Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show

Kit Homes, working with building departments and their quirks! Learn how to navigate municipal plan reviews, subjective local code interpretations, and unique site-specific zoning challenges when building a custom panelized home. We discuss why building departments often issue sequential plan-check checklists and how pre-construction blueprint coordination prevents permit delays and on-site contractor confusion. Discover how strict zoning definitions measure property line setbacks—from finished exterior brick to roof gutter overhangs—and calculate maximum building heights from undisturbed natural grade. Explore essential engineering strategies for modern mechanical systems, whole-house energy codes, passive solar orientation, and gas pipe sizing to ensure every custom home is fully functional, comfortable, and code-compliant.

A: Municipal plan checkers review blueprints strictly for life-safety standards, egress minimums, and structural code compliance rather than day-to-day trade buildability or trade coordination. Blueprints can pass municipal review while still lacking the clear dimensional cross-sections, trade connection details, and mechanical chases needed for subcontractors to frame and finish the home without job-site confusion.

A: Municipal setback definitions vary widely, with some jurisdictions measuring property line clearances to the exterior framing, while others measure to the finished siding or brick veneer. On tight building sites, some building departments measure setbacks to the farthest exterior protrusion, meaning wide roof overhangs or exterior gutters can cause an otherwise compliant foundation to violate zoning limits.

A: Height calculations differ across municipalities, ranging from the average height of the four corner elevations to the midpoint of the highest roof gable. In mountainous areas, building departments frequently calculate maximum height from the natural, undisturbed grade that existed prior to excavation rather than from the finished backfilled soil level.

A: Adding high-demand appliances—such as whole-house tankless water heaters, commercial kitchen ranges, and outdoor gas barbecue grills—requires precise supply volume calculations. Sizing the gas supply piping correctly prevents fuel pressure drops that occur when multiple high-BTU appliances operate at the same time.

A: Whole-house energy design integrates high-efficiency window specifications, zoned mechanical equipment, automated lighting controls, and proper solar orientation. Aligning building footprints and roof overhangs to capture winter sunlight while shading summer heat creates balanced indoor temperatures and lowers monthly utility expenses far more effectively than insulation alone.

Steve Tuma: It’s also good to have the plans clear so that your contractor knows what’s to be built because amazingly, yes, we have seen this, people don’t always believe that a building department will approve a set of plans that can’t be built.

Interviewer: Hey, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Episode 41 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me as always 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 worldwide since 1993, that man is Steve Tuma. Steve, how’s it going buddy?

Steve Tuma: Excellent. It’s another great day helping people design homes and build homes. It’s always fun.

Interviewer: [Laughs] And it’s always busy. You guys are really busy over there at Landmark.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, but it’s a good time. It’s kind of neat running into and helping customers figure out different things that they want to build, where they want to build, how they want to build it, how it works in the budget, how it fits on land.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: Then there’s always building departments in there working around their parameters as well.

Interviewer: Always something. So I thought today we jump into some questions that have come our way regarding issues that often arise during the designing and building phases of a panelized home building project. Are you good with that?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, I probably have a few ideas.

Interviewer: [Laughs] Awesome. So start with, give us some background. What are some of the issues that you and your customers have had dealing with building departments? I don’t necessarily mean like major sort of – the kind of issues that would stop a project but I mean just some of the basic issues that people run into.

Steve Tuma: Well, you bring something up there because stopping a project, it’s – Building Department is not there to stop it. They are just there to make sure that it meets codes and safe and works well on the community. But what’s interesting is a lot of people come to us for the help of getting through the building department, understanding what goes on and what they need, when they say something, what does that interpret to. And some building departments are very good at communicating what they want. Other building departments are exceptionally bad. So they can vary where they are at. It really runs into the way that building department decides to communicate. So in some places – first of all, we contact the building department on any of our customer’s projects to see what’s required. But some building departments will say things like, “Well, just get me plans.” I’m like, “OK, well, that’s an interesting one. Plans. You just want floor plans, electric, plumbing, mechanical, energy, what is it?” And then others will give a list of 200, 300, 400 items saying, “We need this, we need this.” And it’s pretty interesting. The nice thing about it is we can work with any of them and go through. We’ve got the experience. We talk the same language. So we can go through and figure out what the situation is that building department needs.

So it’s really just finding out what they need and how it applies to them, because we are all under a code when you are building that covers the nation. It’s that application of the code to your building site and your building department’s interpretation of that code that can be interesting. A lot of people will say, “Hey, how can you engineer a house in Florida? How can you do one in Washington? Don’t you have to be there?” Well, there’s no geographic limitation on the knowledge of knowing a code. You can be on the other side of the world to know the code for Arkansas, for example.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So, the key to it is, kind of understanding the application for what’s happening. So let’s just say you take a state like California, just because it’s so varied. There are high mountain communities. There are low desert communities. There are ocean communities. There are cities. There’s flat raw land. That same code that we are in will apply differently. So if you build a house in a desert, on a flat piece of land, the energy codes are going to be different. The foundation would be different and a variety of other things. Then if you took that same kind of house design and put it in a mountain say around Lake Tahoe, same house, different application, Lake Tahoe is going to have some big snow load consideration, different green things in there, there are also different things in the community on top of that that will affect its design.

So the key to it is, kind of understanding what needs to be done in an area and apply it to the building department’s request to make sure it’s put together. Now, we go a little bit more. Sometimes what a Building Department requests is important. Well, it’s also good to have the plans clear so that your contractor knows what’s to be built because amazingly, yes, we have seen this, people don’t always believe that a building department will approve a set of plans that can’t be built. People have sent us plans like that. So we are believers in making sure sets of plans that meet the code, go through, get approved by the building department but also are buildable are important. That’s the key thing. That’s a very important component of what we are able to do. We consider our plans to be a communication method between us, our customer, the building department, and the contractor and then whoever else maybe involved with the home. So the issues in building – dealing with the building department are basically just be understanding of what they need. We have the knowledge base to work with them and get it taken care of. All of our plans get approved, some take a little more work than others but we make it happen.

Interviewer: [Laughs] Yeah, that’s the thing, as long as it happens eventually. But you hear people talk about – some people will say, “Well, building departments in smaller, rural areas or smaller towns are harder to deal with.” And some people say, “Oh, don’t deal with, let’s say, Los Angeles County, they are impossible kind of thing.” Seems like it’s just a matter of whatever you are building and who you are dealing with.

Steve Tuma: Right. Well, sometimes what we found in a smaller building departments is they are simpler in their requirements and they are not always as detailed. So they will say, “Hey, we want this.” Then we turn it in and they are like, “Well, we also need this, this, and this.” It’s not a big deal. We can supply it. It’s just interesting that we don’t always …

Interviewer: Do you anticipate that? Do you always go in going in, “Yeah, they will probably going to want something else so we are ready for it?” Or do you just wait until it happens?

Steve Tuma: We pretty much anticipate it because we’ve got a system where we’ve helped customers build all over the country and all different types of building department. So we have an understanding of what’s there. And like we say, it’s not to satisfy the building inspector or the building plan checker, it’s also to make sure the plans are accurate so people know what to build because building departments will ask for their specific components of what they want. Well, that doesn’t encompass the whole universe of situations that may arise.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: Buildings are generally looking for safety. There are other components to safety. Does it look good? Does it make sense? Will the contractor understand this? That type of stuff that we work with as well.

Interviewer: But it seems to me like what you are saying is building departments don’t always make it all that clear upfront as to their requirements and you just have to be ready when applying for your permit that there may be other questions aside from the initial when you hand in the plans.

Steve Tuma: That’s exactly the case. And in defense of the building departments, sometimes one question leads to another. So they will say, “Hey, provide this.” You provide this and then it leads to another situation. So we have the knowledge to sort that out. We have an understanding of how to do different situations like this. So if a building department communicates clearly or doesn’t, we are able to do it. We’ve just done so many plans in our panelized home projects that we kind of understand the gist of what they are going for.

Interviewer: Well, it’s – that’s one thing, one of the reasons people call Landmark and work with Landmark is because you guys have the experience. Experience is everything I think in any aspect of anything you are doing.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s – experience is very important but also with the changing codes being resilient and open-minded to approaching that and saying, “Hey, this kind of does make sense. It’s kind of new. It’s a little bit of a curve ball.” The energy codes are the classic example. In some part of the country, they are tightening up tremendously. Fundamentally, it makes sense. No one likes paying the power company or gas company.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So let’s do something to make sure the house is designed better to minimize what you have to pay.

Interviewer: You mentioned curve balls just now. And so, what if I’m thrown a curve ball? What if Building Department throws me a curve ball that I don’t know anything about what they are asking? Landmark is there to help me through that stuff I would hope.

Steve Tuma: Well, that’s exactly what we do because what might be a curve ball to one of our customers who hasn’t done this or maybe built one or two or five homes, to us, it’s probably something that we’ve seen before. So in our situations, we’ve got all the different engineers and gurus as I call them that would have understandings of what goes on. So we are pretty much able to deal with anything that gets thrown to us. If for some reason you have that really unique, awfully strange leading edge building department that just comes up with their own ideas, we are fully capable of calling and talking to them, figuring it out, and working through it. I don’t want to demonize building departments. They actually can do a pretty good job. But it’s a situation where we communicate with them and understand the language. And like I say, we’ve had enough experience and understand the gist of what they are getting at so we are able to talk to them and make something happen.

Interviewer: I always throw anecdotal things at you but I really think that it did help us potential builders to see some of the off-the-wall or sort of different things people have had to go through. It kind of prepares us I think emotionally for anything that might happen. So if you don’t mind, give us an interesting anecdote about a building site that was particularly challenging to Landmark and to the customer.

Steve Tuma: Well, what’s interesting is every building site has its challenges, even if you take a simple lot, flat lot with no real issues about it. Sometimes the building site poses a challenge. Maybe what the customer needs to have happen on the building site is there. They need a certain access or they want a certain design or they want a certain view. So sometimes even a simple – theoretically, a simple house and a simple lot, there’s something that has to be worked through just as much as if you are on a very complex home and a complex building site and a complex jurisdiction where the building departments are just sticklers.

I’ve got a variety of different stories about that but one thing which is becoming – this is very interesting, there are a lot of places that are mandating solar. So you figure, “Hey, you just put solar, face your house south, put some solar panels on the roof, around some stands inside of the house.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Tuma: And then you get a customer from Humboldt County which has 200-foot trees on their yard, it’s like, how does the sun get through? So you’re going to have these beautiful and expensive solar panels, you go through and you figure out OK, the states mandated this, how …

Interviewer: Get out the chainsaw.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. Well, exactly. So it’s kind of like OK, you want solar but we are going to hurt the environment. So now, there are a lot of situations of people who want solar orienting the house right, making sure the design of their home is right if they are going to put the panels on the roof or there’s enough space on the site. So as people getting to these renewable energies, they throw little issues here that got deeper into – just deeper design, a little bit more thinking. We are able to get through all of them but that’s a situation. There are other situations where people are building on the sides of hills or mountains and they want to have certain access like, “OK, I love this design, let’s put it on the side of a hill.” Then you’ve got to figure out, well, how do you get the driveway up there? How do you get the car up there? Or they will say, “Hey, I want this but how do I know that I’m going to have a view of this mountain range?” Different details like that. There are other challenges. Sometimes you think, “Hey, what’s the challenge of a building site?” You think of the land and the house. Sometimes there are huge issues. If someone has got some mobility restrictions or other restrictions, we could work on those details. There are also situations where the way family live for economic reasons, health reasons, whatever it is, laying out a design so that the home flows. So it can get pretty interesting. And to tell you the truth, a lot of fun, sorting out how we can get into different scenarios and match the customer’s wants with the site, the house, the codes, and other concerns that may come into play. Lately though, it has been people with views. They want to make sure that they’ve got the prime view. They spent time finding a piece of land or it’s a retirement property or whatever it is. And then in some of the beach communities, sometimes these lots are a little smaller and they want to put the biggest house on it. So you’re designing a house, how can we make it an inch bigger? It’s kind of interesting. But either way, those are fun challenges that we just jump on them and enjoy.

Interviewer: Right. I imagine you’ve helped customers design some pretty unique homes. I mean you and I have driven around before and we’ve seen some vertical houses and then we go, “What about that driveway? What happened there?”

Steve Tuma: Yeah, exactly.

Interviewer: But is there a story about a unique design that you’ve helped a customer make it work for the situation when they just couldn’t figure out what they want or how to make what they want work?

Steve Tuma: There have been a lot of situations. Sometimes it’s designs. Sometimes it’s the financial restriction but they still want a certain design. Sometimes it’s the land doesn’t allow for the design or the design exactly the way it is. There are a lot of people getting into ADUs, granny units guest houses. So what will happen in a situation like that, we were working on one in San Diego, where in this particular unit, they could have 1200 square feet of living space, not 1201 but the family didn’t want an 1199. There’s literally 1200. So we worked through to figure out a floor plan that worked extremely well for them, pitched a little bit of roof, made a little steeper, put some lofts up there so they could kind of sneak some extra space because it wasn’t counted as livable square footage. And we were then able to maximize this exactly 1200 square foot home to fit on their land to have a view across a little pond that they had and a view of a mountain range. So that’s happening a lot, is people get into these as we call them ADUs, additional dwelling units, granny units, guest houses and different parts because in-laws or the grandparents are moving in, the kids are moving back in, home offices, whatever the scenario might be. We worked with a lot of equestrian properties.

Interviewer: Oh, right. Yeah.

Steve Tuma: Where people want to have – it’s not just a house, it’s the lifestyle of the house. And amazingly, the lifestyle of the human house seems to be secondary to the home for the horses. So we’ve worked in a lot of situations to make sure that the floor plan of the house works for people and own horses. There are tack rooms in some of these houses. They are little washer rooms where you walk through. Other unique situations, historic communities, homeowners associations, or different regulatory bodies that have very distinct guidelines. We were working with some now where they are trying to match a certain historic look of this community. So they don’t really get into what the floor plan is but they want to know the siding a certain size, it has a certain shade profile that the ease are certain ways, porches are certain ways so that if you were to walk through this community, you might not be able to tell the 100-year-old home from the new home. Obviously, there will be differences, it’s shinier, it’s new, but the features of it. So we’ve run into a lot of situations there with helping.  And then amazingly, people building on islands.

Interviewer: Wow! That would be cool.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. So you are figuring out how do you design this? How do you work with certain green situations that might be there, slope lots, restricted lots. Most people that are living on these islands are doing it because of the beautiful views off their front yard. So they are mixing views with family get-togethers with where do I put my kayak and my canoe? So there are a lot of neat design elements that are going on into it. I don’t know that we have like 10 or 20 hours to go over it but I can just go on and on with cool things that we have helped people, different things, people putting different studios in, art studios in their home offices, and then working within the certain footprint or restricted budget or whatever it may be. So, we can do it.

Interviewer: I’m hearing more and more about more and more regions in the country talking about energy codes and it seems to be something becoming much more prevalent than it was say, 10 years ago. The energy, does that just mean putting more installation into your home or what are energy codes? Why are they interesting? Why do I need to know about it?

Steve Tuma: Well, the basic line is I think the world is trying to conserve energy, cost of energies going up, and also my opinion is the more energy-efficient home is more comfortable to be in. If you have a home with the right windows and the right installation, the temperature is going to be more even. You’re not necessarily going to have hot and cold spots as long as your heating and cooling systems are designed right. But it is kind of interesting. Most people say, when it’s energy codes are like, “Well, I just put a lot of installation in.” Well, that’s part of it.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: A lot of it is also the electric usage, the types of bulbs, the types of switches. You will notice it going in commercial places where people probably see it the most is bathrooms and a lot of the big commercial buildings, they still have occupancy sensors. You have to turn the light on but when you leave, it turns the light off. Or different timers and stuff like that. So that someone doesn’t walk into a bathroom, leave a light on and leave and then lights on for however long before anyone uses it. So a lot of it is in the lights, installation, windows, the design of your heating ventilation, cooling systems, a lot of those details put together. And we can even get deeper into it or someone wants to get an organic design or see how the orientation of the sun affects the heating and cooling. So it’s not always like a mechanical or a physical thing like installation. It could be where do you put a porch? How big is the overhang? Where do you put the house on the land to take advantage of winter sun and minimize the summer sun? So it’s a little bit of work upfront bit it’s while worth it on the long run. But yeah, you asked why they are becoming more prevalent, I think people are concerned about their energy bills.

Interviewer: Well, it makes sense.

Steve Tuma: And in certain areas, there are brownouts or different concerns or power outages. People want to know that they could still operate in their home properly.

Interviewer: You had talked about like an example like bathrooms where it’s on a sort of timer or a sensor where it goes out. It’s almost like a lot of people are bringing things that have been standard in industrial like public bathrooms, restaurants, things like that is now coming – even like some people are asking to put urinals in their bathrooms, things like that.

Steve Tuma: Oh yeah.

Interviewer: So I’m noticing that it’s a lot of stuff that has been standard in more industrial and businesses is coming into the home now, which I find interesting.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, I kind of associate that, a big business, an office building, a big box store that’s open many hours with a lot of people. So if they can cut a nickel here and a dime there and a dollar there, it allows them to run a better business. And that’s filtering down now to the houses where the cost of those switches, the availability, the understanding of different details like that. There has also been a tremendous progress in different installation process and products, understanding of those products and how they are used. And this is a key thing. I think a little earlier today, we were talking about building departments. Well, some building departments do not ask about energy efficiency, which we think is interesting because that’s a bill that people seem to get every month, some type of utility bill. So we suggest, “Hey, let’s make sure your house is energy efficient.” Just because your building department doesn’t worry about it because they are worried more about safety in general, there’s no reason that we can’t help someone work through the process. It’s simple for us to do. We have the system set up.

