Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show

A: Hourly architectural designers frequently split documentation into a basic permit plan set designed solely to pass municipal zoning and life-safety checks, followed by a separate, fee-based construction set detailing jobsite assemblies. Utilizing two separate plan sets invites costly field errors, whereas drafting a single, unified blueprint set ensures that the exact dimensions, structural hold-downs, and MEP runs approved by the city match what the framing crew builds on-site.

A: Attempting to finalize roof truss profiles, interior wall placements, or mechanical chases while carpenters are actively framing creates structural dead ends that prescriptive residential codes cannot resolve. Improvising field framing forces framers to pause construction, generates expensive lumber waste, and triggers municipal inspection failures when the framed structure deviates from the approved permit set.

A: No, building department plan reviewers exclusively verify that blueprints comply with baseline structural safety, maximum height limits, zoning setbacks, and state energy minimums. Plan examiners do not audit constructability or trade coordination, meaning uncoordinated plans with severe clashes—such as floor joists blocking plumbing stacks or headers conflicting with HVAC ductwork—can easily receive a permit while remaining unbuildable in the field.

A: While residential prescriptive energy codes often dictate baseline wall insulation levels like R-21, high-performance glass walls cannot physically achieve cavity insulation ratings. Comprehensive blueprint engineering resolves this discrepancy up front through whole-building envelope energy modeling, counterbalancing large expanse glazing with increased roof insulation, orientation shading fins, and advanced HVAC equipment efficiencies to pass code.

A: Foundation heights, stepped footing locations, and frost depth embeds must be engineered directly to the natural site topography and point-load distributions of the superstructure. Guessing stem wall heights in the field frequently results in daylight openings that cannot accommodate planned walkout doors or poured concrete walls that fail to reach stable soil bearing, requiring engineered underpin retrofits.

Steve Tuma: I think what customers come to us for is so that we can work with them to say, “Hey, you have these features that you want in a home, but how do we make sure your complete project is smooth?”

Host: Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 104 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today, as he usually is, is the president and founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how’s it going, bud?

Steve Tuma: It’s doing going great. It’s a great day. Got a lot done this week, a lot of interesting projects and working through details, helping people get set up, getting houses delivered, starting to work on some multifamily-type projects, and some cool things are happening.

Host: Well, sounds awesome!

Steve Tuma: It is.

Host: So today we’re going to get into a subject within a subject, and I think it’s most imperative. I’m going to discuss with you, Steve Tuma, again give you the opportunity to answer a few questions that are rarely asked regarding Landmark’s abilities and expertise, yet are of the utmost importance. So if you’re good to go, let’s get into some of the questions. And that first one on the table is: Owner-builders can research online, watch shows, gather information, but what issues have you seen in your what now, 33 years of experience that people don’t understand or overlook in their new home building process? I know that’s a lot to chew on, but I’ll bet you can handle it fine.

Steve Tuma: Well, that’s an interesting situation, or very, very interesting question, because what it’s basically saying is, hey, how do I know what to believe? You know, what’s important? So it’s kind of interesting, you know, people watch these TV shows, which to me are interesting because the TV shows promote whoever advertises with them, so are you getting real information? Or even online situations, or, you know, different books that you may read. Everyone’s got their own angle, and what you find out is customers come with different levels of knowledge, different perspectives on how to proceed, and just different perspectives on how they want to get the house going.

But sometimes it’s interesting, people will say, “Well, my building department says an R-21 is code in the insulation for a house.” It’s like, really? Okay, so then what do you do in a house with a glass wall? There is no such thing as R-21 glass.

So what I found is that people will have this information, parcels of information that’s not complete for the project. And they’ll hear this, someone will tell them this, someone will tell them that, they heard about that, they read about this, so they’ll have these little hot spots that are important. And what’s really missing is the theoretical, you know, are you seeing the tree in the woods, or are you seeing the woods? Well, you really got to see the tree in the woods, you also have to see the complete woods to see how it’s put together.

So I think what customers come to us for is so that we can work with them to say, “Hey, you have these features that you want in a home, but how do we make sure your complete project is smooth?” Look at the plans, make sure they’re right. Make sure the customer’s understanding of the project is right. How do things really apply for what they want to build, and does it make sense for the land they have, or the building department, or any code requirements that are there?

So I think the simple answer to that is: Do they understand the broad scope of the project, but do they also understand the individual details of the project? And that’s what we try to do, is take the knowledge that they have and bridge it to the point of, hey, we need this, we need this, we need this to put it together.

Now, that being said, we’ve had some customers that have never built, maybe never picked a hammer up, and then we’ve had customers that are experienced builders as well. So every customer has their own opinion or their own level of knowledge, but in our case, we’re able to fill in the gaps or add different details where they may need a little help, you know, refining different parts of the home project, the home design.

So that, I think, is what’s there. Is just because a building department says, “Oh, we really check your septic,” that doesn’t mean that that’s all that’s important in your house. You know, we look at the architectural design, the structural design, the energy efficiencies, how it fits on the land, you know, any different options for different foundation features, insulation features, window features, things like that. And we could review them with the customer to make sure that they understand the complete project. So we’re not just supplying them a set of plans for a panelized house, but we’re supplying plans for our panelized home package for the complete building process.

And that, I think, is what’s there, is customers don’t always understand the full range of what’s necessary to do it. And that’s why we’re in business. People need the help, they know we can help them, and we’ve been doing it over three decades, 33 years, we’ve been helping customers be owner-builders successfully.

So that’s what I think, you know, is saying what they don’t understand or overlook. They may not understand the whole scope. What’s interesting is they all know that they need help. They’re like, “Hey, I need help with this, I don’t understand it, how can you help it?” And we’re able to put it together. It’s actually pretty invigorating, actually, to help people with these different projects. Every project is different.

Host: Right. Well, as a kind of a follow-up, are the issues surrounding the new home building permit process the only issues of concern when building a new home? I would think obviously not, but—

Steve Tuma: That’s another very cool question, because a lot of people will tell me, “Well, the building department doesn’t require it.” And to me, it’s kind of interesting. Well, is the idea to satisfy the building department, or is the idea to satisfy the building department and build a good home?

Okay, so if your building department doesn’t ask about your HVAC design, does that mean that you should put in a bad HVAC system? No, you should still do it. So we look at the building department as a guideline for what the building department chooses to review, but we also look at our plan process of the complete home.

So a lot of building departments do not do complete reviews of your actual home design, the electrical layout, the plumbing layout, the architectural features, the structural features. They may ask, but do they actually check? I don’t think there are that many that do very thorough checks. And a lot of building departments have very simple guidelines, or like, “Get me plans.” And I’ll talk to them and say, “Well, do you have a detail of what you want on the plans?” They’ll say, “Well, just plans, you know what I mean.”

So we try to have a, and we do have a very complete set of plans so that people can understand the process. So to answer the question, no, we don’t believe that the building department’s checklist is the only thing that’s important to building your home. We believe understanding the complete building process, and the design details, structural details, mechanical details are important. And generally, what we supply in our ability to help is beyond what the building department requests, which I think is what a qualified, good owner-builder wants. They want to know that the whole project’s being looked at instead of just the checklist of the building department.

So that’s really interesting, and people may not completely understand the point of that question, because a lot of people think that, you know, all you have to do is satisfy the building department. I’m like, yeah, that’s true, but you also want your house built right, and sometimes that goes beyond the building department checklist. Most of the times it does.

Host: You know, as owner-builders, we’re finding a lot of conflicting information out there. I don’t want to say misinformation, but there’s a lot of different information that doesn’t always match up on how to design and build a new home. How can I know that I can trust information that I find, let’s say online or anywhere, that is relevant to my project?

Steve Tuma: Well, what I found in information like that, and I’ve seen it myself, is that there are different forums, or YouTube videos, or books, or whatever, everyone has an angle. Now, some people, it’s extremely self-serving, and other people, they give you an angle for their experience.

And what we say is, you know, you can’t—I don’t want to say you can’t not believe the information, but you have to take it with a grain of salt, because your building project is probably completely different than someone else’s. Okay, we’ve been doing this for 33 years, and yes, there’s a design, you’ve got to do a foundation, you’ve got to do the house, you’ve got to do energy codes, but every house is different because all of our customers want to design their own home. Their lots are different, the configuration of the lot, the terrain, are they on the side of a hill, is it a flat piece of land, is different.

So the idea is with our system, we’re able to talk to you specifically about the house you want, on the land you want, with zoning issues, building department requirements, energy code issues, seismic issues, wind speed issues. So we’re able to help give you the answer and design specifically to your project.

So a lot of people do research on the internet. I do it on certain things that I’m buying, you know, to kind of get a push start to understand, but how does it apply to you? You know, so let’s just take the situation of cars. If someone has three young kids and they go to a forum of race cars, someone’s going to say, “Hey, this speed demon car is the one you got to have.” Well, that might be true for someone that wants a race car, but if someone wants more of a family car, maybe they need a sedan, a station wagon, or a minivan.

So you’ve got to kind of look at what information are you searching out, and how does it apply to your project? And that, I think, is why there’s a lot of misinformation, and then you also have to look at what’s the motivation of the information. A lot of TV shows are there to support advertisers, and it’s great, but it doesn’t mean that what they’re selling you makes sense for your project.

So what we’re able to do is review with our customers their understanding of what they want, and review these different aspects of their project, and then settle down to say, “Hey, here are different options, what makes sense for you?” And then work through those so that our customer understands why it makes sense.

A lot of our customers are doing this because it’s just a life thing, they want to build a house, it’s an experience. So they also want to learn, they want to understand, it’s part of the excitement of this. And that, I think, is the best thing that we can do, is help answer questions, work through situations so that they understand not just how it applies specifically to a specific part of the home, but also the complete home building process.

One of the things people will ask about is, “Hey, when I do a walkout basement, should I have a cement wall on the walkout, or should it be a wood wall on the walkout?” And there’s different reasons for doing it different ways. People might say, “Hey, why do I want a mini-split heating and cooling system compared to a conventional HVAC system?” People might say, “Hey, why do I want a blown-in insulation compared to a batt insulation?” And they all have their benefits.

So we’re able to help someone through the process to understand of how specific details of their home, it makes sense to proceed to make sure that they get the best home possible for what their goals are. So there isn’t a tried-and-true, one-answer-fits-all. It’s kind of like, hey, what are your goals, what does the house look like, what’s the budget, what are the restrictions, what are building department requirements, you know, things like that so we can get it put together.

So it’s the one-on-one conversation, working with customers directly on exact situations for their house, on their land, with their building department and their budget. So that’s actually very interesting, working with each customer individually from beginning to end of their home project to make sure that it’s done right.

We’re not just here supplying individual panels, we’re helping them with the plan set so that they can build, and schedule, and budget, and understand their complete building process. It’s much more in-depth service. I believe we’re the only one in the country that gets this deep. It’s amazing.

Host: Well, it sounds like Landmark has a lot of experience with helping people actually put together a plan of action or a plan of attack to design and build a new home. There are so many details like site planning, foundation design, energy codes, structural design—

Steve Tuma: How does it tie together?

Host: Yeah, and then you get there and you say, “I’m going to build a house,” and then all of a sudden you go, “But where do I start?”

Steve Tuma: Well, yeah, this is much like watching a chef put something together. You know, I’m not that much of a cook, so if someone gave me 10 ingredients, I’d probably come up with something, but if you give it to a chef, they’d probably come up with an extravagant meal that’s just amazing. Same ingredients, it’s the knowledge of how to put it together, what are you trying to do, and making it happen. So that’s kind of what we do, we’re kind of like the chef in the process of designing the home and supplying the panelized home package.

Host: A home building chef, but, you know, making a cake is not quite the same as building a house! So I can see where people can actually freeze when you make a decision you’re going to do something as big as build a house, and then you just kind of get cold feet, and I’m sure you guys at Landmark have to talk people through a lot of issues.

Steve Tuma: Well, we’re here, we’re always available to help. People call me nights, weekends, and I take the time to say, “Hey, what are we trying to do here, this is how we proceed.” And it’s the customer support, the working with our customers that I think is the most important part of what we supply.

Many people come to Landmark Home and Land Company thinking they’re buying panelized homes, but the reason they stay, and enjoy, and maybe come back and build a second or third home with us is because of the support and helping through the complete project. It’s much more than just panelized homes.

Host: Have you ever gotten a phone call where people are just so up front and honest and say, “Steve, I’m a deer in the headlights here“?

Steve Tuma: Oh, yeah! Yeah.

Host: And the fact that you’re able to kind of pull them in off the shelf, or off of the ledge, is probably a pretty valuable thing to have when you go into something like that.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s interesting, because you say that and you’re kind of implying that, hey, someone’s like, “I never lifted a hammer before, I never built.” We’ve had the same thing with professional builders. People that work in big industrial, huge projects, but then it’s like residential, it’s a whole different thing.

Or sometimes there’s a professional builder that’s doing his own home, because the efficiencies of our planning and panelization process where suddenly it’s their home, it’s a lot different microscope that you’re under compared to when it’s someone else’s home. So, yeah, we’re able to help people through, but the customers are very energized to do it, so it’s, you know, it’s kind of just getting a partnership, kind of a marriage as such, to move it along. It’s pretty cool.

Host: There’s a big collaboration, too, that people don’t realize. It takes a lot of people to build a house.

Steve Tuma: Huge, yeah, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s a challenge, but it’s a life experience. And I think as I talk to more and more of our customers about it, they’re all like, “I’ve always wanted to do it. When I was eight, I told myself I’m going to build a home.” Or, “Hey, I’m doing it for the grandkids, I want them to see what grandma did.” We have a couple of people like that now, and it’s amazing to see the motivation of why people build the home, and it’s actually beyond what I thought, you know, the reasons people were.

Host: Do you ever have contractors call you, you know, not just the client or the home builder themselves, but contractors call you directly and just say, “You know what, this is something I’ve never really run into before“? How does that work?

Steve Tuma: Oh, yeah! Well, it’s really interesting, because the home building business is kind of an old business. If you and I rewound to the 1700s, go to the East Coast to some of the old, old homes in America, the building processes are very similar to what we’re doing now. I mean, they didn’t have engineered woods 100 and 200 years ago, but the actual process of putting a 2×4, using a header, having a top plate, having a two-by material or beams or whatever, it’s very, very similar.

So the change isn’t that big, so sometimes you just have different builders that build different ways. It’s kind of interesting, sometimes when they retire, they call us up and say, “Hey, your system’s efficient, I want to do it.” And we’re working with a lot of builders, we’re actually doing homes for people that are architects and structural engineers, they hire us to do the work. It’s kind of interesting. So someone’s a designer, and they hire us to do their house. So it’s pretty cool, actually. And the reason why is they can go out and charge more for the work they do, where we have a very efficient, cost-effective, value-added process because of the way we’re set up.

Host: You know, I’ve been curious, there’s a question people keep coming back to, and that’s where some of what we were talking about getting the wrong information or getting differently placed information out there about home building. But plans and permits, are the plans for permits and building plans, is there a big difference, or is there any difference at all, or how does that work?

Steve Tuma: What I find is that people that get paid by the hour to do plans do a permit plan set, and then they later charge to do a building plan set. Now, to me, I don’t know what the benefit of that is, other than you get to do it twice and probably get charged for it twice.

But in our process, we do a set of plans that is intended for the building permits and also used for the actual building phases. The reason why is more fluid: We want to know that our plans are done right, it keeps the continuity of the paperwork straight, you’ve got less sets of plans around to confuse people. But it’s also, why would you want to turn a set of plans in for permits and then a different one to build from? It just creates problems with the building departments, installation, and inspection processes.

So we have one set of plans that’s meant for the permitting and the building phases. It’s very important, because then once the building department approves it, you have that, you build exactly what’s approved, and you’re ready to go.

Now, someone’s going to be like, “Well, why are there changes?” I just had this conversation with a couple stick builders this week, “Well, what if something has to be done on-site?” I’m like, well, you should figure it out before in the planning stages. If you’re getting permits and then doing real-time design while you’re out there framing a house or installing a foundation, you’re just opening the door to budget overruns and scheduling delays. It gets expensive and very annoying and stressful.

So what we do is we look at the process of saying, hey, let’s get the information up front so we can properly design your foundation, we can properly design the energy efficiency, the architectural features of your home using the right materials that are available at the right price, so that while you’re building, you don’t have to make changes.

So what I found is people that do that, there’s an inherent process in there where their work continues where they can bill for it. Makes no sense for me in properly taking care of a customer. And why have all these things open, because what people don’t realize, if they want to do quote “real-time design” while the house is being framed, figure out what the roof’s like, you’re going to end up in a corner. You’re going to make a decision that later is going to kind of kick you in the butt.

So with our process, we work to work all those design details up front, because our customers are a little more picky on it, they want to know their budget, they want to know what they’re buying, they want to know what’s being built instead of, “Oh, we’ll figure it out later.”

So that’s why, in our case, the permitting plans are the building plans. It just leads to less communication issues, it makes it more fluid for the inspectors and the builders to know what’s being done, and it’s easier for the customer to understand what’s going on, and it’s also easier if people have financing involved for everyone to agree on what’s being built. You minimize risk, and change, and headaches, and stress.

So our process is meant to, I say, do your homework up front, let’s detail it out, let’s get you one clear and accurate set of plans instead of having confusion. And the reality is, if people aren’t making decisions now, they’re not going to make them later, it just creates bigger problems. When people don’t want to make a decision, “Oh, what toilet do I want to put in? Well, do I want this?” They’re just kicking the can down the road. At some point, you’ve got to make decisions, get the plans put together, and then execute the building process. People will have better control of their budget, their schedule, and the headaches.

Host: Well, that sounded—this episode sounded like there was a lot of information that we can actually hold onto! The way you explain things is always just so up front and without all the wish-wash and everything, so—

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s direct and accurate information. If people are giving you smoke and mirrors, probably because they don’t have the answer or there’s a surprise around the corner.

And this is particularly interesting, because this, these topics we went over today, can get pretty deep. So I would encourage people, if they’re interested to know about their specific project and how we can set a timeline and processes for it, is to contact us. In fact, I’ll give them my number right now. If someone’s got an idea, or, “Hey, how do I do this with my house?” It’s there, because there are a lot of details to look at, but we’re completely set up and ready to work.

So people can call me direct. I’m Steve Tuma, my cell phone is 708-205-2043, and give me a call and we’ll talk about it. Have some fun doing it.

Host: Can you go ahead and give us some more information, too, about Landmark? What’s the website, what can we find on that website, all that good stuff?

Steve Tuma: Well, our website, the Landmark Home and Land Company website is at LHLC.com. And on our website, you can see thousands of plans, discussions on what we supply, these podcasts are on there, videos, just a whole bunch of details, and someone could send us an email through the website. They can also find a plan and send an inquiry in, or they can give a call to 800-830-9788, and Mike will answer the phone and have a discussion on the project.

And we are very proactive, we answer the phone, and we do like to talk to our customers to find out exactly what it is we can do to help them, help them through the process of understanding the house, the building process, and permitting process, and delivery of our panelized home packages. We’re proud of it, it’s a very cool process.

And 33 years of it’s pretty exceptional, too, so probably be around another 33 years if people want to build a house now, then their vacation home, then their retirement home, we’ll be here to help them.

Host: Nothing wrong with that!

Steve Tuma: That’s right.

Host: And there it is, episode 104 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. And we want to thank all of you for listening in and for all your inquiries into panelized home building. So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma and myself, have a great week, and we will see you next time. Thank you, Steve.

Steve Tuma: Thanks. This was really interesting one, it could get deep. People should contact us, we’ll give them details.

A: While major national banks often restrict lending to licensed general contractors, California owner-builders frequently secure financing through regional credit unions, local commercial banks, bridge loans, and portfolio lenders. These underwriters evaluate the owner-builder’s comprehensive plan set, budget breakdown, and technical partner support to ensure the project has verifiable cost controls before approving construction draw schedules.

A: Acting as your own general contractor typically saves 20% to 30% of total construction costs by eliminating commercial builder markups and management fees. On a custom home build, these savings keep project budgets aligned and often translate directly into hundreds of thousands of dollars in immediate sweat equity upon final appraisal.

A: Yes, under California owner-builder laws, property owners are legally permitted to perform their own electrical, plumbing, framing, and roofing work on their primary residence. However, all self-performed installations must strictly comply with local building codes and pass standard municipal trade inspections prior to concealment and final sign-off.

A: When trade subcontractors receive incomplete or vague stock plans, they add substantial contingency cushions to their quotes to absorb unforeseen framing, mechanical, or structural clashes. Providing fully detailed blueprints with explicit window schedules, structural hold-downs, and engineered load paths allows trades to quote exact labor and materials without adding speculative markups.

A: While the primary structural shell and foundation fall under the master building permit pulled by the owner-builder, certain jurisdictions require licensed trade contractors to pull separate mechanical, electrical, or plumbing permits. In these jurisdictions, the licensed subcontractor’s company insurance and credential file with the city cover their specific scope of work and inspection calls.

Steve Tuma: So if you’re organized, know what you’re doing, follow through on your side, good contractors will want to work with you.

Host: Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 103 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today, as he usually is, is the president and founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how’s it going, pal?

Steve Tuma: Like I always say, it’s a great day! There’s a lot of cool things happening with projects, you know, getting through all the hurdles the building departments try to throw at us, but we get through all of them. We make it happen. We’ve got the experience, and knowledge, and fun attitude to just do it.

Host: Right. So we had originally planned on doing two episodes of the podcast on building in California as part of our state-by-state talk on what one can expect when building a panelized home in all 50 states. But California is somewhat unique as a place to build a home. It’s so unique that we’ve decided to dedicate yet a third podcast revolving around the ins and outs of a California home build. So let’s get right into it with a question about finance, if you’re good to go, let’s do it.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, let’s do it!

Host: So the first question here is about lenders: Will a lender finance an owner-builder project in California?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, a lot of our customers have loans from banks in California, national banks that happen to lend in California, or regional banks. So what we’ve found is they seem to work with credit unions or smaller local regional banks. There are some big banks that also finance, and customers have used them as well. Sometimes there’s also some private money lending, sometimes people use bridge loans off their existing home, or they take loans against any savings accounts that they may have.

So there are a variety of lending choices available for owner-builders in California. And the banks that do that understand what it is, so they want customers to be sure that they understand the building process and understand what they’re going to do. And what they’ve found that working with a company like us, where we have the set of plans, we have the details, we have the support, we have over three decades’ experience, it just really helps them with financing because they understand that they’re in a good process, because we want to work with good customers as well, so the bank likes that.

So we’re able to—I think the way we support our customers, and the product we supply, and the plans we supply—the banks understand that it’s a positive situation to make the project more successful.

Host: We talk about savings a lot, and being an owner-builder, can you actually save by being an owner-builder? Right off the bat it seems, well, if I do it myself, I’m probably going to end up spending more money than if I just outsourced everything, but how much can you actually save by being an owner-builder?

Steve Tuma: Yes, owner-builders do save money, and the main reason is that there aren’t general contractor fees. So from what I understand, the industry will have 20, 30% margins, possibly more depending on if there’s different invoicing done for actual materials that are purchased. But that’s the key thing.

Now, someone will say, “Hey, what if the owner-builder can’t get as good of a deal as the contractor?” Well, what we have found is if you have a good set of plans, you know what you’re doing, you’re methodical in your process, you have a schedule, you work with the contractors right, they’re in a competitive situation as well, so they want to work with good customers.

So if you’re organized, know what you’re doing, follow through on your side, good contractors will want to work with you, and they’ll provide a good price. And that’s one of the advantages of what we do, is we supply a very clear and accurate set of plans that building departments like and the contractors like, because everything’s there. They can look at it, get a good solid quote.

Because what a lot of people do is they’ll go out, they’ll just be like, “Oh, I had someone draw plans up,” and then they give it to a contractor and the details aren’t there, so it’s kind of garbage in, garbage out on the quote. But with Landmark’s plans, we have a clear and accurate set of plans, so the contractor knows exactly what needs to be quoted.

Then they’re able to provide the best quote possible, and that’s where the savings come in, is by us helping the customer be organized, methodical, and understand the project. They’re able to come across better to the subcontractors to get the best price to coordinate the project.

And a lot of times in the appraisals of what customers have told me, the equity that people build is huge, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars many, many times, sometimes even higher than that. So it’s there and it makes sense.

But there’s also something else: It’s not just the financial side, it’s what are you getting? You can design the house you want, you don’t have to stay within the restrictions of what a builder wants. You can put the materials in that you want. So if a certain flooring is very important to you, you could put it in there. If a certain kitchen is very important, you could put it in there. And that’s one of the key elements of the complete process, it’s not just the money you’re spending, it’s what you’re getting for it.

And that’s an element which is very, very important that owner-builders understand. So it’s not always just the money savings, it’s the schedule, the pride of building their own home, the great experience, but also knowing that the home is built the way they want it. That’s the key element.

Host: We talk about working with building departments and pulling permits, will I need to pull all the permits myself, or let’s say I’ve got a subcontractor, will that guy be able to pull permits for me, or what’s the best way to go about that?

Steve Tuma: Generally, the owner-builder will pull permits, but here’s a nice thing: We’re able to help you by getting a clear and accurate and precise set of plans, so we’ll work to find out what the building department needs. Develop the architectural design to the specifications the customer wants, the structural design, energy calculations, green codes, site plans, plumbing, electric, heat, and whatever other details are necessary for their specific building department.

So we’ll work with the customer to make sure that they understand the process, and then we’ll send them the files, PDF files, paper files, whatever they need for the permit application, and then they can just submit to the building department and go from there.

Now, in some cases, like we discussed in prior podcasts, there might be situations where the heat person has to pull their own permit, or the plumbing or electric person has to pull their own permit, but that’s just typical. So the nice thing is we will get the customer the plan details so that they can apply for the building permit and go through the process.

Sometimes it seems a little daunting because people hear about the building department. Well, that’s if you don’t have the right information it is harder, but we’re able to help people get the right set of plans and with the details they need. And I personally look at every single project and what the building department needs, and then make sure that our plans match to them so that they get a successful permit application and a quicker plan review and quicker permitting. That’s the cool thing about it. We work together to support our customers to make sure they have the information for the right permit application.

Host: You were mentioning that certain departments there will be permits they’ll have to pull, but what if you’ve got some skills? Let’s say you’re a roofer, or an electrician, or a plumber, anything like that by trade and you’re building your own house. Can you do all that yourself, can you do electrical and plumbing on your own?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, you can. Now, I only suggest you do it if you know what you’re doing, and as an owner-builder, you can work on your own home.

Host: It’s not like a lawyer hiring himself as his own lawyer, right?

Steve Tuma: Well, in this case, if you know how to do electric, go do it. But you still have to make sure it’s done right per code. They don’t give you a pass because you’re an owner-builder, they still want to make sure it’s safe and works properly. So that’s a key element of the whole thing.

We’ve actually had customers that they and their family literally do the whole house. They excavate, they install the foundation, they frame the panel package, they put the roof on. So it’s a very flexible process, and it gives people big advantages in the savings, and then knowing how their house is built and that it’s built right.

So that’s a very important thing, because there’s a lot of little decisions here and there, and we can help a customer through it to make sure that they get the support that they need to reach their goals of getting a quality home at the best price possible with the features that they want on the land that they choose to build on.

Host: Well, that’s good to know. If you’ve got some skills, you don’t have to watch some other guy doing the work that you can do. What’s the average building department in California, or anywhere for that matter, what do they expect from an owner-builder? How flexible are they?

Steve Tuma: You know, we’ve never really had a problem or what I’ll call kickback from a building department saying, “Hey, there’s an issue with it.” Our customer base are made of people that understand what they want to do. They have a plan, they’ve thought about it, they’ve talked to us about it, they understand the challenges of building and they understand the processes.

So the building departments, they just want to do their job. They just want to get plans in, do the permits, review the plans, issue the permits, and then do inspections as they go along. So they just expect people to do a good job.

Customers also have to realize that they’re also there checking on professional contractors, too, and there’s a reason that the building department is there, just to double-check and make sure things are done right. So I don’t think that they should necessarily expect that because they’re an owner-builder that they’re under additional scrutiny. The building department just wants it, and in a lot of places encourage owner-builders, and they have processes and different ways of helping owner-builders because they understand it’s an important part of the market, and it’s also a way of people affording homes.

And it’s true whether you’re doing a few-hundred-thousand-dollar home or a few-million-dollar home. There’s owner-builders doing homes in a whole different array of price ranges and locations in California and around the country.

Host: Well, since we’re speaking of California, let’s get down to brass tacks here: Does a panelized home or a kit home make sense for any owner-builder in California?

