Our communications have been on hiatus for awhile, while we build a house/studio/workshop on 40 acres of land in the Methow Valley of north central Washington. It's a different market here--heavy emphasis on big timbers, energy efficiency, and an elegant rusticity that reminds us of Aspen, Telluride, and other mountainous communities. We're loving the use of wood, stone, and metal, the panoramic views, the concern with building to suit the environment. As in Santa Barbara, houses here are built to withstand wildfires--and also to bear snowloads of more than 100 pounds/square foot. We're fortunate to have found some really exceptional subcontractors to work with here, as we have in Santa Barbara. We share more about our "adventure in building" below, so read on! We're also excited about the new construction projects that are beginning to be permitted in Santa Barbara and Montecito and look forward to building some beautiful homes and remodels this coming year.
As always, we welcome your ideas and suggestions. Please email us at mp@mparksconstruction.com. If at any time you would like to stop receiving these newsletters, please click on the link below to unsubscribe. |
Tips from the Trade
Changes to Santa Barbara County building code add to the safety, efficiency--and cost--of construction
Most readers know that Santa Barbara lost several hundred homes as a result of last year's Tea Fire and this year's Jesusita Fire. But not everyone knows that recent (and older) changes to the building code have made it more costly--but hopefully much safer--to replace homes that were lost. Eric Hagen, plan check engineer for the Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Department, was kind enough to share with us some of the significant changes that have impacted the cost of building even a replacement home in Santa Barbara County:
1. New energy standards have increased the efficiency requirements of windows, doors, insulation, lighting and mechanical systems. While these requirements make new homes less costly to heat and cool, in most cases, they have made them more costly to build.
2. Modern earthquake safety codes now require most wood-framed homes to be designed by registered design professionals.
3. Earthquake safety codes, energy standards, and high fire codes have driven up the cost of window glazing. For example, windows in rural-urban interface areas must have dual panes, with the outside pane heat tempered to withstand fire. Single-pane windows and leaded glass are no longer allowed. At the same time, structural requirements add considerable cost for homeowners interested in having as much glazing as they had in the past.
4. Some wood products, such as siding, shakes and shingles, can no longer be used in hazardous fire areas. Composite roofs and manufactured wood products may be more economical than natural wood shakes or beams, but don't have the same natural appearance. It takes care in detailing and added expense to create the look achieved with wood before the fire.
5. There are new, more costly requirements for the treatment of roofs, eaves, exterior walls, and raised decks and walks--all designed to make new construction better able to withstand fire.
Despite these changes, new plans are being approved and building permits issued. According to William Boyer, communications director for the County, 19 building permits have been issued for the 81 parcels affected by the Tea Fire that fall within the County's jurisdiction. Of these, 11 are for new single-family dwellings, two are for garages, two for workshops, two are for additions to buildings that were damaged, and two are for repairs to damaged buildings. Another eight permits are under review but not yet issued.
|
Project of the Month
Our own multipurpose residence on Upper Beaver Creek Road, Twisp, WA
My wife Leslee and I plan to squeeze a lot of functionality from the 2500-sq. ft. home/workshop/studio we're building on 40 gorgeous acres outside of Twisp, WA. We're also expecting the structure to serve as a calling card for my construction business here in the Methow Valley and to add a big "new home construction" project to my portfolio of Santa Barbara remodels.
Patterned after a traditional "monitor" barn, the building features an expansive workshop (48'x55' enclosed) for various construction projects, a downstairs office for Leslee, a cozy living room, and a generous kitchen/dining room downstairs. We'll head upstairs when we want to retreat to our private bedroom, balcony, bath, and seating area among the treetops.
My future custom cabinet, door, and furniture shop.
Radiantly heated floors, boosted by a woodstove, will keep us warm through snowy winters. The working kitchen--equipped with a farm sink and massive oaken table--will help us convert the bounty of our summer garden into food that can be stored the entire year in our root cellar.
Our foundation has radiantly heated Pex tubing under the floor slab, while our earth-bermed root cellar (below) doubles...as a wine cellar!
An important feature of the house is its "cold roof," which keeps the snowload on the roof for additional insulation. The roof platform consists of a double sheeting of plywood with an air space between the layers. This allows cold air to be drawn through the eave vents and out the ridge vent, keeping the warmth of the building's interior from melting the snow. This also prevents the formation of ice dams, which is a major roofing problem in high snow areas. (In summer, the same ventilation process helps to keep the upstairs cool.) Although we originally planned on a metal roof, metal tends to shed the snow. Instead we'll go with an extra-thick composite roof, A-rated for fire safety and shaped to resemble wood shakes. For siding, we plan to use fiber cement shakes with a corroguated metal wainscot.