Interviewer: Yeah. Zoning is another thing I kind of want to get into today, zoning issues, or something. Most of us don’t just think about it. But I’m sure you run into it all the time. And there must be situations where you’ve had to help a customer fit a home on a lot with some serious zoning challenges.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, it’s pretty interesting. There will be different zonings for different types of units, multifamily, single family. What we are looking at more is the actual restrictions of the zoning where they will say, “Hey, you need to have a certain setback where the front of your house is before the front lot and there’s so much on each side lot and so much on the rear lot. We are running into more building departments that interpret where the setbacks are too. They have different interpretations. So some of them will say, it’s to the outside of your finish, so your siding. So if someone says, “Hey, I’ve got a 20×40 ranch home, 40 feet wide, and that’s going to bump right up to my lot line.” Well, suddenly, if you put brick on it, the house is theoretically 8 inches wider. You could have just gone over a setback.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So we’ve got to make sure that all the finishing details fit there. If you are on a tighter lot, some building departments go to the edge of the architectural finish like the outside of the siding or the outside of the brick. Others will go to the overhang. We’ve even run on a couple that say, the farthest protrusion. So if you put gutters on your overhang, you’re suddenly 4 inches farther. So there are a lot of little details like that. Another thing that we are really coming into is different interpretations of how you calculate the height of a home. So someone could say, “Steve, what’s the big deal? I’ve got this house. It’s a ranch home. From the ground to the peak of the roof, it’s 15 feet. My building department says 20 feet is fine so it worked.” We are running into building departments that take the height calculation from the grade prior to disturbance, to the peak of the roof. So if you are on the side of a hill and someone is moving some soil around, it’s not where your soil ends up being, it’s where your grade started.

Interviewer: Oh, right. Yeah.

Steve Tuma: We’ve run into situations where they take the average of the four corners. We’ve run into situations where they have taken the average of the midpoints of the highest cable on each side. So height restrictions, how they calculate it, things like that have really, really affected some designs. And we really got to pay attention to it upfront.

Interviewer: Right. It seemed like we all think about the fun stuff of designing and building a home. I mean of course, it’s just human nature. The stuff that we really enjoy are the stuff we are going to put the most time into. But we rarely think about the nuts and bolts, not so sexy parts of building, plumbing, electric, or heating and air conditioning design. We want to think about building our man caves and our kitchens and bathrooms and our family rooms and garages and all that stuff. But what are some of the mechanical designs that you guys have had – maybe even had to push on people or say, “Hey, you need to spend some time thinking about this.” Don’t just turn the facet on and the water comes out. And I’m sure that a lot of builders, they want to spend a lot of the time on the kind of cool parts of the house but they don’t think about these very important other aspects of building.

Steve Tuma: Right. It is interesting and more and more building departments are asking us to do electrical engineering, plumbing design, verify the size of pipes for water and gas, and it is kind of interesting. And if you look at today’s world, you go somewhere, there are all these different electronics that are being plugged in, there are big TVs even though they are more energy efficient, there are big refrigerators. There are people that we have – we have customers that are – they have their own wood shops or wielding shops, thing that take power or they go through and they restore cars or have different projects or pottering sheds that need certain lighting.

Interviewer: You mean you can’t just plug into a regular wall socket?

Steve Tuma: Well, you can. It’s how many times are you plugging into it, that’s the issue that this all works out to be. So yes, so people will go through and say, “Oh, I’m going to have this beautiful kitchen and we are just going to entertain or we are going to have this and that.” Well, sometimes you got to make sure the building department will ask us or we suggest to the person and say, “Hey, let’s make sure that all the electric works.”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: We are getting more people putting elevators in houses.

Interviewer: Well, that’s cool.

Steve Tuma: They take certain power. You need to make sure that everything is there. You don’t want to jump into your elevator and push the button and suddenly all the lights in your house dim.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So that’s something where we can work whether the customer desires it or the building department dictates that something like that goes because people are just getting more active, the way they work. They’ve got grills, outside guest grills that are connected – piped into their gas system. Well, you don’t just want to turn your grill on to find out that your hot water tank is going or find out that your stove is going and suddenly, there’s not enough gas coming through to serve as those items. So yeah, it’s not as cool as sitting back and talking about your man cave but making sure that your man cave works is what I’m suggesting, making sure that when you are turning on your 120-inch TV and you got the air-conditioning going and your big stereo going and your fish tank with everything to make sure that there’s enough juice to make it work. And that’s for water. That’s for sewage. That’s for electric, gas piping. And we are able to take care of those details. Oh, and also, there are also new changes. A lot of people are going to mini-split heating and air-conditioning systems. They are a lot easier to use, a lot easier to control temperatures in different rooms. So yeah, that’s kind of like that thing that no one thinks about until it doesn’t work.

Interviewer: Exactly. Right.

Steve Tuma: So we say, “Hey, let’s look at it now to make sure that it works.”

Interviewer: Well, a lot of great info as always today. That’s – yeah, I walk always from these podcasts learning something new. And today, I think I learned a hundred new things. So, well, that’s going to do it for us today. But before we go, Steve, as is our usual habit, let’s tell the listeners how to get a hold of you guys over at Landmark Home and Land Company.

Steve Tuma: The best way is take a look at our website. It’s the initial of the company. The company is Landmark Home and Land Company but it’s LHLC.com. LHLC.com. If you look at our website, there are these podcasts, there are videos, there are different discussions on how we can help, there are plan selections, and you could contact us through there. You can also just call us, 800-830-9788. You can also – I mentioned the website already. You can send us an email. You can email me directly at [email protected]. We are very responsive. We are on top of it. We will answer your call. If for some reason you do get a voicemail, we will call you back right away. That’s the key. We are very attentive to it. And then we are also on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter for people that look at it. The bottom line is we are available. We want to help you with your project and we want to enjoy the process of helping people get the best house they can.

Interviewer: Cool. And give us the website one more time. We will just drill it into everybody.

Steve Tuma: LHLC.com.

Interviewer: Perfect. OK. So for Steve Tuma and myself, we want to thank you again for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. Be safe out there, everyone, and we will see you next time.

Steve Tuma: Happy home building.

Learn how to design, engineer, and position a custom panelized kit home on unique, steep, or environmentally sensitive building sites. We discuss how to capture expansive mountain and lake views by adjusting window placements, raising foundation elevations, and modifying porch rooflines to prevent obstructed sightlines. Discover eco-friendly foundation alternatives—such as building on concrete piers or steel stilts—that protect native wildlife migration corridors, preserve delicate wetlands, and significantly lower excavation costs. Explore passive solar orientation strategies, mandatory renewable energy guidelines, and the vital role of site-specific structural engineering when building in remote areas with minimal building department oversight.

A: Capturing upward vertical sightlines toward mountain peaks requires engineering specialized window banks and modifying covered front porch rooflines so eaves do not block the view. Elevating the main living floor on a raised foundation or drive-under structure can also lift primary living areas over local terrain obstacles like sand dunes or mature trees.

A: Constructing on isolated concrete piers or structural stilts replaces hundreds of linear feet of continuous concrete stem walls with a few minimal point-load footings. This approach dramatically reduces ground disturbance, protects natural wildlife migration paths and sensitive wetland vegetation, and lowers overall foundation and grading costs on steep slopes.

A: Passive solar architectural design orients primary window banks toward the south to capture low winter sun while utilizing engineered roof overhangs to shade the interior from high summer heat. Aligning the home with prevailing natural wind patterns enables cross-ventilation, reducing mechanical cooling loads and lowering monthly utility expenses.

A: Sloped and hillside building sites can be optimized by designing stepped foundations, daylight walkout basements, or cantilevered living levels that integrate naturally with the terrain. Coordinating with civil engineers during preliminary drafting ensures driveway approach angles, retaining walls, and utility trenches comply with local emergency access codes.

A: Building in an unincorporated jurisdiction without municipal building inspectors does not eliminate structural risks from regional snow loads, high winds, or seismic ground motion. Applying professional structural engineering, proper emergency egress dimensions, and verified energy insulation standards protects the physical safety of your family and preserves the long-term appraisal and resale value of the home.

Interviewer: Hello, folks! Thanks for joining us for Episode 40 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me in his usual spot 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 across the nation and worldwide since 1993, Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you today?

Steve Tuma: I’m doing great. Another good day as they all are and it was a busy day working on some really, really interesting projects, different types of building sites, different building department concerns, different customer design concern so it has been really cool day.

Interviewer: Whenever we start the show, Steve always is very enthusiastic. And you always start with it has been good day. Not, hopefully it’s a good day. We should get t-shirts made, “Landmark, it’s a good day to build.”

Steve Tuma: Yes, something like that.

Interviewer: That would be great.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s kind of interesting because we are not doing this because it’s a job. We are doing it because we like it.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: We have been doing it since 1993. We started the company. And it’s kind of fun so you would jump out of bed every day and say, “Let’s go build a house.”

Interviewer: Oh, that’s nice. That’s a nice way to put it. Cool!

Steve Tuma: What other people are doing on TV shows, we get to do every day.

Interviewer: I want to talk today about building sites, specifically unique building sites. And I want to start with views because if you’re building a house let’s say on a big piece of land, having a great view is an amazing thing. But I think I’ve seen houses where you look at the front door, the front deck of the house and it’s looking the wrong way. And I always think the view is over there, why would you build that way? So, let’s talk about what you can do when you are building to take advantage of a great view?

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s one of the interesting that you bring up because I’ve seen that myself where someone has got this great view and there’s like a mini window or something where there is facing and it’s kind of like strange. And sometimes that might have been some of those building the home for other reasons other than to live in it. So what we are able to do is work with people on the design. So a lot of people think, “Hey, there’s a view. Let’s just put a big window there.”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: Well, sometimes there’s a little bit more to that. There’s where is the window facing, how are you sitting on the land, the sitting it on the land and it’s not just the big window, it’s what’s around it. So if you have a big porch going across the front of your house and you have a big window, well, the upward view might be limited. So if you are looking at a tall mountain, there might be limitations there. So we might have to design a porch differently or the whole home if you are looking more across like a lake, that upward view may not be as important. So what we like to do is kind of understand what the view is and what they are looking at. Sometimes it’s a city view. Sometimes it’s mountains. Sometimes it’s lake. Sometimes it’s just an open field. Who know what it may be. But also, it’s not just the view. Sometimes people want light in their house. They want ventilation.

Interviewer: Grow some plants kind of thing.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, do that. Just enjoy it. Enjoy the light. There might be a family room where they want it bright. Other times, people want it dark if there’s a home theater situation.

Interviewer: Right. Right.

Steve Tuma: So that’s a key is kind of an understanding of what the goal is of the house, because to properly locate a window doesn’t cost any more than just throwing it some place and finding out later that that it isn’t. So we can work with the families on site planning, the design of the home, the design of windows, design of roof lines and different situations to take advantage of those views. And I don’t want to make it sound like it’s expensive. Sometimes it’s literally just where you’re putting your breakfast room. Sometimes it’s what type of windows are you putting there? Sometimes it’s like a project we are working on right now in Washington State, it’s how high does the house have to be off the ground. They have an interesting piece of land that’s at the bottom of the sand dune, of a dune. Well, if they raise their house 10 feet, they have a monumental view of a very significant mountain.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So we are working to figure out, well, does the house have to be raised 9 feet, 10 feet, 11 feet? What do we do with the space below it?

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So it’s not always a window situation. It’s what’s holding that window in place, what’s around it. And that’s where we are able to help.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Tuma: It’s actually a lot of fun and our customers enjoy it because that view might be the primo thing that they want in a house.

Interviewer: We talk a lot about this just as a society about like environmental impact or carbon footprint, that kind of thing. But let’s say you buy a beautiful piece of land and you want to minimize the impact of the land and you have an idea for your house but you want to know how you can minimize the impact of the environment. Do you guys get into that a lot?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, we can really help that. In some areas, we do green codes to make sure that people are disposing their things properly or using the right material so you don’t impact the land.  But generally, the more obvious concern is the actual excavation of it. So let’s just say someone had a home on the side of a hill. You can go in there and dig a full basement. Excavate the side of the hill and put a basement there. But some people are like, “Hey, wait a second. This is a migration route for many deer or animals or like the animals or birds or whatever it is.” So they don’t want to impact the vegetation. We will actually put a house on stilts. So let’s just say you had a house that had 200 linear feet of wall, basically a 200 linear foot of crawl space or stem wall or something like that. If you could put it on piers and instead of 200 linear feet of wall, you end up with say 10 individual posts, you’re not tearing your ground up. So this is more if someone is ecologically-minded. Some place is dictated. Other people just do it. If they are doing an off-grid house, they might do it. But what’s interesting is sometimes people say, “Wow! That sounds expensive.” Well, in a lot of cases, the foundation actually costs less.

Interviewer: Oh, I got it.

Steve Tuma: So it’s not just the ecological footprints. Sometimes it’s the wallet footprint. I guess I just turned a new one, the wallet footprint.

Interviewer: Another t-shirt.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. So it’s a situation there where there are different ways of putting a house on land. Sometimes it’s a slab. Sometimes it’s a basement. Sometimes it’s a crawl space. Sometimes it’s piers. Sometimes it’s cantilevers. So there’s a variety of different ways we can do things to be able to enjoy the land but not impact it. There are some people we have in different areas where wet lands are involved. And they have to have very minimal to no impact of the soils to be able to build where they’re at. So after they get through the governmental processes or go through and say, “We can have so much of a foundation in this land.”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So then we have to go through an develop a foundation design that stays within the parameters. So it’s pretty cool. Sometimes people say, “Wow! That sounds expensive.” Well, it takes a little time to design it but it’s not the thing that’s going to break the bank. And usually, when people are building in these areas, it’s just a beautiful place. They want to enjoy it. It’s an heirloom property. They are not building it to sell. They are building it to sit and enjoy with their friends and family. So a little bit of thinking upfront helps us develop a set of plans so that the enjoyment as long as you own the home is much better.

Interviewer: Of course. Yeah. It’s interesting what you said about the animals. People probably do a lot of things with their design of their house and even their landscaping to attract animals to the house which is kind of cool I think.

Steve Tuma: Well, what’s interesting is there had been some skyscrapers that have been built and end up being in the migration routes of ducks. And it’s kind of interesting. You think a duck flying a thousand feet up and see a big tall building in front of it but there’s something in the navigation. You even see it with the wind farms and some of the solar farms where animals are getting hit by blades. So if someone has that concern, there are ways to work around designs so we don’t impact the land as much.

Interviewer: Well, when we were talking about unique pieces of land, unique spots to build a house, a lot of times, I think we are going to find land that doesn’t actually have a flat spot on it. And so, I find a beautiful piece of land and I go, “There’s not one flat place to build a house.” What does Landmark suggest in that sort of situation?

Steve Tuma: Well, what’s happening is more and more people are doing that especially in recreational or vacation properties. So if you are like, “Hey, I’ve always wanted my shelly in Colorado or the Rockies or I want to be by a lake or in a mountain range in the South or whatever it maybe or the mountains in the Northeast.” So they will want to go do it. So in that case, we have to work potentially with a civil engineer or we can work with a customer to design a home that takes advantage of the view. So in general, building on the side of a hill will cost more but sometimes building on the side of the hill is what gives you that view.

Interviewer: Right. Right. Right.

Steve Tuma: Or that particular situation. We built a variety of homes on the islands off of Washington State and all of those are on the sides of hills. Well, you’re building on an island. There’s water there. People want to go down to the water and bring their kayaks in and out. So we are able to come up with designs that take advantage of that. And I talk a lot about the more unique building sites and challenges of those specialized kind of hillsides, mountains, whatever it may be, but that same situation kind of works in the flip side in an inner city lot. If you only have a 30 y a 100 lot, you can only put so much of a house on there as far as a footprint. But people still want different features. They still want to take advantage of the view. Maybe it’s a little view on the backyard. Maybe it’s a view across the street into a park. So we are able to work with people to take advantage of what their land offers whether it is a flat lot in the city, a flat lot in the country or mountain side lot. We can do it. So we understand the different situations of working with a geology reports, geotechnical reports, topographical details, whatever else may be required to make sure that the home is designed properly for the home whether it’s a flat lot or a more complex. And some people depending on the communities that they are building and some of them can get a pretty complex and intricate. Even if you’re building on a flat lot, that local Building Department may request a lot of details. So the bottom line is let us worry about those details. Just find out what you need and we will help you with the house design and then our engineers and designers and myself can work through the intricacies of each building site.

Interviewer: Well, no matter where we build, no matter how beautiful the site is or how unique or whatever, there’s one constant, and that’s the sun. It’s going to play – have a factor in what you’re doing of course. So how do I as an owner/builder building on a unique property, how do I work with the sun to make my home let’s say more energy-efficient to start off with?

Steve Tuma: Well, that’s a really interesting question because more and more people are understanding that concept. If we were here with our grandparents, our great, great, great grandparents that 150 years ago, settlers out here, they would understand that, “Hey, the sun can heat my house in winter but it will also heat the house in summer and maybe I don’t want it to be heated so let’s put some overhangs or let’s orient the house a certain or let’s take advantage of prevailing winds to have windows in certain locations or different types of venting systems to let the heat out naturally.” So some states, energy calculations taken to affect the orientation of the house to the sun but whether or not your state does, we are able to work with you on the design if you choose to have one that’s “organic” or eco-designed. Those are some of the words that are used to go through and get it put together. A lot of people like the natural light. They like the heat that the sun will create so we are able to create some comfortable designs with them but also work to protect from the sun if for some reason they are in a very hot area or very sunny area and they need to work through it. So the sun is an interesting situation. A lot more people are getting into solar design, the photovoltaic as well as the hot water systems. So we are able to help them with allowing enough space whether it’s on the roof system of the house, an ulterior, an extra building or on a piece of land sitting on its own stance on a piece of land. So we are able to go through whether it’s a natural situation or more of the modern day solar systems. We are able to work through it. It’s pretty amazing the technologies and knowledge have excelled in the last 5, 10, 15 years where it makes sense and some states are mandating it. So it’s a pretty cool system where we can work with people for the natural sun and also gathering the power of the sun from solar systems.