Steve Tuma: Yes, it does, and it’s not just the panelized home package, it’s the permitting. And it’s the understanding of the processes and the details that are required to accurately develop a set of plans.

And this is one thing where we help owner-builders: We’ll get calls from people saying, “Hey, my guy down the road, he drew a set of plans,” or “I found some plans online, and they told me I could just turn them into the building department.” I’m like, well, okay, they might have told you that, I don’t know how it actually happens, because usually those plans have so many disclaimers on them that it says in different words, it says get someone that knows what they’re doing to make sure they apply to your building permit.

So sometimes owner-builders have to understand that the theory of what they might see on a TV show or some YouTube channel is kind of good for those people promoting themselves, but the reality is you need a good set of plans. And that’s where we’re able to help.

So you ask, does a panelized home package work? Yes, the advantage of Landmark Home and Land Company is the planning, the green codes, the energy codes, the structural engineering, where we have a unified set of plans to make sure everything matches. All the details the building department requests for your exact building site, your exact design, are put into the plan set so that you can go through and make the permitting attainment process much easier for you.

So that’s the element that customers don’t always understand. They think, “Oh, let me buy a panelized home.” It’s like, no, with Landmark Home and Land Company, we have the added benefit of all the plans, customer support, and details to help you through the process, to make the panelized home package assembly process much smoother and better for the owner-builder.

It’s the plans that Landmark Home and Land Company supplies that really make it easier for people to build, especially in California or other states or municipalities that are very stringent.

And we supply the same type of support and customer service if someone’s working in a different state that’s also challenging, or if they’re working in a state where there isn’t a building department. We still want to do it right so that the customer can build their home right, keep to schedule, and keep to the budget. It’s the support we supply that I think people find to be very, very valuable.

Host: Well, I would think so! I mean, just to have somebody that you can call and say, “Even I’m just confused right now.” Man, that’s so nice to have that personal touch when dealing with a company.

Steve Tuma: That’s what you just brought up there is the most important thing that customers never think of when they’re initially calling. It’s as they’re in the project, and we bring things up to them saying, “Hey, what about this? What about this? What about that?” They’re like, “I never thought of it.”

And then we’re able to help guide them through the process and understanding to a successful decision, instead of someone just guessing and going out there.

What’s interesting is you could look at a lot of these forums online, and rarely, but occasionally do I look at them, and the amount of misinformation that’s out there is huge. Which is why we say we are going to talk to the customer about their project on their land for their design with their building department, to give an exact answer instead of going to some forum and some Yahoo just giving some answer because he feels he needs to give an answer. We need to get people an answer for their specific project.

And that’s what we’re able to do, and we’re also able to justify and discuss it with the customer so that the customer understands why you’re doing something. You don’t want to hear an answer, “Well, that’s just the way it’s done.” That’s not an answer. You want to know, hey, this is why we suggest doing this for your project and the site conditions that you have. It’s that knowledge that people find invaluable as they work with us.

Host: Yeah, and that’s basically one of the things that I think Landmark does: You guys add value just in your experience and you’ve been around a long time, there’s not much you haven’t seen.

Steve Tuma: Right, and I’ve worked with every single customer in over three decades, 33 years, and we enjoy it. It’s part of the process, it’s part of working with us, it’s not an additional fee to get support, or get help when you need it to understand your project, plan it right, and then build it right.

Host: All right, well, that’s going to wrap things up for this edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. But before we let you go, Steve, as we always do here on the podcast, please let the listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company and everything you guys do over there.

Steve Tuma: Best thing to do is check out our website. You can search us, Landmark Home and Land Company, but our direct website is LHLC.com, again that’s LHLC.com, kind of the initials Landmark Home Land Company, LHLC.com.

And on our website, there’s these podcasts, there’s videos, there’s thousands of plans, there’s discussions on what we supply, some details on individual states. And from there, you can email us, you can find a specific floor plan and send an inquiry, or you can give us a direct call at 800-830-9788, again that’s 800-830-9788, and Mike will answer the phone. Rarely, but you might occasionally get his voicemail and he’ll give a call back, but we are here to help you through the process.

And if someone would like, they can give me a direct call on my direct cell phone at 708-205-2043, and I’ll talk to people and let them know, you know, let’s throw some ideas around on your project.

And then we’re also on the major social medias: Instagram, Facebook, and other places. So we’re out there trying to tell people how we can help them. It’s pretty cool.

Host: Do you sometimes get so involved that it seems almost personal for you when you’re working with a customer?

Steve Tuma: Oh, it is, it is! People call me nights, weekends, days, and it’s like, “Hey, Dave, what’s going on?” You talk about stuff, and I get invited to so many housewarming parties, open houses, and things, I wish I could get to them all. But I have customers call me years later saying, “Steve, I was just thinking about you, I was thinking about building the home.” It was just really cool.

And it’s just an amazing feeling to see that you truly helped a family get a new home and start a new chapter in their life in an extremely positive way. It is absolutely amazing, and we love doing that. We’re very lucky, we have great customers.

Host: That’s great. Well, there it is, episode 103 of the podcast, and we want to thank you all for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show and for all your inquiries and questions sent in by you, which helps us put together the content and put together the questions for Steve to actually have to answer rather than wasting his time and just me coming up with questions.

So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma and myself, have a great week, and we will see you next time. And thank you, Steve, Landmark Home and Land Company president, for being so informative as you always are in every episode. Thanks a lot.

Steve Tuma: Well, we want to help people. We want people to understand the process and what the owner-builder experience is about. It’s a great life experience, but we’ve got to make sure that everyone’s aligned and understanding of what it takes. It just makes for a better process and a cooler home. That’s what it’s about, helping nice people get a cool home. So thank you.

Host: There you go. Thanks again, Steve, and thank you all, and we will see you next time.

Steve Tuma: Have a great day. Thank you.

A: Under California state regulations and general municipal guidelines across the United States, homeowners are typically permitted to build or remodel one personal residential property every two years under an owner-builder permit exemption. Attempting to construct multiple homes annually without a commercial general contractor’s license violates state licensing laws, as regulatory agencies classify frequent builds as commercial development rather than personal residential owner-builders.

A: No, building departments issue identical residential building permits and conduct the exact same code inspections regardless of whether a licensed general contractor or the property owner pulls the permit. Owner-builders must submit permit-ready architectural blueprints, stamped structural engineering calculations, and Title 24 energy compliance packets that meet all local building codes prior to permit issuance.

A: While property owners are legally permitted to perform their own electrical, plumbing, or framing work without a license on their personal home, any third-party trade contractor hired to perform specialty work should be licensed and carry general liability and workers’ compensation coverage. When hiring an established trade company, that contractor’s business license and insurance policy cover the installation and any employees they bring onto the jobsite.

A: While mortgage lenders universally require builder’s risk insurance as a condition of a construction loan, cash-funded owner-builders need this coverage to protect raw framing materials, mechanical equipment, and standing structures from on-site theft, vandalism, weather collapse, and third-party injury liabilities. Standard residential homeowners insurance policies do not cover active construction sites, leaving self-funded builders exposed to total financial loss before a certificate of occupancy is granted.

A: On sites with natural elevation changes, attempting to determine foundation heights in the field often reveals that a standard 8-foot basement or stem wall cannot clear the downhill slope or reach required frost line depth. Drafting an engineered grading plan before ordering concrete or framing panels ensures foundation walls, stepped footings, and structural hold-downs are pre-engineered to exact finished grade lines, avoiding mid-construction change orders and stop-work inspections.

Steve Tuma: A lot of people will come to us, or find us online, or through referrals, saying “panelized homes.” But we actually help the owner-builder understand and help them through the project.

Host: Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 102 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today, as he never fails to be, is the president and founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, and that would be Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how you doing, buddy?

Steve Tuma: It’s another great day. It’s always a great day in Landmark land, helping people build homes. There’s always fun challenges to get over, unique projects, interesting customers that, you know, just want to build cool homes. So we’re always ready.

Host: Yeah, well, today we’re going to pay off a debt to our listeners and fulfill our promise to do a part two episode of our building in California portion of our ongoing building in 50 states series. As much as I wanted to try to get the whole story in on this second part, I think we’re going to have to do a part three. But that’s okay, because all these questions are important, and I want to give you a chance to be able to tell the listeners exactly the ins and outs of building in California. So why don’t we dive into part two right now, if you’re ready?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, let’s do it!

Host: Okay. This follow-up begins with this question: Can I legally be my own general contractor in California?

Steve Tuma: Yes, you can be an owner-builder and your own general contractor in California, as well as every other state. The state may restrict you to not being able to do 20 homes a year or something, so if you’re doing it literally for your own family and you’re going to live in it a certain amount of time, they allow you to do it.

Which is really nice, because it allows you to save the money. Being an owner-builder allows you to save the money, it allows you to control the budget, it allows you to build the house you want, and it allows you to know what is being built.

And that’s the great thing, because it’s an affordability issue as well, because some areas, actually most of California, is getting very expensive to build. And being the owner-builder, our customers can save significant money on just the general contracting fees, coordinating fees, and then also making sure that they get the materials in the house that they want.

So it’s luckily, and it’s legal everywhere in the United States to build your own home, including California, which is really cool.

Host: Yeah, well, that’s not a loophole, that’s what I was saying, it’s actually legal in every state.

Steve Tuma: Right, and California allows it. And we’ve done some simpler ADUs, and we’ve also done some very, very complex big homes with owner-builders in areas where they have very stringent building departments. And I think that’s why customers really like working with us in California and other states that have tighter regulations, because we do have the process, and the service, and the product of developing the plans to help them understand what the building department needs so that they can go through and properly apply for permits, and get the permits, and then build a quality home.

Host: Makes sense. Hey, you know there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, I’m going to throw this in here, but I’ve heard you talk about owner-builder permits. What exactly is that? You’ve mentioned it a couple times in past episodes, but what is an owner-builder permit, and how does that differ from any other building permit?

Steve Tuma: Well, in a sense, I might have said an owner-builder, people can apply for the permit as an owner-builder, the actual building permit is the same. The application process is the same, the plan review process is the same, the permit issuance is the same, the actual inspection processes are there.

Some areas may just have you sign an owner-builder affidavit so that you understand that you’re the general contractor, you’re responsible to get it done, you’re responsible to do it. So it’s more something to just clear the communication so that the owner-builder understands the requirements.

Now, we have a very thorough process working with customers on the plans, so our customer base knows what they’re doing. They’re not just watching a YouTube video on how to build a home in 20 minutes and thinking it’s actually going to happen. Our customers research it, we spend time with them, we go through the process with them so that they understand the process.

So that paperwork is usually not an issue, in fact, no customer has ever brought it up to me as an issue. And that’s only if the building department requests it, many of them don’t.

So the permitting process is the same, and we’re very strong in that. We understand what’s required for building permits to be issued in California, any municipality in California, or any in the 50 states as well.

That’s why people work with us. The permitting is a big, big component of the help that Landmark Home and Land Company supplies that isn’t available in other places.

Host: Right. You know, I hate to keep going backwards, but I don’t want to let some of this stuff just go by without a follow-up, and you had mentioned in the question about legally being your own contractor in California, you said as long as you’re not building a ton of houses. But how many houses can I build as an owner-builder?

Steve Tuma: In general, what I’ve seen nationwide as well in California is you could build one every two years. Some places allow you to do more, there’s other ways to dance around it. But generally, I think after that they might say, “Hey, if you’re doing a house or two a year, or three, or four, or five a year, you’re likely to be doing more than just a home for yourself.”

So this literally has to be for yourself. So I think they look at it as two years, and then some people talk to their tax people and I guess there’s some advantages to doing it every two years as well, which is why we have a lot of customers that do that.

But, like I say, that’s one of those things to check with the building department, but a general rule of thumb is they’ll allow you to build one house every two years as an owner-builder without needing a general contractor.

Host: So they’re just making sure that you’re not actually putting together whole housing projects.

Steve Tuma: Exactly. They want to help your family as your family for a home for themselves to live in.

Host: Yeah. Also, in the past you’ve mentioned owner-builder exemptions and explained what that was all about. But how hard is it to sell the house afterwards if I used that owner-builder exemption?

Steve Tuma: Generally, it’s fine. I’ve never heard of anyone having an issue if they said, “Oh, is this owner-builder?” The permitting is not any different. The permitting process, the materials, the inspection process, the building processes are just as if a general contractor were to do it.

So the quality of the home’s right up there, so you can’t build a home in California and it be substandard. The planning process, the plan review process, the permit issuing process, and the actual inspection process doesn’t allow for people to really build bad homes. So they want to make sure it’s all taken care of.

And we’ve had customers build multiple homes, you know, they live in one for a couple years, sell it, and do another one. And I know that some of our customers have sold them, and then they’re happy and they do another one, maybe a retirement home, or a lake house, or something like that, mountain house, something like that.

So it’s really not an issue, but it is something to understand. Just like anything else, there’s kind of little rules to the game, but I don’t think that they’re very restrictive. Most people that are building a home for themselves, even if they want to build it and sell it, they generally just naturally it’s a two-year process anyway.

Host: Sure, yeah. Let’s bounce back a little bit and talk about insurance. Do I have to have builder’s risk insurance? We hear about that a lot, and what are your thoughts on that?

Steve Tuma: Yes, you should have builder’s risk insurance. If you’re working with a financing source, they may require it. If you’re paying cash or money that you have from other places, it is something you should get. Because it’s a construction site. Someone could step on a nail, someone could fall over something like that, and you want to make sure you’re insured just as you would have on your conventional home.

Now, builder’s risk covers a different situation that your home is in, but your typical insurance agent should be able to help you out, and it’s not that expensive, but it is very valuable to have. You just never know. You could have an accident in your own home, someone slips on water in the bathroom or something like that, and something like that can happen on the construction site. You just want to be protected. It’s a smart thing to do.

Host: And you’re talking about people working on your site, let’s talk about unlicensed workers. Can I hire unlicensed workers when I’m an owner-builder, even just to save money?

Steve Tuma: Well, that’s an interesting situation, because if you’re going to work on your own home, you yourself don’t need to be licensed. So let’s just say you knew how to do electric on your own home, you could do it, you don’t have to be a licensed contractor. But of course, you will still have to do it up to code and make sure it’s done right.

So there’s a difference of unlicensed and unknowledgeable. You always want knowledgeable people that know what they’re doing building your home. And then there are some items, some processes that don’t need to be licensed.

This can go city by city, county by county on who needs to be licensed and who doesn’t need to be licensed. But generally, my understanding is that if you’re working on your own home, you don’t need to be licensed to do that work. But I always suggest only do work that you know how to do, if that’s the case, and then hire people that are licensed or the proper people to do the work for work that you’re not wanting to do yourself.

It’s one of these things, sometimes with license also comes insurance. Unfortunately, not a lot of things happen, but if you hired a plumber and his work created a problem, you want his insurance to cover it.

So with the licensing, there are benefits that those people should be insured, and if there was a problem, there should be a way to work through the processes with them.

Now, a lot of people say, “Well, sometimes that gets expensive.” And it’s like, well, you’ll have to work with your building department on exactly who they need to have licensed and who doesn’t need to be licensed. But there are certain processes that just don’t need to be licensed in general.

Host: When you outsource and you hire, say you hire an electrician, you don’t know how to do the electrical in your house so you bring somebody on. Is it normal that you just allow them to bring in their workers, and you don’t worry about hiring individuals for each department?

Steve Tuma: Well, our customer would hire someone, they’d go to a local electrical contractor, and that person, let’s just say it’s an electrician, it might be one person, it might be a team of one, two, or three people that go through and do it. So you would hire that contracting company or person, and then they would work to make sure that the work is done right. They would pull the electrical permit, and then they would also get the green tag showing that it was done right so you can move to the next phases.

Host: And is that electrical contractor responsible for the people he brings on?

Steve Tuma: Oh, yes, under his license and his insurance. So if he brings two helpers on there, he would be responsible for their work.

Host: So as an owner-builder, I wouldn’t have to be looking at each individual worker on my project and worrying about what they’re doing.

Steve Tuma: Right. If you go and hire ABC Electrical Company and they bring two or three employees to do your project, that’s under their license, that’s under their insurance.

Host: Sure, got it. Okay. These seem like trivial questions, but I think it’s kind of important.

Steve Tuma: It’s actually really important stuff. These are details that people don’t think about. We bring them up and review it with people, because some people don’t understand, they don’t think about it, or sometimes people want to bend rules a little. We don’t suggest doing that, because there are reasons that insurance are in place. It’s protection to make sure that if there’s a problem, you’re covered.

Host: You guys at Landmark give a lot of consultation, you spend a lot of time helping the potential owner-builder figure out their project. How much of that kind of thing do you do, little stuff like that?

Steve Tuma: It’s a big part of it, is helping customers understand it. A lot of people will come to us, or find us online, or through referrals, saying “panelized homes.” But we actually help the owner-builder understand and help them through the project, which is very important.

Because a lot of people don’t realize that they think, “Oh, all panelized homes are the same.” They’re not.

The design process is us doing the plans exactly for your lot, for the exact house you want, getting you a set of plans where the plans we supply are for permitting and building, and then our panelized package matches the approved plans.

There’s a lot of detail work in there to make sure it’s put together, even with a simple home, but many more details. So sometimes people just think, “Oh, a panelized home is like a gallon of milk, it’s just a generic item.” It isn’t.

And that, I believe, is why we get a lot of, well, we have all five-star ratings, we get referrals, customers work with us again, because as they go through the process, they start realizing the help that we’re able to supply.

For example, today I’m working with a family more on the East Coast, and they didn’t think that they needed a grading plan. I was explaining to them the slope of the land and all these details of how you want to know the grades so that we can make sure your footers are on land, to make sure that the foundation wall is right. And they said, “Well, my person told me we could just figure it out on-site.”

I’m like, well, if you want to stay on budget and schedule, that may be a harder way to do it. We think it’s best to plan it out so that a properly planned building project, it’s easier to execute. You can control the budget and the schedule a lot better than just going out there and you’re thinking you’re going to put an 8-foot basement wall in and the slope of the land requires a 10-foot wall, plus a frost footer, suddenly there you are in the middle of building and you’re doing a big change. There goes your schedule, there goes your budget, and it’s just uncomfortable.

So through our relationship, we enjoy working with our customers, we help customers understand what they’re getting into. Because even professional general contractors, it’s amazing, they don’t always want to plan it out upfront. They just want to go do it and give you a bill. When’s the last time you went and bought something and said, “Hey, that’s what I want,” and then the person decides to give you a bill? Usually you want to know what it is you’re buying, and how much, and the conditions of it, and then you would go purchase it.

So that help, I think customers really realize it when we’re about a third of the way into the design phase, when we start getting into the details of different elements of the home: the HVAC system, the mechanical systems, any green code situations, any energy calculations, any grade situation, and also building department specific requirements.

Other panel companies might sell you a pile of wood and say, “Hey, there’s panels, go figure it out.” We’re saying let’s figure it out upfront to make it easier. And I believe that that is an element that customers do not understand at the beginning, that is actually the most important thing that Landmark Home and Land Company supplies.

It’s looking at your project, and how does it make sense? How do you design it? How do we look at the overall finer details, and how do we look at the overall project to understand what’s going on? And that’s a key element that customers should understand.

Host: Landmark gets involved pretty early in that stuff, right? I was watching one of your Instagram posts about dealing with building departments, and that’s a freaky thing. People just don’t know what to do, they’re running around going, “How do I even figure out this building department stuff?” And you guys are right in there to help navigate that.

Steve Tuma: We do it every day for 33 years, and that’s the thing where someone starting that’s never done it, it could be very confusing, and how do you connect the dots?

And this is one of the things that we supply that is extremely important, that people don’t understand up until they’re in the process. And this is the case whether you’re building in a place that might have a simpler building department and a simpler building site, just as much as it is a very complex home and a complex building site with a very complex building department.

It’s kind of like make your plan and then build, compared to real-time design of just making things up as you go along. So that’s what we try to point out to people is let’s take the time upfront. It will save you time, and big headaches, and money.

Host: Well, that’s always important. Let’s bounce back a little bit and go back to the contractor kind of thing. Are there certain trades that simply must be licensed contractors, and what aren’t, who can you hire?

Steve Tuma: Pretty much in California almost everyone has to be, the big things, excavators, foundation people, mechanical systems, plumbing, electric, heat, roofers, framers, different things like that. And your individual building department can give you the exact list of every person that should be licensed.

And a lot of the building departments will check. At your building permit they might say, “Hey, who’s doing the electric, who’s doing the plumbing?” Or at the time if there’s a separate permit, say for plumbing, electric, and heat, they’ll ask for the licenses of the contractors at that time and insurance, and just make sure it’s there.

Some people say, “Why do I have to do that? That’s Big Brother watching.” To a certain degree, you also want to make sure the quality of the work is done right.

Host: Wow! I threw a lot at you and you handle it all, just like you always do, that’s good. That was pretty slam-bang.

Steve Tuma: We’ve been doing it for 33 years! This is kind of interesting information here, but just like we’re able to answer it, if a customer ever has questions, they’re always welcome to reach out to us to say, “Hey, I heard the podcast about licensing and insurance, how does this apply to me? I’m building in Ames, Iowa, I’m building in Orlando, Florida, I’m building in Newport Beach, California, I’m building in Carmel, California, wherever it is.” And we can go through the process of specifically how it affects them.

And that is a very important part of the service we provide, and we’ll help people upfront, even before they buy from us, just to give them a vision of what we need to do, but also give them the answer and saying this is how we help you through it.

So it’s kind of an interesting process, and we’re proud of what we do, we’ll talk to people. We want to let them know how we can help so that they can make the right decision to work with us and understand how we can help.

Host: You just came back with the answers so easily.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s a little bit of a pet peeve of mine, because a lot of people call up and say, “Well, this panel company will do that.” And I’m like, I’m sure they will, who’s planning it, who’s doing this, who’s doing that, who’s there helping you through the process? And that’s where I think people realize it’s an extreme value.

Landmark Home and Land Company provides an exceptional service, we’re proactive, we’re knowledgeable, we’re on top of it. A couple customers have used the word, “Steve, you’re the engine of my project.” You push it along, you put me in position to be successful. What’s the value of that? Enjoying your building process, it’s an amazing process. People should enjoy it.

Host: Well, that’s going to wrap things up for this edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show, but before we let you go, Steve, as we always like to do on this podcast, let’s give you a chance to let our listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company.

Steve Tuma: The best thing to do is check out our website, it is LHLC.com, kind of the initials Landmark Home Land Company, LHLC.com.

And on our website, there’s these podcasts, there’s videos, there’s thousands of plans, there’s discussions on what we supply, some details on individual states. And from there, you can email us, you can also find a plan, send us an email about the plan, or you can give us a call, Mike will answer the phone at 800-830-9788.

And that’s the best thing, check out our website, give us a call, and we’ll spend the time to talk to you to find out what it is that we can do to help you and move your project along. And that’s the key: We want to know we’re working with a good customer, just like a customer wants to know they’re working with a good design and panelized home company.

So we want to get to know our customers, see what they need, see what the land is like, talk about the building department, understand how we can develop a schedule together to make it a successful build. We enjoy what we do, so we enjoy talking to potential customers about building a new home. It’s a lot of fun.

Host: Do you sometimes get so involved that it seems almost personal for you when you’re working with customers?

Steve Tuma: Oh, it is, it is! People call me nights, weekends, days, and it’s like, “Hey, Dave, what’s going on?” You talk about stuff, and I get invited to so many housewarming parties, open houses, and things. I wish I could get to them all.

I have customers call me years later saying, “Steve, I was just thinking about you, I was thinking about building the home.” It was just really cool. And it’s just an amazing feeling to see that you truly helped a family get a new home and start a new chapter in their life in an extremely positive way. It is absolutely amazing. And we love doing that, we’re very lucky. We have great customers.

Host: That’s great. Well, there it is, episode 102 of the podcast, and we want to thank you all for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show and for all your inquiries into panelized home building in general. So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma and myself, have a great week, and we will see you next time. Thanks again, Steve.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, thank you, this was fun. Hey, I forgot to mention, we’re also on the major social medias: Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, people can check us out there as well. So thank you.

Host: Awesome. All right, everybody, talk to you next time.

Steve Tuma: Bye.

A: California municipalities often provide expedited plan review pathways for wildfire victims who rebuild a home matching the exact permitted square footage and footprint of the destroyed structure. Expanding the home’s footprint or attempting to rebuild unpermitted historical additions automatically triggers full discretionary zoning reviews, full civil site grading checks, and standard municipal plan check queues.

A: Yes, local building departments grant Title 24 solar exemptions when a parcel possesses physical constraints that render photovoltaic generation ineffective, such as dense tree canopies in mountain regions or shading from adjacent multi-story structures. When solar access is blocked, energy consultants counterbalance the loss by specifying enhanced building envelope measures, such as higher-density continuous exterior insulation or advanced HVAC mechanical efficiencies.

A: In sunny California microclimates, rotating a house footprint by just a few degrees can shift extensive window glazing directly into intense western or southern afternoon sun exposure. This exposure creates extreme solar heat gain that spikes cooling load calculations, requiring architects to incorporate architectural countermeasures like deeper roof overhangs, exterior shading fins, or lower solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) window coatings to pass Title 24 compliance.

A: Beyond structural house blueprints, local planning departments enforce clear-vision triangles at driveway street intersections to ensure backing vehicles maintain unobstructed sightlines. These safety mandates dictate exact roadside mailbox placement, maximum street parking curb setbacks, and landscape plans specifying that parkway vegetation cannot exceed a mature height of two feet.

A: Certain jurisdictions enforce visitability guidelines requiring barrier-free, zero-step primary thresholds and clear, accessible exterior circulation routes from the driveway to the front entry. In some communities, inspectors mandate accessible viewer options—such as low-mounted peepholes or full-view glass entry doors—so occupants in wheelchairs have clear, unobstructed sightlines outside before opening the door.

Steve Tuma: You know, the wildfires make the news, they can be disasters, and they are, we all saw what happened with the Los Angeles fires. But the reality is people want to live where they want to live.  

Host: Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 101 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today, as he always is, is the president and founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how’s it going, my friend?  

Steve Tuma: It’s a great day. We had another amazing thing happen. Just as we were doing the podcast, I just got through a social media site a customer that contacted us and finished building his house, and he just wanted to let me know it’s beautiful and he’s got certificate of occupancy today.  

Host: Oh, awesome! Was that right after the last episode?  

Steve Tuma: Yeah, just bam, there it was! Who’s sending this?  

Host: It’s funny, because we were talking about people contacting you years later. That’s funny.  

Steve Tuma: Yeah, there’s always something fun.  

Host: But we digress. We’ve been doing these themed episodes lately, as you know, the top 10 questions asked by potential Landmark Home and Land Company customers, etc. So I thought we’d switch it up and start another series, just to break things up. So let’s talk about building in specific states and see how many different individual states we can create podcast episodes around.  

So if you’re good with that, I’d like to start with a state that has a reputation for being somewhat difficult to build in, for one reason or another, or 50, I don’t know, and that state is California. And now that we’ve come up with quite a few questions regarding California as it is thought to be one of the most difficult states to build in, but perhaps you can clear up a lot of the myth from the reality when it comes to that state. And if you don’t mind, I think we’ll have to split this one, even though it’s one state—California’s a big state—so we’ll split this into two parts if you’re okay with that. And the first part, we’ll cover a lot of things that are usually perceived as being specific to California. And then in part two, we’ll cover a lot of ground revolving around permits and insurance, all the nuts and bolts like that. But anyway, if you’re good to go, I’m excited about this one. Are you ready?  

Steve Tuma: Yeah, this is a good one. California is great.  

Host: So our first California-related question, right out of the gate: How much does it cost to build a house in California?  

Steve Tuma: That’s an interesting question, because we’ve worked all over California. I don’t know how many houses over three decades that we’ve helped, but we’ve helped people in Joshua Tree, San Bernardino County—kind of the same area—other counties, Los Angeles, Newport Beach, California. We’ve helped people, they had a very interesting building department. We’re helping customers now with the Los Angeles fires—what was it, 10,000 structures? So we’ve worked there, we’ve worked all the way up the Sierras in different towns, Nevada City, Lake Tahoe. We’ve worked in those areas as well. We’ve worked through Silicon Valley, we’ve worked around San Francisco and all the different communities there, Petaluma being one that just sticks out—very interesting building department.  

Host: When you say interesting, is it they’re just difficult, or they’re easy, or what’s different about them?  