The cold roof's double layers allow cold air to circulate, keeping the snow load for extra insulation.
Leslee and I bought this property four years ago and have gradually developed it into what is becoming more than just a home, but a sustainable rural lifestyle. In addition to the root cellar, we've put in a road, two wells, a water-saving pivot irrigation system for our alfalfa field, a solar-powered trough for watering lifestock, along with a fence that keeps them out of the creek. We've restored the native shrub steppe vegetation, planted a 2,000-square-foot vegetable garden and seven fruit trees. We're working to build-up the soil on a three-acre field that used to support oats and plan to grow a variety of crops there in the future. We've installed a raptor pole, bluebird, owl, and bat houses. Next year we'll plant a wind-breaking row of Ponderosa pines and nut trees, watered by drip irrigation. We're investigating both photovoltaic and wind generating possibilities--to supply our own power needs and possibly even sell some back to "the grid."
 Moving handlines on this field, which I planted first in triticale to add organic matter to the soil. I've since replanted it in peas and barley--to add nitrogen and neutralize a chemical imparted to the soil by knapweed, a noxious weed that had taken root.
The experience has given me a skillset I plan to make available to my clients, as well: sustainable lifestyle project management. The idea is to offer them assistance in planning not only a home, but all of the other infrastructure clients might want or need to live a more sustainable lifestyle. In addition to "green" building technologies and "off the grid" energy production, there appears to be a resurgent interest in being able to grow one's own food, brew one's own spirits; make one's own bread and cheese, raise one's own livestock, etc. Fueled perhaps by recent economic uncertainties, the vulnerability of our oil-dependent food system, or simply the pleasure of actually producing one's own means of existence--people are expressing renewed interest in sustainable lifestyles. I would like to be of assistance to these folks. If you, or someone you know, is looking for this type of project management, I hope you will send them my way.
By Labor Day weekend, rough framing was almost complete. Southern view shows our bedroom balcony. Artistisans who worked on this month's project:
Eagle Excavating/Hank Rogers, road, site work, septic systems, root cellar excavation WSA Construction, foundation, rough framing (special thanks to Ken Kinzle, Donnie Wallis, Randy Kelling, Stasys Labanauskas, Tom Hayes, and Yogi Martins)
Richard Edwards Construction, collateral support framing, special projects
Columbia Cascade Plumbing
Cascade Foam and Coatings
Triple T Roofing
A&J Electrical
|
|
Designer of the Month
Micheal Parks
Micheal doesn't usually call himself a designer. He's certainly no Jerry Goodman, the renowned Santa Barbara designer we've been fortunate to work with. But Micheal's vision has been the driving force behind the development of our Methow property, so we're featuring him as our designer of the month.
Wanting our future residence to blend with the Methow landscape and traditional building styles, Micheal asked an architectural firm in Aspen, CO, familiar with cold-roof designs, to draft plans for a building inspired by a traditional monitor barn and including all of the functionality we required. The building also had to be engineered to withstand the temperature extremes--both hot and cold--of the high desert. Micheal ran their initial drawings past Jerry Goodman, who suggested changes to proportions and additional exterior detailing--refinements that take a design from ho-hum to exceptional. It was then Micheal's responsibility to carry the design through to implementation, including many design challenges solved "on the fly." The living room ceiling, for example, turned out to be too high for the dimensions of the room. "You could have sprained your neck looking at the ceiling," Micheal says. So we extended the upstairs floor across the living room, creating a much more cozy, intimate living room space--that still feels spacious with ceilings at 10-feet high. The design change also gave us lots more room upstairs, including an expanded upstairs bathroom and a cozy seating area--and future painting studio--as the room will feature north light streaming in floor-to-ceiling windows.
More than designing the house, however, Micheal's vision has shaped development of the entire site: from the placement of the road to the decision to nestle the house behind a sheltering bench, rather than atop it; from the plans for the root cellar to the restoration of the productive farmland and the native shrub steppe. Which is not to say we've done it all ourselves. We've been assisted by lots of experienced folks along the way, whose expertise we value highly. Still, Micheal has discovered that he enjoys the design function--when it encompasses more than architectural details and includes the aesthetics, functionality and enjoyment of the entire site.
| |
Micheal Parks Construction, Inc.
With a reputation for the highest caliber work, Micheal Parks Construction, Inc. has been building quality homes and remodels since 1980. Our goal is to employ traditional craftsmanship along with the best tools and technologies from any era to create beautiful, long-lasting, living environments for the benefit of our clients and our community.
For more information, visit our website at www.mparksconstruction.com. Or call us at (805) 895-3015, or in WA (509) 997-0588.
|
|
|