Interviewer: Right. Well, the Landmark is so helpful to their customer when it comes from the design aspect moving forward. And what if I in my brain, I have this design idea that I’ve got this beautiful piece of land and I don’t know how to put the two of them together, this design and this site. So how often does that come up for you guys?

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s pretty interesting. A lot of customers have an idea of what they want there. They know that they want this. They know they want this particular type. But sometimes the details, that’s where we jump in to tie it together, to go through them to make sure that the land is used properly, to make sure things are put together. Some people have the capability of completely visualizing a house and a home. Other people need to see it on paper. So if someone can completely visualize or they have their own plans or they’ve sketched their own plan ideas, we can review those. Other times, we work with people where they say, “Steve, I can’t quite tell you. I know what I want but I can’t quite tell you how to do it.” So we will just talk to them and get a general idea. They will say, “Hey, I’ve got a yard and I’ve got a view out the back. This is what’s in the front. We want to do this. I want to have bedrooms, a couple of bedrooms on one side of the house, a couple of bedrooms on the other side or I want a two-story.” And then we can work with them to refine the ideas through a conversation. Sometimes they tell us what they want. Sometimes we find out what they want by them telling you what they don’t want. An amazingly – and sometimes people end up with a house slightly different or completely different than what they initially thought as they are able to work with us to formulate the design idea. We have thousands of plans on our website where people can take a look at it. Use that as an idea bank to start the project. So we’ve had – there’s just as many people that know exactly what they want as there are people that are like, “I kind of know, I just haven’t formulated the idea.” So we can work with all the people to get it put together and fine tune the concepts of what it is that they worked. We then take their idea and kind of formalize it on paper, make sure the codes are put together and make sure things are drawn properly, make sure ceiling heights are right, the wall thicknesses are right, different situations like that and make sure there’s enough space in the wall for the installation, make sure doors are the proper width. If people want something that’s wheelchair-accessible, we can go through and do it. So we can kind of take care of the nitty-gritty. We just kind of help people in the initial phases to get the idea formulated so that it’s what they end up doing. The key to this is part of our design process, part of our service is that we are able to draw plans and then do multiples sets of revisions because there are times where people say this is exactly what they want. We draw it up and then they look at it and say, “You drew what we wanted but I didn’t realize I want a bigger closet. I need another window here. I need this and that.” So that’s the ability to draw the plans, have them reviewed so they are proper and then go through and fine tune it. It really helps the customer understand the process but also create an evolutionary path to end up with the house design that they want. Not all ideas are formulated the first set of plans so we are able to do multiple sets to make sure that it goes through. Then when a customer is done with the plans, you know what the changes, architectural changes, then we get to the finalization stages.

Interviewer: Well, we are talking about unique properties here today. Now, I’m saying, I’m thinking to myself, unique properties oftentimes that means the middle of nowhere or in a very difficult area or something like that. Some people just – I’ve seen this big houses go up in places where it’s like there’s barely any roads going anywhere or building. I would imagine some of these areas have very simple Building Departments or no Building Department at all. Am I allowed to just willy-nilly go into a place without a Building Department or just a small Building Department and just start building?

Steve Tuma: Well, every area will theoretically has building codes as the enforcement from Building Departments. There are places in the US that do not have Building Departments. You literally can go dig a hole, build a house, no one else suspect it and you’re on your own. If it’s in those cases, we are still going to do it right. A lot of the codes are there because of safety issues or kind of make sense things. Yes, some of them are there because I don’t know, someone wants to make people do stuff. But the reality is whether or not there’s a Building Department, we are going to go through and make sure the plans are done right. Other Building Departments are a little simpler to the point where yeah, they’re a Building Department but they aren’t really providing any guidance or they may collect a fee and have a plan checked but it’s always questionable on what they are actually checking. And that’s why we want to make sure that our homes are built properly for those things to make sure there’s proper ventilation, proper egress and window for safety, the hallways are the right size, doors are the right size, overhangs are right, and then there’s also just a lot of make sense stuff, insulating it properly, and different details. And then it goes to the other spectrum sad to say that this spectrum where you’ve got these Building Departments that want to question everything and we have no problem with that either. So tying that into unique building sites, sometimes those unique building sites are very remote places where there is not a Building Department or a less sophisticated Building Department. Other times, those unique building sites are in some of the areas where they have these strictest standards, oceanfront properties especially on the West Coast. Some of the higher-end mountain communities can have some very strict things. So whether you’re out in the middle of nowhere or in the middle of the city, we are able to help people develop the plans accurately for their specific Building Department.

Let me get into something else here. Every once in a while, we will get a call and someone will say, “Well, I bought this set of plans on the internet and they told me that everything is great and it’s going to pass my Building Department and there’s no problem and everything is just peachy keen.” And then we ask them to go read the disclaimers to later find that they might have been engineered or designed for one spot 10 years ago. They are not necessarily specific to the Building Department. They may make claims about that it’s done to a certain code. You know what? It might be right. The issue is every Building Department needs a different level of information. So even if someone has a standardized plan, the chances are that there’s going to be a lot of details that need to be added for their particular situation or the standardized plan is a code-minimum situation. So let’s just say you take a plan from a plan’s service that is based in the Midwest or the South with a – that might have a lower snow load and then you decide that you’re going to go build and tell you’re in Colorado, there’s no way that those plans are going to be accepted. The snow loads are different. The details that they need for sight plans, the structural details are different. So that’s a key element is that we’ve got the design processes to in a sense legitimize plans that a customer may have and make them usable for the Building Departments. That’s one of these funny little fallacies out there that, “Hey you can just go buy a set of plans and turn it in your Building Department.” Maybe you are lucky. But most Building Departments are asking for a lot more details that are typically supplied. So you’ve got to check that out. That’s what we can do. We can help people navigate the Building Department details. We’ve done a lot. We understand the process. We do it every single day. And if for some reason your Building Department is asking for something special, if I don’t have the answer, one of our professionals does and we will get right through it and make it happen. So that’s is one of the key elements is proper design, proper plans for permitting, which also makes it easier to build, easier to pass inspections and then it also ultimately retains the value of your home because the home is built right. That’s a key thing. These are interesting things. We kind of tied unique properties into codes and building plans, energy efficiency. And sometimes people will understand one component but not necessarily understand how that one component affects something else. Like very few people would ever think that their insulation can affect the structure of a home.

Interviewer: Well, yeah. Who would think that?

Steve Tuma: Yeah. People say, “Well, just stick a bunch of insulation on the wall.”

Interviewer: That would be me.

Steve Tuma: That will be warm. Yeah, exactly.

Interviewer: Warm me up.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. But with different design homes and different energy codes, you need different levels of insulation to pass the code properly. And in some cases, that means you’ve got to change roof structures or in the case of solar panels, you’ve got to possibly change the orientation of a roof pitch or go to some alternate location. So these details as far as architectural design, structural concerns, energy code concerns, they all go hand in hand. So it’s kind of like one thing may affect something else. And that’s how we are able to help. So if there’s a situation where it’s kind of a borderline or the customer doesn’t understand, we are able to go through and say, “Hey, wait a second. You are building in Telluride. You are building in Los Angeles. You are building in Upstate New York. Your energy concerns are a lot different than if you are building in Alabama. And how that may affect the roof structure of a home and the design and that’s what we are able to do. And with our knowledge, we are able to help customers move along quicker, make it easier on them and let them have a stronger understanding of what’s going on and why something should be done a certain way. Our customers want to know what’s going on. They enjoy it. They are owner/builders because it’s a passion. They want to do it and we are here to help.

Interviewer: Information and communication, that’s what it takes.

Steve Tuma: That’s it.

Interviewer: Well, there you go. A lot of good information on today’s show. And this has been fun. I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a long time because I look around, I say, “Man! That would be a great place for a house.” But how do you make that happen? So I think we learned a lot today.

Steve Tuma: Yeah.

Interviewer: So that’s going to do it for us today. But before we go, Steve, as is our customary habit, let’s tell the listeners how to get a hold of you guys over at Landmark Home and Land Company.

Steve Tuma: Our website is always available at LHLC.com. That’s basically the initials of Landmark Home and Land Company, LHLC.com. And there are videos, there are different write-ups on details, there are pictures of what we do so someone can get an understanding of how we can help. And we’ve got thousands of available plans on there for people to peruse and use as an idea bank and a place to start if they don’t already know the design. You can always call us at 800-830-9788. And Mike will answer the phone and you can have a discussion with him to review the different detail, understand what’s going on with your project, understand what’s going on with your project, understand how we can help you. We are very proactive in talking to customers and taking care of them, getting them the answers they need. We are a knowledge-base product and a service to help people design and build their homes. You can also email me at [email protected]. Again, that’s [email protected].

The key to this is that we are proactive. We like what we do. We’ve been doing it since 1993. We have a lot of knowledge. We have a lot of experience. We’ve worked pretty much every building condition in the US, waterfront, deep desert, below sea level, at the highest elevation in the Continental 48, Leadville, Colorado. We build houses in the city, in big cities and small cities and rural areas and hillsides, flat land. So we have an understanding of what’s there. So I think people will find our customer support and knowledge-base is what really, really will help them with the learning curve in the understanding of how to properly proceed with the home package. We consider our relationships with our customers to be very important. And we also enjoy what we do. It’s a good time and we have many customers who come back and build again or their son gets married or daughter gets married and they build a house or retirement home, whether they are upsizing or downsizing, we are able to help.  It’s a lot of fun. We enjoy it.

Interviewer: All right. So, another interesting show and make sure that you guys if you haven’t heard, this is Episode 40, there’s a lot of other episodes that are archived on the website. And if you want to go back then you can find some other topics from earlier shows.

So for Steve Tuma and myself, we want to thank you again for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. Be safe out there, folks. And as I learn to talk again, we will see you next time.

Steve Landmark: Have a great night or a great day whenever you are listening. Thank you.

A: Acting as an owner-builder does not require physical labor like pouring concrete or framing walls. Instead, you function as the project manager and general contractor, scheduling licensed trade specialists and coordinating work using a complete set of blueprints to eliminate contractor markups.

A: Owner-builders prioritize personalization, detailed finishes, and strict quality control over rapid assembly. Furthermore, self-managing allows builders to set their own pace, phasing construction to pay out of pocket, avoid bank interest fees, or pause during harsh winter months in severe climates.

A: When managing your own build, you select every subcontractor and verify that materials—such as specialized wall insulation, premium windows, and custom framing details—are installed strictly according to the engineered plans rather than letting a third-party contractor cut corners to maximize their profit margin.

A: Most jurisdictions do not require an owner-builder to hold a contractor’s license or pass a construction exam to build a primary residence. Success relies on general organizational skills, budget tracking, clear communication, and working from permit-approved, structurally engineered blueprints that guide trade subcontractors.

A: Subcontractor hiring typically works through a chain of local professional referrals, where an initial site excavator can connect you with concrete foundation specialists, who in turn recommend trusted framing crews. Subcontractors prioritize owner-builders who present permit-ready plans, a clear project schedule, and confirmed financing.

Interviewer: Greetings everybody and welcome to Episode 39 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me as always in his special president seat 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 across the nation and worldwide since 1993, and that man is Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how is it going, my friend?

Steve Tuma: It’s going great.

Interviewer: Now, everybody is going to be envisioning you sitting on some kind of throne.

Steve Tuma: The pedestal.

Interviewer: Game of builders.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. Well, yeah. We try to help people have the knowledge base so that they understand how we are trying to help them and what we are doing to help them.

Interviewer: Right. Well, it makes sense. You’re the guy that they’re going to come to so you’re the one that needs to have the knowledge and you seem to know what you’re talking about after 39 episodes.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. Well, also, been doing this this since 1993 helping people design and build their homes.

Interviewer: Yeah, not podcasting but building.

Steve Tuma: Right.

Interviewer: So, we are going to talk today about something that we touched upon from time to time. And that’s the phrase, owner/builder. And a lot of people probably wonder exactly what we are talking about. It may seem like it’s sort of self-explanatory but we are going to get into it today. So why do people own or build? Let’s get into that to start with.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s kind of interesting because own or build, we’ve been talking about it so it seems kind of specific to us. But a lot of people call it self-build. There’s a variety of different words that can be used. But the owner/builder can go range from the person that’s just managing a crew to build and it could also mean the owner is building, digging the hole, pouring the foundation, framing the house. We’ve had customers of all ranges like that. Some of them hire a contractor to build it. Some of them act as the general contractor so they coordinate the building but they don’t actually do any of the building processes. We have some families of friends that get together and they do the work out on the home that they know and then they hire people to do other components. And we have had customers that literally build the whole home. They’ve got friends or family that can literally do the whole process. So the idea of owner building is just – I would generalize it to the point of someone wants to know what they are doing, why they are building a home, they want specific details, they want to know it’s done to a certain degree, and a lot of times, they just don’t want to pay someone for what they can do themselves.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: They want to have an involvement. They might be a little skittish as to the margins that contractors can make and they say, “Hey, why should I pay someone for what I can do myself?”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: Sometimes it’s financially driven that you can get more of a home for the same price or you can save money building it. Others just desire. People have just always wanted to do it. We do have some families that work with every adult in the family to get a house, do a new house every year or two. Others just build a house and in two, three, four, five, ten years, they move out and want to build again. It’s just kind of something that people want to do. So that’s what and owner/builder is. It’s someone that wants to, in our perspective, someone that wants to have an involvement in the building. Now, a lot of people think that hey by going on a contractor, you give the job and the headaches to someone else. It’s not true. You’re still involved with decisions, things come up, change orders, cost overruns that a contractor will give you that you need to address where with an owner/builder, you can control the design, the materials, and the budget and the schedule. You have better control so you don’t run into those awkward situations.

Interviewer: And it’s got to be fun too. I mean even if you are not doing all the work, I would imagine you are calling yourself and owner/builder can mean, “I’m getting in there and helping to mix cement,” or something like that.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. And sometimes it’s the case. Other times, the owner/builder drives by and takes pictures every day. Other times the owner/builder is literally out there, digging holes or calling saying, “Hey, Steve! I’m six-foot down in my basement. I just want to give you an update.”

Interviewer: And nothing wrong with that.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. So it covers a span of what people choose to do. I’d say ultimately, people just want to know how their house is built and they want to get the house they want. They don’t want to buy a house that someone else has and tells them it’s a great house. They know what they want in a house and they want to do it.

Interviewer: Right. Do owner/builder tend to take longer to build their homes or is it something on the contract that they are actually quicker?

Steve Tuma: Well, it all really depends because we don’t consider home building to be a race. It’s not like, “Hey, let’s slap the house up and move in.” It might be done in other systems. And our customers want to be involved and work on it and they are saving a substantial money, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Interviewer: Yeah, that’s substantial.

Steve Tuma: So a lot of them also build their own home to avoid banks, just the fees and the hassles associated with working with some banks. So I would say in general, owner/builders might take a little longer. They are detailing their house differently. They have more involvement in the design of the home. They have more involvement making sure that it gets built the way they want. They have more involvement in controlling the budget. It’s their own money so they watch it compared to going somewhere else and someone is saying, “Oh, you want to move that? You want to change that? $2,000. $2,000.” So they are able to go through. But the thing about it is this allows the owner/builder to be on their schedule. Some people intend to take six months or a year to build their house because they are doing it as they get money or they might take two years if that’s their schedule. And a lot of markets, so you get into the Rockies way up, you can only build a few months out of a year so the people might say, “Hey, let’s put the foundation in and the walls up and then work on the inside in winter or we will do the rest in the following summer.” So the key to it and the timeline is the customer gets to work on their schedule. We always suggest that people move along, do it well, make sure it’s a quality built home and they do have to understand that sometimes in some areas, there are restrictions on the time that you’re allowed to build a home. So most people get their houses done I would say in four to eight, nine, ten months, depending upon what their work schedule is. But sometimes people say, “Wow! The local builder told me you could have it in three months.” I’m sure he can but if the customer sits there and figures that they are saving a $100,000, they think it’s pretty cool to work at it themselves.

Interviewer: Right. Yeah, yeah.

Steve Tuma:When you look at the opportunity cost of that $100,000 and the cost of that and interest to a bank, it’s a tremendous savings to people. So when you look at the long-term savings of that or the ability to work off of a slower mortgaged amount or expenditure from savings, the financial savings is huge.

Interviewer: Well, I guess being an owner/builder comes down to bang for the buck. I mean do owner/builders in your experience, do you think that they would actually do get more bang for the buck?

Steve Tuma: Well, what we’ve generally found is people will build a house at a lower cost or they will spend the same money and get a better appointed home.

Interviewer: Got it.