Steve Tuma: It’s kind of weird, because your question is how much does it cost to build a house in California. The direct answer is it depends on what you’re building and what the building department wants, and are you on a flat piece of land in the desert, are you on the side of the hills in the mountains in the Sierras, or are you oceanfront? So when I say that, it’s interesting, and sometimes they ask ridiculous questions that sometimes remain ridiculous, and then other times you see the sensibility behind it.  

So the answer of how much does it cost to build a house in California, the direct answer is it can vary depending upon where you build, what you build, the building department requirements, and just sometimes the natural situations there: Is it a snow-load issue, is it an earthquake issue, is it an oceanfront situation in the type of community that they’re in?  

The answer that I can tell you is that a lot of people have told me the cost to build in California what they were told by contractors or general knowledge that they have, and then what it’s cost them and how much money they’ve saved. And a lot of customers have told me they’ve saved 10, 20, 30, 40% compared to hiring a contractor to do it.  

So we have some people in California, I think some right now, they’re going about $350 a square foot, which in some parts of the country may seem expensive, but for California is more to the affordable range. And then there are some people building very intricate, very expensive designs in different communities that might end up being at $600, $700, $800, $1,000, and even over $1,000 a square foot.  

But what I don’t want to do is scare people by that, because a lot of this really depends on the design. Some people build very architecturally significant homes there, two-story walls that are full of windows. Building a house like that is a lot different than if you had a more of a conventional ranch home with 8- or 9-foot walls.  

So the cost, someone shouldn’t generically take a cost per square foot and assume that’s for their house. You’ve really got to look at the house that you want and where it is, and that’s why we suggest that people give us a call instead of going through generalities. Give us a call and say, “Hey, I’m thinking of building this house by San Diego by Valley Center, or hey, I want to build up here in Pioneer or whatever location that it may be,” and then we can help them sort out the specific requirements that they need for their house where they can better target it.  

A lot of customers are going online asking questions, “Hey, how much does this cost, how much is that?” And I’ve seen answers that are just plain out wrong. So it’s best to give us a call. We can go through the process of what it is they’re looking to do, and help them refine it to work with a house that makes sense for them.  

Host: Wrong answers on the internet, how can that be?  

Steve Tuma: Yeah, it’s almost getting more and more interesting with all the AI situations that are coming out there, but that’s part of what we can do is help someone understand their project to target it for something that makes sense. It’s amazing how most people are like they have a general understanding and the budget works for them, but we just like to know that we’re designing a house in a way that continues to work for them for budget reasons, zoning setbacks, height requirements, homeowners associations, and then any other concerns that the community may have.  

Sometimes it’s architectural. Sometimes there aren’t restrictions there, but the community just builds a certain type of home—Joshua Tree is one of those places where people like to have a certain look to the house. So there’s ways to design homes to achieve a customer’s need and still cut costs, but still have a good home. And so a lot of it really comes into the navigation of the design, the energy codes, the site planning, the geotechnical reports to make sure that we’re targeting a home project that makes sense for the customer.  

Host: When you were talking about rebuilding after a wildfire—and California, that’s just part of the lifestyle, living in paradise you pay a price, and that’s what happens. But how do you even get started? People in the Palisades and they’re still—some of them still haven’t even cleared their land completely after a couple years. How do you rebuild a home lost in a wildfire? Where would you start?  

Steve Tuma: We’re working on a lot of the homes that are rebuilds from wildfires, whether they’re in California or other states such as Washington, or Colorado, or Oregon, or there’s been wildfires in Florida—just was odd, but it happens all around the country.  

So basically what we do is there’s a couple components to it. Sometimes building departments have restrictions on what you can build to get fast-tracked. So like we’re helping some families in Altadena, and if the house is essentially the same, they will let you fast-track it as long as everything was permitted before. So if you have a house, say you have a 2,000-square-foot two-story, and you’re building essentially that same house, there’s a fast-track process for the architectural, the structural, and the energy codes to make it a little more accommodating. But if you go through and say, “Hey, I had a 2,000-square-foot home, I want to do a 4,000-square-foot home,” they’re going to stick you on the regular track.  

Now, what’s cool about this is we have a proven method working across California over decades of our experience, where we are able, because of our knowledge, to take that knowledge of decades, put it together into our permitting and planning process to make sure that plans make sense, have the details the building department needs, and go through and present a complete set of plans. But as people know, most building departments will set you through at least one round of checklist items, and possibly two. So even so, it’s the quick understanding of their requirements and then responding quickly to get it taken care of. So the California building departments do have a reputation of taking a long time, sometimes asking funny questions. But when we have our process that’s a little tighter engineered in the processing upfront of how we develop the plans, we minimize the details that come up.  

So we’ve also worked in some very, very stringent building departments—Newport Beach, California, being one, Petaluma, California, being one, sometimes San Bernardino, California, can get interesting. But we’ve worked in Humboldt County, we’ve worked all around San Francisco in the different communities there, we’ve worked in Silicon Valley. The bottom line is they want to make sure that it’s a well-built home and their particular concerns are taken care of. Where the building departments get unique is they may have particular concerns that no one else ever asks, but since we’ve built so many houses, so many experiences, we know how to do this.  

So to answer your question of how you rebuild a home lost in a wildfire, Landmark Home and Land Company has a solid process to address the needs of each specific building department and each specific project. So I personally look at every single project, every single building department’s requirements, to make sure that we fend off any potential issues. We can work to make sure it’s designed right, make sure the HVAC is right, make sure the plumbing is right, make sure the structural engineering is right, so our plans have the answers upon the first plan check. And if they come back with a second, which they likely will, we have clear and concise answers that are provided quickly to move the process along. A couple of our customers have said they’ve gotten permits with our process way quicker than other people have in different methods of obtaining it.  

So the customer, when rebuilding in a fire, there’s a lot to balance out: the emotional hit of it, what are they going to rebuild, what needs to be done on a cleanup, the insurance processes that they have to go through, and then also navigating the regulations of the building department. Where I tell people they’re going to get caught is the emotion of what just happened—their kind of house was literally burned, their life was burned—but also the rebuilding of the building department requirements, but they should also understand how insurance plays into that. Some insurance companies are a little more accommodating and empathetic, and others are, let’s just say, less empathetic about it.  

So having an understanding of your insurance is very important, and this is what I tell people: If you’re building in those areas, make sure you have a competent agent and double-check everything that they tell you, that it’s in writing in the policy. Because sometimes where people go through is they’re buying a home and someone says, “Hey, I got you the cheapest rate on insurance, great.” You need coverage that will be there when you need it. So that’s something that people should look at.  

Now, we’re not in the insurance business. I’m just telling people if you’re building anywhere where there’s wildfires, make sure you have good insurance—sometimes it’s the state policy—and have a real understanding of what’s covered. But so I guess this is an all-around situation, but I want to tell people the scope of the situation that they’re running into, because a lot of people think, “Hey, my house burned, insurance company is happily going to show up with all this money and we’re just going to build a house.” And sometimes it does happen that way, but once they have that sorted out, we can help them, and we can even help them right away after the damage to make sure that the house is designed right. And if they want to be on fast-track programs, that we stay within the guidelines of those fast-track programs to make sure that things are put together. And a lot of those are footprint size, overall square footage size, the general look of the house, height restrictions, and different details.  

And here’s something which is very interesting: If a house was built, like we’re doing one in Altadena, I think it was originally built in the ’20s—beautiful old Los Angeles-type home, it’s a beautiful kind of Tudor design—obviously that home was built under different codes than were allowed today, or maybe there were zoning situations that changed, they’ll generally let you build to the zoning situation that the original house was built in. Which is kind of cool for lot-coverage situations or different things where things might have gotten tighter over time.  

Host: Kind of grandfather in your codes!  

Steve Tuma: Yeah, I mean there’s—it’s kind of interesting of how things change over time. The terrain changes, the neighborhood people want to make sure you’ve got enough lawn there or enough space or proper parking or whatever, and sometimes those codes change. And what a lot of our customers in those situations are doing is also taking advantage of adding an ADU. Which is pretty cool, so they get the other income or other build and they’re able to get all processes taken care of.  

So as far as rebuilding a home lost in a wildfire, we’re very experienced in the design, the zoning, the energy calculations, the mechanical details, the site plan situations, and working with the civil engineers to make sure that everything goes together. So you’re working in kind of a hybrid system. There’s kind of some modern codes, but you’re also allowed to kind of deal with the character of the home from the past. But if someone wants to build completely new, that’s fine.  

Another thing people have to watch for is a lot of people say, “Hey, I’ve got a 3,000-square-foot home and a four-car garage.” Well, they’ll let you fast-track it if what was there was permitted. So if you have a 4,000-square-foot home, but only 3,000 of it was permitted, they’ll let you fast-track it for the 3,000 square feet. So California gets a little sticky on permitted versus unpermitted things, but either way, we’ve experienced it, we can help a customer navigate the situation.  

And we are specifically talking about California, but a lot of these situations kind of go into other places where wildfires are common. We’ve helped a few customers in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Washington State, basically all up the coast. So the best thing to do is give us a call, and we can review the processes with them and kind of help them along. Just sometimes having an understanding of the process is very important, and we can help with that. We do it every day.  

Host: It doesn’t sound like you’re trying to scare people off of buying a lot in a wildfire zone. Sounds like it has some unique challenges.  

Steve Tuma: Well, there is, and the wildfires make the news, they can be disasters, and they are, we all saw what happened with the Los Angeles fires. But the reality is people want to live where they want to live. Someone could say, “Hey, why am I building in the middle of a city?” It’s like, “Well, I want to go to the theater, I want to do this, I want to walk to work, I want public transportation.” And someone that lives in the country might say you’re crazy, while someone in the city might say, “Why are you living in the country? You’ve got to drive 35 minutes to get a gallon of milk.”  

So the reality is, I think people understand that, and there’s risks everywhere. I mean, there’s tornadoes, there’s hurricanes, there’s big snow loads, there’s landslides, there’s floods. So what we’re able to do is help people understand those situations so they can make the decisions that’s best for them on how and where they want to build.  

And what’s interesting about it is we’ve helped people build in flood zones, it’s just different rules. And that’s why there are codes, and I think what they appreciate is by our process, we pay attention to those details and work with the building department and zoning departments to make sure that it’s put together properly so that the permitting, the building, and the inspection processes and certificate of occupancy processes are as smooth as possible for them.  

The reality is the wildfires make the news, we pay attention to every single house, even if it’s a place with less of a big natural risk like that. Part of our game, it’s what we do every day.  

Host: California is famous for its earthquakes, and there’s got to be pretty stringent rules as far as earthquake and seismic requirements, I would imagine.  

Steve Tuma: Oh, yeah, but that’s our structural engineers take care of that. We go through, make sure the foundation is designed right, we make sure the shear walls, load paths, different situations are taken care of properly, and that’s all part of our standard process to design a house properly. We’re here to make sure that it meets or exceeds the codes while also taking care of the customer’s requirements, their personal requirements, but also zoning, historic areas, whatever it may be.  

Host: There’s these rumors that float around that you can’t build a house in California unless you put solar panels on that house. Dispel that myth, or is that even a fact?  

Steve Tuma: By the general interpretation of it, it’s true, but it’s also not true. If you were to build and there are giant redwoods around you, they’re not going to have you cut a thousand-year-old, 200-foot tree to use a solar panel. It kind of defeats the purpose of it!  

So generally, the house has to be net-zero and work, but if you’re in an area where it doesn’t make sense, like in a wooded forest, it doesn’t make sense to go cut a half acre of trees so that you can use a green solar panel. You’re doing more damage by cutting the trees. Or if you happen to be in an area that was just restricted by other things, natural or man-made—so if, by chance, you were building a little house that’s surrounded by monster houses and there’s no sun getting there, there are ways to get waivers.  

So the calculations do kind of push you to go to solar, but if it’s not possible for sun to reach the solar panels, the building departments will generally work with you. They might have you compensate in other ways or work around different things that works, but the energy code guidelines seem to change every few years, and sometimes what they did five years ago contradicts what they asked three years ago.  

So the thing about it is they’re just trying to really push for solar, but that’s something that we can work with customers if they are in one of those extreme situations to navigate with our energy calculation gurus to make sure that we end up with a house that’s sensible for them. So I’m very happy to hear that in California, they’re not asking you to cut big pine trees down to use a solar panel. If you’re building in the woods, in the Sierras, and all these other beautiful places that span all of California, it doesn’t make sense to cut a tree down so a solar panel works.  

So the answer is, in general, you must have solar panels unless there’s some valid reason that doesn’t allow the solar panels to work, and we have had customers like that, and the building departments have been very accommodating to it. So sometimes these general rules of thumb are good enough, but they’re not always 100% accurate. And that’s what we can help customers if they say, “Hey, how does this work for me?” We can kind of go through and give them the idea specifically of this house on this lot in this area, we can give them a general guideline as to what’s going to come out to it to see if it’s sensible for them.  

Host: Well, there’s another rumor about—you would know this better than anyone or as well as anyone—does it take any longer to get plans approved and get your property permitted in California? Does it take longer than other states?  

Steve Tuma: Some states don’t even have building departments, or they have a building department you go and have coffee with a guy and he hands you a permit! But of the states that have building departments, what I will say is the timeline is about the same or a little bit longer. And I’ll tell you the difference there: I personally think some of the things that California does are good for the safety and to make sure that a project is planned properly.  

So what we do is look at a project of, hey, how are we helping an owner-builder or a contractor make sure that there’s a set of plans that makes sense so they know what they’re doing, so that when they’re building, they’re not out there with a bunch of “uh-oh” moments, big decisions? Instead, they have a well-thought-out process that they can execute.  

So in our case, when we work through with it, like in California, say you take something up in the Sierras, in Pioneer, Nevada City, any place where there might be slopes, hills, mountains, whatever it may be, we go through to make sure that the design is proper for the site conditions, the code, the energy calculations, the green codes, and any zoning concerns. So we take that time upfront to properly design the house so that when the plan set is sent in for permits by our customer, it’s very complete already upfront.  

Most times, the building department will kick it back and they’ll give you a checklist for one other round, but sometimes those items are more extremely building-department-specific that they didn’t request on an original checklist. So sometimes the rumors of why it takes so long to get approved, I think, are because the original set of plans that were turned in weren’t complete.  

Did you do your homework, or did you just throw spaghetti answers to the wall and say, “Why did this happen?” So that’s why initially when you asked, I kind of stalled a little bit, because it’s like let’s be fair: If you turn in bad information to a building department, it’s going to take longer to review and they’re going to give you a bigger checklist. If you turn in a good set of plans like Landmark Home and Land Company sets supplies, you’re going to have a smoother time in the building department.  

But that being said, that’s for 90-some percent of the building departments in California. Where you occasionally run into an issue are some of the more sophisticated building departments, say like projects we’ve done in Newport Beach, California, and Petaluma, and other places around Silicon Valley, around San Francisco, where they’ve had different situations where they ask for questions that have never been asked before of us. That being the case, we understand houses very well, so we can answer them.  

So let me take a unique one from Newport Beach—there’s two of them in Newport Beach that were very interesting. The HVAC system was in the attic, and it has a condensate line like most air conditioning or all air conditioning systems have. They wanted to know that the condensate line would not create a dripline along the side of the house. And at first you’re like, “Wow, that seems simple.” But have you ever seen a beautiful home and there’s a stripe from a gutter not working, and there’s like—so it sounds picky and weird, but apparently it’s been enough of an issue in the community and keeping a beautiful community like that the way it is and keeping up to standards, they wanted to know. So we had to design a certain gutter system to make sure that the water that was collected from the condensate line was properly drained to not create an ugly stain on the side of a stucco home, or if this was a HardiePanel home.  

Another one we had in that same situation, and a lot of these communities where houses are together, they want to make sure that your windows don’t face directly into other bedrooms or bathrooms of your neighbors. People could say, “Well, why are you being so picky?” It’s like, well, be the one getting out of the shower and wave to your neighbor! So in a sense, you could say it’s a little weird, but on the other side, you could say, “Hey, that makes the community more comfortable.”  

Now, those details are not on their preliminary plan checklist of what they tell you they need for permits; those are things they point out after they check the house out and see if those conditions apply. So sometimes, and this is that other 5, 6, 7% of picky building departments in California and other states, is sometimes you have to go through the process. But again, it’s the experience we have and the attitude of getting things taken care of to go through and figure out what needs to be taken care of. That’s very important.  

Let me get into some other things with building departments. The planning departments get involved, and someone will be like, “Well, what’s that?” Well, it’s just make sure the roads are accessible, make sure driveways are passable, make sure that people can come out of driveways and see the road that they’re backing out to. So we’ve worked in communities where they have very clear and concise rules on how to place a mailbox. So I called one of these guys up and I said, “What’s up with the mailbox thing?” He said, “Well, we have a lot of people with low cars, we don’t want them backing out into a street where the street’s lined with minivans and no one sees the car.” So we have to have restrictions on where you can park, but we also want to make sure that there isn’t landscaping or a mailbox or something else in the way that restricts the view of the person in the car driving into the street.  

So we’ve actually gotten into some of these communities where you have to work with landscaping plans to document that the plants in the parkway will not grow over a certain height. You can’t just say, “Hey, let’s put a bush there,” you have to say, “Hey, we have to put this type of a plant there, and you document that this plant does not grow over two feet.” So it’s kind of an interesting situation. So someone might say, “Why are you controlling the height of my tulips in the front yard?” It’s visibility safety to make sure your kid doesn’t get hit. So that’s that.  

Another one we had, again in Petaluma, was very interesting: a great family building a house together, and the building department would just come back with things. And this is more on the funny side. They came back and said that we needed to specify the location of the peephole in the door. Because they had kind of a little bit of an accessibility for handicap, but they also had a visitability. And I’m like, okay, that’s pretty cool. So visitability was like could you get out of your car, or walk down the street and know where the front door is and have a natural, obvious passage? Kind of makes sense.  

Then when they got to the peephole, we told them we’re going to have a peephole, what the height was, and then they came back and said, “Well, that’s great, but what if the occupant is handicap in a wheelchair? You should have a peephole at a lower place.” And I’m like, okay, if we have to go that far, we could put a peephole there. But then I’m sitting here going, okay, these people are just going to be a moving target, because do we have to start talking the height of the wheelchair, the height of the person, and how does this go?  

So kind of wanting to humor myself and find the entertainment in all of this process, I went through, and instead of a peephole, I just suggested to the customer we put a glass door there, which my interpretation of a glass door is you can see through it, it’s most likely the biggest peephole you’ve ever seen! So we turn that in, we give them the solution saying, “Hey, we are supplying a glass door, no peephole needed.”  

They came back and said, “We still need a peephole because this visitability regulation was there.” So I had to explain to them of how a 3’x6’8″ door is a very big peephole compared to the little pencil-sized opening, and suddenly their process understood it! So sometimes it’s kind of like, okay, what’s the regulation, but how do you get there? How do you take care of the situation to make sure that the real problem they’re looking at is there?  

So this inspector wanted a peephole, I had to explain to them that it’s a glass door, what’s the sense of putting a peephole in a glass door when you can see through the door? It was kind of a humorous thing, but that’s the way we look at it. If for some reason a building department decides to have more unique, or I’ll just say crazy questions, we kind of look at it and say, “Hey, what’s the essence of the code, what are they asking for, and how do we take care of it?” So that’s something that is very, very important.  

And another one is drainage. They only want a certain amount of lot coverage in many places to make sure that the rain that falls onto a lot dissipates into the ground on the lot or goes to a controlled stormwater situation. So sometimes that’s why you see driveways, instead of someone having a 12×20 cement driveway, instead they’ll have like a strip where the wheels of the car will go. Sometimes it’s a design element, sometimes it’s a drainage situation.  

So there’s a lot to be considered in the whole design thing. But that being said, the point I want to get across is everything that any building department in California or any other state or country sent to us, we’ve been able to understand it and work through the process in a concise, methodical way that’s timely to keep the process from moving forward. So when people say that getting permits in California takes a long time, the actual building department permitting process can be greatly controlled by your understanding of the design, our understanding of the design, the energy codes, the green codes, the architectural details, the zoning setbacks, any homeowners situations, and looking at the complete project to make sure that it’s put together.  

I would say most people that say that the building department details have taken long, it’s probably because some of the plans weren’t complete upfront. Some people are of the opinion just throw a bunch of stuff in there and have them give a list and we’ll just give them answers. That’s not the way Landmark works. We look at, hey, what’s there.  

The key to that is we provide a set and guaranteed price. So it is in our and the customer’s best interest to do the plans right upfront, make sure the plans get through permitting fast, and then make sure that the home can be assembled quickly, to make sure that the inspections go properly, to make sure that the family moves into the home. So the proper planning helps in the financial situation of the home of less construction interest, or less renting a second home to live in, or just the hassle factor of wanting to get your house built quickly. Everyone’s got a friend, you ask one person to do a job and they get it done, and then you ask someone else, the same job takes five times as much, and like they say, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. That’s us.  

It’s a lot of fun, I don’t want to scare people away from it, but it’s a lot of fun, it’s what we do, and it’s actually enjoyable to us. I think the California building process is amazing. We’ve worked in it for decades, we’ve worked probably in every single type of building condition in California, and we welcome people to call us. It’s a lot of fun working there.  

Host: I hope this one isn’t too much of a curveball for you, but you would know this again, I say it all the time, as well or better than anyone, but people talk about Title 24. What is that exactly, and how does it affect someone’s house?  

Steve Tuma: It’s basically energy codes. And how does it affect your house? They basically want a net-zero home that theoretically develops as much energy as the house consumes.  

So where that gets a little tricky is there will be specifics, and I’ve mentioned this in other podcasts, it’s Landmark Home and Land Company’s unified design process where we’re looking at architectural details, structural design, energy calculations, zoning, orientation of the house, and the green codes individually, but also as one project to make sure that everything comes together. Again, kind of like my prior answer is it all comes down to planning.  

Title 24 can be a hassle if you’re doing this independently, the architectural, structural, and not paying attention to how it goes together. That’s why we have a process that unifies the design. I’m the central hub of the design team, and then I work with the different people to get all the components together and make sure that they work together.  

So where a lot of people will say, “Oh, Title 24 is a hassle,” let’s just say you’ve got a house that needs to have an R-48 in the ceiling, but the rafter’s a 2×6 or 2×8, it might be a little harder to get that much insulation in there, or you might have to use a more expensive insulation like closed-cell to have it fit in the area. Well, if it’s thought out in the planning stages, it’s not a problem. If you’ve framed your house and then you find out about that issue, you’re backstepping a lot.  

So basically Title 24 will affect your decision on insulation, the type of insulation, how much insulation, where it can go. It will affect your structural design, it’ll affect your architectural design, it’ll affect the efficiency of your heating and cooling systems.  

And what’s also interesting is the orientation of your house, basically in direction of the sun, can also greatly affect it. So if you had a house that faced west in an open area and you had a bunch of windows there, that afternoon sun is just going to turn your windows into a magnifying glass and greatly heat your house up. So they want ways to compensate for that by over-insulating, changing the orientation, putting overhangs or different deflectors to keep the sun out.  

So that’s why we look at the whole project: Where are they building, what are they building? So again, just like the California codes, we’ve done a lot of projects in California and other more stringent places, we look at the overall project. And that’s what differentiates Landmark Home and Land Company from other panel suppliers, is we’re looking at your project. We’re not just saying, “Hey, here’s a piece of wood, good luck making a house.” We’re saying, “Here’s the answer so you have a successful build.”  

Again, this is kind of an interesting—I don’t know if people expected this answer, they probably wanted to hear about energy calculations. I’m trying to say, “Hey, let’s look at the overall project to make sure your Title 24 energy calculations work for your exact building site to make sure your house is designed right, your plans are accurate, so the customer can understand their budget and their schedule to build, and then work with the right subcontractors to get it taken care of.”  

So maybe a little bit more of an in-depth talk compared to how to calculate heat loss and stuff, but that’s the way that we look at it is, sometimes just changing the orientation of a house 2 degrees, 5 degrees, 10 degrees can greatly affect the energy efficiency of your home. The overhangs can affect it.  

So it’s pretty amazing, and sometimes there’s a counterbalance: To have a little less over here, you’ve got to build it up a little more over there. But that’s what we do and we review them with the customer, so we’ve got a great process to help people build homes in California. We’ve been doing it for decades, and we enjoy it. It’s a lot of fun, actually.  

Host: There’s going to be a part two because California is a different state, it’s big, and it has some far-reaching issues when you want to come in and build a house. But for now, we’re going to wrap things up just for this episode and this edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. But again, as we always do, Steve, let the listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company. That would be great.  

Steve Tuma: Best thing to do is check our website out at LHLC.com, again that’s LHLC.com, kind of like the initials Landmark Home and Land Company. They can check these podcasts out, they can watch videos, they can see different details on what we supply, they can choose from the thousands of plans that we have, and get a good understanding of how we help owner-builders and contractors around the country. And from there, you can submit an inquiry, you can find a plan, send an inquiry in on a specific plan, you can send a direct email to us, or you can give a call.  

Mike will answer the phone—if for some reason you do get voicemail, he’ll call back right away—but you can call 800-830-9788, again that’s 800-830-9788, and have a direct conversation. Mike will talk to you directly about where you’re building, what is it you want, what are your goals, what are you looking to do, how much work are you going to do, those types of things. Then once it gets to a different stage, where they’re moving along, wanting to get plans going, I’ll communicate with the customers and just get deeper details, get things sorted out for the plans for California or any other state or international projects as well.  

But if someone wanted to call and just talk to me and pick my brain and get to know each other, call me on my direct cell phone at 708-205-2043, and we’re also on all the major social media platforms. So we’re here to help people build houses, and whether they want to start today, next month, two years from now, five years from now, we’re here to help them get in position so that the design, the plans, the schedule, the budget makes sense for them to move forward.  

Like I say, it’s a lot of fun. Just cool, a lot of details, but we help cut the learning curve and make it efficient for our customers.  

Host: Well, there it is: episode 101 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. We want to thank you all for listening to the show, and Steve, thanks again, because I always enjoy these conversations. It’s always beneficial for me as well as the listeners. So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma and myself, have a great week, and we will see you next time. Thanks again, Steve.  

Steve Tuma: Thank you. This is really cool. I’m looking forward to 102 or the second half of California panelized home building. Thank you.  

A: Independent architects often draft custom floor plans without running simultaneous structural shear or energy code calculations, resulting in blueprint clashes during municipal plan review. By coordinating architectural layouts, civil site constraints, truss profiles, and MEP requirements in-house, every calculation is reconciled before lumber is cut, eliminating conflicting engineer change orders on the jobsite.

A: Panelized components are assembled on precision factory jigs utilizing engineered fastening schedules, continuous hold-downs, and structural sheathing nailed under strict quality controls. This continuous engineered load path ties the roof trusses directly to the foundation, preventing the structural racking, uplift, and wall failures common in uninspected on-site hand framing during extreme storms.

A: Multi-generational owner-builders frequently design floor plans with zoned bedroom wings or dual suites to support grandparents, parents, and children under one roof. By acting as their own general contractors and contributing personal trade labor, family members eliminate commercial contractor markups, pooling equity and savings to complete homes without high-interest construction debt.

A: International projects require converting imperial dimensioning to metric standards while adapting structural calculations to local building standards like Eurocodes. While administrative procedures and inspection checkpoints differ across international borders, the foundational engineering principles—accounting for seismic activity, wind speeds, and alpine snow loads—remain structurally identical to demanding domestic jurisdictions.

A: Specialty lifestyle elements introduce massive clear spans and concentrated point loads that traditional prescriptive residential codes cannot accommodate. Engineering these spaces requires calculating commercial-grade steel or LVL transfer beams, reinforced foundation slabs, and dedicated fire separation assemblies during initial blueprint drafting to satisfy local municipal zoning and building codes.

Steve Tuma: Well, Landmark Home and Land Company is the best panelized home company for design, customer service, engineering, plans for permits. I don’t know, I don’t think anyone out there is doing it. Just, it’s a very big undertaking.

Host: How’s it going, everybody? And welcome to episode, believe it or not, 100 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show, celebrating the 100th edition of this podcast that answers any and all of your questions regarding panelized home building. Ever since I’ve been on board with this thing, I’ve found it valuable, and I know that our listeners do as well. So, with me today, as he usually is, is the president and founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, and that would be Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, congratulations, my friend, on 100 episodes of the podcast.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, isn’t that amazing? It’s pretty cool to think that we still have a lot of cool things to talk about, different situations, customers’ experiences, and then just as, you know, the world gets a little more intricate, there’s more stuff on codes, more stuff on designs. And, part of it, this morning I woke up and go, “Oh, 100 episodes,” and I was like, “Is he going to ask me 100 questions on the 100th episode?”

Host: We haven’t even scratched the surface, so I probably could!

Steve Tuma: Yeah, so I think we’ve got—it’s amazing. But, hey, let’s get some good stuff going, and eventually we’ll be at 200 episodes.

Host: That’s right. And you’re right, the word is amazing. It’s been an amazing journey, and I’ve been honored to be a part of it. But you and your company, Landmark Home and Land Company, are the stars of the show, and I think that our listeners have found a lot of, well, as I said, useful information and valuable insights into panelized home building, and I think house construction and owner-buildership in general. So if you’re good to go, let’s just talk about the company a little bit, and I’ll get into a few questions that I’ve put together just for this occasion, the 100th edition. So are you buckled in and ready to go?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, let’s do it.

Host: Cool. So let’s start off with the beginnings of the company, and if you don’t mind, give us some background on just how Landmark Home and Land Company came about. It’s been, ladies and gentlemen, 33 years and counting, and in that time, you guys at Landmark have made a lot of owner-builders happy in their new homes. And I won’t ask you to go too deep into the past, but what was the first inkling that you wanted to go into home design, you, Steve Tuma, in the first place, and how panelized home kits became, well, became your stock-in-trade?

Steve Tuma: Well, I think way back when I was a little kid, we lived in an interesting house, and it’s just something you see. Maybe it was imprinted in me or something like that, and I’ve just always been interested in what houses were like and why were some cool, and some were okay, and some weren’t. And then, as you get older, you see different things. You live in different places, your friends live in different places, you see different things on the cost of houses, you see different things on expenses, financing, design, usability of land. And just one day, it was one of those things, it’s like, hey, we’ve got a—there’s a spot here where people aren’t being addressed properly. Their solutions aren’t there, and there might be pieces of a solution that never come together as one.

So we started Landmark, my brother and I, in 1993, just started it, built some homes. And a customer came in and said, “Hey, we understand you have the financing to help owner-builders.” And I said, “Yeah.” And he was a good person, and I figured, hey, let’s try it. Let’s see how it goes.

And what we saw was the actual reward of the customer building their own home and having control, and understanding what goes in and wanting to know how their money is being spent, and making sure that they get what they want. The contracting world is kind of interesting, and there’s always a question of, hey, how do I know what I’m going to get? How do I know that I can or can’t get something in a home?

So what we did at Landmark Home and Land Company over some time is evolve into really being a full-service, one-stop shop for an owner-builder to design and contract their own home. Now, a lot of people sit back and say, “Well, you know, I can go to an architect, I can go to a structural engineer, I can go to a site planner, I can go to an energy code person, and it’ll come together.” And even though that sounds good, they’re professionals, that’s kind of like going to a grocery store thinking that the hamburger is going to jump on the hamburger bun, and the cheese is going to jump on it, and the pickle and the lettuce and tomato are going to jump on, and everyone’s just going to be happy and make you the best hamburger. The theory is there, but the reality is the intricacy of making sure all the details come together.

And as we saw this and working, it was actually the customer saying, “Hey, Steve, can you help with this?” or “Hey, my land is like this,” where we started seeing repeat requests, and we’re like, that’s what we call a demand, that’s something that a customer may need. So what we found over working with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of customers, even thousands, of customers, that the concepts are there, but how do you bridge the gap to say, “Hey, I want this house on this piece of land here?”

So we evolved into the design to really take care of the customer, and we also still keep on listening because there’s different challenges in sites, different building code applications, different customer needs or requirements. So it’s a constant evolution; it’s not something where you become a master and, you know, there you are. It’s a continual situation.

So I think, you asked how we got into it, it was just a desire to help people get cool homes. I’ve lived in some pretty interesting places, and it’s always been one of these situations of do the 100 percent, not the 80 percent. And the industry is full of people that supply some information, but who’s really helping the customer get everything across the line in a proper way with full support? So it was the desire to help people achieve the building more than it was necessarily the design.

Now, wanting to help people achieve the end goal of building a good, quality home on the budget they want and the home their family needs, that’s what goes back to the proper design, the proper panelized process, and then, most importantly, the full customer support. So it’s the achievement of customers getting the home they want that we kind of reverse-engineered the process to make sure we’re fully ready to go.

So, I don’t know what people are kind of thinking, maybe something a little more glamorous or interesting, but that’s really the meat and potatoes of it is we listened to the customer, and the customer would ask, tell us, or end up in a situation, we’d be like, “We can do that. We can do that.” And before you know it, we end up being an exceptional owner-builder one-stop shop for people wanting to design and build their own homes in any of the 50 states and even internationally.

So we do a lot of work in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Washington State, Illinois, Florida, the Carolinas, New York, the Plains states as well, Nebraska, Texas. So we’re able to—I can’t name all 50 states, but we do work in all 50 states, and that’s the interesting thing. So as we grow through this and help all the people in different situations, in different states, and different needs for their home, we’re able to compile a very solid process to help a customer build their home, and we make it sound simple, and to us it is simple, because we do have a very strong process that’s been proven over time, over decades, 33 years, over projects all over the country.

And it’s just really satisfying. It’s just really cool when someone says, “Hey, I have the worst building department,” or “My building site’s just really challenging,” or “Hey, I’m trying to figure this out, how can we—” and we can be like, “We’ve already done this. Let’s show you how we helped customers in other situations, let’s see how it works with yours.” And that’s the coolest thing when the customer comes back and says, “Hey, it worked,” and then we start getting pictures of a house being built that initially they thought might have been a little bit beyond their capabilities. So we wrap it up to give the customer the power to understand and control their own owner-builder home project. It’s pretty cool.

Host: I was only chuckling because you had said that you hoped nobody listening was looking for a big glamorous answer, and I was thinking anybody who’s listened to you and I on this program for any length of time knows they’re not going to get any glam. It’s pretty much just straightforward, from-the-hip stuff; that’s what you do.

Steve Tuma: Well, that’s what we do, and that’s what we want to be with home building, help people get what they need to solve the situation, get the home they want. That’s the most important thing about it, is getting the home they want, and making sure it’s a reasonable design and sensible and achievable.

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: It’s pretty cool.

Host: It just seems when I hear you talk, I just know the answer to this already, but how satisfying has it been for you to see the company you started grow into one of the leading panelized home design companies in the US? That’s got to be pretty amazing for you.

Steve Tuma: Well, Landmark Home and Land Company is the best panelized home company for design, customer service, engineering, plans for permits. I don’t know, I don’t think anyone out there is doing it. Just, it’s a very big undertaking.

It’s extremely satisfying, because we get repeat customers, we get customers that have their kids, uncles, relatives, mom and dad, friends build a house. And some of the most amazing things about all of this is that sometimes people will call 20 years later and say, “Hey, Steve, remember me? I did something here, we’re retiring down south, can you help us with the house, or the kids are grown and they need their own house?”

So the idea that we’re going to, you know, have kind of come full circle, there’s no bigger satisfaction than someone remembering you and thanking you 20 years later, a fifth of a century. The longest we’ve had is someone 24 years after we helped them, they called us again to build. And there’s just something cool about that, to get it taken care of.

And here’s what the people have said, the Allen family in Virginia, it was last fall, they sent an email and they said, “Steve, I just wanted to reach out. We were showing our friends the home you helped us build 20 years ago. We were bragging about how all the work we did.” And then they went on to say it went through three hurricanes, an F4 tornado went through town, they had other buildings on their land, they were literally blown away, they told me, and they said the Landmark house was solid, and they lost three roof shingles.

Host: Wow!

Steve Tuma: Yeah, neighbors’ houses were blown over, everything was there. And the reason being for that is we’re not here to say, hey, we have the cheapest house, you know, save two cents and buy it from us. We’re here to say let’s do it right the first time. Let’s make sure it’s designed right, let’s make sure all the engineering’s right, all the energy efficiency’s right, all the mechanical systems are right, let’s make sure the customer understands it so they can build it, control the schedule, and control the cost.

There’s a lot of thinking into it, and what people don’t always realize that, they’ll call us saying, “Hey, I want a panelized home.” Well, you really need a lot of help to make sure it’s designed right, delivered properly, the customer support’s there, so it’s the whole package.

And the most amazing thing is how many people say the same thing: “I came to you for a panelized home, but not realizing that I really needed the help in understanding my project, to make sure it’s designed and built right.” A couple of them actually have gone through to say, “You’re like the project manager. I can call you, you can help me even what I need to do, where I’m at, if I run into a problem, there’s something there.” One customer, a big house in Phoenix, he said, “You’re like the engine of my project; you make sure it happens,” which is kind of interesting because we’re here to help people if they need help, it’s there.

So the satisfaction and growing the company is actually a result of taking care of customers, and they come back and buy another one, or tell a friend, or give us a great review, which then leads to it. So it’s making sure the customers’ goals are met, that then in turn meet our goals of having a good, solid company that’s just a lot of fun to work in and do it.

We have customers from all over the country, sometimes around the world, building in different types of homes for different reasons, and it’s just really cool to look into the why of are they building. And sometimes the why of the building is the interesting story itself. So to help someone achieve what’s important to them, the why of why they want to build a home is really the thing where we’re adding a new chapter to a customer’s life.

We’re helping them, you know, they’re getting married, their new life is starting for different reasons, they’re going through retirement, the family’s growing, it’s a weekend home, it’s a fifth home, it’s a home for their airplane, whatever it may be. It’s kind of interesting of how you’re really working with a customer to open a brand-new chapter to their life.

Host: That’s a great way to put it, man, amazing.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s cool. It’s great to say, hey, we got a sale, but the reality is that someone’s life was improved, and we were instrumental in getting them to that point. That’s the cool thing about it.

Host: And it’s just that passion that you guys have for the work, it goes into—well, you had mentioned customer service before, you know, Landmark’s well-known for its excellent customer service, and I’m sure that comes from your passion for helping people get into homes, and the satisfaction that you personally feel. But was that a goal of yours from day one, to make the act of customer care a top priority for the company?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, it was the main one. The main reason why is that’s the type of people we are. We’re consumers as well. When we go somewhere, a restaurant, or you need some help, service on your car, it’s understanding what’s going on, and communication, and the help. All of us have been in a position where someone says, “Hey, I’m going to order a hamburger,” and the server knows there’s a better hamburger, but they don’t tell you. You know, and then you see it go by or your friend orders it.

So sometimes even something as simple as going to a restaurant, if you say, “Hey, I’m trying to decide between this sandwich and that sandwich,” and they say, “Ah, you know, they’re both good,” that’s cool, but if someone were to say, “Hey, this sandwich is good if you like cheese and spice, but this sandwich is good if you want more vegetables on it.” So getting that guidance makes for a better experience.

And the reality is that experience is a two-way street. We are here to help people. We work hard, we work every single day to help customers through it for 33 years. We’re energized because of the feedback. And when someone says, “Hey, I did this, you saved us money, you helped us with the right design, or hey, I had this problem and you got me through it,” it’s extremely energizing.

So it’s kind of one of these things, if you like what you do, you never work a day in your life. And we’re lucky enough to be in that position where we enjoy what we do, and we get very positive feedback from our customers, so that we’re able to continue on and just do cooler homes.

Like I tell people, it’s like, what do you do? It’s like, I help great people get cool homes. And that’s what it is. Someone has to be a great person to say, “Hey, I want to do something for my family, or my life, or my parents, and I want to do it right.” It’s a big commitment, but the end result is extremely rewarding.

So that, I think, is the way it is. What’s wrong with having a good day? What’s wrong with having a good life? And I think that’s what it is, it’s the pursuit of a passion.

Host: You never seem to be thinking of yourselves as, “Oh, we’re doing a noble thing.” With you, it just seems like it’s pure fun to help people get into a house. Yeah, there’s a lot of hard work, but you just seem to have a good time doing it.

Steve Tuma: It is, and like the opening comments here where for customers to call 20 and 24 years later, almost a quarter of a century later, and say, “Hey, Steve, how are you doing?” Just last week, I was sitting here working away, and a customer called. They finished framing their house about two years ago, and he goes, “Steve, I was just thinking about you, I wanted to call and say hi, you’re my friend.”

So we talked about the house, what they’re doing, this and that. Their family owns a couple homes, they might sell one, their main home, and rebuild it as they downsize for life’s events. And it’s just extremely rewarding to see that you help someone in the right way where they, on their own, choose to call and say, “Hi, how are you doing?” It’s an amazing thing.

And we do that with our suppliers as well. They’re all good people that work hard to do their job to make sure that the end goal of the customer getting the best home possible is achieved. And that to me is the ultimate thing, and the growth of a company is to be here to make sure a customer gets what they want. Yes, we have company goals, but the reality is all those goals are met only through taking care of customers properly. That’s the way it is.

Host: Well, there’s something to be said for all that you just said, but you say it all in such a humble way. There just doesn’t seem to be any ego behind what you guys do, and you’ve grown into a big company.

In the 33 years since you started the company, I don’t know if you’ll know this answer right off the top of your head, but how many states have you built homes in, and what have you learned by doing projects overseas? I know you’ve done a bit of overseas things as well, so I’m sure there’s much different experience building in other countries. So what have you learned from your 33 years as a United States-based building company, and what have you learned from working overseas?

Steve Tuma: Well, we’ve worked in all the states in different capacities, whether designing or supplying the panelized homes or helping people get through the process. Because different states have different restrictions, you know, like Hawaii and Alaska, there’s shipping issues, but we always take care of them or work within our supplier networks to get people taken care of. So we have a capability of designing pretty much anywhere.

And sometimes those states, each state has different situations. Sometimes they’re relatively easy, sometimes they’re challenging, but we’ve overtaken them.

And then you say, hey, what’s it like doing a project overseas? And the interesting thing about the overseas, we’ve done some stuff in Europe, some developments and different projects, and what we found is that the customers come to us for the exact same thing. They need to know how to navigate through a problem.

And some of these people have been seasoned developers that have been in the trades, they’ve been in building for a while, they just need to know how to get more competitive, how to supply a better product, how to make sure things can be done differently as materials evolve or theories evolve or codes evolve.

So the reality is it’s the customer service knowledge base, accessibility, and proactiveness that we supply as to why something like this works. So we’re able to understand the different situations because we’ve built or designed and helped people build in so many different places, we have the open mind to understand it.

So, even though a mountain in Italy is theoretically different than a mountain in Colorado or a mountain in California, it’s still a mountain. So there’s typical concerns, and you have to go through and figure out how it’s applied.

So when you get to the United States, we’re able to understand all the codes, building conditions, and get the right information to do it. When you work overseas, there’s funny little things: we’re on imperial, they’re on metric. The building departments look at inspections different ways, they look at plan checks in different ways.

So bottom line, they all want a cool house that stands up; it’s just how is it approached. So working internationally is really not much different than going from a building department that’s very simple and less sophisticated to going to one that is way more sophisticated.

So if you took a typical rural building department in the Midwest and compared their requirements compared to the plans that we have to do for a more challenging building department, say around San Francisco, California, say by Newport Beach, California, say by Miami, Florida, parts of Chicago, different parts of New York, different parts of Colorado, it’s really just a scale of how deep you have to justify and make sure a design is put together for the specific requests.

So once we have the mindset of, hey, how do we do this, we’re able to put it together. And tell you the truth, it’s just fun. It’s like if someone was into hiking, and they hiked 10 miles, doing a 15-mile hike is cool, doing a 100-mile hike is cool, doing a 2,000-mile hike is cool. So to us, it’s just a growing challenge and understanding to be able to support these different projects.

And to us, that’s what makes it easy, is doing the more extreme things makes the more challenging for other people very easy for us.

So it’s not just the states, it’s the building conditions, the requirements of the building department, the soil conditions, the wind speeds, the snow loads, the zoning restrictions, the historic department restrictions, the homeowners associations, architectural review boards, taking all those and then putting it into a sensible set of plans and panelized home package. That’s where we’re at.

So whether we’re doing it in Italy, or Czech Republic, or California, or Colorado, it’s the same solid process that we have, it’s just a different set of inputs and a different set of outputs. But our process is solid and built off of decades of experience.

Host: Makes sense.

Steve Tuma: Amazing!

Host: Over the episodes, I should say, I love when you talk about some of the more elaborate homes you’ve built over the years. That’s just me, you know, the places with indoor pools, elevators, huge garages, etc. But it seems to me from talking to you in these past podcasts that you have just as much passion, or even more so, for the simpler homes, the far less elaborate home projects. Am I reading that right?

Steve Tuma: Well, sometimes it’s not how elaborate or less elaborate it is, it’s the story behind the home build that’s interesting.

So we’ve worked with families that have been in the position to build very elaborate, complex homes, really cool homes, in some of the high-rent zip codes of America, beautiful sites overlooking oceans or the city or mountain ranges. And those are amazing just in the feat of working with the customer to achieve their goals and work on the big details, the medium details, and the smaller details.

So it’s kind of cool to say, hey, we did a house with an airplane hangar, or someone had an exotic car collection that they had to have in their basement, the ultimate man cave-type of thing. It’s pretty cool to work with someone to say they entertained a lot, so they wanted to have big areas for family gatherings, or maybe it’s entertainment for work. We’ve also had people that are doing that in a different sense: “Hey, the family’s smaller, but I need to know that we have expanding room, so if they do all show up, they each have their spot, the kids, the grandkids, the grandparents, they can all live in it.”

So sometimes it’s the goal, whether it’s a $200,000 project or a $10 million project, it’s the ability to make sure that someone is taken care of properly.

And one of the more interesting ones that we see that I still remember some 20 years later, is we got a call from a family, and they said, “Hey, you helped one of our friends,” which was one of our customers, they said we could help. And they wanted a very simple 1,000-square-foot house. And I was like, “Okay, let’s do it.”

So we worked it out, and as I was talking to them, I’m like, these bedrooms are a little different, the bath, just the layout they wanted. It made sense, but it was different, and I asked them why. And they said, “This is the first home anyone in our family has ever had. We’ve had to save every penny to get three generations to live here.” The three bedrooms were grandparents, the main kids, and then the grandkids, so that they could each live in a place. And together they were able to get the money and the elbow grease, because they were all in the trades, so they all worked to build this house so that they can afford it and live in a place that made sense for their jobs, made sense for their kids in school, and that they can be proud of.

So you hear a story like that and you’re actually involved with it, it’s heartwarming to see that this is really just a business of helping people get to the next chapter of their life. Whether it’s the person that financially has done extremely well, just needing their house for their family or their get-together or their ski lodge, or it’s someone else just really building their life, getting to another place so that they could be in a better school district, so they can be in a safer community, so that they can do something to enhance their life.

We’ve had some people, and it’s kind of interesting, they were all from the Northeast, generally the New York area, and they were building out west. And I was like, okay, well that’s kind of an interesting jump, you’re a New York banker going to Kanab, Utah. It just seemed like the opposite ends of the spectrum. And the guy said, “I’ve been doing this for 30 years, it’s time to take care of me.” He goes, “I love hiking. I’m going to build in Kanab, Utah, where I can’t drive more than 100 miles in every direction without being in a national park that’s exceptional for what they do.”

So when you see things like that of how someone’s worked hard, no matter where they’re at in the financial spectrum, where they’ve worked hard to achieve something that gives them a better life, I mean, how much happier can you be than to help someone like that? You know, sometimes people are getting back on their feet from some unfortunate life event, sometimes they’re just taking a step up to get to that next spot.

So we talk about a lot of details and big stuff and big houses and more complex places, but we also help a lot of people build very sensible, modest homes that work in their price range to make sure that they can take the step. So we do a lot of simple ranches, a lot of bigger simple ranches, some simple ranches with a little feature here and there, so that people can afford the house that they live in. And sometimes the people building those simpler houses are likely to be financially in a very solid position; they just want to have a house so that they can go travel, have life’s experiences, save, and invest.

So the story behind the house is really one of these things that’s amazing. So we’ve helped people that had to work to save every penny to build a house cash, and then we’ve worked with people that said, “Yeah, I’ve got an exotic 1950s Ferrari collection, I need a place to put it.” And you know what? They’re all fun and interesting and exceptional people to get to the position that they’re at, and then we feel honored that they call us and we’re able to work with them to put a house together to get them to the next stage in life. It’s the best thing on Earth, I don’t know what better feeling you can get other than helping good people achieve a goal. That’s really cool.

Host: It all comes back to the same thing we’ve been talking about for this whole episode, it’s a noble pursuit. It’s not just a house, it’s a home, and that’s pretty spectacular.

Steve Tuma: Right, but our customers understand by building new, they’re spending the money that they want to spend, but they’re getting a house that’s energy-efficient, set up for their family, meets their family’s goals, helps the lifestyle, is in a community that they want to be. So it’s not just spending the money on the house, it’s making sure you spend your money right.

That’s where we’re able to do it, and we’re happy that customers see the attitude that we have at Landmark, and the way we’re able to help people that this isn’t just, hey, let’s get a sale. This is a lot about what is it you’re looking for, what’s your vision, how do we need to get there, and then we fill in the blanks to help through the process. That’s one of the most amazing things, and I’m kind of convinced that most people work in an area where maybe they’re not exactly happiest with their job. We’re lucky people to have a cool company that helps people achieve a life dream. And that’s what it’s about.

Host: How much has the panelized home design and build business changed over the past three decades-plus that you guys have been in business? Is it a lot different, or do you find the business is more or less the same as it was in the beginning?

Steve Tuma: Well, what’s interesting about it is a lot of it’s the same, but it’s always changed.

Host: The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, or the only constant is change. So some of this is a situation of home building has changed: there’s new materials, different methods, different codes, different engineering, different ways of looking at solving the same problem, different ways of letting customers know about us, different ways of customers finding out about us, different ways of getting information to customers, different ways of applying for permits.

Way back, I was just talking to one of our customers’ contractors out in Silicon Valley, and they said, “Yeah, it’s kind of cool, everything’s electronic now. I can submit plans on my phone, where before you had to go into the building department with 50 pounds of paper, give it to them, and hope they don’t lose it.”

Host: Hope they’re even open!

Steve Tuma: Right! Yeah, so the process is you still have to draw plans, you still have to get permits, you still have to build, but how that has happened, I would say the sophistication of Landmark in 30 years has gone up a thousandfold. There’s no way for me to really quantify that, but in my mind, what everything that we did compared to what we do now to make sure it’s taken care of, make sure customers understand their project, make sure we provide the proper support and documentation for what we’re doing, I think is there.

Way back, it wasn’t as typical to do HVAC design, or in-depth electrical engineering, or do a lot of snow load calculations. They were there, but now it gets to a bigger degree, and then wrapping that in with all the energy calculations, architectural designs, structural designs, there’s just a lot more sophistication to make sure that everything goes together well. And that is the part that is absolutely intriguing, because every day there’s a new and very interesting challenge that makes us stronger.

And that’s what feeds our soul, to sit here and go, “Hey, let’s go look at this. Hey, this customer came back from 10 years ago, they built in North Dakota, now they’re going to build in Sarasota, Florida, let’s help them.” Different situations like that, or someone finds out that, hey, they bought a piece of land that’s in a flood zone, how do we adjust it? We already know how to do it, we have the process in place, so it makes it easier for the customer to understand and then move forward.

So I would say what’s happened in the building world is our understanding, Landmark Home and Land Company’s understanding, of building in all 50 states, especially the ones that have more stringent requirements like California, Colorado, Arizona, parts of Washington, Florida, New York, Illinois, a lot of those states that were ahead of the curve, we’ve already done it, we’ve seen it.

And you bring back what is it like building overseas, I know a lot of people say, “Hey, you know, I got the toughest building department.” I’m like, until you’ve built in parts of Europe, you haven’t seen a tough building department, because they hit you in every direction. And we’ve done it.

So to us, it’s the personal challenge to get this taken care of and the exciting part of it. So, yeah, the only constant is change, and that’s what we hang on, because it’s really cool when a customer says, “Steve, you may not have seen this before,” and I’m like, “Well, we’ve already taken care of that. We did it first 15 years ago, we’ve got three or four customers in that process right now, and it just makes it easier for the customer to understand it, sleep well, and understand how it affects their project.” So we’ve got a clear and concise method of getting to their end goal.

And that, I think, is the huge benefit of Landmark Home and Land Company, is the understanding of the building phases across the country, and especially in places that are a little more stringent. But here’s the thing about it: if someone chooses to build in an area with a building department that isn’t as picky or doesn’t do as many checks, we still do it right. Even though it’s our customer’s home, we still kind of think of it as ours in a sense, so we want to get it built so that it’s accurate and good, and it’s done right. It’s the pride of doing it right, that’s what we’re concerned about.

Host: Well, all of that well said, and that’s going to do it for this—I still can’t believe I’m saying this—100th episode of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show! You know what, congratulations again, Steve. It’s—I’m going to use your word again—quite amazing what you’ve built and kept so vibrant over these years, so truly, congratulations.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, well, thank you. The system feeds itself, when it’s good news and a good feeling at the end of the day, you just want to keep going. You’re ready to go get it the next day and help customers through the process. So we’re lucky that we built a company that has real value for owner-builders, contractors, and people that want to design and build a panelized home package. It’s pretty amazing. We owe the thanks to our customers, because it’s the partnership together that makes both of us stronger. It’s pretty cool.

Host: And just a little sort of semi-housekeeping here, I always do this, but before I let you go, Steve, please let the listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company and everything, all the good things you guys are doing over there.

Steve Tuma: Well, the best thing to do is contact us through our website. Take a look at our website, there’s a variety of plans, there’s videos, there’s these podcasts, there’s discussions on what we supply, and someone could do that on their phone or on their iPad, on their computer, however it is, and they could just kind of get an idea for what it is. And we have direct access: you could send us an email through the website, you can also go look at a plan and send an inquiry in and say, “Hey, can you tell me about this plan? I want to build here or there,” and then we will work with them to get answers to their questions.

And then, we are very proactive and responsive by telephone calls. You can call 800-830-9788, and Mike will answer the phone, and we’ll talk to you about your project, see what’s going on. If for some reason you do get a voicemail, we will call you back right away and get to know you. We want to get to know our customers just like they want to get to know us, and we need to have an understanding of what they’re looking for in a home, and what their goals are, what kind of design, where they want to build, to go through and do that.

So the best thing is take a look at our website at LHLC.com, kind of like the initials of Landmark Home and Land Company, and check it out there.

And if someone wants to call and talk to me directly, I’m available. My direct cell phone is 708-205-2043, and we invite their inquiries. We want people to call, because even though on these podcasts we talk about a lot of details, it’s important to reach out to say, “But how does this apply to me?” How does this house on this piece of land with this building department, this budget, how does this work? And those are the details that are very important. So the website will get someone started, but the conversation is what really helps move them along and understand it. So we invite people to contact us, and we’ll take the time to do what we can to help.

Host: Yeah, every Landmark home build project is different than the next. It’s easy to build a Landmark home, a panelized prefab kit home, but every project is taken by Landmark as a unique project, and I think that’s one of the things that makes you guys special.

Steve Tuma: Individual customer service, yeah, it’s tailored to our customers’ needs.

Host: Well, fantastic! Thanks again, Steve, and thanks to all of you for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma and myself, have a great week, and we will see you next time. Thanks again, Steve, and happy 100th podcast!

Steve Tuma: Thank you, and we’ll see everyone at 200, just keep on listening. Thank you.

A: No, municipal building departments across the United States include statutory owner-builder exemptions that allow private individuals to pull permits and supervise the construction of their personal residence without a general contractor’s license. While trade-specific subcontractors (such as electrical or plumbing installers) must typically hold valid trade licenses, the property owner retains full legal authority to manage site logistics, order materials, and schedule inspections directly.

A: On conventional stick-frame jobsites, carpenters frequently cut short blocking or cripple studs from full-length 8-foot boards, discarding the off-fall into rented dumpsters. Panelized fabrication plants utilize computerized saw software that analyzes the entire production run to nest multiple component cuts within individual boards, recycling remnant wood into other panel members and cutting on-site waste disposal expenses by over 50%.

A: Traditional on-site stick framing requires skilled carpenters to hand-measure, cut, square, and nail together individual studs, headers, and sheathing sheets on an open subfloor. A panelized package delivers pre-assembled, factory-sheeted wall sections and pre-engineered trusses with clear placement schematics, allowing a lead framer and general laborers to stand the weather-tight shell in days rather than weeks.

A: While non-engineered stock plans often leave beam sizing to prescriptive field tables, an engineered panelized blueprint set includes dedicated structural calculation packets detailing exact live, dead, wind, and seismic loads. Engineers mathematically map continuous load paths from the roof truss bearing points down through headers, supporting posts, shear wall anchor bolts, and foundation footings, giving plan examiners verifiable proof of structural safety.