Steve Tuma: So they might go through and instead of a 2-car garage, they have a 3-car garage or they’ve got cathedral ceilings or they’ve got a game room or they’ve got different features that are in the home. So yeah, by doing the work yourself, coordinating it, there’s a substantial savings and/or if you want to spend a little more money and just detail it out, it’s something that can be done. And what we found is our customers aren’t just building a house to sleep in. They are building a house – it’s a source of pride. It becomes kind of an heirloom. We’ve had a lot of families that are building homes and they’re on a family land that has been in the family for some time or the family saved, three, four family members have saved to build the lake house where everyone could get together for the special days, the holidays, the birthdays, different things like that. So in a situation like that, people want to know, “Hey, there’s the grand living room. There’s a dining room,” that’s big enough for their particular needs. We’ve had people specialized houses, equestrian properties, tack rooms, and houses. We’ve had people that are building oceanfront or lakefront and they want to pull their kayaks right out of the lake and put them in the house or have a boat ramp right out of the house.

Interviewer: My dream home.

Steve Tuma: So that’s where it gets into it. It’s not just the financial savings. It’s what are you getting for it. Kind of like I’m saying, “Well, are you going to buy the cheaper shoe that doesn’t fit or are you going to get the shoe that does fit?”

Interviewer: Right. Yeah.

Steve Tuma: That’s the point. You want one that fits and works for your land and your family’s lifestyle as well as your budget.

Interviewer: It seems to me designing your own home to begin with is going back to that shoe analogy, it is kind of interesting. It seems to me that what Landmark provides as much as just the knowledge and the ability to help a customer build their house, it’s building a house that fits them and you can’t just walk into a pre-build house and find that. That’s an interesting thing and I think you guys should be proud of what you do over there.

Steve Tuma: yeah. Well, that’s where you’re getting in a situation of controlling the quality and specifications. I kind of say, “Let’s just pull a random birthday party.” Do you go to a store and buy a chocolate cake with vanilla icing or is your grandma making the cake?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Tuma: Grandma’s cake is always better.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Tuma: So it’s kind of one of these situations where you are able to go through and put things where it’s a priority to you. If you want a nice fireplace, maybe put a little more money into that. If you’ve got an exceptional view, maybe you need some more windows and a deck outside. If you’re someone that likes to cook a lot, maybe your kitchen needs a little bit more detailing. So that’s what’s able to happen. And people could choose within that. Like most products, there’s always a good, better, best. And the price varies with that. So someone that doesn’t cook as much would probably go for a more typical kitchen where if someone is really into cooking, their family get together, friends coming over, they’re going to prioritize a different quality kitchen, a different quality stove. So that’s what we are able to do is work with them to make sure that the money is spent in a priority that they want for their house.

Interviewer: Right. And we are talking about – you just mentioned quality and specifications of the home. Quality is a big thing. That could go back to you talking about building it fast or building it right. Quality is a big thing it seems to me like becoming an owner/builder helps you to control that. It’s a big thing to control. It’s really a nice option.

Steve Tuma: Well, what’s nice is when you are controlling the quality yourself, first of all, our plans will help you understand what it is that’s being done. Like take for example, an insulation.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: You will have an understanding of the insulation that goes through. There will be mandatory measures of how to install the insulation properly. So what that’s able to do is make sure it’s built right but also, a well-built home will last better. It will have less maintenance and the resell is better.

Interviewer: Right. Yeah.

Steve Tuma: And that’s a key to it. There’s not – there’s probably no one that I know of that wants to build a home and they have a maintenance issue every week. They want to build a home once and then enjoy it. So that’s the key to it. Someone could say, “Hey, this is what’s of value to me. I’m going to put money into it.” Or something isn’t as important, we still want it to be good quality but maybe you could work with a material that costs less. The end result it you end up with a comfortable home. So that’s the point that we try to tell people because this is kind of, “What do you want?” And we can help them formulate the idea if they haven’t done so themselves. We’ve helped a lot of people so we understand the needs and some customer’s pitfalls and being able to visualize a house or understand how it comes together or how do you put a house on a piece of land. We are able to kind of have a little discussion with them and bring it together so that they can then go through and work on the details. We are a resource to help them, the classic one-stop shop idea.

Interviewer: Right. Right. Yeah. Now, what about qualifications? Is there any special qualification that an owner/builder needs to have? Do I need to go take a test to become an owner/builder?

Steve Tuma: Well, this is what’s interesting about it. A lot of people are like, “Well, I’m an owner/builder. I don’t know. I’ve never swung a hammer. I’ve never installed a furnace.” And what’s interesting about this is we’ve had all different types of varieties of customers. Some are professional builders. Some are professional developers. Some have never built a home. Some of them built a dog house. Some of them just naturally have different mechanical abilities or understanding of building. But the reality of this is, it’s kind of a coordination project. So sometimes we will have someone go through and say, “Hey, I’m a single man. I’ve never built a house but I want to do this. I want to do this. I want to build the right house for my kids and my future wife. But I don’t know how to use a saw.” And I say, “Well, you’ve managed the family or you’ve managed your life. You went through school or you got a certain career or you do it. That’s an understanding of what needs to be done, coordination, and scheduling.” And then when they see that they are kind of like, “You are right. I go to work and I manage so many people. I work in a group and manage people. I manage my family. I do whatever it is.” And their own person hobbies or jobs. And they realized that this is theirs.

So there isn’t a test that I know of. I know that there are people selling books and stuff but sometimes I think people are – they sell books instead of knowledge. So what we have found in situations like that, it’s more driven by the desire to go through and coordinate a project. So if you happen to be that person that can coordinate and paint and put a roof on and install a furnace, that’s great, but if you’re also the person that’s strong at managing, understanding things, putting it together, it will work. Every year, we’ve got a lot of people that are in the – you could consider them professionals. You can consider them people that have built multiple houses. We have just as many people that have never done it before. They all finish their homes. They all work with us for plans. They all get permitted. And I think the key to it is no matter what the level of knowledge, it’s kind of interesting. The number of calls or questions we get from the professionals in the business compared to someone that has never built, their customer support calls are about the same.

Interviewer: Wow! That’s an interesting statistic.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. So it tells you it’s more, are you determined to do it? Is it a desire? Are you paying attention? If you need help, do you ask for it before you get into the problem? And that’s what we found the key element to it. It’s just an understanding of the management of a job. A lot of people will say, “Hey, I should get a builder.” Well, the modern day builder is a coordinator. He is not doing the work.

Interviewer: Right. Right.

Steve Tuma: The general contractor is hiring a subcontractor. He is pointing his fingers and coordinating stuff. So that’s why people do it. General contractors make 20 or 30% of more. So what they are able to do is save that money by coordinating. It’s what they are doing every day in their life already. And we are here to help them with the plans, to understand the process, and move forward. That’s part of our service is customer support. That’s a key element.

Interviewer: I’d be interested to know the percentages that you think of people who build the home themselves or hire people to do it like you said. That would be an interesting thing to find out and also to find out if you’ve ever discouraged anybody from swinging the hammer themselves.

Steve Tuma: Well, we want to have strong and reasonable product and service or someone isn’t up to it. We don’t suggest do this. We want the house done right. The houses get done. They all get designed where they get permitted. So sometimes if people, just talking to them, they will generally tell themselves, it’s like, “Steve, I’m getting into this and it’s just – I can’t get this deep.” Then we will say, “Well, coordinate it or get a guy …” sometimes there are retired contractors, building inspectors with side jobs that become a “job coordinator.” So they can be involved but maybe they don’t understand electrical installation. They can go through and work with the person. But what’s interesting about this, this is just like anything in life. If you have good quality people, they are going to help you.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Tuma: So the reason that people that maybe don’t have the skills to actually go do the work themselves, they coordinate more, is they understand. Get a good electrician. Get a good foundation person. Get a good heating person. Because then they will be able to go through and help you through the process. They are coaching you on that situation. So that’s what it is more. I don’t think that there’s a general contractor out there no matter how long he has been in business that know every single detail about every single component.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: He may – he or she may know a lot or a bunch but they probably don’t know every single detail with the changing codes, the new technologies, the new materials. So at some point, they are relying on the “specialist” subcontractor to get it done. So when you look at that map perspective, what’s the difference of the general contractor and the owner/builder? The guy might have a little more experience. He might have an understanding. But the thing is, that’s something that a customer, an owner/builder, can gain themselves and see the financial savings in doing so. So you asked how many, I’ve actually never run that number. I would say it’s a pretty even split of people that are general contractors and do some work and then others that hire it all out. The people that do it all like literally friends and family literally do every process is a smaller component. But most people, I would say, most of our customers are acting as a general contractor and hiring subcontractors to do the work that they don’t do themselves.

Interviewer: Got it. And Steve, talking about contractors and if you go back, that’s another reason that’s good that if you go back to the Landmark website, you will find these archived podcast. And we do touch upon that on a couple of the podcasts on the best way to find a good contractor, how to go about doing that. And if I were owner/builder or a perspective one, Steve, and I had a question like that like if I called you, “Steve, I want to build a panelized home. How do I find a good contractor?” Is that something you guys would easily delve into?

Interviewer: Well basically, what we found is that once people have a set of plans and they have a schedule, the contractors are available. Now, sometimes there are market conditions where people are busy or if someone is building in extremely remote area where it might be a little harder to find, but once they hear that you are serious about building, you can go through, get one contractor. Generally, one contractor can lead to another. So an excavation contractor always knows a septic installer, always know a foundation person. A foundation person always finds a framer. Plumbers, electricians, and heat people are always around each other. So it’s generally one of those things. Get one or two people and go through. Our customers have generally thought this through. They understand what’s going on. They’ve done preliminary reviews of these details. And it’s not as hard as people may think to go out and find a contractor. If you are organized, you understand what’s going on. You have a schedule of the financing in place. The contractors will pay attention because they know that you are a serious person.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: If you are out there saying, “Well, I might build in the next 20 years. Can you meet me Sunday morning?” And talk about your house. They are probably not going to show up. If you say, “Hey, we are building a 1300-square-foot home in this town, I own the land and we are starting in 30 days,” I think the people will do it. The contractors and subcontractors are busy so they want to know that they are spending time with customers that are interested in moving forward. And we have a similar opinion. We want to help people plan their home. But sometimes if it takes a year or two for them to do it, that’s fine. We’ve had people take years to sort things out, the finances and land, get the land in line, just get things timed together. So we are willing to do whatever it takes to help a customer. And we also have fun doing it.

Interviewer: Well, that’s important. I mean if the owner/builder is going to have fun, you guys might as well have some fun too.

Steve Tuma: Right.

Interviewer: Perfect. Well, that’s going to do it for us today. But before we go, Steve, as we always like to do, let’s tell our listeners how to get a hold of you guys over at Landmark Home and Land Company.

Steve Landmark: The best way is to look at our website at LHLC.com. That’s basically the initials of Landmark Home Land Company. It’s actually Landmark Home and Land Company. But it’s L as in Landmark, H as in Home, L as in Land, C as in Company dot com. You can check our website out. There’s a variety of details, videos, these podcasts. And you could also send an email inquiry. You can email us directly at – you can reach me at [email protected]. Again, that’s [email protected].

And you can also call 800-830-9788. Mike will answer the phone and take care of you and walk you through the process. We do understand sometimes people just want to talk and get a feel for what we do and how we can help them with the project. We are proactive. We do answer our phones. We will spend the time to talk to you. If for some reason you get a voicemail, we will get back with you right away and get you taken care of. Communication is very easy with us and I think you will find we are very supportive. We enjoy what we do and we want to help our customers to have good homes.

Interviewer: And you guys are known for customer service and that’s something that you don’t get a lot of these days.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. We do everything we can to help whether it’s related to our component of the project or not. We realize we are in the owner/builder business and sometimes there are little curve balls that come up. Chances are, we’ve seen it before but our customer may not have but we are there as a support system, a resource to make the process enjoyable.

Interviewer: Well, 1993 was a long time ago. So you guys have been doing this quite a while and experience is what a lot of what people are going to get from Landmark and that’s important.

Steve Tuma: That’s it, and a good time and relationship and information. That’s how we can help.

Interviewer: Great. All right. So for Steve Tuma and myself, thanks again for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. Be safe out there folks and we will see you next time. Thanks, Steve.

Steve Landmark: Thank you. Have a great day.

Learn how thorough pre-construction blueprint planning and engineering prevent custom home cost overruns, permitting delays, and contractor misunderstandings. We discuss why relying on HVAC rules of thumb leads to oversized equipment and high energy bills, and how Manual J, S, and D calculations guarantee accurate equipment sizing. Discover when building departments require specialized electrical engineering for EV chargers, gas pipe sizing for high-demand appliances, and civil engineering for steep driveway access or stormwater drainage. Explore how foundation designs adapt to varying soil bearing capacities—from solid granite to weak soils—and how precise architectural dimensions allow owner-builders to fully personalize custom kitchens, luxury baths, and specialty garage workshops.

A: Older rules of thumb were created for poorly insulated structures and will severely oversize equipment in modern, tightly sealed, high-efficiency homes. Oversized units short-cycle frequently, fail to properly dehumidify the living space, consume excess energy, and lead to inflated initial equipment quotes.

A: Modern residential electrical demands have increased significantly due to electric vehicle charging stations, multiple kitchens, dual laundry rooms, and dedicated workshop equipment. Permitting offices require formal load calculations to verify that the main service panel has sufficient amperage capacity to power all simultaneous electrical loads safely.

A: Civil engineering is required whenever building on steep slopes, hillside parcels, or lots with significant elevation changes between the road and the home’s finished floor. Municipalities enforce strict maximum driveway slope percentages and require dedicated emergency vehicle turnaround areas to ensure fire department access.

A: Foundations must be engineered to match the weight-bearing capacity of the underlying ground, which can range from 1,000 pounds per square foot in weak soils to over 14,000 pounds in solid rock. Softer, expansive, or moisture-prone soils require wider footings, reinforced steel rebar schedules, or specialized piers to prevent structural settling.

A: Architectural blueprints establish precise room dimensions, window placements, ceiling heights, and rough-in plumbing and electrical locations. Homeowners take these dimensioned floor plans to cabinet makers or kitchen showroom specialists, allowing them to detail custom cabinetry, islands, and appliance packages without structural conflicts.

Interviewer: Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 38 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me in the studio 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 across the nation and worldwide since 1993, and that man is Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you doing, amigo?

Steve Tuma: Doing well. Staying busy as always. Having a good time helping customers get through permitting processes, design issues, interesting land situations so …

Interviewer: All the usual stuff.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, keeping on our toes and we are having some fun.

Interviewer: Good. I thought today, we might get back to something we like to do every third or fourth episode or so is look at some interesting inquiries and questions from customers that we received. So why don’t we just get right into it?

Steve Tuma: Yeah. Throw some questions at me.

Interviewer: I thoroughly throw you for a loop there.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, I thought you were going to say more and then you leave me hanging. It’s like OK.

Interviewer: I just like to keep you on your toes like you just said. So let’s talk about – let’s talk about quotes for a sec. Now, how do customers know if a quote for let’s say, a heating or an air conditioning system that they are having installed, how do they know that the quote they are getting is correct and they are done right and equally, apples to apples? How do I know the quote I get for a system such as that is good for a properly designed house?

Steve Tuma: Well, that’s an interesting situation because it’s not just like heating and air conditioning system. It could be your foundation, your electric, your roof. And what we always suggest is make sure that you’ve got an accurate set of plans to go through and get quotes. Now initially, you might work off of just rough concepts and get rough ideas to make sure that a house is going to fit in your general budget, kind of a target situation. But when you are actually going through and getting the quotes that you need to actually go through and execute the building processes, it’s good to have a good set of plans. The reason being is the set of plans is a communication tool. We could draw the house up that you want and then you could use those plans for permit applications so the Building Department knows what you want to build. But also, the contractors know what’s to be built so that you don’t end up in a situation where sometimes people work in other ways and say, “Hey, I bought these plans but do this change. Do this 2000-square-foot home but make the garage bigger.” What does make the garage bigger mean? Is it a foot bigger? Is it 10 feet? Is it 10-car garage instead of 2-car? So it gets rid of the nebulous ideas and miscommunications so that contractors can do their jobs. And that way, it’s very clear as to what is to be estimated and then you could verify that the estimate comes back accurately. It also limits the errors. And sometimes people taking advantage of the situation where they say, “Well, I didn’t know you wanted that.” Well, in this case, it’s right on the plans. It would show, “Hey, you want cement board siding or you’re going to need a foundation for a 1200-sqaure-foot ranch with a 3-car garage.” It would be very accurate. Now in some cases, there are technical sides to this. So you brought up the heating and air conditioning systems, sometimes people work off of rules of thumb. And someone might say, “Well, I’ve been in the heating business for 30 years and this is how we do this.” Well, that’s great. But 30 years ago, homes weren’t insulated as well. Windows weren’t as good. The understanding of energy efficiency wasn’t there. So then what ends up happening is you use a rule of thumb from 30 years ago and apply it to a new home today, new building methods, new insulations, you might be over-sizing the heating and cooling systems.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So you are paying too much but then the heat system isn’t able to do its job right. It’s turning on and off a lot and possibly using more energy. So what we suggest in those cases is have the manuals as D & J developed so it’s very clear what needs to be done, where the duct works is at, where the cold air returns or at, the sizing for the system, so that then you can go through and get a quote that it’s apples to apples as you’re going to get it because theoretically, someone could go through and say, “Hey, your house needs 80,000 BTUs,” and other guy could say a hundred. Another contractor could say 120,000. And sometimes people are trained to think, “Well, the lowest cost is right.” Well, maybe it isn’t because maybe you are missing a return. Maybe it’s not big enough. Maybe the furnace is too big and therefore your energy costs are going to be larger over the course of the home ownership. So what I’m basically getting at is just develop a – we can work to develop an accurate set of plans so that people can go through and work with their contractors so that everyone understands what’s need to be done but it’s also very clear to the Building Department so it will be easier for permitting and the follow-up inspection processes. So it’s basically, make sure that the information is there. We are fully capable of doing the complete architectural design, structural design, energy codes, greed codes, electrical engineering, plumbing, gas line engineering and design, complete HVAC design. I think I already said electrical engineering as well or just regular design. So we are able to go through and put these details together so that our customer or owner/builder customer or contractor customer, understands what the house is to be made of, how it’s going to be built. So therefore, they can schedule their project better but they can also budget it better. I’ve heard many times that housing projects go over budget and sometimes I got to question things like that. Is it that it went over budget or was it never budgeted right or did people do changes when someone says, “Hey, you need this type of a furnace,” later to find out they need something different to do the job properly.