A: Operating multiple regional manufacturing facilities ensures that flatbed freight routes remain localized, minimizing cross-country transport mileage and fuel surcharges. Standardizing production across regional hubs allows home kits to be shipped strapped securely on flatbed trailers directly to building sites, locking in guaranteed bottom-line delivery pricing upfront in the purchase contract.

Steve Tuma: As owner-builders, people don’t need to be licensed. So, no, you don’t need a general contractor, but some people choose to have one because they’re busy or, you know, whatever concerns that they have. So, no, you don’t need to be a general contractor to be an owner-builder.

Host: Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 99 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today, as he always is, is the president and founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how’s it going, my friend?

Steve Tuma: It’s doing great. It’s a great day. I think we’re on part four of—well, episode 99, almost hitting 100, but part four of this last series of questions people should ask or that they don’t ask or just very unique kind of curveball questions.

Host: Right, and you’re right: episode 100 is the next episode. That’s quite a milestone. So you’ve got to be kind of jazzed to see the podcast come this far. And it’s just like the company: you decided to have these podcasts, and here we are on our 100th episode. You don’t do anything in a small way, do you, my friend?

Steve Tuma: No, you’ve got to let people know what we do, but also help people in general, because some people decide to build right away, other people it can take years for them to sort it out, get in position to do it. And I’ve had customers tell me they’ve listened to every single podcast, which I think is pretty cool. And they say it helps them think about things and understand what’s going on. And that’s what Landmark’s about, is helping people understand the process so it’s easier for them to manage and build their home. So hopefully these are helpful.

Host: Yeah, and I think they’re probably inspiring, too. I mean, if you’re thinking about building a home, after listening to a few of these, I think you’d be even more gung-ho about diving into it, because one thing that the podcast does and what you do during the podcast is to give people more confidence that moving forward with a house build is doable, and it’s completely within their wheelhouse, even if they don’t know it.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, and we also want to let people know we have the real-life knowledge and experience of building homes, designing homes all over the country so that people sometimes think, “Oh, you know, I’ve got the worst building department, or my building site’s super challenging,” or whatever. It’s like, well, chances are we’ve seen a similar or worse situation where we can help customers through it and kind of helps the learning curve, get some confidence and understanding of their project. That’s a key element.

Host: Well, as you said, we’re continuing our series on general questions sent in by or searched out on the internet by potential homeowner-builders, especially panelized homeowner-builders, because a lot of people are starting to get real savvy about just what a panelized home is. And I guess we could call this part four of our series, but I’m not sure, Steve, that we won’t have part five and six coming up soon.

Yeah, I think it’s a good place to be just to start getting some of the inquiries together and giving you a chance with all these very important questions, give you all the time you need to answer them all. So are you ready to dive in with this episode?

Steve Tuma: Yes, let’s do it. What’s the first one?

Host: The first one comes right off the internet. People want to know if panelized homes are structurally stronger than the alternatives. Now, when they say “alternatives,” I’m thinking, of course it’s stronger than a trailer, but what’s your thought on that, just panelized homes and the sound structural ability and lifetime of these panelized homes?

Steve Tuma: Well, here’s the interesting thing about that. It’s hard to say, hey, compare this to this and this and that, but I can tell you the process that we go through.

On the engineered homes, we go through and a structural engineer looks at every single design to make sure the foundation is right, the shear walls are right, the point loads, posts, headers. The truss designers look at the truss designs, make sure everything’s fine for the loads and wind speeds and things that happen. So we’ve got a very documented home package.

So I think that in itself, because not everyone engineers their home—some people just go through, if they find a local builder, he’s like, “Well, I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” and that’s great—but in our case, we go through and actually document why something’s the size of a beam, the shear walls, the different situations, which puts it in the better side of structurally stronger, because it’s documented.

Where a lot of places in America—some places don’t even have building departments, or they may have a building department that does not have an inspection or even a plan review process, and then in other places, there are more stringent plan check processes and inspections. But even so, my experience is it’s very rare that any building department goes through and literally looks at every feature of the home. They might have certain hotspots that they look at or situations they choose to review, but I’ve run into very few that do an actual complete review of the structural engineering, the architecturals, and make sure that it’s there. And you can kind of tell that just by their checklist questions, and you can also tell that by what questions they initially ask.

So if you have a building department that says, “Hey, just get me plans,” or they send you a list of 500 specific items, we’ll make sure that everything’s covered, but we will also make sure that the house hits the standard that we believe it should be designed and built to as well.

So structurally stronger? I believe so, and we have it to document compared to the typical home, because in our situation, we’ll go through and make sure that beams are sized right. Occasionally, we’ll get a call from a framer going, “Oh, you don’t need this beam here,” and it’s like, “Oh, really? Let me tell you the loads that it’s taking. Let me tell you the load path.” Because we do have an ability to justify everything that we’ve designed and make sure that it’s put together right.

So just by the questions that sometimes we get asked, we can tell that people aren’t used to it.

Also, customers tell us, “Hey, my friend’s building; my house is beefier. There’s more wood, it’s stronger, the headers are different, the way it’s put together it’s different.”

So we’re in the business of making sure that someone has the right home. It’s not necessarily the cheapest—there’s always someone cheaper—we want to make sure the home is built right for the long term. And that’s the important part of what we put together, and we document it, show it on the plans so people, if they have questions, they can ask us about it. They can say, “Hey, why is this here?” or, “Hey, can we adjust this, or can we change something here?”

So I can tell you that the homes are very thought out: architecturally, structurally, energy-efficient-wise, site plan, green codes. So we go through, and it’s not just the strength, but it’s also the proper design for what a customer wants, and the building department wants, and the site conditions require.

So I know we go through the process. I deal with it every day to make sure that the house is put together right. We don’t have people guessing going, “Oh, this beam should work.” No, we have someone calculating it to make sure it does work.

And it’s not just the beams; a lot of it is the connections: how a beam’s connected to a wall, or how a beam’s connected to a foundation. Those things are very important. And there’s a lot of considerations that people don’t even think of that we are considering.

So that’s what we’re proud of, is the kind of behind-the-scenes work that people may not understand they need, but we are definitely taking care of to make sure the home’s right. Even though the home is our customers’, we kind of consider it to be ours. It’s representative of us, so we want to make sure that it’s done right.

Host: Yeah, of course. If you put your name on something, you want to make sure it’s done right. We’re not bringing in houses from China here; these are done correctly. And, yeah, I just don’t think there are a lot of companies out there that really care much about that anymore, so it’s nice to know.

Steve Tuma: We get a lot of referral business, we get a lot of repeat business, and that’s a result of taking care of people and doing it right.

Host: There’s a lot of talk about material waste, and I wouldn’t say it’s rampant out there, people wondering about this, but there are enough to where it’s worth bringing up. Is it true that panelized home building can eliminate a lot of material waste?

Steve Tuma: Oh, yes! The reason being is that we design it and we know what goes into it. So if a house needs so many boards, we supply those boards. And by the plans being thought out, we know what needs to go into it.

We’ve actually gotten plans from outside designers—who knows who they are, but they’re people that design a home—and details aren’t there. So a lot of people will say, “Hey, I was stick-building my home and we had to make 20 trips to the lumberyard.” Well, the reason being is because the plans weren’t clear and they didn’t know what was into it.

And the funny thing about it is if someone miscuts a beam, they don’t come up and say, “Hey, Mr. Smith, sorry, I just cut your $4,000 beam wrong. Let me just pay for it because I’m such a good guy.” It just doesn’t happen that way. They’ll be like, “Oh, you need another beam,” and all these things. So you end up with a lot of real-time design, and inherently it develops waste because people may have to cut something, it doesn’t work, so then they use another board.

But the key point to it—and I had a couple of customers tell me today—it’s like, “Man, the waste was minimal, because everything is thought out.” And also just the nature of the way that we supply the materials, it does a lot to help minimize waste.

Everyone’s seen it where someone needs a two-foot board, so they go cut an eight-foot board, throw six feet away, and then use the two-foot board. Well, in our system, the chances of that happening are minimized. But also within the panelization process, at the actual production facilities, there’s equipment called maximizers, and what they do is maximize the use of materials. So they’ll go through, like on a wall panel or a variety of panels, and figure out, hey, load so many studs into the machine, and it’ll figure out how to cut the studs for maximum usage with minimal waste.

So right there at the production facility, it’s a greener, less-waste type of setup. And in a production facility, if there is, say, an eight-foot board, you need two feet and there’s six left over, that six gets used someplace else. So that goes a lot into the cost control.

What people don’t realize, they say, “Hey, it’s not waste.” It’s like in areas with green codes or other places where people dump properly, if you have to pay for dumpsters, it’s expensive! Dumpsters are also a great way to meet your neighbors when they’re dumping their garbage into it.

So if you can minimize dumpster fees or waste fees, it’s always nice. And it’s also a savings; it’s just easier to keep it clean. So I think our situation and the way that we manage it, the waste is minimized as much as we can to make sure the home is built right, but also not have waste. Waste is just money down the drain, and we’d rather avoid that.

Host: Yeah, there’s so much fine detail in a Landmark home. What you’re talking about, just saving the fees on dumpsters, I mean, you’re going to have to have those costs anyway, but it’d sure be nice to cut them in half. That’d be nice.

Steve Tuma: From what customers have told me, it’s beyond half of what they expected. Because the reality is I’ve never seen someone’s house appraisal go up because they had four dumpsters versus one. So the cost of the additional three dumpsters, they can save or put it somewhere in the house that does add value and enjoyment to the home.

Host: Yeah, of course. You know, at the top of every episode, we talk about Landmark building homes as the customer wants, wherever they want, around the globe and nationwide. But in reality, how far can a panelized package actually ship? How far out?

Steve Tuma: We’ve shipped them around the world. And I know this is something that I’ve seen, it’s like, “Well, panelization, it’s got to ship and that might be a cost.” Well, yeah, it is a cost, but we’ve got 10 shipping points around the country, so we’re very close to where you want to build.

And like when we did projects in Europe, it was cheaper for us to build it here and ship it than it was for them to get it manufactured in Europe and shipped. It kind of surprised me, but it was also the materials they wanted and understanding of certain types of products that we supply.

Basically, you’ve got to make sure the home is strapped down on the truck, and whether it goes a mile or a couple hundred miles, it works out. All our costs are shipping included, so we’re here to give a customer a bottom-line, this-is-it price, a set and guaranteed cost at the time they sign the contract for exactly what it is. So we don’t want to get into the little tricks of this and that.

That’s a key element to it, but we’ve got 10 production facilities around the country, so we’re able to minimize that. It’s not a big component of the cost. There’s rumors out there about this, but it really isn’t. And what we’re actually seeing is the way that we design and engineer the home, the labor savings, the headache savings, the actual cost savings, it’s well worth it to have our materials designed and shipped to the site.

So the end result on the cost, I would say, is pretty insignificant. And we always want to do our best to supply extremely competitive and value-added pricing so that it makes sense for a customer.

Host: You guys at Landmark, you’re locked into so many skilled laborers in these factories. These are quality craftsmen who are putting these houses together before they ship. How much do you think you’re solving the skilled labor shortage by building panelized homes in factories and shipping them out?

Steve Tuma: Well, I think it’s a big thing, because all over the country, skilled quality labor, I’ll call it, is harder to find. I think people will find that in their own life: go find a kid that cuts lawns in the neighborhood. When you and I were kids, every kid’s out shoveling snow or cutting lawns or doing whatever; now it just doesn’t happen.

So the panelization process, a lot of framers like it because they know how much quicker it is. So they could build an extra house or two or three a year, which adds to their profit. It’s also something where they don’t really like being on projects for three and four months; it just kind of develops a fatigue. So within our panelized process, it’s a lot quicker to assemble a home package and keep the project moving, and see the excitement of the build not just on the customer’s face, but also the framers going, “Man, that went up fast.”

So within our panelized package, the way it is, you need like a main framer and then a couple laborers—basically the muscle to hold the wall in place, nail in place, get it put together. And what that does is it makes it easier to find people to assemble the home package.

So we’re able to control the cost in the actual production facilities because it’s a controlled area compared to working out in the snow or mud or rain or whatever an on-site framer would be. So we’re able to control the quality of the materials, but also get the home framed quicker. And framing quicker controls the labor cost.

Labor cost of assembling a panelized package I’ve found is generally 40 to 50 percent of the stick-build cost, which is a tremendous savings.

But it’s also a cost savings in the time. If someone has a construction loan, the interest costs, and it’s also a lot of times there’s shorter building seasons where people are trying to get in before winter. It just allows the project to move along.

So it’s not just in the availability of skilled labor; it’s in how much labor do you need? If it’s less, it’s a big component of it. And I don’t think AI is taking framers’ jobs away. So it’s something that’s very important and part of what is built into the Landmark Home and Land Company panelized building phase, design, and building processes.

Host: I know so many contractors, and it’s like you say: you at Landmark love what you’re doing. You personally just enjoy helping people build houses. And I know a lot of contractors take so much pride. They drive by months, years later: “I built that house.” And it’s a sense of pride that there’s a family living in there now.

And that must be the same at the factories that you work with. Those builders take a lot of pride in putting those houses together, and even though they know they’re probably not ever going to see the finished product, they’re building a house that somebody’s going to live in and have a life in.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, I’ll actually send pictures of the plant and say, “Hey, guys, here it is.” And then we actually had a situation once in northern Michigan, one of the guys from the plant drove by one of our projects. He’s like, “Steve, I saw this house going up in northern Michigan.” And it was kind of cool.

So, yeah, it takes pride to do it right. You don’t want to work with grumpy people; you want people that are energized for what they do, and that just makes for a better home, it makes for a better experience, and I think that’s what it’s about. Building your own home is hard, but when you’ve got the right team, it just makes it that much better.

Host: Yeah, something about creating something with your own hands, even if you’re not the final owner of the thing, you just have a hand in it, it’s still just a great feeling. And I imagine that the Landmark factories that are building these houses take just as much pride as you guys do, which is nice to know.

Steve Tuma: Yes.

Host: There’s a question—we’ve gone over sort of a variation of this question a couple of times in the past, but it keeps coming up, so why not throw it out there again? But let’s talk about general contractors: Do you actually need a licensed general contractor to build a panelized kit home? Is that good advice, or is it something you should never build a house without?

Steve Tuma: Well, it depends on the situation, because as owner-builders, people don’t need to be licensed to pull permits and build their own home.

So, no, you don’t need a general contractor, but some people choose to have one because they’re busy or whatever concerns that they have. So, no, you don’t need to be a general contractor to be an owner-builder.

I’ve never run into a place anywhere in the United States that demands that you have to have a general contractor to build your home. So if you’re building your own home, you can do it. You just go in, you apply for a permit and do it.

And if you’re doing certain work on the home, that person doesn’t need to be licensed, but theoretically, if you hire someone, they should be licensed if it’s a job that needs to be licensed. So there’s ways we can guide people through it, but a lot of the building departments will explain to them what needs to be done.

And overall, from what I’ve seen, the licensing issue isn’t a big deal because people want to build a house right. So if they don’t understand electric, they get a licensed electrical subcontractor and go put the house together.

Painting, you don’t always need to be licensed; maybe there’s a business license or something in the area, but if you want to paint your home or put siding on, generally that’s not something that needs to be licensed. But even if they do request a license, if you’re doing work on your own home, you don’t need to have a license is what our experience is.

Now, the general contractor: some people choose to hire someone. They’re busy, have multiple projects, whatever it is. They may choose to hire a general contractor or a job coordinator-type person to manage things, take care of issues on the site, make decisions, make sure materials show up for the crew, and different things like that.

So that general contractor, at least today’s version of a general contractor, is more a person that coordinates things. That general contractor typically is not actually out there doing work themselves; they hire subcontractors.

So the main question is, no, you don’t need a general contractor to build a panelized home if you’re doing it for yourself.

Now, some places will have things where you can only build one house every two years, so you can’t become in the building business and do a house a month and say, “Oh, it’s for me.” They’ve caught on to that game. So if you’re going to do a house, in general, every two years or less, you don’t need to be licensed for it. They just want to know that you’re doing the right thing.

And I think what really helps people is our set of plans is very detailed, very specific, so it gives a higher level of comfort to building departments knowing that they’ve got a great set of plans that’s been thought through and they’ve got support from a company like Landmark Home and Land Company so that they have the knowledge to go through and avoid goofy little mistakes. Because everyone wants the home to be built in a reasonable amount of time and they want it to be quality.

So that’s how we can help. And our customers, some have built homes, some haven’t, but they all have the aptitude and desire to do it right, so they check things out or ask questions or work with the right people to get it done right. So the end result is a quality, well-built home. Everyone wants that, and that’s how we help people.

Host: As we close out episode 99, I’ve been thinking about what our 100th episode could be. And I kind of decided a few days ago, and I’m going to run it by you just because, but you have so much passion for this. The way you talk about it comes from a place of not just—this isn’t just a job for you or just a business. You’re into this!

I think our 100th podcast episode is going to be me just allowing you to talk about some of the cool projects you’ve worked on with the weird stuff, like indoor pools, or we’ve talked about people putting elevators in their houses or underground parking where there’s turntables where the cars can automatically turn, stuff like that. I’d love to just talk about what you over the last 33 years—what are some of the most exciting projects that you’ve had? And I know you love even building the basic four-wall homes, but this has to have been a good journey for you, man.

Steve Tuma: Well, here’s a little hook for people to follow: you brought up the dazzling stuff, but sometimes it’s the story behind the house.

Sometimes you can say, hey, a guy had a 17 Ferrari collection—17 Ferraris from the ’50s that he had—or this person had an airplane, or this person had a boathouse or whatever it is. But sometimes it’s the passion of what customers did and why they’re building the house, which is the most amazing part.

And some of the houses that have the most amazing stories aren’t necessarily the most dazzling houses. Some of them are; it’s incredible the type of people we’ve worked with, what their reason for building is, but sometimes it’s that very modest home where you sit back and go, “Wow.” An “only in America” type of a story.

Host: You know what’s going to happen, because Landmark’s been around over 30 years now: there’s going to be a time when Landmark will have been around 50 years, and there’s going to be a time where some famous movie star, some famous athlete, or some famous politician will be able to say he grew up in a Landmark house!

Steve Tuma: Yeah, well, we’ve helped a lot of people that have gone on to do different things, some publicly significant, others that are just good neighborhood people that have done just great things in the neighborhood.

A lot of customers we keep in touch with over the time. In fact, there was a house we did a couple of years ago, the customer called me last Friday, saying, “Steve, I was so used to talking to you, I haven’t talked to you in a while, what’s up?” We talked for an hour about different stuff with the house, what’s going on with his kids, and what’s going on in his life. And it’s kind of a unique bond to really help people.

So, yeah, the hook to get people to listen is: the houses are amazing, the stories behind the house are sometimes little tearjerkers. So it’s kind of amazing, actually.

Host: Yeah, you’ve got to be happy, you’ve got to be proud of what you’ve accomplished.

Steve Tuma: We had a customer—this was last summer, I was sitting around on a Sunday afternoon just taking it easy, I just got done exercising, I checked the email, and someone from 20 years ago sent an email to say thank you, they love the house. It’s like, wow! So people remember us. They call, we keep in touch.

So it’s pretty amazing to see what this is. It transforms lives. It’s almost—I almost kind of think the business we’re in is opening the next chapter, whether people are getting married, or the kids flew the nest, or it’s a vacation home, or what I call the heirloom homes where everyone gets together. That’s kind of an interesting scenario as well. So it’s kind of like, hey, here’s your next chapter, let’s go enjoy it.

Host: That’s good stuff, man. Even in the subtleties when you describe things, there’s still a passion there for building and putting people in houses. It’s pretty cool.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s the environment that we’re creating, that we’re helping create. They have an idea; we’re just kind of formalizing it and bringing it to life.

And it’s pretty amazing to see what happens. I’ll be sitting around and I’ll get a text: kids’ first birthday in the house, the new puppy, the holiday decorations. We’ve had people specify that they need to have a 19-foot-tall Christmas tree in their living room, and it’s got to be lit up so you could see it on the land. It’s pretty cool, and we’ve achieved it all.

So if anyone wants to call us up with some other curveballs of this or this or that, we’re all on it. That’s the fun part. Whatever we can do to help, we’re here.

Host: Well, I’m going to be out there beating the streets and looking for questions to keep you on your toes as much as I can for many episodes to come.

But that’s going to wrap it up for this edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. But Steve, as we always do before I let you go, I’d like to give you the time to let the listeners know just how to find out more about your company, Landmark Home and Land Company.

Steve Tuma: Best thing to do is check our website out. It’s up 24 hours a day, and you can go to it: it’s LHLC.com, basically the initials Landmark Home and Land Company, LHLC.com. And on there, there’s these podcasts, some videos, a whole variety of plans, discussions on what we supply, how we do different things.

And what a lot of people end up doing is look at the plans, say, “Hey, I like this house,” and right there from the plan, they could send us an email to introduce themselves, tell us about their project, and we can follow up.

If they’d like to call, they can call 800-830-9788, and Mike will answer the phone and you can have a talk about the different parts of your project and how we can help. We are very proactive; we answer the phone, but if for some reason you do get voicemail, we will call back right away. We are proactive and do want to help our customers, and communication is a big portion of it.

At a certain point, after you work with Mike and you want to start the process, I’ll get involved and we will move forward to get your plans going, work out site conditions, energy code conditions, structural design, and other details to get your plans going and your project up and running.

If someone wants to call me direct and ask me a question, my direct cell phone is 708-205-2043, and we can talk about their project and the ins and outs of it and just figure out a way to get started.

So here we are: 99. Next time, it’s 100.

Host: That’s right. There it is: episode 99 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show is now officially in the can. And the next time you hear from us will be the big 100th episode, and I’m looking forward to that one for sure.

Meantime, thanks to all of you for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma and myself, have a great week ahead, and we will see you next time for the 100th episode. Thanks, Steve.

Steve Tuma: Well, thank you. Have a great day.

A: No, insurance carriers underwrite panelized homes under the identical rating class and premium schedules as traditional stick-built homes because they are built to the standard International Residential Code (IRC). Unlike HUD-code manufactured trailers or modular structures—which insurers often classify under non-standard property forms due to proprietary factory parts or higher replacement costs—panelized homes use conventional dimensional lumber and inspect locally, carrying standard builder’s risk and hazard insurance rates.

A: Local lumberyards dump banded bunks of mill-graded #2 lumber directly onto jobsites, where up to 15% of the boards contain severe warping, crowning, or heavy bark wane that framers must either discard or force into walls. In a controlled panelized manufacturing facility, technicians inspect each board before jig assembly, culling out defective studs and using computerized saws to ensure only straight, true, defect-free lumber is assembled into structural panels.

A: Modern building departments calculate thermal compliance across the home as a unified system rather than evaluating individual wall cavities in isolation. High-performance low-E window glazing, continuous exterior rigid foam, and mechanical HVAC efficiency offset areas with dimensional framing limits—such as compact cathedral roof rafter bays—allowing the complete residential envelope to exceed local energy targets without requiring impractical framing depths.

A: In strict energy jurisdictions like California, Title 24 compliance software models seasonal solar heat gain based on the home’s exact geographic coordinates and orientation. Shifting a footprint by just one degree can rotate large expanse view windows directly into peak afternoon sun exposure, causing calculated indoor cooling loads to spike beyond allowable compliance margins unless counterbalanced with deeper eave overhangs or higher-rated window coatings.

A: Yes, architectural modifications can be incorporated during the preliminary blueprint phase, such as adjusting room dimensions, reconfiguring kitchen layouts, or modifying rooflines, with minimal impact on budget. While structural changes remain technically possible during final engineering or active framing, doing so requires engineering recalculations and municipal plan revisions, making early preliminary plan coordination the most cost-effective approach.

Steve Tuma: And there’s kind of a trick here, because I’ve seen some people say, “Oh, you can’t change panelized homes. They’re this and that.” It’s like, it’s just like a stick-built home. So if you can change a stick-built home, you can change this.

Host: How’s it going, everyone, and welcome to episode 98 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today, as he usually is, is the president and founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how’s it going, amigo?

Steve Tuma: It’s going great. Like I always say, it’s always a great day to talk about building houses, especially our panelized homes and how we can help customers. There’s a lot of customers coming through with different projects. Some of them are ADUs, some of them are retirement homes, vacation homes, some of them are just scaled-down homes as the kids fly the coop, or sometimes it’s families getting a bigger home as the family grows.

So it’s kind of interesting working in a lot of places: Florida, Colorado, California, the plains states, Northeast, Northwest as well. So we’ve got projects all over the country. It’s pretty interesting. It’s kind of fun—a lot of fun, actually.

Host: Awesome. So today we’re diving back into a group of very general, but also very important questions from potential homeowner-builders as sent in to the Landmark Home and Land Company website and just pulled off the web. So I guess this could be looked at as part three or four in a series—I lose track. And I appreciate you just being here to answer all these questions.

They’re all very well thought out and important questions, and I think we should give them each all the time it takes to answer them. So if we’re going to go through parts one, two, three, four, whatever it takes, as long as we get all these good questions in.

So let’s get rolling. First out of the box today is an insurance question, and this one is typical of many we’ve received on this subject. The question is: Are panelized homes more expensive to insure? What are your thoughts on that?

Steve Tuma: Panelized homes are considered to be stick-built homes, which is just the same home that is very common all over the United States. So, no. Panelized homes are not an abnormal building system. They are very normal, just like a stick-built home, so they aren’t more expensive to insure.

Now, the location you choose to put them might be different, but the actual apples-to-apples panelized home versus stick-built, it’s the exact same thing. I think what happens is sometimes people will say, “Oh, prefab,” or this or that, it’s more expensive because sometimes there’s different types of building systems that are considered abnormal, maybe more expensive or harder to replace, where insurance companies may have concerns. But apples-for-apples, panelized homes are the same to insure as if it was a conventionally stick-built home in the same neighborhood with the same features.

So I’ve never heard of a problem. I’ve talked to insurance people because sometimes customers will have them call about builder’s risk insurance or whatever they need during the building phases. And, no, panelized homes are insured just like any other home, which is pretty cool.

I think these questions are kind of based because there’s a lot of stuff on the internet and kind of hearsay, and people just want to know how it applies. As we all know, on the internet, anyone can place an opinion, whether they have knowledge of their opinion is the thing that I think people are asking. And that’s where we’re able to go through and take a general question or general answer and then apply it to a specific situation and add a lot of clarity so people understand how it affects their possible build with us.

Host: Yeah, and you were right about apples-for-apples. I mean, somebody builds a home in Texas, and then they get a little taken aback because they see somebody in Wyoming had the same design, but their quote for their insurance was less. And that’s what happens on the internet: people generalize everything and don’t take into consideration that things are going to change county-to-county, state-to-state.

Steve Tuma: Right. Exactly. And it’s also, what was that joke a little while ago? “Must be true, it’s on the internet.” Sometimes people get an internet PhD, but is the information actually there?

So that’s why we’re going over these questions to add some definitive clarity on how it applies to the panelized home.

Host: Yeah, and I think people should—you’re right to beware of what you’re learning on the internet, because it ain’t always so. It’s like these people that diagnose their medical conditions on what they read. It’s like a house would be the same thing: you want to get an expert opinion, you don’t want to just read on the internet and then take that as gospel.

Anyway, here’s a question about design. And we talk a lot about design, but I don’t know that we’ve covered enough about, let’s say, a Landmark design: I order a design and I’m going to build a house based on a design that you guys have up on the website. But after I’ve ordered it, how much of that design can be changed? Is it pretty versatile, or what do you think?

Steve Tuma: Well, this is an interesting thing, because I’ve been asked this question a lot, and I’ve seen a lot of questions online. And there’s kind of a trick here, because I’ve seen some people say, “Oh, you can’t change panelized homes. They’re this and that.” It’s just like a stick-built home. So if you can change a stick-built home, you can change this.

So I think what gets into it is the actual building process. With any type of house, you’re going to have to commit at some point to say, “Hey, these are the final plans,” so that your builder can go through. And if you’re buying modular, you’re going to sign off: this is it, no changes, so they can go into production. It’s going to be the same with trailers: this is it, you can go through.

So there is a certain limitation where customers should understand that they should limit their changes after a certain point just to keep their schedule online, to keep their budget in line. So the reality is you can make changes whenever you want. It’s just a matter of how reasonable it is and is it going to add to the cost considerably.

So in our case, we’ve got the preliminary plan stage where we go through with the customer on their plan and the changes they want. And if they want to go through a couple sets of revisions—moving doors, making a roof pitch steeper, making it lower, adding a garage, redoing the kitchen, updating bathrooms, pretty much any design—we can work on those designs up until the point the customer says, “Yes, I got it. That’s the exact design I want. Let’s move forward.”

So we don’t limit their ability to do changes to the design, because we take pride in helping our customers get the home they want. And that’s the key thing. And the home they want is generally prefaced by, “Hey, let’s design it so it works with this particular family’s needs.”

Now, when a general question like this is asked, it’s like, at what point is it reasonable or unreasonable? So in the preliminary plan stage, we can do changes. Even in final sets of plans, we can do changes if they’re necessary, but customers have to understand that sometimes when we’re in the finalization stage, if they ask for a change, we might have to take two or three steps back to allow that to happen.

So it is possible anywhere in the building process to make changes to the home design, the home structure, the home package itself. It’s just how much of a hassle is it. If the house is framed and someone says, “Oh, I want to make a window bigger,” or “I want to add a fourth-car garage,” obviously, it takes a little work to do that work, but it can be done.

So whenever I see this or get asked this question, I ask the customer: What is, when are you wanting to do this change, and what type of change is it?

So let’s just say someone ordered a two-story home, and suddenly they decide when they’re framing a house that, hey, they want a one-story home. Obviously, it’s a little late. I mean, you can do it, but it’s just expensive, really hurts your schedule, it’s a big hassle. But if someone took a two-story home and said, “Hey, I want to make the kitchen window a little bigger,” or, “Hey, I want to change the kitchen from an island to a peninsula,” you know, there’s certain things that you can do.

So a lot of it really comes down to what the change is and the timing, and then also particular design characteristics. So it’s kind of hard to give a yes or no definitive answer to that, but the reality is you can do a change anytime with a Landmark panelized home. It’s just a matter of it’s easier if you do it up in the preliminary plan stages. As you get into the final plans or the actual delivery of the home package, it just gets to be a lot harder, and we ask people to avoid that. But if something absolutely has to happen, we’re open to doing whatever’s necessary to make sure a customer gets a house.

And what’s interesting about this is these changes are sometimes derived from the customer just asking for something. Sometimes it’s a lifestyle change: suddenly the grandparents have to move in, or they need to change a den into a convertible suite, type of a thing, so when the grandparents stay there, they have stuff. Sometimes there’s just a big change. Other times they find something out that kind of pushes them into a change.

But the reality is we work very hard up front to make sure that we understand the ground conditions—basically the terrain of the land—the building department requirements, the engineering requirements, the energy code requirements, and the architectural and structural details, so we’ve got a very strong grasp on the home design to make sure that the home is just the way a customer wants it to be.

So it’s a lot better to do it up front in the preliminary design stage. It’s faster, easier, generally doesn’t cost as much, if anything. A lot of the changes customers want, we just make them part of the package to make sure that the home is just the way they want it.

Host: Does that include customizations? I mean, obviously, the design of the home is one thing, but then those little customized jobs, can that become problematic if people are making a lot of smaller changes to customize their home design?

Steve Tuma: Well, it depends on what it is. So let’s just say someone had a two-story home with a flat roof, kind of a modernistic design, and then for some reason, they wanted to make it a very steep 12/12 gable-end pitch roof. That’s a big change. But if necessary, we’ll figure it out. We’ll work with them to do it.

But if someone goes through and goes, “You know, I thought I was going to get this type of light to hang in the cathedral ceiling in the dining room, but now I’m going to go with a different light,” generally, that’s not as big of a deal; it doesn’t really affect the structure in most cases.

So it depends on what it is. If someone says, “Hey, I want hickory kitchen cabinets instead of oak,” as long as they haven’t ordered the cabinets, they should be okay. And for us to change plans to say oak cabinets, or change it from a peninsula to an island, we can work with them on those.

So, again, it’s kind of like: What is the change, and where are we in the process? The key to it is we’re very customer-service-oriented, so we’ll spend the time to figure out a way to get the customer taken care of. So far, we’ve been able to take care of every request, even if they’re kind of out there. We’ll do our best to get them taken care of, because we are in the business of helping owner-builders, and sometimes things just come up.

I had a customer email me, and they’re having twins. It wasn’t exactly part of the schedule. But it happens, so now we’ve got to change some of the bedroom layouts and bathroom layouts in the house, and we’re pretty deep in the design. But in that particular situation, we’re doing it, and it’s kind of working relatively easy without a big hassle. So sometimes you get lucky.

Host: Let’s talk about energy for a moment. We do go through a lot of talking about energy codes and energy efficiencies, but one more time for our audience: Are panelized homes, especially Landmark Home and Land Company homes, inherently more energy efficient? In your opinion, you’ve seen all kinds of companies and how they build things, but where does Landmark stack up when it comes to energy efficiency?

Steve Tuma: What’s interesting about that is each state has its own energy efficiency standard and calculation method, so you’ve got to meet that or exceed that. And we generally work to exceed, so that theoretically makes ours more energy efficient than the code.

But the key thing to this is it’s not that it’s a panelized home; it’s what Landmark Home and Land Company does to the panelized home design in the process. So it’s kind of a situation of what we do to work with the design to make sure the architectural features and the structures of our home allow for a higher energy efficiency.

So sometimes people—and this is, I think, what we’re trying to point out—is Landmark Home and Land Company’s panelized homes are the best homes out there. There’s a lot more thinking and design going into your own custom home.

Every once in a while, I get plans that were drawn up by someone’s local architect or friend, and they’ll go through and value engineer it and do all these things with cool-sounding words, and say, for some reason, they’ll have a cathedral ceiling—say of a dining room off the back of the house—and they’ll go through and make it with a 2×6 roof joist. Okay, so you have generally 5.5 inches of space in a 2×6. Well, if for some reason you need an R-48 insulation in there, there just isn’t space for it.

So you can’t put 10 gallons of water in a 5-gallon bucket at one time. So by us going through and understanding the design to say, “Hey, we’re going to need a certain energy efficiency or to exceed it a certain amount, we need to have a certain amount of space,” so then we go through the complete design, from foundation up to the peak, to figure out what type of insulation needs to be there, and also make sure that the materials can fit in the space. Now, l et me digress a little. A lot of people come through and say, “Well, code in my area is an R-30 roof or R-48.” It’s like, I’ve never really seen that, but I’ve seen where generally that’s how the calculations end up working out. So the energy calculations are like for the home as a unit. It’s not necessarily one wall has to be like this and another wall has to be like that; they look at the unit of the house.

So, looking at the energy efficiency, we can go through and do the energy calculations, make sure that there’s space in the structure—under the foundation, around the foundation, in the roof, in the eaves, between floors—to make sure the insulation is there. But it’s also what we’re able to do—and I think we’re extremely unique in this additional service that we supply for customers—is we can go through and do the HVAC system—heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems—to go through and design the system so that it is energy efficient.

Way back before these calculations were generally done, people would just say, “Oh, I’m going to put a 100,000 BTU furnace in there; that’s what I’ve been doing for 30 years.”

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: It’s like, okay, well, 30 years ago, things weren’t as efficient. They didn’t have the insulation, they didn’t have the windows, so right now, you may not need as big of a furnace to heat the same size house, because modern homes have better windows, better insulation, maybe different overhangs.

So there’s also something in the energy efficiency for your HVAC, there’s also energy efficiency in the lighting, and then there’s also energy efficiency in the actual design. To simplify, like overhangs: a bigger overhang is going to keep more of the summer sun out of your window. So different things like that, where if you have a different overhang, the sun doesn’t go past your eave in through your window and then magnified in your living room space. It’s not going to heat up as much if you have a bigger overhang.

So I think what it is, is the understanding of what we have of the energy efficiency not just being how much insulation you have—that’s what most people think—but also how is the house designed, are there specifications on lighting, are there specifications on the HVAC design? Even the orientation of the home on the land. We’ve done a lot of net-zero homes, we’ve done a lot with solar.

So the nature of it is that the Landmark Home and Land Company panelized homes can be very energy efficient, and I think we go to an extreme to make sure that we take care of every advantage that we can. And it’s basically just us looking at it to go through and do it.

What’s cool about this: it’s just part of what we supply. It’s not an additional cost to make your house more energy efficient. We automatically go through to work things out as well as we can.

And something that people should hear is a lot of states are tightening up the energy calculations, and this last revision, it got a lot tighter. Over the last decade or two, they did stuff, but it wasn’t something significant. But in most states, it really took a jump. California’s always been tighter, but we’ve gotten every single house to pass. So it’s a matter of taking the time to understand what a customer wants, make sure that the design is right, make sure that the architectural and structural features are right so that energy efficiency can be kind of designed right into the home. It’s what we do every day.

Host: Yeah, I’m sure you’re playing advisor a lot, and people would want that. I would want somebody to tell me, “Hey, you’ve got that 12-foot window that’s really beautiful, but you might not want it facing that 11:00 AM to noon sun coming in.”

Steve Tuma: Right, and sometimes it’s something as simple as that. And in some states, like California, the Title 24 calculations do consider the orientation of the house. So if you have a house with a huge glass wall facing south in California, that’s a lot of sun beating in there, which means that, hey, you got a lot of air conditioning going on, and they want to limit the use of energy.

So sometimes you can counteract it different ways or work things out. It’s never stopped us from giving the customer a design that they want; it’s just, you know, we’ve got to jump over a few more hurdles to make it work. And we’ve done enough of them where we can take care of pretty much what the customers want.

One house, as a little side story: one house in California, moving the house one degree changed the passing and failing of an energy calculation due to that exact situation you brought up.

Host: That’s crazy.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, I mean, one degree. It’s like, what’s that, a hair? But that’s how tricky it is.

But, hey, another thing: we put those details on the plans. Our customers, as owner-builders, it’s good to make sure that it actually gets executed on site, because a lot of building departments will ask for energy efficiency, but amazingly, they don’t check it. They check it in permitting, but are they out there really checking the nooks and crannies and finer details? Not all of them do; they don’t have the knowledge or manpower, in some cases, I think, desire to do it.

So that’s where we can help a customer so that they understand what’s in a home, so that when they’re talking to their HVAC guy or their insulation person, that they know what to ask for and make sure it gets happened. It’s part of the customer support we have.

Host: Well, experience is everything, man. You guys have seen it all, which is—

Steve Tuma: It’s experience, but it’s also the desire to help. It’s putting it in place. These energy codes are all over, but who’s going to take the time? And that’s really what it comes into when someone’s looking at Landmark versus maybe other options, is like, hey, wait a second, it’s not just the panels; it’s the service, the design, the making sure it’s done right, the details—that’s what makes sense. And that’s where we can help people and also review it with them so that they understand what’s going on.

Host: A lot of people are inquiring online about—let’s face it, the prices of lumber and the quality of lumber coming in has been like a roller coaster the last five years or so. People are just going nuts about what a 2×4 used to cost as opposed to what it costs now. But talk about the quality that is used—Landmark lumber quality. It’s factory-built, so are people expecting a higher quality from a factory-built home, or are they expecting that the local lumber place shows up with their flatbed and dumps it and that’s going to be higher quality? Is factory lumber higher quality than anything else?

Steve Tuma: In general, the materials that go through a factory, they’re all graded as wood is—#1, #2, stud grade, all these different things. But the point is, we cull out the things that we don’t believe are up to grade.

The grading of lumber, in my opinion, has a big variation. So when a piece of wood goes through, even though it may be graded a certain grade, if it just doesn’t look right—too much waning, which is like bark on it, or just not a rectangular piece of 2×4 or whatever—it gets thrown to the side.

Now, occasionally, something will slide through, but I think overall, customers tell us, “Man, this is just great-quality material.” We do go to the extra extent to make sure that we’ve got a better-looking, quality material, but of the graded materials that are necessary per our engineer specification and code requirements.

So that, I think, is something that is very important, is that people understand that we’re not just getting a stack of wood that’s cheap and twisted and putting it in a house. We are going through and culling the materials to get it put together. And people don’t ask that question, but that’s a very, very important situation.

You know, it’s kind of funny, to relate it to food: all of us know fast food places that the billboard has a picture of this incredibly juicy burger, but then the one that you actually get looks like someone stepped on it.

Host: Exactly. Exactly.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, we’re not in that business. We’re in the business of making sure we’ve got the best quality that can be supplied and that actually shows up. The pictures on our website are all from customers. It’s real pictures that customers took and we’ve supplied, so we want to be proud of it. It’s just the way it is: it’s better to do it right once than to redo it. We just want to make sure that we have the best product out there, and I believe we do.

Whatever we talked about—the financial parts of this, the insurance, the design, the energy efficiency, the actual quality—

Host: I’m sorry, man! I told you they’re all over the map, but I think they’re important to get them out there, so I appreciate your patience that I’m just throwing all these different, varying questions, but you always handle everything so well.

Steve Tuma: But this is what it’s about! I think a lot of these questions are questions that maybe some people never think about. They don’t even know. It’s like, “Hey, I want to build a house, what do I know?” Some people think a house is like a gallon of milk, it’s kind of a generic commodity. A panelized home is not a generic commodity; it’s something that we specifically design, engineer, and manufacture to give certain advantages.

And as customers go through and work with us, I think they really start seeing it and appreciating it, because not everyone knows to ask these questions upfront.

Host: Well, in the past, I’ve always kind of brought in themes—we talk about plans and it’s all about plans, or we talk about energy efficiency and it’s all about that. But the last five or six, I’ve just been throwing them out there and you’ve been swinging away and hitting them all, so good for you, man! That’s good.

Steve Tuma: Yeah.

Host: Well, that’s about all the time we have for this episode of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show, but before we let you go, Steve, as we always like to do, please let the listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company and what all you guys are doing over there.

Steve Tuma: Well, I think the best thing to do is check out our website at LHLC.com. Again, that’s LHLC.com, kind of the initials of Landmark Home and Land Company. And they could check out the website: there’s videos, these podcasts are there, plans, different discussions on what we supply, working in different states, and it’s pretty cool.

What people are most interested in are the plans: what kind of designs? And we’ve got a few thousand plans on our website. Someone can go through there, look at a plan, and send us an email and say, “Hey, can you tell me about this plan? I want to build in Southern California, Northern Colorado, North Dakota, or wherever it is.” And they can send an inquiry in, we’ll follow up, help them through the process, and give them answers that are specific to their exact project.

You can also call in at 800-830-9788. Again, it’s 800-830-9788, and that phone rings right on Mike’s desk, and Mike understands the panelized process and he can explain how we can help and get you going. And at a certain point, once you’re at a point where you want to start doing plans, Mike will transfer you over to me. I’ll call and introduce myself, and then we can go through and work out the exact details of your new plan and get the project going.

We’re also on social media: X, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Facebook. But I’d say take a look at the website and then give us a call, and we’re here to help.

If someone’s got some questions or they just want to get in touch with me directly, I’m always available. You can call my direct cell phone at 708-205-2043, and we could have a talk about your house and see what we can do to help you and make it better. So we’re here to help.

Host: Yeah, and I’d recommend the website. I mean, you can find all these podcasts on the website, you can find informative videos on the website, lots of pictures, so yeah, LHLC.com, good place to go.

Fantastic! Well, thanks again, Steve, and thanks to all of you for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma and myself, y’all have a great week and we will see you next time. Thanks, Steve.

Steve Tuma: Thank you, everyone. It was a lot of fun. Great questions.

A: Pre-installing windows at the manufacturing facility risks racking the window jambs or twisting delicate sash mechanics during flatbed transit, crane rigging, and wall standing. Window manufacturers frequently void product warranties if a water penetration or operational failure is traced to jobsite handling distortion, making on-site installation by professional framers essential to guarantee that units remain plumb, square, and level.

A: An open wall panel consists of pre-sheeted dimensional wood studs with open interior stud cavities, allowing municipal building inspectors to physically inspect framing, hold-down anchors, rough plumbing, wiring, and insulation on-site before drywall. Closed panels, such as Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs), sandwich rigid foam between exterior OSB skins, concealing internal wall cavities from local inspectors and frequently requiring special off-site factory third-party certification stamps.

A: No, panelized homes qualify for standard conventional residential construction loans and permanent mortgages because they are permitted and built under the standard International Residential Code (IRC). Unlike modular or HUD-code manufactured homes—which often require specialized chattel loans, carry higher interest rates, or face lender portfolio caps—panelized packages appraise and finance under identical guidelines as site-built custom homes.

A: Manufactured and modular homes are perceived by appraisal markets as standardized, mass-produced factory units similar to vehicles, which face resale depreciation as newer model years enter the market. A panelized home is a permanent, architecturally unique real estate structure built on an engineered foundation, ensuring it appreciates alongside custom stick-built neighborhood comparables over time.

A: While typical 1,500-to-2,000-square-foot panelized ranch homes can be walked off the truck and stood by a framing crew using a standard extended-reach forklift, steep hillside building sites or multi-story luxury plans require a mobile crane. Complex architectural layouts featuring heavy structural timber ridge beams, multi-pitch roof intersections, or 20-foot tall balloon-framed view walls mandate crane assistance to safely set heavy assemblies without over-stressing the framing crew.

Steve Tuma: I think it’s fair to claim that under some conditions, a home could be weather-tight in a matter of days. It’s also safe to say it might take a week or two, depending upon the actual design.

Host: Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 97 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today, as he always is, is the president and founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how is it going, my friend?

Steve Tuma: It’s going great. Another great day to build a home. It’s always a great day to design and build a home at Landmark. So, yeah.

Host: You would say that.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, we’re doing a series of questions, right? This is the second series of clarifying online chatter or rumors or whatever on home building.

Host: Yeah, a lot of these are sent in by potential panelized homeowner-builders, and a lot of them are just floating around there on the internet. You just have to go grab them. But again, they’re all very relevant questions, which is why I want to give you all the time you feel the answers warrant. So if that takes us three, four episodes to do it, we’re going to do it.

So let’s get the ball rolling with this one, sent in very recently, and a potential customer wanted to know: Do the windows come pre-installed with the panels that are delivered on the build site?

Steve Tuma: This is interesting, because a lot of people look at that and say, “Oh, it’s pre-installed. It’s going to save me time.” And there are a couple reasons we don’t do it. Mainly, it’s windows can vary in cost significantly for the exact same house. If you want simple white vinyl, if you want colored vinyl, if you want walnut insides, if you want aluminum windows, whatever it is.

Our customer base is specific. They want to build a custom home and personalize it to their particular needs. So if they need something less expensive, they would go with a certain window. If they wanted something that’s more decorative, more feature-filled, they can spend more. But that’s their choice on where they get windows and the design and details of the windows.

Windows have a lot of details. It’s not just open it up and let the spring breeze in. There’s a lot of different hardware, there’s different hardware colors, there’s different exterior materials, different interior materials, different ways that they open and close, different ways that the actual mechanics of it are put together. So they can be pretty complex, so it’s better for people to look at the actual window they want, pick it out, and know that it works.

Also, with different energy calculations, you’re going to need different performance values for windows. In some places that are a little more extreme, they need a better-quality window to pass the energy calculations.

But there’s one main reason that we don’t pre-install them: if there’s a claim on a window to the manufacturer, a big thing that they always say is the window is not installed right. Well, with lifting a wall panel up and it getting shaken around, there’s a possibility that something gets a little bit whacked out of place. So that’s why we think it’s good to have a professional installer install it on-site. Make sure it’s level, make sure it’s square, make sure everything just works out right so that it’s put together properly. And that’s another key reason. Adhering with the warranties or guarantees that are there.

It’s the efficiency, and it’s decorative reasons as well—the general look of it—and it’s also budget control. If someone wants to spend more on windows, they can do so. If they need to control the cost, they can find a window that fits within the cost that they want to stay within.

So that’s why we don’t pre-install them. We want to work with people to get the right design, the right structural design, the right permit set of plans, and then they can work on details, the finishes—like siding, roofing, windows themselves—and make sure it fits the budget and the look of the home that they want. It’s an advantage, and the customer gets more of what they want that way. That’s why we have the system set up that we do.

Host: This next question kind of goes back to one we sort of hit upon on the previous podcast episode, and that’s just about you hear these companies on their websites talking about, “We’ll get you in your house in a matter of five days,” or something like that, when that’s just really unknowable. But a lot of companies are claiming that they’ll have a house weather-tight in just a matter of days, which is really vague sounding to me. But can that really happen?

Steve Tuma: Yes, it can. We’ve had customers that have had houses framed in two days, three days, four days. Now, generally, those are simpler designs. If you have a big mansion with a lot of corners and big rooflines, it’s probably not going to happen. But we have had people do that. In fact, one of our reviews said they did it in a day and a half or two days.

So it’s very possible, and part of that’s because we have a clear set of plans, we have an accurate set of plans, and it’s very easy for a good crew just to put it together.

Now, that being said, it’s been done. I wouldn’t necessarily make that a target. If it takes four or five days, a week, or ten days to do it right because your building site’s a little more complex or your house is a little more complex, I would say take the right time to do it. It’s not a race.

But yes, we have had people do houses very quickly, but it’s not something that we want to go represent that’s going to happen with everyone. I’ve seen that stuff: “Build your house in three hours.” It’s almost like the clickbait claims are more important than reality. We’re in the business of being accurate and authentic in what we tell our customers.

So the answer is yes, a house can be weather-tight in just a matter of days. The reality is you have to have the right conditions, the right house, the right crew to pull that off. That’s not going to happen every time. Most people will take a little bit longer to get it taken care of, to make sure it’s done right and not beat the crew up. You want to be safe on a site. It’s not a race. You do want to keep to a schedule.

We’ve had people do typical 1,500-to-2,000-square-foot homes in four days, five days, a week, sometimes a little bit longer. Sometimes the big, very complex homes—very architecturally detailed, a lot of wrap-around porches, a lot of steep roofs, maybe two or three stories—those homes can go ten days, two weeks, three weeks, maybe even a little more, depending on the complexity and the weather conditions at the time.

So we want to represent what’s realistic, not just the outlying freak event. So I think it’s fair to claim that under some conditions, a home could be weather-tight in a matter of days. It’s also safe to say it might take a week or two, depending upon the actual design of the house, building conditions, and the crew.

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: But, you know, like I tell people, I wouldn’t make building a house a race. This isn’t something where you want to go to the cocktail party and be able to say, “Hey, my house was 23 hours faster than yours.” It’s like, you want to make sure it was built right, according to schedule, to the budget you want, and you get the house that you want.

Because there’s no reason to really race on something and then have something not right in the home that you want to live in for however long you choose to live there. So our idea is make sure that it’s built right, things are done right, and it’s done per code, it’s done per the plans, and it’s safe. You’re going to be living in there.

What I’ve noticed is sometimes when people take shortcuts, it bites them in the butt down the road. So it’s better to take each step methodically, make sure it’s done right, and then move forward.

But I think the gist of the question is, is it fast? And yes, our panelized home system is very fast. You have to have a good crew, the right designs, the right materials, and a very clear set of assembly plans, which makes it easier for people to get a qualified crew to put the home together as quick as possible.

Host: Right. I’m sure a lot of these representations of really quick home building—most of them are probably anecdotal anyway. You can take one guy who had his house air-tight in two and a half days—well, that’s great. It doesn’t mean that that’s going to be the norm. And I think you’re right: slow down.

Steve Tuma: It’s kind of like weight loss. I’m sure someone lost 10 pounds in a week. Did they keep it off, and what happened next week? And then how disciplined were they, and what’s the reality of your life? So there’s a lot going on in home building, and I would say have a controlled schedule with the right subcontractors, and you’ll get it done very quickly and still retain quality and still get the home you want. That’s very important.

But yes, we’ve had people build houses weather-tight in a matter of days. It actually happens a lot.

Host: Wow. That’s impressive, man. I have to say.

We’ve covered this a lot in the past, but I want to go over just a little bit again regarding permits and codes. Is a panelized home build project treated just like a standard stick-built home, or is it treated more like a modular home might be? What are your thoughts on permits and codes when it comes to panelized homes? You would know.

Steve Tuma: The codes are the same. Well, modular’s different. There’s the trailers, then there’s the modulars. They’re kind of designed and inspected in different methods where, supposedly, they’re inspected at the plant. I would say if they make that claim, go there and meet the inspector and talk to them about the inspections that they do on modular or HUD homes. If they’re there, they should be able to walk through it.

But the process about it is the code’s the same. We build to the IBC, IRC, whatever year it is that the building department requests. And yes, it’s treated just like a site-built home.

I’ve seen those comments online where people say, “Hey, my prefab was this.” Well, the word, like we’ve discussed, “prefab” can mean a lot. It can mean a trailer—a prefabricated trailer. That is a different code. So sometimes when people answer these general questions with specific answers to their specific situation and don’t make it clear, it can be very misleading.

So the code for a stick-built home is the same for panelized. It’s the same process. We’re just building the walls and trusses and other details off-site and bringing it in for a more controlled, budget-wise and schedule-wise build. So the actual process of going through building departments, the inspections, is exactly the same.

So what that is, is more of people not understanding the word “prefab.” So they use the word prefab as generically covering almost every building process out there. But the reality is it should be broken down by HUD home, modular home, and then the stick-built homes.

And that we fall within the stick-built homes, and we work all over the country and haven’t had a problem. Every once in a while, we’ll have a building department that doesn’t understand. They’re like, “Oh, that’s a prefab.” It’s like, “No, it’s panelized. It’s stick-built.” So we send them a little email saying, “Hey, this is how we build,” and they’re like, “Oh, okay, fine.”

Because where it gets into an issue is sometimes panelized can also be broken in some subsections. We have open panels. They are exposed 2×6 studs with the wall sheathing on it and window and door openings framed in, along with the header.

There are companies that do closed panels, like SIPs, which is basically a piece of OSB, some foam, and then another piece of OSB. Okay? So that’s a closed panel. They can’t inspect the inside of it. Ours is an open panel so that they can inspect the framing and then allow you to go through and do the heating, the plumbing, the electric, the insulation, and move forward. Where sometimes people ask about that is if it’s a closed panel where, for some reason, the exterior finish is on, all the mechanicals are on the inside, then the interior finish is on, it can’t be inspected.

But that’s a closed panel. Landmark Home and Land Company supplies an open, stick-built wall panel. So basically, the difference is with our system, we can follow conventional framing, we can follow conventional permitting, we can follow conventional inspection issues, so you’re not asking an inspector to do something that they’re not used to doing. So ours is extremely typical. It’s been going on for decades, if not longer.

So, yeah, the codes and permitting processes are exactly the same. And we’ve worked all over the country in a variety of different building departments, a variety of different building situations, and we’ve never run into an issue. It always works out. We’ve got a great system in our plans and the panelized home product so it’s easier for customers.

Host: Wel after 33 plus years I would imagine you guys have it pretty much down buy now.

Steve Tuma: Well, the thing about it is, occasionally—it’s kind of strange, but we’ll run into a building department. We just did about a month ago in Colorado where the building inspector didn’t understand building. And he’s like, “Oh, that’s one of these prefabs. You got closed panels,” thinking that we’re dragging a trailer in. But you look at the plans; obviously, it’s not a trailer. The design wasn’t possible to be done. But that person just didn’t understand. So what they did was right: they said, “Hey, can you clarify it for us?” We clarified it, and they’re like, “Hey, you’re ready to go. This is a stick-built home.” Like, exactly.

So we’re always available to help customers if, for some reason, they have a question. But questions like that are extremely rare, because we’ve got a great set of plans, and the codes are followed, so it’s easy for the building departments to review.

Host: Well, I’m sure a building code department person who comes out—I’m sure you don’t run into that all that often, thank God. I mean, the listeners should know that most of the people who are putting the permits together for your home build, they actually know what they’re doing. But Steve, I’m sure you’ve seen it all.

Steve Tuma: Now that you’ve said that, something weird will happen next week.

Host: Sorry about that. A self-fulfilling prophecy here.

Steve Tuma: Yeah.

Host: This is another one we’ve kind of gone over in the past, but I think it’s worth covering again a little bit: the appraisal of a panelized home. Do panelized homes appraise the same as a stick-built house would?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, they appraise exactly the same as a conventional stick-built home. They are a stick-built home. If one of our homes is put up, and you had a custom stick-built home of the exact design, people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. The design process, the materials—it’s pretty much the same thing.

The reason this comes up again is the word “prefab.” Because prefab can also mean trailers—you know, the ones with the metal frames under it—and it can mean modular. And there are some jurisdictions that have different inspection processes. There are some areas that do not allow those types of homes. And the financing is different, and the stigma in the market over them is different. So if it is a manufactured home or modular, I believe it needs to be noted on the appraisal as it is a different building method. And from what I understand, it can affect the appraisal value.