So we can all have a little bit of control in the budget and scheduling of a house if we do what I call as do the homework upfront. Work this all out in paper. What’s the design of the home? What’s the electrical system? What’s the furnace? What kind of siding are you putting on? What kind of roofing are you putting on? How many windows do you need and what size and what energy efficiency? So if someone wants to get into those details, we are completely set up and able to help them through. Other customers are very knowledgeable on it already and they are able to sort it out. But that’s what we see is develop your road map upfront for your building process by working with this for the plans. And then the execution of actually building or obtaining permits, getting inspections approved, and building will be much easier and also more enjoyable.

Interviewer: Yeah. And also, it sounds to me and we go through this a lot, we talk about this a lot on the podcast but starting off right makes all the communication down the line much easier.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. I kind of relate to a road trip. Do you have a general idea saying, “Hey, I want to drive from point A to point B,” or do you just get in your car at point A and go down the road and see where you end up?

Interviewer: Right. Right.

Steve Tuma: Not to say that a road trip just going to random road, having a good time can be bad but I don’t know that you want to do that with your house.

Interviewer: Yeah, spontaneity and home building doesn’t sound like a good idea.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, it’s interesting. Every once in a while, we get people in different industries where real time is important in their industry. Well, you don’t want a real-time engineer your house or design your house. You want to do it before and then build it. It’s not something we are in the middle of pouring the foundation you want to determine where it is or how tall your basement is. You want to do all that stuff upfront.

Interviewer: And what if a Building Department asked me for information which is beyond something I’ve initially requested or expected to put together?

Steve Tuma: That’s interesting because the idea of what if, it’s more like when they do. Building Departments are interesting. Some of them are less sophisticated. Some areas don’t have Building Departments. You can just go dig a hole and start building. Others are very simple. They will say, “Hey, just get me some plans.” And others will be detailed. You could have 10, 20 pages of details that they request. And we can help with all of those. The key to it is as we work nationwide and internationally, we’ve been exposed to a large variety of interesting quirks from Building Departments, special request, building site conditions that need further details. So if a Building Department says, “Hey, we need these 30 items on a plan,” and then somehow you find out that they really need to add another 10, chances are we’ve seen it before. We are fully capable of doing that. It’s part of our service to go through and just help our customers get through the permitting process by developing a set of plans.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: And a key thing to that is we do make contact with the Building Department to see what they need and some of them are a little better at communicating than others but to find out what they need so that our initial plans are as complete as possible so that when you turn in, you could be confident you got a solid set of plans.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: In some areas, parts of Colorado, California, Florida, and other places, it’s very common for Building Departments to have checklist items. So they will take the initial plan submittal and then review it and then come back with the checklist items of further details they need as they get into because Building Departments although they may supply a list, they always reserve the right to ask any question that they want. And that’s a thing to what we’ve been doing since 1993. We’ve got a lot of experience in variety of different Building Departments, varieties of building conditions, all types of home designs so that we are able to go through and supply the information. That’s the key element is we are the resource that makes your designing engineering permitting process I think the one-stop shop. It just makes it easier for our customers.

Interviewer: Now, I’ve heard that some Building Departments will ask for things like electrical and plumbing and gas pipe engineering. What is that process?

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s interesting because most Building Departments just want an electrical layout so they want to know where the sockets are, the lights are, or things to code, is there proper ventilation, smoke and carbon dioxide detectors, monoxide detectors. They want to make sure that those items are on the plans. But we are seeing more and more Building Departments ask for actual electrical engineering because what they are finding is sometimes people aren’t putting in. They might know, “Hey, you need to have so many sockets here or you need to have this,” but they are not really doing the Amperage calculation. And if you look at today’s homes, there could be multiple TVs, a couple of kitchens. One customer had a home, Mark Wielder, with electric vehicles. A lot of people are requesting the electrical connections in their garage to plug their electric car in. So suddenly, your home needs a lot more “juice” to run. So what the engineering process is, they are just asking for verification that does your house really need the power that’s there or does it need more for what it’s designed? The same thing with plumbing and the gas sizing, they want to make sure that someone is not out there using a rule of thumb on, “Oh, we just need this type of gas pipe.” They want to know that that gas pipe and the plumbing is sized properly. If you look at a situation where someone may have a gas barbecue, they may have a gas hot tub, they may have a couple of dryers in their home, a gas stove, a gas fireplace, suddenly, it might need a bigger pipe to get all that information.

So what it is, is it’s a verification upfront to make sure it’s designed right so that you don’t put it in and then the inspector comes down and questions it. It’s very easy for us to do. It’s part of what we supply if someone needs that level of detail for their Building Department. So we are able to do something from the simple electrical layout to full electrical engineering. And the same for the plumbing and gas pipe sizing to make sure that all those layouts are proper so it’s clear as to what needs to be done. More and more Building Departments are asking for it. I’ve asked the Building Department, “Hey, why is this change coming through?” And they’ve said, “Because people’s usage is more and the contractors aren’t always following through.” They are working with rules of thumb from 10, 20 years ago but people’s gas usage maybe more especially in areas where they are trying to restrict the electric usage because of the cost or then environmental components of it.

Interviewer: Right. Some things some – one potential customer asked about civil engineers and when they might need one. I mean does that have to do with what grading and drainage plan or is it that it come down to driveway access? When do I need a civil engineer? And do I?

Steve Tuma: Well, it goes area by area. It’s theoretically anyone could use one. It’s more of is there a Building Department requirement or does your land kind of dictate it?

Interviewer: Are they easy to find civil engineers?

Steve Tuma: Civil engineers are around and they can be pretty valuable. Now, let me paint a picture here. If you’re building on a very flat piece of land and you can walk up to it. You know where the driveway is going to come in. You know where the house is going to go. It’s easy to put your front door. Make sure that you can easily get into your driveway from the road to your driveway into your garage.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: Flat piece of land, it’s kind of a no-brainer. You can kind of put it together. But let’s just take that same house and put it on the side of a hill.

Interviewer: OK.

Steve Tuma: So let’s just say that your lot at the road was a base elevation of what we will call zero feet. But then your driveway went up, curved around the big oak tree and it went up a hill but your front door was 20 feet above that road. OK. How do you access that? Now, people say, “Well, you just say put a driveway in.” Well, in a lot of places, there are restrictions on how steep your driveway can be. You can’t really just have a driveway that goes up a 45-degree angle.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: The Building Departments don’t want it. And restricted areas or more challenging lots, a lot of the Building Departments will request that you can actually have easy access for the Fire Department.

Interviewer: Yeah, that makes sense.

Steve Tuma: A turnaround, an access or things like that. But then there’s also the situation of how do you actually get up to your house and go into front door, make sure that your access to get in the driveway and everything works out. So that’s where the grading plan comes in if they have to recontour the land or possibly just make little adjustments here and there to make it usable. More and more places are asking for drainage plans. Parts of Texas, areas you generally see drainage – you hear about floods in the news and towards bigger towns, they will ask for design like that. A lot of people say, “Hey, what’s the big deal? The water is going to go downhill.” Well, what they don’t want to do is have the water from your property flood your neighbors out.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: Or overload any county or city drainage systems. So what they want to do is have control about it. This isn’t something really to be worried about. You get a civil engineer. You sort it out. Sometimes people say, “Well, I’d rather not spend the money on a civil engineer. I’d rather have a nicer kitchen.” And I say, “Well, that’s true and I understand that point. But the thing is, it’s nice to know that your house will sit on the lot properly.” So if you have a simpler lot in an area where the Building Departments aren’t extremely sophisticated, you generally don’t need it. If you’re on the side of a hill where there could be big water runoff issues or just challenges accessing the site, you will likely need that grading and drainage plan and it works out. In some cases, it just makes sense to have it because if someone had say, a 3-level home that crawled down the side of a hill, you are able to go through and know the different elevations of the first floor or the second floor or the third floor to make sure the foundation is designed properly to make sure any step downs in the home are put together. So this can get pretty deep but overall, we can find out if your Building Department requires a grading plan. I would say if you are in mountain area in California and Colorado, it’s very likely that you will need it. But don’t be scared by it. We know how to work with the people we can interface directly with the civil engineers and go back and forth to make sure that the design is put together properly.

Interviewer: Is that a licensing thing? I mean does it have to be a civil engineer who does things like let’s say drainage plans like I’ve already got a contractor doing something. Is it something another department can handle?

Steve Tuma: Well, that really comes down to the Building Department. Building Departments may say, “Hey, just get me topographical details,” which means anyone that can figure out topographical details can supply them. Some Building Departments want them to be a licensed civil engineer.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Tuma: It just really comes down to in theory, the license person is going to have more accurate information, complete details that will make it easier to get through. Now, that being said, we’ve had a lot of customers that go through the transit or other measuring systems and say, “Hey, Steve, there’s a drop-off from here to here of this much. Here’s the elevation.” Because that equipment is available and we do have a lot of very knowledgeable customers that understand and are able to do it. One interesting kind of war story is we have had Building Departments where the lot is perfectly flat, they want a civil engineer to say the lot is perfectly flat. And then the proposed site is still perfectly flat. They want a civil engineer to document it.

Interviewer: Oh, got it.

Steve Tuma: They want to make sure that you are not changing it and that you are not doing anything to flat out your neighbor’s property.

Interviewer: That wouldn’t be a good thing. It’s not – that’s some fence you can’t divide I guess.

Steve Tuma: Right. It’s, “Oh, get rid of the fence. Just flood the neighbor out.” That’s a way to take care of neighborly relations.

Interviewer: There you go.

Steve Tuma: But the bottom line on this is that I’m kind of telling some stories here of the more extreme situations. Not everyone is going to run into that. These are more situations like I say in mountain areas or areas on the West Coast, beach communities, different situations like that. But we want to point out that the bottom line I think of the conversation here is that if someone has got a unique or challenging piece of land, we are very capable of working with this and making sure that the house sits on the land properly, the foundation is designed properly to make sure that everything works. You don’t want to build a house and then find out your first floor staircase is 10 feet above the ground. You got to parachute down or something.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: You would like to know that upfront so you could do some grading work or do something with the deck or other system to get it into the house. And like I say, sometimes our customers have the information. They can provide it to us. Other times, they need to get a civil engineer. But it sounds more intimidating than it is. And we are always available to help people through what I call the “more interesting situations.”

Interviewer: Right. You’ve touched upon foundation design. Who actually does the foundation design of let’s say, I’m putting up a panelized home, who would be doing that?

Steve Tuma: We do that. We do that as part of our architectural drafting service and then in the final set of plans. Foundation design can vary significantly depending on where you’re building. If you are building on a simpler lot where there are known soil conditions, the foundation design is a little simpler. If you are in an area going down the sides of hills or varied soils or expansive soils or weak soils or hydrostatic situations, you might need to have a fully engineered foundation to make sure that it’s strong enough to do it. The foundation basically holds the house up. But what’s holding the house up is the dirt below it. And not all dirt has the same strength. Some people have actually built on granite rocks. I guess that’s a duplicate word but they built on granite. And that generally holds 14, 15000 pounds per square foot. It’s not a problem. Other people, they will go find a typical piece of land that’s 2,000 pounds strength and others, you end up with 1,000.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So all of those need different foundation designs to support the home properly. And that’s the key element that we have to look at and make sure that it’s taken care of properly. So we can help that. And it’s not just the size of the footers. It’s, does the foundation step up the side of a hill? Is there a low impact foundation, kind of something on stilts? Are you building in Florida or hurricane or any flood zone areas where your home would be on stilts? We can work with those designs as well. So basements, crawl space, slabs, homes on stilts or piers, or homes with combinations of those. Well, we can do it all. It’s part of what we do every day.

Interviewer: So here’s an inquiry by a potential Landmark customer. They say they entertain and cook a lot and they want to know how they can detail their kitchen and bathrooms so it’s exactly the way they want it. What would you say to address that?

Steve Tuma: Well, that’s something that we do. What we do is we would work on the overall architectural design of the home. So let’s just say someone ends up with a kitchen that’s 12 feet by 16 feet on a corner overlooking a yard, we could go through and do a preliminary layout, showing where the windows are or doors, walls, and where the stove might be, refrigerator, sink, and details like that. But the actual cabinetry, people would take our plans to that cabinet designer, big buck store or wherever it is, and then they can go through and detail out as much as they’d like and what they need because some people just want a simple kitchen. Other people are gourmet cooks and they want everything done very detailed so that they can enjoy their cooking experience. So what we are able to do is get them the plans with the dimensions so they could work with their kitchen designers or the bathroom vanity designers, wet bars, different cabinets for offices. A lot more people are filling out their man caves. The garages are becoming big toy boxes. People have these working on bikes or cars or boats or whatever it may be or artist workshops. So we are able to supply the details so then they can work with the cabinet designers to get those areas designed exactly the way they want it.

Interviewer: That’s going to be one of the more fun parts of your job is when people call you and they have kind of something in their head. They want a specialty kitchen like you said. Somebody is a gourmet cook or somebody wants to do a YouTube channel show and needs their kitchen a certain way so they can do their cooking show on YouTube. And I would imagine you have to be pretty involved in all of that.

Steve Tuma: Well, we are. That’s actually why customers come to us. They are not just coming saying, “Hey, get me a house. I need a place for my family, my dog, and my car.” It’s an environment for them. It’s a living experience.

Interviewer: Right, of course.

Steve Tuma: So whether it’s a kitchen or a space in the garage for a car lift for the antique car or whatever it is, that is kind of the front thing. And that’s why people come to us at Landmark is people want more bang for the buck and they want to get what they want. They don’t want to work somewhere and someone says, “Hey, you got to buy this house. No changes or changes are expensive.” We look at it and say, “Let’s just design the house you want. The end result is the cost is very affordable and you get what you want and you are able to see the quality of it.” We’ve had people – we’ve had a variety of our customers where they have old cars. So they will actually come in and say, “I have a lift where I want to put two TR7s in them.” Or, “Hey, I have a big car and a little car.” Or, “Hey, I kind of want a lift for working on the car.” Other people have it for storage. So sometimes you’ve got to look at these things and say, “Well, let’s get that in there.” But a lot of people think, “Well, that’s easy. Just make a taller wall.” Well, it’s kind of true but it can affect your ceiling design as well. It can affect where you put a door, where you put electric sockets, how you do lighting plans and different details. So it’s kind of one of these fun things to work with our customers to see what it is that they need and then what are the resource for them to figure out how to get it done. But we also work with them so they understand what it is. Our customers want to know what’s going on.

Interviewer: Well, why wouldn’t they? It’s a big step building a house. It’s especially – it seems a little more daunting than you’re going out to buy a prebuilt house in some neighborhood as opposed to putting up your own house. I mean a lot of people, that has got to seem a little daunting so I’m sure that they are happy when they get to talk to you on the phone and you guys are knowledgeable and you can help them through every step.

Steve Tuma: Well, what it is, is become a resource to them, an easily accessible and knowledgeable resource. So if they have ideas or questions, sometimes people go to friends or the internet and what you find out is if you ask five people, you get seven answers.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So what we are able to do is provide an answer and justify why it works for their particular situation so that they do it. It reduces stress and makes it easier for the people and they understand what’s going on. So they understand why something is done a certain way. And then if for some reason they want something different, we work with it and figure it out. So we are not here to tell someone how to build their house. We are here to help them get what they want.

Interviewer: The internet is full of misinformation.

Steve Tuma: Yeah, I joke about it that everyone has got an internet PhD after reading something for 5 minutes.

Interviewer: I was getting these weird pains and I found out you could either have – I either have diphtheria, malaria, or the mange. I haven’t figured out that.

Steve Tuma: Or all three, just look at a different place.

Interviewer: Right. Well, that’s going to do it for us for this episode. Another great show, Steve. Thanks so much for filling us with so much information. But before we go, I’m going to give you a chance to let our listeners know how to get a hold of you guys over tat Landmark Home and Land Company and where they can find out more.

Steve Tuma: Well, we’ve got our webpage at LHLC.com. That’s basically L as in Landmark, H as in Home, L as in Land, C as in Company dot com, so LHLC.com. There’s a variety of information, articles, videos, these podcasts are there, and you can see it. You are also always welcome to call, 800-830-9788. Mike will be there and he can talk to you, get your preliminary ideas together, answer the questions that you need. And then once you get to a point, I would get involved for the final design details and getting the plans going and all the engineering. So that’s the way.

We are also on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and you can also email. You can email me, [email protected]. I’ll say it again, [email protected]. We are very responsive. We answer our phone. If for some reason you do get our voicemail, we will get back with you right away. There’s no big crazy voicemails of push this, push that, and take 20 minutes to get through. We are very responsive. We enjoy what we do so we want to help you out to make sure you get the right house.

Interviewer: OK. Well, great. And Steve just brought up something that I just want to reiterate. All of these podcasts that we do, this is Episode 38 by the way, they are all archived over at the website at LHLC.com. So for Steve Tuma and myself, thanks once again for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. Be safe out there and we will see you next time.