It’s just because over time, people like a stick-built home. The values seem to hold better than a manufactured or modular home. Kind of the reason being, at least from what I can tell of it, is it’s kind of like a car. If you go buy a certain model year of a car, and then two years later you buy that same car, but two-year model newer later, which one’s going to cost more? The new one—the newest model year—where the older one, it’s going to be aged. And for some reason, the modulars and trailers are looked the same way, because I don’t want to call them generic, but they’re kind of standardized. So why would you pay more for a house that’s 10 years old and lived in when you can go buy the new one?

Yeah, so from what I understand of it and what I’ve seen is there’s depreciation.

Host: Yeah, it’s just like anything else: once it goes out the door, once you step foot in your new home, there’s going to be some—

Steve Tuma: Yeah, if it’s a modular or HUD home, that’s the case.

Host: Yeah, so…

Well, here’s another question that’s been coming up a lot over the years. I mean, a lot. This is one of the most asked questions out there. So let’s go over it just to clarify: Are panelized homes harder to finance than a stick-built home?

Steve Tuma: It’s the exact same process. Just as we discussed, it’s the same appraisal process: it’s appraised as a stick-built home. The bank will go through the same process with that.

Again, it’s different, like we kind of touched on just a few minutes ago: a prefab—the HUD home with the metal frame—it’s financed differently, from what I understand. Interest rates may be higher for a HUD home or a modular type of home. In some cases, you need specialized financing, from what I understand.

So the actual financing process of our panelized home is pretty much the same as a stick-built home. We get a set of plans. What people actually like with our process is our plans are clear and accurate, so the appraiser knows the dimensions of the room, how tall the house is, the look of the house, what the roof’s going to be, what the siding’s going to be, so they understand the features. Because we do have a complete set of plans, it’s easier for them to work on an advantageous appraisal. So it’s not just the panelized versus stick-built; it’s the Landmark panelized, where we go through and get a set of plans.

And if I could go one step further: it’s not just the financing. Sometimes there’s homeowners associations, architectural review boards, historic committees. So we go through to make sure that the plans are clear and accurate for those groups as well, to make the whole approval process work out.

A lot of customers don’t have financing. The ones that do work with financing, we’re able to get the plan sets and details together so that it’s a successful process for them.

So, yeah, I think the main thing that’s here—and I think why this question is asked so much—is there’s a lot of information just in people’s perceived general knowledge and what’s online where people feel they need to give an answer, so they give an answer, but is it accurate?

So, panelized homes—the Landmark panelized homes—are just like a conventional stick-built home. If someone says that they had a problem with a “prefab,” chances are it’s a modular or a HUD home—the ones with the metal trailer under it—because that is a different type of financing market.

And I think a lot of these questions, why the information is there, is someone will ask a general question, someone will feel they need to give an answer, but they don’t understand that there’s different ways to answer it on, “Hey, what’s the condition that you’re asking about?” Like, “Do we need a crane?” Well, yeah, if you’re on the side of a hill with a very challenging one, it’s good to have the strength of a crane. If you’re building on a simpler lot, you don’t need a crane.

So a lot of the questions that were asked in the last podcast, this one, and the next two that we’re going to be doing are, “How does it apply to you?” And that’s the key thing. And that’s why there’s so much misinformation online, as people feel that they need to give an answer instead of saying, “Hey, what are the conditions you’re building in? This is why it would make sense.” And we’re always available to help people in their preliminary stages to find out, “Hey, what do I need so I could work my budget, so I can find these people?” And that’s a big part of Landmark Home and Land Company design and customer support experience that we provide.

Host: Well, once again, informative as heck, and your time is always—just you answering these questions, I always appreciate it, Steve, and I’m sure our listeners do. So anyway, that’s going to do it for this edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. But before we let you go, as always, Steve, please let our listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company.

Steve Tuma: The best thing to do is check out our website. We have a complete website with plans, discussions, videos, these podcasts, and you can see it at LHLC.com. That’s kind of like the initials: Landmark Home Land Company. The company is really Landmark Home and Land Company, but it’s just LHLC.com.

And like I say, they can look at plans, they can watch videos, they can see different details, and they can inquire on a specific plan. They can find a plan, send a message, say, “Hey, can you tell me about this house? I want to build in Ames, Iowa, or in Orlando, Florida,” wherever it may be.

They can also just send a direct email, or they can call at 800-830-9788, and Mike will answer the phone. They can have a discussion on their project, find out what’s going on, tell him about their land, tell him what their goals are, tell him when they want to start building, and go from there.

We are very proactive. We do answer our phone, and if for some reason you do get our voicemail, please leave a complete message—name, phone number—and we will call back right away and help a customer along with a cool little conversation, just to get to know each other and get to understand their project to see how we can help.

And then if someone finds that they want to talk to me on something deeper, more specific, I’m always available on my direct cell phone at 708-205-2043. Again, that’s 708-205-2043. We’re here to help. It’s a lot of fun.

Host: Fantastic, and there you go. Episode 97 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show is now in the can. Steve, thanks for coming on again, and thanks to all of our listeners for just being here, you guys. We really appreciate it, and we hope the information we’re putting out there has been helpful.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, it’s another fun one. It was really cool. A lot of cool stuff in there, and I hope people see the differences, the different angles that I’ve shown so that they can understand why a certain answer makes sense.

Host: Yeah, and you make things fun. You make things informational, but also, yeah, it’s a good time, these podcasts, so…

Anyway, for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma and myself, y’all have a great week, and we will see you next time. Thanks again, Steve.

Steve Tuma: Thank you. It was a lot of fun. Thank you.

A: Panelized homes deliver precision pre-built wall panels and engineered trusses that cut on-site framing timelines by 30% to 65%, substantially reducing subcontractor labor costs and construction loan interest payments. Furthermore, guaranteed package pricing, unified engineering blueprints, and reduced job-site lumber waste eliminate expensive dumpster fees, material overages, and unexpected contractor change orders.

A: Cost per square foot varies drastically based on how builders calculate space—such as measuring interior living areas versus under-roof porch footprints—as well as architectural volume, ceiling heights, and regional engineering loads. Fixed infrastructure costs (like kitchens, bathrooms, and utility connections) also skew square-foot numbers significantly higher in smaller homes compared to larger floor plans.

A: No, over 90% of panelized builds use an extended-reach rough-terrain forklift rather than an expensive industrial crane. A telehandler forklift costs significantly less to rent, can be operated by the framing crew or general contractor throughout the entire framing phase, and easily stages bundled panels around the foundation perimeter for quick placement.

A: Yes, owner-builders act as construction managers rather than hands-on tradespeople, coordinating licensed subcontractors (excavators, concrete crews, framers, and mechanical trades). Complete, permit-ready architectural and structural blueprints clearly establish all dimensions, connections, and material schedules, enabling owners to solicit fixed, accurate trade bids without confusion.

A: Because wall panels and roof trusses arrive pre-assembled to exact blueprint specifications, the structural shell can be stood up and dried-in within days or weeks instead of months. Closing the home in rapidly prevents lumber from warping due to rain, protects subfloors from water damage, and allows interior mechanical trades to begin work much earlier in the schedule.

Steve Tuma: We can go through and give a guaranteed price for the design, the structural details, the energy calculations, the site plans, and there. So we’re supplying a lot more than like what someone might say, “Hey, here’s the cost for the materials for the framing of your home.”

Host: How’s it going, everyone? Welcome to Episode 96 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today, and we wouldn’t have a show without him, is the President and Founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you, buddy?

Steve Tuma: Doing well. It’s another busy week helping people build houses, work design details out, work through situations with building departments. Some building departments are getting more interesting than others, but it’s just another day for us moving along. It’s a fun one, fun one.

Host: Well, good. Today I wanted to jump into, I hope I’m not boring you with this stuff, but I tend to get on a flow with the questioning. We started a series of very general but important questions. We were doing top 10 lists and things, but questions from potential homeowner builders that have, you know, come through the website and various different ways that we bring in emails and all that stuff. There are so many of these questions, I think we’re going to have to split this again, this particular episode, into two, if not three, or even four separate parts, and finish up in the upcoming weeks. But these questions are all very well thought out, and I think we should give each of them, and you, as much time as it takes to answer them all. So, let’s get started, shall we?

The first one—

Steve Tuma: Yeah, and I think these questions, they’re things that we’ve questions that have been compiled. A lot of times people will go online, talk to a friend, get, who knows where they get their questions. But sometimes these questions are general questions where people get specific answers that may or may not apply to their exact building site or building design or condition. So we don’t necessarily want to say that there’s only one way to do it. I think what we’re going to say on these answers is go through and say that we have to look at your particular design, site, building department requirements, to then give specific details on on how things apply to your project.

So sometimes when people search online, they find general answers that may or may not apply to them, and they think that because it’s online, hey, that must be the case. I’ve seen a lot of stuff online that’s just plain wrong, or might be right under certain conditions. So I think that’s what we’re doing, is kind of discussing the nature of of these questions and and how how to sort out what the best answer is for your project.

Host: I like to call it builder misinformation, and I think that’s what we’re addressing today. Because there’s a lot of stuff out there on the internet that just, it’s like diagnosing yourself, your your own medical issues, by going online and checking things out.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, the internet can be very misleading and it can be exceptionally helpful. So that that’s what we’re working through.

Host: That’s what we’re here for, is to be very helpful. So, anyway, a lot of these questions, too, I want the listeners to understand that if there’s one or two questions that you think we’ve we’ve already given the answer to or gone over, I think about that stuff very carefully, and I try not to be redundant. But there are when questions and emails are compiled and things start coming in, and there, you know, there’s a question here or there or there that just keeps being asked, I think it’s I don’t see anything wrong with going over it again. So, and this is this question is one we actually addressed on an earlier edition of the podcast in brief, not as much as I think I’d like to get into today. But instead of my just referring people to that episode, and say, “No, if you want that answer, go back to Episode 38,” now I thought I’d give you a chance to go over it once again for the listeners who missed it before.

And the question is: Do panelized homes actually save money compared to a what we would call a normal stick-built home?

Steve Tuma: Yes, they do. And I’ll tell you where it is. A lot of people look at the situation and say, hey, they get a quote for a a stick-built home, which may or may not have a set of plans, is not likely to be a a guaranteed price, and there’s still items that could be added to it. And I’m answering these questions in the realm of Landmark Home and Land Company’s panelized homes, and the process that we go through.

We can go through and give a guaranteed price for the design, the structural details, the energy calculations, the site plans, and there. So we’re supplying a lot more than like what someone might say, “Hey, here’s the cost for the materials for the framing of your home.” So we got to make sure it’s an apples-to-apples comparison. But what people don’t always understand is the efficiencies in the design process, helping customers through the building department, helping customers make sure the house is built, make sure our plans are very detailed so that you know exactly what’s being built. Not all stick-built plans are that detailed, so there’s a difference in the plans that we supply.

But then fundamentally, with the actual panelized package, there’s less waste. We have the right materials, the home can be assembled quickly, it can move forward. So it’s saving money on assembly labor, but if you have a construction loan, it’s also saving time on your construction interest.

Host: Sure.

Steve Tuma: And then, well, also if you have weather situations, you can be closed in a lot quicker. And then there’s different situations of there’s less waste in materials, less cost for clean up, less cost for the dumpsters to to get rid of materials that aren’t being used. So sometimes people, I’ve seen this online where people say, “Hey, is it cheaper?” It’s like, well, look at the cost of the project instead of an individual line item. So if you’re saving on the architectural design, the structural, you’re getting the support through the building department, you’re getting a guaranteed cost, you don’t have as much waste, the home gets framed faster which saves on labor and construction interest, overall, when you look at that, it’s very cost-advantageous. And the National Association of Home Builders actually did a review to show how how this gets put together.

So sometimes this can be deceptive, because I’ve seen stuff online where people ask, they say, “Hey, Steve, your materials cost this, and I got them somewhere else, you know, a thousand dollars cheaper.” I’m like, “Well, great. Are they doing plans? Are they doing engineering? Are they doing your energy calculations? Are they guaranteeing the cost? Do they know what’s going into your package? Do they provide the support?” And that’s when customers realize, “Hey, wait a second. The Landmark Home and Land Company panelized package with plans is a lot more comprehensive, it’s a lot more complete, and it’s also a guaranteed price.”

And that is where where it works. And that’s for I can talk for our our panelized home packages. So people should look at the overall process of building the home instead of the single line item, because it can be deceptive. And yes, there are a lot of customers out there that see a piece of paper, one is one price, one has another, they don’t look at what’s involved, what’s included, what’s guaranteed. They just look at the bottom-line cost, which is very misleading to people. So you’ve got to understand what’s what’s involved in a quote. And I think the way that we put it together, it’s extremely advantageous for owner-builders, and that’ll help them control the cost and make sure that it’s, you know, the cost comes in as quoted. And that’s something that we supply at Landmark.

So it’s it’s what are you getting, the value as well as the price. That’s the important consideration.

Host: Right. Well, you were talking about, you know, there there are so many variables depending on, you know, the design of the house is the main thing. But is there a generalized rule of thumb for, well, let’s just take Landmark, a Landmark Home and Land Company panelized home package. What’s the cost of that per square foot?

Steve Tuma: See, that’s a very interesting thing. And, you know, I’ve got a funny little joke or story that someone says: Cost per cost per square foot can be very deceptive. People use cost per square foot, you know, as a guide, and it kind of shows a lack of knowledge. That’s almost like calling the grocery store and saying, “Hey, how much is dinner?”

Host: Right. [laughs]

Steve Tuma: What do you want? [laughter] You know, and how are you counting it? Is it per bag? Is it per pound? What is it? So the cost per square foot is an extremely rough guideline, but it’s nothing to make decisions on.

And the reason I bring this up is there’s a lot of websites out there that say, “Hey, we’re X amount a square foot.” And people go, “Oh, that must be cheap.” Well, you don’t know what’s included in it.

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: You don’t know how they calculate square feet. So let me tell you something. A lot of people will calculate square footage on the interior space on the inside of a wall. Some people include the garage, some people don’t. Some people include the under roof, so if you have porches, big overhangs, it’s going to make your home appear to be bigger, and then therefore the square foot cost is less. So cost per square foot can be very deceptive, and you need to understand how the calculation is done.

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: You know, so so I don’t want to get I don’t want to make this sound real complex, but literally think of it as, have you called the grocery store to say how much is a bag of groceries? You probably don’t do that. [laughter] But that’s kind of what asking what a cost per square foot is.

So in general, people will ask, or, you know, they’ll just want to know. It’s like, “Hey, wait a second. What are you buying?” Because I’ll guarantee you, if there’s a company out there that says, “Hey, you know, I’m X amount per square foot,” and you said, “I want a 100-square-foot home,” you’re not going to calculate that low number they give you times 100 square feet and that’s the cost. Because there’s certain things that that come into the element.

And I think there’s another reason here. So if someone has a room that is, say, 7 and 1/2 feet by 7 and 1/2 feet, it’s going to be smaller square footage than if it’s 8 feet by 8 feet, okay? So that that difference in square footage, someone would say, “Hey, that should cost less.” Well, the reality is you have to buy an 8-foot board to make that 7 and 1/2 foot room. And this is simplified for it. So sometimes there’s different economies of scale where, hey, if you’re going to go 7 and 1/2 feet, you might as well go 8, it’s the same cost.

You know, that that type of situation. And I also relate it to like the gallon of milk. If a gallon of milk is $4, you can go into that exact same store a couple feet over and a half gallon is $3.50. So sometimes there’s certain set costs. So the cost per square foot can vary significantly for the same design if the house is 500 square feet, 1,000 square feet, or 2,000 square feet.

So again, I’m not trying to confuse it, I’m trying to point this out to people so they could be better consumers and say, “Hey, what am I getting for the quoted cost?” That that’s that’s the type of situation it’s it’s better to work with, because then you know what’s involved. Is it designed? Is it engineered? Are the energy calculations there? Is it a guaranteed price? If someone’s giving you a quote for something, what does it include? Is it the full design, or is it just some rough number for the purpose of luring you in in conversation?

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: So that’s the that’s the interesting portion of what people should understand. And we’re not trying to be deceptive by, you know, not having stuff on our website saying, “Hey, we’re X amount a square foot.” We want to give accurate numbers of what it takes for a person to build a house in the area that they want to build.

Because if you take the the same house, you know, say a house and you put it in, say, Iowa, and you take that exact same house and stick it in South Florida in Hurricane Alley, it’s going to cost more because of the engineering and details that are required to make a home withstand 175-mile-an-hour wind versus a 90-mile-an-hour wind.

So people should understand what they’re getting for it. There’s too many people in this business giving the low-cost price upfront, and then people not realizing, “Hey, wait a second. I’m not getting what I want.” The price should be: What do you need? How are you taken care of, and then a price there.

Host: That leads us into something else you were talking about, people going on websites and finding these specific pricing guidelines, and it’s like, you know, you don’t know that the house is going to cost that much. A lot of it is a lot of it’s deceptive. And the same thing is with time. I, you know, I’ve seen home building, even panelized home company websites where they talk about, you know, “Here’s your home being put up in three days,” that kind of thing, you know? And it just seems so unrealistic and disingenuous. But from your standpoint and your 33-plus years experience, how much time does panelizing actually save you when it comes to the building timeline?

Steve Tuma: Well, the thing about it is it’s not, you know, panelizing and the assembly of the actual panels, we help with the design, the process through building departments, and we’ve got a very quick process. So we’re very fast in the actual design, engineering, getting the permit set of plans put together for people to submit for permits, and we’re very proactive in that service.

But when you get into the actual framing of it, it’s kind of hard to give an exact number. And I don’t want to, you know, mislead people to say, “Hey, you’re going to save, you know, 90% of the time,” or some odd claim like that. It really comes down to the design, where the house is being built. If you’re building in a place where there’s a lot of engineering, a lot of connectors, a lot of details, it’s going to take a little more to frame.

But if you were to put it at a, you know, a stick-built versus the panelized, a lot of people have said it saved 30% to 60%, 65% in their opinion of the time to to assemble the home package. The reason being is everything is supplied, the details are there on putting it together, and the panels are put together, the trusses are put together. So you’re more placing materials into place instead of cutting, calculating, “How do I do this? How do I do this? How do I adjust this?” Maybe there’s a miscut here, a miscut there, missing material there, if someone were to buy through other methods. But with our panelization system, everything’s pre-thought out. So you follow the the assembly plans, and it just goes quicker. So by that going quicker, you’re you’re avoiding weather issues, you know, different season issues, and labor’s hard to find. If a if a crew can come in and put a house together say 50% faster than another method, you’re like you’re more likely to get that good crew. They can do their job, make their money, and go to the next one.

So that that’s the general range that I’ve seen in in the the process. And a couple of framers that have done stuff said, “Hey, Steve, I did this house in, you know, a very complex home in three, four weeks. It would have taken me three months or two months, whatever it is.” So there’s a significant savings in in the time of putting it together.

And the the nice thing about it is whether your framer has done a panelized home or not, the chances are they have, they just haven’t realized it. Because when they stick frame a home, they build a wall panel and lift it up in place. In our case, the wall panel is already put together. So the labor of actually cutting, nailing walls together, and putting them up, that’s taken care of.

So the point I’m getting at is, we’ll spend the time with our with your framer to review the processes, the delivery on a truck, the unloading, how the process goes, how to follow the plans so that they can go along and and just move along in the process. So it’s been proven that it that it’s a lot quicker to to do it. And, you know, sometimes people say, “Oh, it’s not quicker.” It’s like, how can it not be quicker? Half the over half the work’s done.

Host: Right. Yeah.

Steve Tuma: So that that’s a situation of the framer just understanding how how it comes together. And it’s it’s a combination of our support, the right plans, the right plans being approved by the building department, and also our panelized home package being built to that exact set of approved plans. So that when they build it, the inspector can come in, see that the home matches the plans, it’s just quicker and easier for people. It’s smoother for the homeowner, the building department, and the contractor.

So it’s also a hassle factor. It’s just a lot easier for them because in a in a sense there isn’t as much thinking. A lot of the design is already put together.

Host: It’s so funny, man. And this is no joke aside, I I listen to you after I ask the ask the question, I’m I always listen to your answers. And I learn so much, man. I hope the listeners, and I’m sure they are, get as much out of this. I forget I’ll look over at at my my sheet and say, “What’s the next question I’m going to ask?” because I’m I get kind of involved in your answers. And I think I think people can be assured when they call you on the phone or they call Mike, that they’re getting the same kind of in-depth information on each phone call as you’re as you’re getting here on these podcasts. So, yeah.

Steve Tuma: Right. And what’s interesting is, you know, when when you listen to that to say, “Hey, what is the cost?” Well, you know, you can’t compare just a stack of raw wood to a panelized home. You got to look at, hey, the design, the assembly, the hassles, the getting through building inspections, making things easier. And this is something that at Landmark Home and Land Company, we’ve tuned this process up to make it for people. We’re not just a supplier of materials, “Hey, you bought it, it’s yours now.” We’re we’re helping a customer through the process.

And we’ve helped people that have never built homes. I’m very convinced some of our customers have never built a birdhouse. [laughter] You know, and then then we’ve had, you know, very—

Host: That wouldn’t be so That wouldn’t be so rare, actually. I’ve never built a birdhouse. [laughter]

Steve Tuma: Well, in today’s world. But but the but then we’ve also had experienced builders that we work with because of the efficiency. And right now, we’re actually designing homes for a variety of architects. They say, “Hey, our system’s slicker. They can go charge people, you know, the prices that they do, and it’s still in that advantage to them.”

So there’s a we we’ve got a a very refined and proven process that that makes the overall situation go through. And let let me bring something else into it. A lot of our customers, well, all of them, have families. They have jobs. They have moms and dads, they have grandkids, they have, you know, hobbies and whatever. So what’s the value of a better system so that you can also still live life? You can also go to work, you can also go date night with your husband or wife, and take the kids out every once in a while, because of the efficiency in in the building process and the design process. And that, I think, is is very interesting.

We have customers We have one right now, he lives in a different country and is having a home built. We have other people in different states. And then some people are very close to the construction site. Some people actually live on the construction site, you know, in a in a mobile home or temporary housing while while the main home is being built.

So there there’s a, you know, so the idea of what is the Landmark Home and Land Company panelized package actually saving is like, well, there’s also time, there’s also headache, you know, nuisances, things things like that. And just like today, I got calls from customers, “Hey, what about this? What about this?” We answer the phone, we get people answers so they can keep moving instead of them dwelling on a problem and maybe not being able to solve it as quick. It’s it’s a lot of it is the service and the support that we supply. That that’s the important thing.

One one thing which customers tell us: “I originally came to Landmark to buy a panelized package. It’s the support, the knowledge, the help in moving the project along. That’s the very important part.” It’s it’s it’s getting the the house project moving along. One customer, he was a he was a banker, he actually said, “Steve, you’re like the engine of my of my home building. You’re You’re helping me move it along, and making it a lot easier for me.” And that that’s a key element. What’s the value of the support to to get something taken care of, so if you do have a question, you get an answer that applies to your project right away? That’s extremely important. But people don’t think about it until they’re actually into the building phases.

Host: Right. You know, we were laughing just a little bit earlier about building misinformation on the internet, but, you know, go to both ways. You know, they’re they’re ways to convince a potential customer that basically, you know, everything’s going to be perfect and rosy, and you’re going to have no problems building your home. And there’s also the other side, which is there there’s a lot of photos and videos floating around the internet depicting, you know, panelized home construction. And you see these images of everywhere, they’re all of these pictures of big cranes lifting walls and trusses, and moving around. And explain to everyone, when would a crane actually be necessary on a Landmark home build, if ever?

Steve Tuma: Well, this is what’s interesting. I’ve seen that, too, and I’ve seen some of these blogs and different so-called geniuses, maybe their keyboard warriors going out saying, “Oh, you need this, you need this.” It’s like, you know what, in some conditions you need a crane, you know, if you’ve got a very big house or there’s reach issues or you’re a very unique building site. You know, if you’re on the side of a hill, crawling down a hill in the Rockies or something like that, and there’s just some, you know, more extreme situation where you need to put the materials in one place and then swing them over.

But I would say 90-some percent of our customers just use the extended-reach forklift that they use to unload the truck. A typical forklift has 4-foot extensions—sorry, 4-foot forks. We request that they try to get longer extensions. It’s just easier to pick stuff up and balance.

So it’s pretty rare that someone actually uses, you know, the big crane that that you that you may see in certain places. That controls the cost, that makes it easier, and that makes it easier to have the equipment there. Because from my understanding, and, you know, my own experience is you can have the extended-reach forklift there a week or two for what a crane costs for the day.

Host: Right, yeah.

Steve Tuma: And then a crane, you typically have to pay an operator, where the extended-reach forklift, you or your contractor can rent it, and it’s there on site and available for you to use throughout the process. And also, within our panel paperwork, we show where the best location is to put the wall panel bundles, so that when you open the bundle and put them up, it’s it’s easier to get the wall panels to the right spot in the in the house.

So I’ve seen that myself, and there I’ve seen these different blogs, Reddit, you know, different things where people say, “Oh, you’ve got to have a crane.” And I’m wondering if these people have ever put a house together, because it’s extremely rare that our customers need to have a crane. And sometimes the only people that use them is because they’re in the business or they have a friend that’s giving them a deal.

Host: Right, yeah.

Steve Tuma: Or like I say, an extreme situation, you know, the side of a mountain, you know, and there’s a a big slope, and it’s a reach issue, where that that’s that’s where they they they typically use it.

So, and these are things that we can review with our customer for their building site, for the the house, the, you know, the size of trusses, size of walls, access to the lot. We can work with customers to help them do it, because why why spend the the extra money if if you don’t need it? You know, a big crane in a sense sometimes just gets really gets in the way. They’re they’re amazing with what they can do, but unless you’re doing an extremely big house with a very unique situation, it’s it’s pretty rare that it’s that it’s required. And and we’ve done some very big houses.

Host: Yeah. And you’d be sur—I mean, it’s I was thinking about this the other day. I went into a Home Depot and there was a they had a big sign out there that they were doing free, you know, like half-a-day safety and operational lessons, and you could go into the into the big-box store and and take a lesson on how to drive a forklift. And I thought, “Well, that’s kind of cool. That’s, man, that’s smart business, too,” you know? People people learning how to run a forklift, though that you’re building your own home, that might come in handy. So, yeah, something to look into.

Steve Tuma: Pretty interesting what’s available out there.

Host: Yeah. Here’s one that we have asked at least once, if not twice in the past before, but it really is it it does well, it’s worth bringing up again for sure. Can can someone with no construction experience at all, I mean none, like you said, not even a birdhouse, can that person actually build a panelized home kit and, you know, put it together and have a home to live in?

Steve Tuma: Yes, they can. We have a lot of customers that have no construction experience. We’ve got a lot of customers that are very experienced in construction. So there’s different ways to do it. You know, when you say “build,” like are they actually digging the hole and pouring the foundation? [laughter] I wouldn’t suggest doing work that you don’t know how to do.

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: But what a lot of people do, even people in the trades, in today’s modern quote “builder,” general contractor is more of a coordinator and they hire subcontractors. So what happens with our customers is they don’t need the general contractor if they choose not to have one. So by doing that, they then just coordinate the excavator, the foundation person, the framer, the the heat guy, the the plumbers, the electricians to finish their home.

So it’s kind of just like managing your own home. If there’s a problem, you know, with plumbing, you you call a plumber. So, yes, we’ve had a lot of customers that have never built. We’ve had customers, I think our youngest customer was 21 years old, 21 or 22, and our oldest one was 84. So we’ve had people of all different backgrounds, all different ages, all different education levels all build homes and they they finish it up.

So it’s it’s more of a management and coordination situation. So if someone just kind of wants to sit back and, you know, work with qualified people build a home, we have a lot of customers that do that. I would I would say maybe half of our customer base is made of that.

And again, not to toot our horn again, it goes down to quality plans. Because those quality plans become the communication method between us, the customer, the building department, the contractors, and financing sources. So the clearer and more detailed the plans are, the less what-ifs or uh-oh moments that there are.

So with a clear set of plans, someone that doesn’t have a lot of experience can review it with us, we can explain the plans to them, and then they can communicate with their subcontractors. And because the plans are so clear and the details are there, a qualified subcontractor can provide an accurate quote that they can stick to.

That’s very important. And as I’ve said this probably a thousand times, it’s the quality of the plans and the customer support that puts our customers in position to make it easier for a more successful and budget-controlled build.

So it’s we we’ve one one family, hey, I said the the the youngest was 21 or 22. I think a family had a 14-year-old. Of course, mom and dad were watching over, but their kid was looking at the budget, you know, there with the meetings, watching the whole thing go on. It’s just a great life experience.

Host: Yeah, I love that.

Steve Tuma: So it’s it’s pretty amazing. So, yeah, people can do it. They they can either get involved and actually do the trade work, or they can coordinate the trades to get it taken care of. And both people are are experienced.

Host: Yeah, I follow on Instagram, I follow a couple farm families, and their kids, 11-, 12-, 13-year-olds are out there driving combines and taking care of the cattle, and it’s it’s really Pretty hardcore. so cool to say to see, you know? It’s just great that things are reverting toward where people aren’t afraid to, you know, let their kids come into the fold and learn something. And, yeah, 14 is that’s a good time to start building houses. You’ll probably build seven or eight in your lifetime. [laughter]

Steve Tuma: Yeah. Well, it’s also that, but a a lot of these, you know, I’ve talked about what I’m calling heirloom homes, where the grandpa builds it for the kids to be handed down to the family. And a lot of these, you know, there’s a a little bit of different twist with multi-generational. “Hey, the grandparents are moving in,” or, “Hey, the kids are coming back from college.” So it’s something where, you know, the whole family can get involved with it, and it’s it it’s pretty amazing to see how the families work together to get the homes built.

And like I say, they they just need someone like us, preferably us, to go through and develop the plans, communicate clearly with them, be available, and help them understand the process upfront so they can plan it out, but then also be available through the process to get it taken care of. And that is extremely important.

People, when they first call in, they’re asking about the panelized package, but they I think through the process they realize it’s it’s our knowledge, support, proactiveness, and just overall desire to to help people. That’s that’s that’s a key element. A very important key element.

Host: Well, that’s about all the time we have for this another, and let me say, extremely informational and enlightening edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. And I just I always enjoy these episodes where I just ask questions and you and give you the time to just explain all this stuff, because it always turns out great. And but before we let you go, Steve, let the listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company and what all you guys are doing over there.

Steve Tuma: Well, we help people design and build their own homes, and I think the best thing to do is check out our website. It’s LHLC.com, like Landmark Home Land Company: LHLC.com. And on there, there’s thousands of floor plans, there’s discussions on what we supply, there’s videos, there’s these podcasts, there’s talks about building in different states, a FAQs section, and, you know, a lot of details there.

So if someone’s interested, they could take a look at our website, and then from our website, if you’re looking at a plan you like, you could send an email in. You can also email us directly from the website, or you could give a call at 800-830-9788. Again, that’s 800-830-9788, and Mike could answer the phone, and, you know, you could have a discussion on your project.

We are proactive in answering the phone, but every once in a while we’re on the phone with another customer, so if you get a voicemail, just leave a message. We will call you back right away and get you taken care of.

And if someone’s got questions, you know, related to these podcasts or deeper questions they want to talk to me about, just give me a call. I’m Steve Tuma from Landmark Home and Land Company, and the cell phone is 708-205-2043.

Host: Fantastic.

Steve Tuma: Well, there it is.

Host: Thanks again, Steve. And thanks to all of you for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma, as well as myself, have a great week ahead, and we will see you next time. Thanks again, Steve. Always a pleasure.

Steve Tuma: Thank you. This was a really interesting one. Thanks.

A: Future-proofing for an elevator involves stacking closets across floor levels and framing the floor openings with structural headers that can be removed without compromising floor joist integrity. The blueprints must also specify a recessed pit in the concrete foundation slab, structural wall blocking to anchor guide rails, and dedicated electrical rough-ins to power future lift motors.

A: Installing a multi-story fireman’s pole requires engineered floor-joist headers around the opening, reinforced lateral bracing, and heavy-duty structural anchoring at the base and ceiling plates. Because sliding creates dynamic rotational and lateral loads, the mounting points must be engineered similarly to the central support column of a spiral staircase to keep the pole rigid.

A: Residential hangars require clear-span roof trusses spanning 40 feet or wider without interior load-bearing columns. The structure demands heavy-duty engineered wood or steel headers over the primary hangar door to support the roof load across wide openings, specific vertical clearances tailored to aircraft tail heights, and concrete slabs designed for wheel point loads.

A: Adding detached garages, workshops, hobby tracks, or accessory structures requires early site-plan coordination to ensure compliance with property setbacks, grading plans, and municipal sound ordinances. High-demand outbuildings also require dedicated electrical service calculations to handle equipment like welders, vehicle lifts, or outdoor subpanels without overloading the main home.

A: Yes, every enclosed space within a residential structure must be detailed on the architectural and structural permit plans submitted to the building department. Even if disguised behind concealed doors or revolving bookcases, the space must meet building codes for structural load-bearing capacity, electrical wiring safety, emergency egress, and dedicated mechanical ventilation.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, in the case of a climbing wall, we can design that. Generally, we’ll find out what they need and they can reinforce a wall or add different reinforcements for the—the parts that they use for to attach to the wall to grip.

Host: Hello everybody and welcome to Episode 95 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me today, as he usually is, is the President and Founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, and that would be Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you, my friend?

Steve Tuma: I’m doing great. Doing great. Another podcast. Getting closer to the 100 level, but it’s uh—

Host: I know! It’s crazy, isn’t it? Five to go. That’s insane. [laughs] I can’t remember when we started them, to tell you the truth. It’s we’ve been doing it for so long that uh, yeah. But 100 episodes can uh fly by, so.

Steve Tuma: I have a couple customers that said they’ve listened to every single one.

Host: Yeah, that’s—that’s great.

Steve Tuma: Even—even after they finished their houses, they still listen.

Host: That’s great! Love to hear that.

Steve Tuma: Which—which is uh, which is—which is really cool. It’s uh, it’s cool to hear—hear from customers. Some I keep in touch with. I—I got a call from one uh, two nights ago. They said, “Steve, I hadn’t talked to you in a couple years since we finished my home. How are you doing?” We just caught up for a while, talked about their house, you know, different things that are going on in their life, and it’s kind of amazing. Kind of a cool relationship to have them.

Host: Mhm.

Steve Tuma: Stay with our customers.

Host: And—and Steve, real quick, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to have you pull your microphone a little closer to you, if that’s okay. And uh, because you’re the guy with the answers, we’ve got to hear you! [laughs]

Steve Tuma: Well, that works. That’s the point of this, right?

Host: Yeah, no. We—we heard everything, it’s just uh, it’s—it’s much clearer now. All right, so we’re going back to one of our top 10 question uh formats today um, where we pick a top 10 list of questions and inquiries uh that potential panelized homeowner builders seem to be searching on the internet. And like our last podcast, these are—these are pretty fun questions to—to talk about. So, let’s start off with one that um, it kind of goes with the flow of our last podcast. The question is: How do I future-proof my home? And—and can I design spaces for future, let’s say, um elevators and other accessibility issues? In other words, can I create a convertible uh, you know, multi-use room that I may need in the future? And uh, and I’d really like to hear what you have to say about elevators and that kind of thing.

Steve Tuma: Oh yeah, all those. I mean, we’ve got kind of uh, a couple questions in there. Kind of, you know, how do you future-proof a home? You know, the—the part of that is a lot of people say, “Hey, I’m going to live in this house, it’s my last home, it’s the perfect home. I’m 50 now, but when I live here, when I’m 80, I want to make sure that doorways are right or if I have to put a future ramp into the garage or the front porch, that we think about the site plan or the actual house.” Um, sometimes future-proof is, “Hey, I’m going to be getting married,” you know, other people are going to be here, there’s going to be kids involved. Or—or, “Hey, my parents might have to move in,” or another part of future-proof is kids out of college might have to live here for a couple of years, you know, to kind of get going.

So what we found with situations like that is there’s uh, there’s always a way to design a room, a wing of a house, the way the garage is laid out, or different details so that a—a room now can be a bedroom, it could be a den, it could be a potential rental space if it’s laid out properly for a little junior ADU type of a situation so you can get some income off of it. And uh, that—that’s basically, you know, what we’re able to do. And it’s also the lifestyle, you know, do people want formal dining rooms or do they want the big great rooms? You know, then—then they also might go through to say, “Hey, we’re really into watching movies at home. Uh, we’re getting a lot of people that play games, big board games with a dozen people at their house. So, how—how do I keep a regular house, but also have 15 people come over?”

Host: Right, yeah.

Steve Tuma: So—so—so we’re able to work with that not just for future-proof, but now-proof it! [laughs] You know, because it’s, you know, the way you live during the week might be different than what you do on Saturday night if you have a home theater, friends come over, and play different games. You know, uh, we—the last episode we talked about the person with 15 antique exotic cars in the basement. Mhm. They—they want to know that, “Hey, if the kids come over, let’s grab the convertible and go out” type—type of a situation. So sometimes there’s uh, different things happening in people’s lifestyles, whether, you know, they get married, going to have kids, whether, you know, whether the—the kids have flown the coop and they need their own space. So yes, we’re able to.

You asked about future elevators. Um, we—we’ve done a lot of those lately, and basically people want the el—the possibility of an elevator.

Host: That’s what I was going to ask you. So does this mean I don’t need an elevator now, but maybe 20 years down the road I want a space where I could actually put one?

Steve Tuma: That—that’s exactly the point. So, um, [coughs] excuse me. So the—the situation with the—the elevator is that you’ve got to have a—a certain type of sized shaft for it to go up and down, and then also structural support. A lot of people say, “Well, I’ll just poke a hole in the floor in the future.” It’s like, well, that sounds good, but then how are you going to support that floor system where you just, quote, poked this hole through here? And then some of these elevators, you—you have to have a little recessed space in the—in the foundation, in the basement floor, the crawl space, wherever it is, or the slab. And sometimes it can affect the roof structure.

But a lot of them, the way that they’re put together, they need a certain type of support going up the shaft for uh—for uh, bracing systems so that the elevator can be lifted and—and lowered. And then there’s also different situations of the controls. So, it’s not just the space that’s there, it’s what—what can we put there so that when you do install the elevator, you just pop a floor out, the el—you know, the—the connections for electric, the space for any motors or other equipment is already there, and then the structural design is there so that they can bolt the elevator system to a—a solid foun—uh, a solid uh, support system and the walls bringing weight down to the floor. So, there—there’s a lot that goes into it, but it’s very easy to do it now compared to trying to retrofit it.

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: Um, we did have a family do a really unique, kind of George Jetson-y kind of elevator. I think all of us, you know, when you used to go to banks, you know, you’d—you’d go put your deposit in those little plastic cylinders that would go through a vacuum system?

Host: Yeah, those vacuums, yeah, they were cool.

Steve Tuma: They have those for people! [laughter] Where—where it’s like a vacuum system where you kind of, you know, George Jetson-style, get, you know, brought up to the second level, down—down, down, back, and forth. So, there’s a variety of different ways to do it. And one of the funniest ones that I that—that we did is a uh—um, th—this guy just wanted he wanted an elevator, but he didn’t want to put the money in for an elevator. So he—he wanted this little garage in the back. I’m like, “What are you doing?” His idea of the elevator is he had a spare forklift. He was going to drive in his little cubby hole in the back of the house, and then the forks would have a platform to go up to the second level. That one just made me laugh, and I don’t know if it was code compliant, so we just designed a uh—and we just designed a—a big shaft with a—a parking spot in the back. And he—he went on and—and got it taken care of. But for him, it made sense for—for what he said he was doing. He said it was going to be there for moving furniture up and down in the house.

So, we’re—we’re able to work with people to to get uh, you know, the different situations put together and make sure that uh they get the house that they want.

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: So uh, yeah, I guess we went from future-proofing to elevators. But that is a—a case. We’ve had a lot of people say, “Hey, you know, I—I know that in five years I’m going to need uh, something on my knees or hips, and I want to make it easier to navigate the house.” So that—that’s why sometimes, you know, the elevator’s a—a future situation. But a lot of these things, um, it’s better to think about now. Because sometimes people say, “Hey, you know, I’ll—I’ll make the doors wider later.” It’s like, well, you know, say for a wheelchair access, and that’s not always the case, and it’s not always easy to do, and there’s a lot of little domino effect considerations you have to go through. So it’s—it’s better to kind of uh, manage it now. And—and a lot of uh, building departments are actually saying, “Hey, they want certain kind of, you know, wheelchair-friendly features in houses.” Um, it maybe doesn’t have to be full ADA, but have at least one bathroom that is, you know, wheelchair accessible, you know, if a visitor came over.

Host: Mhm.

Steve Tuma: You know, type of thing. So—so we can take care of that. I—I think in a previous podcast, we talked about um, you know, the—the ice cream window where one lady wanted to feed her kids ice cream through a window like she was served when she was a little kid. So there’s a lot of things that we can put into a home of what makes sense. You may get a classic car down the road, you may get a boat. Um, we’ve had people um work on their garages to make sure that it’s set up for them. So a lot of people, they don’t—they don’t want to have their SUV in the garage and then pull it out and then load it up. They want to load it up in the garage the night before, open the garage door, and go out. So they want taller garage doors.

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: You know, so they could load it the night before and—and then hit the road and get to their destination quicker. So, um, yeah, there—there’s a lot of different things like this going on. So it’s uh, it’s part of the fun, and we’re capable of doing it, and we’ve—we’ve done it a lot, and I’m sure we’ll do a lot more in the future.

Host: Landmark, always thinking ahead. [laughs]

Steve Tuma: You have to! You know, on stuff like this, because like to go back and retrofit a house for an elevator, it—it would just be insanely expensive. So now we—we put the elevator shaft in there, put a floor in it, and they have closets up until the point that they want to install the elevator.

Host: Mhm. Here’s someone inquiring about the—saying that they—their kids are very, very active, and uh they’re—they’re thinking about putting in a climbing wall, but they’re also thinking about like kids’ hiding spaces, like in the ceiling or in the walls, and—and uh wondered about putting a slide in his new home. What—what are the possibilities there?

Steve Tuma: It’s completely possible. And what’s interesting is, you know, the question is: My kids are active, can I have a hiding place uh in the ceiling for—for the kids, or a little, you know, kind of little kid spot? Well, a lot of people are doing that with yoga play—yoga um spaces, little private reading areas, little nooks to just kind of get away and do it. So yeah, in the case of a climbing wall, we can design that. Generally, we’ll find out what they need, and they can reinforce a wall or add different reinforcements for the—the little uh, the—the parts that they use for to attach to the wall to grip. Um, space in ceilings—

Uh, we’ve had a lot of people ask for things like that, little kind of little hidden bonus areas. Sometimes they’re for trinkets, lightings, plants, um, you know, light—light accents, different things like that. But also a—a little mini game room, a little place uh—A lot of grandparents have done this with houses where they’ve had little, like little loft areas, not with full 7- and 8-foot ceilings, but with little 5-foot ceilings where, you know, kids could go up there and have their own little kind of hiding space, little kids’ space at grandma and grandpa’s home. And that’s there. And yeah, the slides, it—it’s kind of—

Host: How fun is that?

Steve Tuma: It’s a blast! [laughter] You know, it’s like you—you put a slide, and they’re—they generally are these like plastic tubes. You—you’ll see things like this at the uh, pub—public playgrounds, but where people want to know, “Hey, could—could I put a slide into the house or something?” It’s just that everyone wants to make sure the kids have a good life. It’s kind of an interesting thing, something special for the kids. So, I always wonder, it’s like because of the size of the slides, it’s like, are they really designed for the adult? [laughter] You know, so it’s like, “Oh yeah, I’ve got to get it for the kid,” but I’m like, “No, I think you’re really using it.”

Host: Yeah. [laughs] That would be me.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, so we—we can take care of these special requests. It’s uh, it—it’s kind of cool. It really adds an extra dimension to the project.

Host: Yeah, and I would imagine it—it’s fun for you guys at Landmark just as much as the homebuilder when somebody calls you and says, “Oh, by the way, I want a slide going from the third story to the ground level.” [laughter] Your wheels probably start turning right away.

Steve Tuma: Right! But hey, we’ve done it before, so why not again? Someone wants it, let’s—let’s do it. Harley in the living room, dogs running around bouncing on floors, climbing wall. You know, it’s uh—People—people should enjoy what they do, you know, and—and if they have a particular knack for, you know, something, let’s—let’s work to make sure it gets into the house.

Host: Yeah, hobbies are important, man. Sometimes hobbies can become lifestyles, and it’s—And speaking of that, this is a question of mine, because I follow someone on Instagram. She’s a pilot and she built her own plane, and uh, which I think is pretty impressive, but she’s—she’s got a house with a hangar right connected to it. Now, her plane’s not huge, but it’s, you know, it’s definitely a legitimate airplane. And uh, have you guys dealt with that before? Have you added airplane hangars to houses, and how does all that work?

Steve Tuma: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, not 747-sized hangars, but, you know, more personal use-type planes. We—we have one we’re going to be designing up around Santa Fe. Um, there are airparks where people literally, that’s their method of commuting. You go out of your driveway—we’ve done some in the South, we’ve done some we’re going to be doing some in the Southwest, and—and people do that. Sometimes people have the airplane hangars, but maybe they have an airplane, but they really have classic cars or a little workshop, or, you know, kind of an ultimate man cave. So sometimes these—these spaces become motorhomes, cars, toys, airplane uh types of things.

But yeah, we have to go through, and a lot of people say, “Well, what’s the big deal? It’s just a big garage.” Well, it’s a big garage with a huge door! [laughter] And how do you—how do you support the opening of that door and the type of door to make sure there’s clearance, and then also make sure there’s a bunch of clear-span spaces? So—and like this—this kind of gets into the future-proofing. We were just talking future-proofing like in the case of elevators or or handicap access. In this case, it’s: Do people end up with bigger airplanes? And we—we actually had someone do this. They started with one type of airplane, then they decided to get another type of airplane, and we had to kind of re-engineer it for the wingspan, the tail height, and uh, and—and different situations.

So, we’re—we’re able to do that. It’s uh, it—it gets a little more complex because some of these doors are 40 feet wide, some—some wider so that an airplane can uh, can—can be brought in into the the structure.

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: So, sometimes they’re attached, sometimes it’s under the home, you know, kind of like at ground level with uh living space above, sometimes it’s a separate building, sometimes it’s—it’s attached just like a—like a huge garage. But to the people that do that, it’s completely normal because they travel by airplane. You know, you and I might use a car or a bike, but they travel by airplane. So yeah, it’s not a problem to do it. We’ve done a few of them. The first one we probably did about 20 years ago.

Host: Well, that’s trippy. That’s, wow. I don’t know, this woman that I follow on Instagram, she’s pretty young, so, but people it seems like have been doing this for a while.

Steve Tuma: The people that it’s like equestrian properties. The people love their horses. The people with airplanes, it’s their thing. You know, car guys or whatever, it’s their thing. The gaming people where they have different board game nights, it’s people are kind of getting into their hobbies. Kind of cool.

Host: Well, we were talking about slides. What if I didn’t want to take up all the room for a slide, and I wanted to put a fireman’s pole [laughter] from access from the second level down to the basement? How possible is that, and what’s the structural engineering to put in a fireman’s pole?

Steve Tuma: It’s been done, people request it, and it’s really, really interesting because a lot of people think, “Oh, it’s just a pole.” Well, you’ve got to have an opening in the floor, you’ve got to frame around it, there’s extra bracing for that opening, but the interesting thing is how do you attach the pole? Because, you know, if someone’s sliding down it, it’s not like they’re just going down. It could be twisting, turning, getting pushed to the side.

So the interesting thing, if I could kind of go sideways, is a fireman’s pole and spiral staircases have a similar situation of a central pole.

Host: Oh right, I would imagine, yeah.

Steve Tuma: So the concept of going around a spiral staircase, you know, you got to make sure that it’s anchored right. In a sense, it’s the same. A fireman’s pole, a spiral staircase just has stairs attached to it. So yeah, we’ve done houses like this. Sometimes people just do it. They were old firemen and they just want to do it. Other times it’s 50-year-old kids [laughter] just having, you know, they’ve always wanted. What kid didn’t want one? I wanted a fireman’s pole. The problem is, then you got to crawl up it, but that’s what the stairs are for.

Host: Right.

Steve Tuma: So yeah, special requests like this, it’s an important thing to take care of it and make sure that it’s there.

Another, let me just spin this off a little, is flagpoles. You don’t just go out in your yard and poke one in the ground. They need a certain type of support because they got a flag, they’re tall, and there’s wind resistance. So we’ve done a couple of those where we develop the anchoring system for an exterior flagpole in the yard or something like that. Anything like that, when people come up with it, I’m like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” Just a great story, and it just adds that extra something that makes their house into a home.

So yeah, if someone wants a fireman’s pole, a slide, whatever it may be, I think we can design it into their home.

Host: Yeah. What about—we can go back to the kids and then move on to our next question. But what about, you know, going back to the active kids, what if somebody wanted to add something like right in their backyard? They want to put in a skateboard ramp, you know, things like that, a bowl that’s not a swimming pool, but just a place to skateboard, or snowboarding. Is that something you guys have ever gotten into, or do you just build the house and say you guys are on your own when it comes to that?

Steve Tuma: Well, snowboarding, people generally do that by ski areas, so they’re not really going to put one of those pipes in their backyard. Now, on skateboard things, we’ve worked with site plans for that, but generally there’s people that will design that. Now, I think we’re fully capable of doing it, but no, we haven’t gotten a situation like that.

But here’s something kind of cool. This was 20-some years ago, there was a guy that got divorced, and he decided that he needed to live his life a certain way. So he built a house, got a bunch of land, and he put a go-kart track in the backyard.

Host: [Laughs] That’s the best. That’s awesome.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. So we put a site plan on there, and I remember getting a call from the building department going, “What is this, a commercial racetrack?” I’m like, “No, the guy’s just going to have a little dirt path in his yard.” And he went out and did that, and then it was like a little racetrack. He had a garage with all the little setups and tools and a little bit of a setup, and his family was just into go-karting.

Host: Wow. I couldn’t love that anymore if I tried. [laughter]

Steve Tuma: Yeah, but the point is, it’s an important thing to think about. Because what if someone just said, “Oh, I’m just going to go put my go-kart track in the backyard,” and there’s some sound ordinance, or some restriction of how close it could be to lot lines, or grades or whatever? So sometimes it makes sense.

Where a lot of this really makes sense is sometimes they need different electric there. So that garage might have its own service if they’re welding out there or who knows what they’re doing so that it has it. And then suddenly, the go-kart track has to have an outdoor kitchen, and suddenly it’s more electric, or just different details that have to be put together.

So whether it’s something like a go-kart track, or someone just needs an outbuilding—they want a little mosquito house, little barbecue hut, little summer sleeping building—it’s kind of the same concept. So it makes a lot of sense to go through and plan these for the purpose of site plans, or future. Because sometimes people will say, “Hey, in five years I’m going to do this.” So we’ll draw the site plan that gets turned in for the permits, but we’ll also make sure that their future idea of, “Hey, put this outbuilding in the future, an ADU in the future,” whatever it may be, make sure that the land is configured so that once they get to that stage of adding on, the space is put together properly.

Host: Yep. That’s, I don’t know, I just love the whole idea. Though I’m going back to in my mind, the go-kart track. [laughter]

Steve Tuma: It’s kind of cool.

Host: You know, this is kind of a goofy one, I saved this for last. But I’ve always been into secret rooms, or those spinning bookcase doors, you know, things like that. Do you, if you build something like that, do you need a special permit for a secret room, I guess I’ll say, or how does that work?

Steve Tuma: Well, that’s what I always wonder, is it still a secret room? But the reality is, yes, it’s part of the structure, and it’s not something you’re going to sneak by. So building inspectors are still going to want to know, “Hey, what’s back there?” I’m sure that people have done secret rooms, and maybe during the building process they were able to cover it up. But yeah, the theory is the space needs to be there.

Now, the secret room, the one you’re talking about, the cabinet where you touch a certain thing and the cabinet opens, or a mirror spins around, some of those aren’t necessarily secret like you’re Al Capone hiding in your house. It’s more of just a fun little gimmick of, “Hey, we have our own speakeasy,” or, “Hey, this is where the home theater is,” or, “This is where dad’s secret den is at,” or whatever it may be.

But we have had people do safe rooms. Different people where rooms are enclosed, certain electric, certain ventilation, certain alarm systems, certain steel casings so that if there were to be an issue, they’ve got a secure area until help can come through.

So yeah, whether it’s the secret room just for the purpose of mystery at your family get-togethers or a safe room type of a situation, we’ve also had people develop ammunition rooms to make sure that things are secure, to make sure that people just don’t wander into the wrong place. So we’re able to do different things like that.

And then also, we’ve had people that have designed homes to say, “Hey, I don’t want any wandering friends going to the wrong spot.” So they want a secure area for their office if people are in certain jobs where they got to make sure that no one’s tampering with their computer or whatever. They want to know that it’s a secure space, or a remote place that it’s not going to be real evident.

The funny thing, remember 5, 10, 15 years ago, all these zombie movies were out, the prepper stuff going on?

Host: Oh right.

Steve Tuma: We had people that wanted to design front entryways certain ways, have secret rooms in the crawl space, different things like that so that they’d be secure if for some reason the zombies came after them.

So the point that I’m getting at, yeah, you want a secret room, you want a safe room, you want to zombie-proof your front door, we can do things like this. The questions in this podcast have been a little different, but they’re all real questions that people have legitimately asked, and chances are we’ve been asked them once or twice a year.

So we are here to take care of the design that someone wants. So it’s not weird to us to have a fireman’s pole there. It’s not weird to us to have a special ice cream window. It’s not weird to us to have a secret room. It’s not weird to us to have a big clear-span basement for the family.

Host: And really, how different is it from, in the ’50s, they were building bomb shelters, fallout shelters in their backyards.

Steve Tuma: Exactly. I mean, rewind to more formal eras, the Victorian era, thinking, “You don’t have a dining room? You don’t have an entry hall to greet your guests? You don’t use your front door, everyone comes in the back door? You walk in through the garage door? Your garage is used as storage, what are you thinking?”

So there’s an evolution of how people have used homes and the lifestyles of today: the dual incomes, the kids at school, shift work, people working different hours, people working at home, people traveling for work, the way people celebrate. More and more gaming families are doing things, people with car collections, people asking for certain craft rooms, knitting rooms, reading areas, yoga areas.

So all these things are very important to making sure a customer gets the house that they want.

Host: What, you don’t have a secret zombie room to hide? [laughter]

Steve Tuma: Well, I couldn’t really say if we’ve done that, because then it wouldn’t be a secret. But yeah. Whatever someone wants, we’ll spend the time to work through it, make sure it’s done properly.

We’ve done a lot of interesting homes. Some of them architectural design, some of them features like we’ve discussed, some of them in unique places, some of them with really strange building department requests. And either way, we’re here to help a customer get the house they want, where they want it. Build a cool house. Let’s go do it.

Host: Well, that’s going to wrap it up for this edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. And Steve, I want to thank you once again for indulging me with all these kind of what some people would consider off-the-wall questions, but you don’t seem to mind, and you have some great answers.

Steve Tuma: It’s the fun part.

Host: Before we let you go, let’s let the listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company and what you guys are are doing over there.

Steve Tuma: Well, we’re helping customers build homes all across the US and some international projects. And the best thing to do is check out our website. We’ve got all these podcasts on our website, there’s videos, we’re on YouTube and all the social media outlets as well.

Check out our website at LHLC.com. That’s like the initials of Landmark Home and Land Company: LHLC.com. And on there, there’s thousands of plans, there’s videos, the podcasts as I mentioned, discussions of what we supply, discussions of how we do things.

You can email us through there. It’s no obligation. We want to get to know our customers just like they want to get to know us. And we are very proactive. We like talking to our customers, we are available, we want to help our customers. Funny little questions, big questions, long conversations, whatever it is, we want to help, and we’re very proactive in helping our customers develop the design, develop the project, understand being an owner-builder, understand the processes. And I think that’s the very important thing that people really appreciate.

And if they want, they could call me direct. My direct cell phone is 708-205-2043. Give us a call. Let us know how we can help.

Host: That’s pretty awesome. That’s pretty good. Everybody should know that eventually they’re going to be talking to the guy who’s on these podcasts. So ask the questions, and this is the guy to answer them.

Steve Tuma: Right, we’re here to help. Well, thank you!

Host: Yeah, thanks again, Steve. And thanks to all of you for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma, as well as myself, have a great week ahead, and we will see you next time. Thanks again, Steve. Always a pleasure.

Steve Tuma: Thank you. Have a great evening. It was a fun one again. They’re all fun. Thanks.