Steve Landmark: Thank you.

Learn how custom panelized architectural design and engineering turn challenging, restricted building sites into personalized dream homes. We discuss how to position homes on boulder-strewn terrain and granite hillsides using low-impact pier foundations, as well as how to meet municipal night-sky lighting codes, strict setback easements, and wetland bridge crossing requirements. Discover how smart-home automation assists with accessibility and aging-in-place, why fiberglass batt insulation must never be compressed during installation, and how early blueprint detailing helps both custom owner-builders and spec home investors maximize appraisal value while avoiding expensive construction surprises.

A: Rather than blasting granite rock or executing heavy earthwork that destroys natural terrain, custom homes can be engineered on low-impact concrete piers or structural pilings. This elevated approach allows the house to span uneven boulders, secures stable footing on native bedrock, and preserves the natural landscape while capturing panoramic multi-directional views.

A: Fiberglass insulation functions by trapping tiny pockets of air within its loosely expanded fibers to resist heat transfer. Crushing or jamming batts into undersized wall cavities eliminates these critical air pockets, significantly reducing the effective R-value and violating mandatory residential energy code measures.

A: Smart-home systems provide essential voice- and app-controlled security that allows residents with mobility challenges or wheelchair requirements to operate exterior door locks, adjust environmental thermostats, and control lighting from bed without physical strain or injury risk.

A: Flipping existing houses carries hidden financial risks from concealed structural flaws, deteriorated plumbing, and compromised foundations behind finished drywall. Building new with pre-engineered panelized packages provides predictable material budgets, guaranteed structural compliance, modern open-concept floor plans, and strong appraisal value tailored for rapid resale.

A: Environmental protection regulations prevent landowners from filling in natural streams or pouring standard concrete culverts that obstruct seasonal water flow or wildlife corridors. Crossing protected waterways requires engineered private bridges and site plans coordinated with local conservation boards to secure building permit approval without damaging native ecology.

Interviewer: Greetings folks! And welcome to Episode 37 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me in studio as usual 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 across the nation and worldwide since 1993, Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you doing, buddy?

Steve Tuma: I’m doing great. I just thought you always ask me how I’m doing. I don’t think I’ve ever asked you how you’re doing. And 37 episodes, isn’t that cool?

Interviewer: The listeners don’t know that you just keep chained to a chair and then keep on working on recording all this stuff. [Laughter] I am enjoying these podcasts. I do podcast on other topics, entertainment field and stuff. But I really enjoy these. I learn a lot. I’m interested in architecture. I’m pretty like you, I’ve travelled around the world a lot and I do observe how other cultures, not just feel but look what their houses and their buildings look like and the history of these places. And when I come on here with you, I just learn a lot. It’s great. I really appreciate that. So I thought for today’s show, we get into just some general questions regarding panelized home building. So yeah, let’s just start with some real basic stuff. Like say, a Landmark customer wants to build a truly unique home, what support does Landmark provide from the get-go?

Steve Tuma: Well, we can help in a variety of ways because uniqueness could be in that it’s one of the most energy-efficient homes. It can also be the building site. It can also be the architectural design or features or blending of architectural features and design types. So we are fully capable of doing a typical American ranch home. We are fully capable of doing a whole variety of other homes. We actually have a customer, a repeat customer that wants to do one like the international style of Mies van der Rohe.

Interviewer: That’s interesting.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. So there’s a whole different situations that come into doing that. Some customers want to do something on the edge of prairie style. We had a Bauhaus project come through. Sometimes people get in a very modern types of design. So we are capable of doing all those details but what we found is a lot of our customers that do that, they kind of get into it themselves. It’s their hobby to say, “Hey, I like this.” And they understand what it is. So we work with them as a resource to take their ideas and mold it into a set of plans so that they can actually build a home with.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Tuma: Yes. So there’s the technology or energy efficiency side. We could help with that. We could help on using a unique building site. We are getting more and more people in different rock areas or in the Western areas, in these beautiful red rock areas. When I meant rock, they are building like on hills, mountains that are granite, granite escarpments. There are a lot of different situations, a lot of people building on lakes or just raw prairie land where they enjoy the prairie land. So the ability to design something to work in that makes a lot of sense but I don’t want to take away from just a regular city lot as well because that can be unique and making it unique. It may just be a 50 x 100 lot but the way you put a house in there and dress it up and make it enjoyable is good. So basically, how we help is we got a good set of ears. We listen to what people say and kind of take their vision and put it on paper and run it by them to make sure they are OK. So I guess it’s the caring. One of our customers said in a review said, “The difference is they care.”

Interviewer: Wow!

Steve Tuma: So yeah.

Interviewer: That’s a good testimonial.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s that – just one word like that or two words, “They care.” It was interesting. So it’s also our desire to go through and be supportive of people that want to go through and take advantage of the newer technologies, the different ways of designing, the different features, the different understanding of people’s lifestyle so that a house could be built in a way that they can enjoy it.

Interviewer: Sure. Let’s go back to architectural features, things like that. And how do you guys go about helping someone with a designing sort of a specialty sort of house for unique sites like you were talking about? Some sites are very unique. They are very rocky or they are hilly. How do you guys go about that process?

Steve Tuma: Well, let’s take project that we are going to be working on very soon. They have – it’s in Utah, in one of those areas where there’s – it’s in Southern Utah. There’s a view every single direction.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: The natural stone, rocks, terrain, different situation that they are – and that’s just the natural stone but then the effects of the sunrise and the sunset and the view. So what’s interesting is he has got a slope piece of land that’s just covered with boulders. So someone figures, “Well, how are you going to put a slab in there?” Well, you’re not. How are you going to put a basement in there? Unless you ruin the land, you’re not.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So we are actually working and creating like a low impact foundation, pilings, piers, so that the house can span the rocks and be properly supported, and then the design of the home kind of one of those boxy modernistic homes with a slope roof. We are going to position the house for the prime view but there are going to be views and decks around it so you can literally be anywhere in the house and enjoy it. So, the sun is coming up, you might sit in one part of the house or the sun is going down, you might choose to sit in another part to take advantage of the view. How do you do it? You spend a lot of time thinking about it. We’ve got a good level of knowledge. We have different people that we can access their knowledge base if there’s something unique. The actual structural part, making the house stand up, we work with our architectural designers, tie them in with geotechnical engineers and also structural engineers to make sure that all this flows. And then we can get some organic architecture ideas. So it’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that where we have, and that’s the key. We are kind of one call and we have access to these resources to get it taken care of. Not a lot of people are going to understand how the geotechnical report affects their design of their home. We do especially in a unique situation like that. So it’s taking time to sit and listen and understand what someone has and understand the land instead of just taking an idea of hey, how you would build an Iowa farmhouse and expect it to be in Southern Utah in one of those beautiful sites? You’ve got to kind of clear your mind of the idea and understand it just as you wouldn’t necessarily put a modernistic pure house, house on piers in Iowa. So there are different settings.

Now, you can do what I just mentioned but different people have different ideas of what they want. We are getting more and more people wanting to do more designs.

Interviewer: Something you brought up just now I thought was kind of interesting. But I am one of those people that I’m always weary of maybe saying something stupid or asking a stupid question because I just don’t know. It seems to me that you guys over at Landmark, there are no stupid questions. You’re all about helping people learn the process as they build. I find that really unique and interesting.

Steve Tuma: Well, that’s the point about it because the idea of the stupid question is that’s really a customer saying, “Help me.” And that’s the way that we look at it. And amazingly, if we can joke about this, sometimes has a stupid question, you sit there and go, “How has that never come up in 25 years?” And you sit there and you go, “It’s amazing that something as simple can be brought up.” And then also times changed. Just yesterday, I was asked, “Steve, do people still put Cat6 cable in their houses?” That’s the Ethernet for the internet. And I’m like, “You know what? 15 years ago, it was cool. I got Cat5 in my house and I’m ready to go. But now, it’s like …”

Interviewer: Yeah, you never hear it anymore.

Steve Tuma: You don’t.

Interviewer: I never thought about that.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. So what was like really cool and leading edge 15 years ago has been blown away by different technologies that are faster, quicker, and overall better. Now, there are some people that are still going to want the cabling in there but for most home use, they don’t. So suddenly, things that were important like antenna connections for cable boxes, everything is going wireless.

Interviewer: That’s funny.

Steve Tuma: So what’s kind of interesting is sometimes that “stupid question” is just really someone’s dream to say, “How do I do this?” And one that we hear a lot is, “Steve, I don’t have $5 million. How do I build my dream home? How do I make it make sense?” So let’s take an example of a person, it’s in the Midwest he is building in the Upper Peninsula. He wanted to build a specific type of retirement home where he could go fishing, watch the Green Bay Packers, watch his fireplace, look out his windows at the lake on his property and enjoy it. We went through a variety of different structural designs for his roof system so that the package cost could get down so he could get the palace he wanted at the budget he wanted. Instead of just saying, “Hey, that design is too expensive.” We – I went to the back room and worked with a structural people and roof designs so that we can then go through and create the effect he wanted at a price that his wallet was happy.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So that’s – that the technology – a lot of people think technology, electronics, my TV, my stereo, my internet connection. But there are also technologies for the actual building of the home. So I’m digressing a little of the “stupid question.” Those questions are the ones we kind of enjoy. We have answers for them and it’s helping a customer. That’s why people ask them. And sometimes people ask, “Let me spin this,” not spin it, but put it in a different light. There’s so much bad information out there.

Interviewer: Yeah. There you go.

Steve Tuma: That people are asking, they say, “Steve, I was online and this said this. And then I watched this TV show and they said that. And then my friend at the Fresh Fry on Friday told me that. What’s up? How does this work?” And what we found is that their friends are giving him information based off of their limited experience that may or may not apply to our customer’s home. So we are able to clear the air so that they understand why it is that their friend’s situation may have worked in their situation but not for their home or maybe it does work. And that’s the key element is to be able to get people the answer to they understand what they are doing.

Interviewer: Yeah, it comes down to really in most situations, there are no stupid questions. You never know what’s going to come out of just conversation. But I find it – we think that that was a stupid question and yet, it wasn’t. It got us thinking now, how long before you don’t see any new homes that have a phone jack? [Laughs]

Steve Tuma: Isn’t that funny?

Interviewer: Yeah, it’s crazy.

Steve Tuma: Until I mentioned this, it’s kind of like, I never thought of that.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Tuma: But it’s a situation of why does a house evolve to that? And that brings in – we are talking technology but you rewind 150 years, my relatives way back were farmers in the Midwest. They had like two shirts. Their closets are 2 feet wide and a foot deep and they didn’t even have a coat rod, a hanging rod. They had a hanger. I mean a hook where you just take a shirt, you put it on and you hang it in there. So it’s not just the evolution of what’s important for people today as far as the technology, do we need phone jacks? Do we need Ethernet jacks? But what’s your closet like?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Tuma: Your dining room has now turned into a family room, gaming room, home theater in many cases. Your window isn’t just for letting ventilation a little light in. It’s for sitting back and enjoying a beautiful view. It’s relaxation. So it’s pretty interesting.

Interviewer: I can imagine 150 years ago that getting good cell service was probably pretty hard.

Steve Tuma: There probably wasn’t. I think that was the can – two cans with a string between it or you just open the window and say, “Hey Mabel, do you have a gallon of milk?” and hope your voice travels two miles to the neighbor.

Interviewer: Pretty much. Well, speaking of technologies, I’d love to get your thoughts on all of this new smart home technology and how Landmark has been helping people planning house builds like that.

Steve Tuma: Well, the smart technology is amazing. A lot of people think about it as a convenience thing. Driving up in your driveway and the system knows you are there and it opens the garage door, turns certain lights on, puts the house at a certain temperature and plays your favorite music. And it’s pretty amazing. Some of these can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most people are doing something similar and as owner/builders, they are kind of towing it at a hobbyist level. But what we are also seeing which is really, really intriguing is it’s not just the convenience of saying, “Hey, coffee machine turn on or hey, what’s the weather tomorrow?” type of a situation. It’s for people that – maybe there are people that have restrictions in how they could move or they live by themselves or whatever so they can go through. And let’s just say someone – it’s harder for them to walk. They could just say, “Hey, smart home system, lock my front door.”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So there’s the convenience and the fun and then there’s also the reality of making it livable and helping people have a better life. So what we are seeing is people generally say, “Hey, I need to make it wheelchair-friendly or handicapped-friendly.” We bring some of these ideas together. And I’m like, “I never thought of that.”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: If my dad is in a wheelchair and he has to crawl out of a wheelchair and he is living on his own into a bed and then he forgets or it’s just going through his mind, “Did I lock the front door?”

Interviewer: Wow! Yeah.

Steve Tuma: Look at the effort it is compared to just, “Hey, smart home system, lock my front door.” So a lot of that is evolving as well. We have a few customers dealing with that and enjoying it. It’s pretty amazing what can be done today.

Interviewer: We’ve talked on past episodes about some of the safety features, newer things that local building departments might be requiring in certain areas. And it’s funny because I was watching something about seat belts and the development of seat belts and 60 years ago nobody wore seat belts. And now these things were all for the better but people were kind of disgruntled and grumbling about the fact that they had to have seat belts in their car. But can you discuss things like let’s say fire sprinkler systems and other safety features one might be dealing within a new home build project?

Steve Tuma: Well, there’s a lot of safety features built in that maybe 40, 50, 60 years ago were uncomfortable to people and they are like, “Oh, that’s weird. Why do I have to have a hallway three feet wide? Why does my toilet have to have so much space around it? Why does a window have to be a certain size so I can get out in a fire?” At that time, it seemed strange and mad and different even though it might be logical. But now, what’s happening is the evolution is getting a little bit deeper because just the way the cities are and the building departments, more and more populated places are asking for fire sprinklers. And where we first saw them coming in was in unpopulated areas where there weren’t fire departments or they were in remote areas where it’s just unreasonable to think a fire department is going to get there in time. And then certain areas specifically, California, has mandated it where it has got to be in every single home. So we always work to design the home with that process. Again, to make sure that it’s designed right. And in the case of fire sprinklers, that’s typically designed by locally licensed designer and installer so we can work with them to supply all the plans, CAD files, whatever they would need to properly get it put together. So eventually, I would think fire sprinklers are extremely common and hopefully no one ever has to use it. But if they do, they would probably be appreciative. The point I think that you’re bringing up is that things change. Things change. People have different understandings of what’s normal, what isn’t normal, why is the government, Big Brother, telling me to do this. And sometimes it sounds a little far out but sometimes it makes a lot of sense. So we want to make sure the home is built properly, the codes are adhered to, as well as people’s desires. Sometimes people look at it and say, “The code is stopping me from doing something.” It isn’t really stopping. We might just have to do it in a different way.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So that’s it. And then another thing is the selective enforcement of building departments. Some building departments have their own ideas of how things need to be done and we are able to work with them to get it put together. So I think what we are kind of talking about is just there are different things that happen for different people.

Interviewer: I think that’s – I really think that’s part of your success though is the fact that people don’t have to be like deers in the headlights. You guys are really there to kind of shine light on some really – we don’t know a lot when we are going into these situations and then I have a company like Landmark to be able to walk us through these things, kind of take our hands as it were. It’s a great service.

Steve Tuma: That’s the idea. And we work with them. I would work with them specifically through the whole project so we’ve got clear and accurate communication. We have an understanding of what each of us are doing and what needs to be done so that the project comes together well. That’s a key element in this is the continuity from the beginning of the project all the way through to the end so that everyone is on the same page and there’s an understanding. And then if the customer ever needs help, there’s a relationship there. We just jump right in and get them taken care of and help move them along.

Interviewer: We talk on this show a lot about energy efficiency and when you’re planning a new home and planning that aspect of things. And I think though that it warrants going over it here because this is the kind of broader overview of the generalized questions that might be ask. But you guys at Landmark, you really begin with designs that are better, energy efficient, and will work best for whatever area the builder happens to be working. Tell us a little bit about that, about where you guys started to get into the knowledge of how you can build the house to actually save you money. I think that’s an interesting topic.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s interesting because not a lot of people think about that.

Interviewer: Sure. Yeah.

Steve Tuma: They just think that, hey, their energy bill is going to be this amount of money. It’s just a bill. They mail a check out or gets automatically withdrawn and that’s just a part of life. They don’t always look at it as a way to save money down the road and it’s not just saving the money. It’s the comfort of the home and not having drafts, having a good temperature so you can sleep and live the way that you would like to. So we’ve always been involved with it. But what’s nice is that the building departments are now understanding it. Some of them don’t. They ask for it. But a lot of them are paying attention to the energy efficiency to make sure that your home is of a certain standard and therefore it will be more comfortable for you to live in. So what we are able to do is work with different energy calculations to go out and do the theoretical calculation of how much insulation needs to be in and around your foundation, of floor system, walls, roof systems, different details like that, ventilation, heating ventilating air conditioning design. We are able to get that put together. We are also able to work with solar systems and different types of heat system so that someone has an energy efficient home. So, many customers are actually driving this on their own. Our customers are interested in doing this right. And in some cases, it’s the building department doing it. So it’s kind of this nebulous thing because when people look at a house, they are generally saying, “Look at that beautiful bathroom. Look at that fireplace. Wow! I love that kitchen. I can’t wait to have the first family get-together. Steve, when is the last time you are at a party and someone said, ‘Let me tell you about my basement insulation?’” Like never, right?

Interviewer: Yeah, not only when you’re at a party thrown by a bunch of contractors maybe.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. But you know what I’m saying. No one really even talks about that.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So that’s the element that we like to bring into it so that it’s part of the process that we go through and supply the energy efficiency. Now, what a lot of these building departments aren’t understanding is it’s not just the theoretical calculation. It’s making sure it’s installed right and the right materials because a lot of building departments were checking to make sure the plans had the right insulation but they weren’t inspecting it to make sure it was done right.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So you want to make sure you’ve got a knowledgeable contractor or if you are doing it yourself that you are installing it properly. The simple idea is if you take the typical batt fiberglass insulation that you see, it comes in rolls. If you compress that, it doesn’t work. It needs to be expanded out as it’s designed to be so that those air spaces between – help retain the heat or the cold that you wish to have in your home. So if someone is going around just taking this insulation and smashing it between the wall studs, they’re actually killing the effectiveness of the insulation so that that’s one of the basic, basic situations that has happened. So a lot of the energy calculations that we supply come along with mandatory measures that explain to you what to check to make sure that it’s put together and installed properly. So that’s kind of the situation. We could joke about people losing weight on a treadmill. Having a treadmill doesn’t make you lose weight. Using it properly along with everything else helps you. So it’s the same thing with the building and insulation in a house. Make sure that you have the right insulation but you also use and install it properly.

Interviewer: And it’s also the thing of knowing which direction to build your house, knowing where the sun is coming and maybe the overhangs on your roof.

Steve Tuma: Exactly.

Interviewer: You should be in a certain direction. All of that stuff comes into it. And it’s good to have Landmark around to tell us where we are making mistakes and where we are going to blow it.

Steve Tuma: Right. And a lot of states don’t require the calculation to be based on the orientation of the home. So that could be a tricky thing. So theoretically, let’s just say you had chalet type of design with the big glass wall and a prow, big trapezoid windows, big patio doors, well if you have that house face north, it’s not going to get as much solar gain as if you have that glass wall face south.

Interviewer: Right. Right.

Steve Tuma: That sun going in that glass wall just heats the house up tremendously. Well, in the winter, if you’re in a colder climate, it’s pretty cool. But in summer, it’s going to get pretty toasty in there. So that’s why if a customer chooses to go a little deeper we can get into a further analysis in those areas that don’t request energy calculations to be based on the orientation of the home. It can get deep.

Interviewer: We’ve talked a lot about – we are talking about design right now and energy efficiency and design, let’s talk a little bit about something we had touched on in the past but I’d like to dig in a little more here because you’re running more and more into people who want to build houses who don’t necessarily need things like a dining room. It’s not important to them. They have other sort of – their idea of what a good house is doesn’t include certain things that 50 years ago, 40 years ago was just normal. But what about people with unique lifestyles? How does Landmark help people design homes around let’s say people want home offices instead of a dining room and they want gaming rooms or they want more storage for their bicycles or their canoes or kayaks and things like that or they want to build these home theater systems? You guys seem to be getting pretty savvy about how to make things like that, needs like that work for different family lifestyles.

Steve Tuma: Right. It’s very important. The home offices as more and more people work from home or have retirement jobs or technology allows them to kind of telecommute and such, the home offices are important. Sometimes if it’s a simple thing, it’s converting a bedroom. Sometimes a room actually becomes a convertible room, depending upon the size of the home or that home office becomes the guest room, the extra space. So yes, there is an evolution going from just a home being 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, dining room, kitchen, garage to work spaces, daycare spaces, hobby rooms, sewing, clothing, woodworking, different hobbies like that, gaming rooms as you bring up, and as I say, some of these – it’s not just the configuration of the room, it’s the insulation around the room. You have a gaming room going on and someone has got a huge system, they can get pretty loud. So you might want the rest of your home to be. But we’ve had other people – we did a house in Anderson Island in Washington State. It was an oceanfront property. And we designed the walkout basement so that they could just bring their kayaks in, slide them right in some spots underneath the basement. Everything is safe and secure. They could wipe everything down, get change, run upstairs and then get the fireplace going and enjoy a feast with the family. We’ve had families that have antique car collections, some of them restore cars. A lot of families that are into equestrian properties and they want to have a nice home but centered around the horse lifestyle We’ve had people that are into fishing. We’ve had people that are just into coming home from a hard day’s work and staring out the biggest window of the nicest view that they have ever seen.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So we’ve been able to get a lot of those details put together. And sometimes it might be bigger like a window to take advantage of the view. Sometimes it’s the way the kitchen is laid out. Do you have an island, do you have a peninsula, do you have a table type of a scenario? We’ve had some people that home-school their kids so they want a separate little distinct school zone as such. Oh, and then there’s also the house that will evolve into something. Sometimes it’s as simple as a walkout basement that in the future will be an in-law or some other type of living space or workspace or home business type of a scenario. So we like to look at what’s happening now but we also like to look at where the customer thinks they would like their home to be in two years, in five years because sometimes a simple design element like that can save a lot of money in the long run.

Interviewer: That’s amazing. I mean it used to be just you buy a house and then you go, “Well, we are going to turn this room into the office or we are going to turn this room into our den.” And now, it’s people planning, “I’m going to make this a home theater so we need different insulation. We need different types of drywall.” I find that fascinating.

Steve Tuma: Right. No one really thinks about it. But we are there to kind of bring it up at times if the design makes sense. So we’ve had people that have done exercise rooms that are laundry rooms that are home offices. And you look at that and you say, “What are you talking about, Steve?” Well, in some of these theories, if someone works at a desk that’s a sit-down and stand-up desk and they say, “Hey, every 20 minutes, you should get up and walk, jump on the treadmill and you can still catch up on the news or keep in the loop or listen to a podcast while you laundry is going.”

So they are able to get everything done. We’ve got a project like that in Michigan where it makes sense for this particular person’s lifestyle. They are doing a lot, travelling the world, doing a bunch of stuff. So if the laundry machine is right there, it’s a lot better than going down two staircases.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Tuma: Which brings something up, something in my mind brought up, if all the better – if you have a 2-bedroom home or 2-story home, 3 bedrooms on the top level, why do a lot of people put the laundry on the basement?

Interviewer: There you go.

Steve Tuma: Other than a built-in exercise program, it’s not exactly the sleekest situation. So we are getting a lot more people that are requesting washing and dryers to be where the sleeping rooms are and in many cases, in the master’s suite, their own set.

Interviewer: Yeah. That’s funny. You guys are kind of building Swiss army knife houses in certain situation.

Steve Tuma: It kind of seems that way. It is kind of neat but it’s the thinking and the understanding of the process that allows us to kind of put some things together, those little aha moments.

Interviewer: I’ve seen more and more people doing things like putting elevators in their house.

Steve Tuma: Oh yeah.

Interviewer: I saw something on YouTube where this guy had escalators in his house because his elderly mom moved in and he put in an escalator and he just said, “She didn’t like to be closed in. She didn’t want an elevator.” So he put an escalator system in his house. That’s crazy.

Steve Tuma: You know the weirdest elevator system that has been installed in one of our houses?

Interviewer: What’s that?

Steve Tuma: It was a family – he was from Germany. She was from America. They had an interesting life and they were building in Florida. And we’ve seen typical elevators that are run by cables or gear systems. However they are put together, they need a certain space. So generally for one or two people go up and down. He sent me the system and we put in his house. It was amazing. Have you ever seen those tubes when you go to a bank?

Interviewer: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Tuma: It’s like that vacuum tube?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Tuma: This was like some weird George Jetson kind of vacuum tube that a person stands in.

Interviewer: Wow!

Steve Tuma: It was really, really interesting. Now, not everyone is going to do that.

Interviewer: Not everyone is going to want to get in to that.

Steve Tuma: But the point is, that’s what the customer wanted. We figured out what needed to be done for the system to be put there, the power requirements, the spacing requirements, any support requirements for it and now there’s a huge vacuum tube that just lets people up and down his house.

Interviewer: Suddenly, the guy with the escalator doesn’t seem so weird. [Laughs]

Steve Tuma: Yeah. He doesn’t seem as cool.

[Laughter]

Interviewer: That’s right. So anyway, yeah, let’s go back to restricted sites and unique sites. How about building on restricted sites? Explain exactly what a restricted site would be and what do you do about those situations?

Steve Tuma: Well, sometimes there is a restriction. Say, someone wants to build in a densely populated area and there are only city lots that are 50 x 100 or 70 x 100 or whatever. There are restrictions on the physical space. But then sometimes there are also light restrictions. You can’t just go through and build a big black house and not knock out – stop the light from going through to your neighbors. Some communities have that. Some communities have light restrictions that your light cannot beam up into the sky so that it doesn’t block people’s view of the nighttime sky.

So – and then the obvious one is also just homeowners associations. So the restrictions can be there. Pretty much every project is going to have some form of restriction. The key to it is if there is something that’s limiting, access to water, driveway access, terrain, legal restrictions, setbacks, easements, different things like that, we can work with the family to work on the best design to overcome those issues and make something happen. We are believers of there’s always a way to get it done. We just have to take a little time to talk it through, work it out and make sure that it’s put together properly. So those restrictions, we flip them into an opportunity to figure out a way to get something done. We had a customer in New York. He got a great deal on a piece of land, later to find out that there was no access because there was a river. And because of certain issues with naturalists and things like that, they couldn’t just block this little creek, put a cement driveway across it. We had to work with them to design the proper bridge so that he could get his land so that the water could still flow and whatever animals and however the fact the ecology was all taken care of. So that’s not something that you run across every day. But the point is we did it. We have worked with different people on environmentally sensitive foundations and different areas where wet lands might be affected. It takes some time but things can be done. It’s pretty cool.

Interviewer: You just mentioned about flipping and do a new project. Let’s talk about something I’m sure you’ve dealt with in the past, and that’s people who are actually building to do a quick turnaround and that’s what they have in mind. So let’s talk about house flippers and how Landmark may be can work with situations like that.

Steve Tuma: Well, the interesting thing that has happened is a lot of people after the economic crash had started doing renovations, sometimes just repainting them and flipping them or doing whatever work need to be done. What a lot of those people are finding out is that’s a lot of work and it’s unknown. You go buy and old house. You think you know what’s going on but until you tear a wall apart, you really don’t know what’s behind it. You really don’t know what’s going on in a foundation. So sometime what can happen is those people start realizing that there’s an unknown to their profit.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Tuma: So what we are able to do if someone wants to build is work with them. And this also kind of ties into people working on affordability factors for their own homes. There are certain design elements that add a lot of features to the home but don’t always cost a lot. So if you are controlling your budget, you may want to take advantage of that. If you’re someone that’s building for the purpose of flipping whether it’s flipping right away or holding it for the two years as some taxes require and then selling, we are able to work with the people. And I’ll tell you. Here’s the element. A lot of people would say, “Well, isn’t a guy do in developing a little different than a guy that’s building for his own family?” And the way that Landmark Home and Land Company works is we are a resource so that individual that’s saying, “Hey, I want to build a home for my family. My family is growing. I’d like your assistance.” A lot of those elements also work for the house flippers because they don’t have a staff of architects, structural engineers, energy code people and they need access to the knowledge. So what we are able to do is kind of work with them in the same way and say, “Hey, if you are building this home for investment, maybe we want to try a few things.” We always do it right. We always want it done per code. We always want it done so it’s energy efficiency. But sometimes there are different little spins that can be put on a home that’s intended to be sold compared to a home that’s intended to be lived in for 20 years or so.

Interviewer: Right. Well, that’s going to wrap it up for this episode. This has been great. I’ve learned a whole lot today. I’m always thrilled when that happens. But before we go, Steve, as always, I’m going to give you a chance to let the listeners know how to get a hold of you guys over at Landmark Home and Land Company.

Steve Landmark: Well, the best way as I have said is the website at LHLC.com. We’ve got a variety of plans on there. We’ve got different discussions on how we can help. Some videos that people might enjoy. We have these podcasts going back to the original one where people can listen and be entertained and also learn something.

We are on YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, ad Facebook. You can see some details there and you can also email me at [email protected]. That’s the initials of Landmark Home and Land Company, LHLC.com.  Or you could give a call at 800-830-9788. Mike will answer the phone and take care of you and work through it. If you do get a voicemail, we will always call back right away and get you taken care of. We are very proactive and responsive and we are interested in your project to see what we can do to help you out so that you could build a house you want at the right price.

Interviewer: Fantastic. OK. For Steve Tuma and myself, thanks once again for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. Be safe out there and we will see you next time.

Steve Landmark: Have a great day.

Learn about the founding history and company evolution of Landmark Home and Land Company, from its roots as a regional family business in 1993 to a worldwide custom panelized home design and engineering firm. We discuss why founders Steve and Mike Tuma transitioned away from rigid modular construction to a flexible panelized building system that allows complete floor plan customization and hands-on owner-builder equity. Discover how regional building codes—such as Florida hurricane winds, California seismic forces, and heavy Rocky Mountain snow loads—drove Landmark to combine architectural design, structural engineering, and Title 24 energy calculations under one roof. Explore the evolution of custom residential architecture, from historical catalog homes by Sears and Frank Lloyd Wright to modern lifestyle features like multi-generational compounds, extended utility garages, pet wash stations, and dedicated acoustic soundproofing.

A: Modular homes are built in fixed box-like sections that severely restrict layout changes, carry high shipping costs, and frequently suffer from transit damage and compromised finish quality. Transitioning to panelized framing allowed the company to deliver precision factory-assembled walls and trusses on production lines while offering complete architectural flexibility tailored to any building site.

A: Building codes change dramatically across geographic regions, requiring site-specific structural calculations for high-velocity hurricane winds in Florida, severe seismic ground movement in California, and heavy ground snow loads in the Rockies. A national kit home provider must integrate local soil reports and environmental load requirements directly into the architectural blueprints to guarantee municipal permit approvals.

A: Historic catalog houses like the Sears kit homes or Frank Lloyd Wright’s System-Built projects shipped stacks of loose, pre-cut lumber that workers had to measure and nail together piece by piece on-site. Modern panelized building systems assemble the framing lumber, exterior structural sheathing, and door and window openings into completed wall sections in an indoor factory, cutting on-site assembly time significantly.

A: Renovations carry major financial unknowns because hidden structural defects, dry rot, outdated electrical wiring, and cracked plumbing are rarely discovered until walls are torn open. Building a new panelized home establishes fixed material costs upfront, utilizes modern energy-efficient insulation envelopes, and eliminates surprise contractor change orders.

A: Stock floor plans often feature standard 20-foot garages that cannot fit long modern dual-rear-wheel trucks, horse trailers, or vehicle roof racks loaded with kayaks. Custom drafting allows owner-builders to easily deepen garage footprints to 30 feet, specify taller overhead door headers, and add dedicated workshop bays or equestrian tack rooms before manufacturing begins.

Interviewer: Hey everyone, and welcome to Episode 36 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me in our studio 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 across the nation and worldwide since 1993, Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you doing?

Steve Landmark: Hey, it’s always good. We are having a great day and again, a busy day working at some cool projects.

Interviewer: Good. Well today, I thought we do something special and talk about the history of Landmark Home and Land Company, the early days of the company way back in 1993 and before and how things went from the ground floor to the success you’ve seen over the years with panelized home building and all the way to where Landmark is now and where you plan on taking it. So let’s start with the early days. The company is actually a family venture I believe, is it not?

Steve Tuma: Right. My brother and I, Mike, started the company in I believe October 13, 1993. It was an idea that we developed as we realized that people were renting homes for a long time and not moving out of them or they’re always planning on getting a home, doing something, but for some reason they didn’t. So we are trying to figure out why. Sometimes they thought they were going to move, a lot of it was they couldn’t find what they wanted and some of these older communities or rural communities or even in metropolitan areas are – there just weren’t houses that they wanted. So the motivation wasn’t always there to move. So what we did is we started helping the people develop the process so that they could go get a house using modular systems. And what we eventually found is at that time the quality wasn’t there. Much less you couldn’t really get the person the house they wanted. So a price might be OK. The quality wasn’t where it should be, but they couldn’t get the house that they wanted. It’s kind of like a car, just pick a car. Which one do you want? You can’t really do any changes to it.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So what we evolved into was let’s sort out a way where these people could build a house that they wanted. So we figured a system out with the panelization system and working with owner/builders, we determined that this gives the people the flexibility if they want to be involved with the building, know the quality of the home, make it the way they want, put finishes in the way they want, and then also take advantage of the labor that they can provide themselves or friends and family or opportunities that they can develop by getting materials in different ways. They were able to control the cost. And what we noticed from that is there was a higher level of satisfaction. It’s basically they were getting what they wanted.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So Mike and I just worked regionally in the Midwest and it has spread around and then a customer called and said, “Hey, can you help my brother in California?” Someone else said, “Can you help a friend in Florida?” So we grew to a nationwide opportunity so we were then able to help people design their homes. Now obviously, you get in different areas, Florida, California, Colorado, New York, there are different concerns, different snow loads, different wind speeds with hurricanes, earthquakes, different soil conditions. So that’s when we started providing a higher level of architectural services and structural engineering so that we can then go through and make sure that the people are able to get permits where they want to build because there’s a lot of intricacies to these details. It’s not just, take some wood, cut the wood, nail it together, and make a wall and finish the wall and before you know it, you’ve got a house. There are a lot of code issues, a lot of Building Department issues. And ultimately, what we found the most rewarding for our customers is actually understanding their project. So instead of just saying, “Hey, let’s put a furnace in the house or an air conditioning system,” why were they doing that? Did it help with the energy consumption? Does a bigger furnace necessarily mean your house is going to be warmer? It’s not always the case. I mean it might be warmer but your energy bill is going to be higher. So what we found is just the nature of the way we were, we wanted to truly help people and develop a process that was good. What we found is that people actually appreciate it because generally, the information isn’t there. A lot of times, people would call someone and say, “Hey, can I get help with this?” And they’ll say, “Yes, that’s what you should do.” They don’t explain why. So when someone is spending the money, they don’t understand why. They don’t understand the structural concerns. They don’t understand the site planning situations. They may not understand the energy efficiency thing. So what we found is that by supporting people, being in a sense is a resource to give them quick and accurate information, they were able to build houses that they enjoy a lot more. They understood why something was done a certain way and they were proud of it. So that’s a quick evolution of how we evolved into a custom panelized home company that also does full architectural and structural engineering in different details. And we have been here since day one.

My brother and I have been working on it since 1993. We worked with every single customer and make sure that they are all taken care of. And that’s the key element is the customer service, the person understanding what they choose to do, owner/builders are naturally inquisitive. They are choosing to do this because it’s just a passion that they want to pursue. Sometimes it’s financially-driven, sometimes it’s just because they want to be involved with the designing of their home. So our evolution has gone to providing more and more services and details to support our customer. Well, I forgot to say, about 2010, ’11, ’12, we also got international projects. So we have grown from an operator in the Midwest to – across the country and around the world. I jokingly tell people we will be going intergalactic pretty soon or interplanetary. But that’s probably a few years down the road.

Interviewer: But that’s pretty interesting how you guys have taken the business from more than just a local kind of thing when you were – you were probably thinking starting like most of us do, starting a little smaller and all of a sudden, here you are and you are worldwide, not just nationwide. That’s very cool.

Steve Tuma: Right. Well, the cool thing about is we basically just listen to what the customer is asking for. So we didn’t come up with this great idea of, “Hey, let’s tell people about energy codes.” It made sense to but customers were also asking, “Now, they don’t necessarily ask about, “Hey, how do I do energy codes?” They said, “How do I know it’s sufficient. They wanted to know the end position. So we were able to get the technical side of it to get it put together.

So that’s the key element is the growth and innovation of how we’ve been able to help people through just taking care of the customer, the simple situation. Take care of the customer.

Interviewer: It’s a great analogy what you said about the – you can’t just walk on to an auto lot and say, “This is kind of – I would like car but I would like to change this.” I mean you …

Steve Tuma: Give me a better trunk at 6’4.

Interviewer: You can do that on a limited basis. Maybe you want different wheels or whatever. But I think that’s what one of the attractive things about panelized home kits is that you pretty much can change what you want as the building. It would be like walking into a factory and building your own car. It’s pretty amazing.

Steve Tuma: Yeah. You brought something else up, the family operation. Mike and I have been doing this for 25 years. He is my brother. It’s our blood, sweat, and tears. We work on this every single day and help through the process. So it’s not a situation where you’re going to call someone and tomorrow they are not there. We have been here for 25 years, since ’93. I’m sure we will be here a lot longer. We have an interest that’s – it’s kind of interesting. People ask us, “How many homes have you helped people build?” And I really can’t remember. I wish I counted them. It would be very interesting. But it’s a lot of homes. But it just – when someone calls back, 10, 15, years later and says, “Hey, I want to do it again.” They would be like, “Hey Steve, what’s up?” It’s kind of cool.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Tuma: So to know that if you need something in a year or two or three or five or ten down the road, we are going to be there.

Interviewer: That’s pretty amazing. What about your background, your education? Did you study business mostly or architecture or anything like that in school or was this just something that intrigued you and decided …?

Steve Tuma: It was all of those. It was – I’ve always been intrigued by interesting buildings. I did study architecture and also business. That’s an important part of it but the reality is, there’s a certain passion and desire. I think it’s cool when people build their house and understand it and live there. It does something to their lifestyle.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: It does something to their attitude when they design their kitchen, when they design the windows to take advantage of the view, when the kids get to design their room or game room or basement or playroom or family as hobbies or a lot of our customers’ different hobbies that they share. So that’s actually the key drive is we just have an interest. We live in neat places and we kind of think that if someone designs their home and is proud of their home, the quality of their life is stepped up. So it’s not just a move to say, “Hey, each kid has got a bedroom,” it’s an environment. And I think that’s important. Make sure they are comfortable in the home. Make sure the home is properly positioned down the lot. If they’ve got a more unique building site, make sure the house is positioned to take advantage of the uniqueness. So it’s pretty cool. It’s the difference of just living in a simple box compared to something that’s yours.

Interviewer: You and I had talked about before, your dad was an executive and he had to travel a lot for his job and I guess most of the time he just took you guys and the whole family and pack up to foreign countries. And I wonder how much influence living in different countries had on you the way you look at architecture.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s very important because different cultures live different ways, different backgrounds live different ways. You even go in older, older communities in Europe, they didn’t have cars and semi-trucks so the roads are skinny. But then you look at the evolution of safety even things like running water in buildings, if you look go into very, very old buildings. So it is kind of interesting to see why certain codes have developed certain ways or the way people have lived. In older homes, there are dining rooms. In modern homes, there are great rooms and there probably isn’t a dining room. There might be a big screen TV for gaming or computer center or something else.

So it’s interesting to see how the evolution of the home designs had come together in the way that people use them. I would say it’s in the last 30, 40 years where things have really taken a big hit. You take the dining room, older homes always have an eating area.

Interviewer: Sure. Yeah.

Steve Tuma: Now there might be a little nook or a snack bar. There isn’t always a dining room for 12 type of a thing. So yeah, having an understanding and a perspective of different situations always helps. We’ve got a variety of customers from all over the world with different backgrounds, building in different conditions, so we are extremely understanding if people want to have a certain situation because that’s the way they work. I mean some of these are relatively simple. People have pets. Sometimes in the mudroom, they want a little shower for the dog. We’ve had people that have equestrian properties so they have a tack room in their house. They could come in, put all the stuff from the horses right there and change – shower up and change into house clothes. So it’s kind of interesting to see all these things, to see what people do to make it their home to enhance their life.

Interviewer: It has almost come full circle because 300 years ago, sometimes the animals actually lived in the house.

Steve Tuma: We were working in a project. It was in the Middle East and they wanted a door for a camel. I was like, “Sure!”

Interviewer: Yeah. You know what, if that’s what they want, yeah. It’s funny how from culture to culture, we look at people and we think what they do is strange and they look at us and think what we do is strange. But when you live the-

Steve Tuma: To each their own.

Interviewer: Yeah. When you live the lifestyle, it’s just what you live.

Steve Tuma: But some of those, I mean what I mention there is an extreme but Steve, imagine if you were an executive in a crowded metropolitan area, your house would be a certain way. Well, if you took that exact same person and said, “Hey, let’s do your fishing house in Alaska,” that same person is going to have a completely different house.

Interviewer: Sure. Yeah.

Steve Tuma: You’re going to be fishing, taking photographs, enjoying nature, bringing nature into your home a lot more than with your city house. So it’s kind of interesting of how that can enhance the lifestyle as well.

Interviewer: That’s funny. Well, yeah, interesting stuff, man. But it’s fascinating to me that you guys, you had so much of your life growing up in various areas and how you brought all of that knowledge and all of that experience into this company. It’s pretty cool. It’s good to see.

Steve Tuma: A lot of our customers are of similar situations. Some of them have stayed more regionally in an area. Others travel and have homes in different countries. So whatever we can do to help, we will do it.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about the history of panelized homes. Is there a unique history to that? I mean I had heard – I’ve heard some things. I heard that Frank Lloyd Wright had a home kit system. And tell me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Sears actually have home like panelized kit homes for sale in their catalogs early on?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, that’s what’s interesting. Now, they weren’t exactly panelized. They hadn’t done the production line. They haven’t done the efficiencies that we brought into it. But Frank Lloyd Wright wanted to develop a – he called it American System Built Home, something – so a home of a good lifestyle, a good design for the typical person. And there are still some of them standing. They are very historically significant. He was working on that, getting everything put together but then the war came along and the resources couldn’t be put towards housing and to be there to defend the country. So yes, he was one that originally tried to figure out how to bring the organic designs and good design to the everyday home. Sears did have the home. They had kind of precut components where they would deliver all the materials and then you would assemble it. It wasn’t panelized. They kind of had standard plans as did Frank Lloyd Wright.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Tuma: So what we’ve done is kind of understand the process. And a lot of this has happened if you look at Henry Ford with the production line. If you look at the way smartphones are made and different shoes are made, couches are made, they are made on production lines. So what we have been able to do is create a custom home that is built on the production line by the panelization process. So you can still get the custom home but take advantage of the production line. It’s kind of the best of both worlds. So the concept of a packaged or kit home or whatever someone would like to call it has been there for a while. The way we have evolved it to tie in the architectural design, structural design, your own custom design, and panelization is pretty unique. It’s something that isn’t readily available to have all of those put together. So that it would go through. So we’ve kind of taken the concept and added on to it so it’s a better package for an individual or small developer to move on with their home building projects.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about the company for a bit, the actual heart of things. You were just talking about what makes you guys unique. Well, let’s get into that. What does make Landmark different? I mean what sets you guys apart from other panelized home building companies and what is the competition out there?

Steve Tuma: Well, here’s the situation is I think the basic difference is a “get it done” attitude and understanding of people’s desires and a desire to really, really help and develop it. I guess passion and customer service would be a quick way to get something put together. We have a great product. We have great people doing the design work and engineering so that the package is there but making sure that it’s put together in the customer is taking care of it properly. That’s the important part because every customer is different. Every building site is different. Every building department is different. So you can’t just go in there and say, “Hey, follow – do these two things,” and magically your house will appear. You’ve got to really go through to make sure it’s taken care of. So that’s a key component of it is just paying attention, doing what you see, answer the phone, take care of customer. That I think is the key element that we have along with an excellent design, engineering, and manufacturing process for the panelized home. You bring up competition, which is interesting. The reality is, the competition in today’s world is just the nature of where people live. It’s not necessarily that someone else is doing what we do. It’s the existing home or people’s ability to develop the finances to build the home because things are getting more expensive, Building Department regulations are tightening things up. So it’s more a situation where the quote competition even though it isn’t competition, the competition is really just the challenge of a customer being positioned to move ahead. Do they have a piece of land? Do they have the financing? Do they have the understanding of what’s there? Because you get into some markets, they are different. You can go into some areas where you can go buy a 2500 square foot home for $100,000.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: You’re just not going to build it for that. If the community is $100,000 community and you come in and you build a new one for more than that, the bank find it, it’s not going to appraise right. So that’s more the situation of just positioning these projects so that it’s viable. That’s the challenge as far as what we are able to do. I believe we are unique. We are going to continue to be unique and we are going to do things in the future that I think will be more helpful to people so that they see the value that we provide.

Interviewer: Well, you brought up the fact that your customer service is something you guys have pride yourselves on. So let’s get into Landmark’s reputation. I mean you guys are a company that strives to make customer service a top priority. Was that something you set as a goal early or did you learn that that’s the way to do business?

Steve Tuma: Well, that was the goal and intention early on because that’s the only way to grow. You can advertise, you can do this, you can do that. The reality is, is if someone is happy, they go tell a friend and when that friend is ready to buy, hopefully they will call us. And they do. And people do build more than one home in their lifetime, so they will come back. We have kind of looked at it, the simple golden rule, treat people the way you want to be treated. And none of us want to call somewhere and get a message that says, “Call us back in three days if you don’t hear from us.” None of us want to get a standard answer from someone that doesn’t even understand the question.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So that’s why we work to get – listen specifically to the situation and then work with the customer to get the positive outcome. So it’s actually just something that’s ingrained in us.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Tuma: That’s just the way we think. It’s the way we do it.

Interviewer: And you talk about your family travelling when your dad had to travel. I’m sure your dad kind of cemented a lot of these values in your brain, which is …

Steve Tuma: And my mother definitely.

Interviewer: And your mom, yeah.

Steve Tuma: That’s the biggest component of it because if someone understands doing the right thing, they understand it.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Tuma: It’s not always a trained situation. And that’s what we strive to do is go through and make sure everything is done right. If something needs to be adjusted, we jump on it right away and get it taken care of.

Interviewer: That’s great. Speaking of moms, I’m sure you know thing have been changing fast over the last 20 years and I’m sure early on, you guys probably saw when you first started a lot where it was more the men who were out there buying the plans and designing. But have you seen a real up growth of women, single women, women together, single moms, have you seen that in the company where people are calling you, women are calling you and saying, “Hey, I want to build a house?”

Steve Tuma: Oh, definitely. It’s a definite change where they might be driving decisions more. There’s always the stereotype of, “Oh, she wants this and she wants that.” Well, the reality is a lot of people, both men and women, are understanding the processes. They are seeing the benefits of this. They want to be involved. These are owner/builders. They choose to do this. They want to do it. It’s a passion. So yes. And it’s not just something the stereotypical, “Oh, please make my bedroom pink.” No. They are getting into design. What’s the structure? “Hey, I have horses. I drive a big truck. Is my garage big enough for my big dually so that I could put…?” So there’s a lot of concern for this. So there’s a lot of people, both men and women, that are building houses for their elderly parents or they are building a house to combine families together so the parents could live with them. So I would say it’s a growing portion. I would say 20 years ago, it was 99% driven by the male. I would say now it’s somewhere in the 60%.

Interviewer: Wow! That’s amazing. That’s a great growth. That’s something.

Steve Tuma: Well, what’s interesting is just the lifestyle, the shift in the attitude, the shift in how it works, and the coolest thing is that people are happy.

Interviewer: Sure. Yeah.

Steve Tuma: They are building their home. They are working together. Suddenly, it’s their home instead of his home or her home, whatever the situation may be. So there’s a – and it’s really a benefit for us to help people because then we are able to get them the house that they want.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Tuma: With our ability to just plans, if someone has one of those big, long trucks to tow horse trailers and they need a 30-foot deep garage to park the truck and work around it and in a cool morning be able to load the truck up, do everything in the garage and go, that’s easy to change on paper. We are better off doing that than having to pull your truck out. We’ve got people with active lifestyles. Some people want to load the kayak and canoe on top of their SUV the night before so that they open the garage door, they leave. It’s not like, “Hey, let’s pull the SUV out then load it.” No, they want to wake up, take a shower, have their coffee, and hit the road. So a lot of these things that I’m talking about and design changes, people are probably thinking, “Oh, I want my bedroom bigger. Please add a window.” No, this is stuff that can enhance your lifestyle. If your kids are into gaming with big surround sound systems, you might want installation in your master suite so you can sleep.

Interviewer: Yeah, home theaters are a big thing now.

Steve Tuma: Right. So the design things, I’m not saying it’s necessarily simple things like, “Hey, make the dining room bigger, add a kitchen cabinet, do stackable wash and dryer,” I’m saying stuff that’s an enhancement to someone’s lifestyle just like our cars are getting more technology in details so it’s easier to drive or more enjoyable to drive, the house design is doing the same situation.

Interviewer: I know firsthand as you’re a friend of mine that Landmark takes up a great majority of your time. But do you have other interests in the business world or it seems to me that Landmark is like it’s your baby. It’s where you put the majority of your energies.

Steve Tuma: Well, it’s interesting because some people will ask, hey, do we have hobbies? And what’s weird is they are tied into it. I like technology so I try to figure different ways out to communicate with customers or them to communicate with us or work with us to get our ideas across. I kind of enjoy different things like that. As you know, we have the production studio to do the different animations so that we can better portray it. So it’s kind of wrapped into the business but it’s cool stuff. There are people – we have actually worked with customers that have their own sound studios in their house. It’s a hobby or maybe they are in the entertainment industry. So that’s kind of how it is. So it is a passion. It takes a lot of time but it’s also a lot of fun. It’s pretty cool.                                                                                                                                                          This isn’t something we are building a house is the same as it was last year or 2 years or 5 years or 10 years ago or 20 years ago. Just our customer’s base that changed, the challenge is that each of our customers want in their home where they aren’t ready to take care of them. We are getting more people where the families, two families, two generations are coming in one home. We are getting more and more people that are building family compounds. Type of a situation of a piece of land that has been in the family for 100 years and now the three kids get together and say, “Shouldn’t we build that house where we all get together on the holidays and spend time together?” So this isn’t the same thing. It’s different every single day. It’s exciting.

Interviewer: Yeah, I can imagine.

Steve Tuma: And we got a great variety of customers with different backgrounds, different interests, different budgets, different building sites. It’s a lot of fun.

Interviewer: And you were talking about the animations earlier. If our listeners go on the Landmark website, you will see all kinds of cool videos and really informational stuff and everyone should know that Landmark does all that stuff pretty much in-house. So it’s – you’re truly is a one-stop shop, the Landmark. You were talking about customers just now. What type of customer is a Landmark Panelized Home Builder? Go through the average person who calls you up looking for help.

Steve Tuma: Well, I would say none of the customers are average. They are all just deciding to build the home. You’ve got to understand the management of it. You have to have the desire and to think it through. It’s not necessarily broken down by an economic or certain background or education. It’s more driven by the desire to live in a house that they like, to know that the space is what they want and the building site and do it at the right price. People don’t like overpaying for contractors. They all, whether they are building a $100,000 home or $5 million home, they all have to work within a budget. It just how many zeros are behind it. So they understand the value of the money but they also understand the value of getting it done right.A lot of people say, “Hey, I’m going to buy this old home and renovate it.” Well, renovating a home is harder because you don’t know what’s behind that wall you are pulling apart. You don’t know what’s under that floor system. Building new, you’re getting new. And financially for them, they have seen the savings of building the home and energy efficiency also on the reduced costs that that savings over the life that as long as they are going to live in the house could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction interests, energy bills, different details like that. So that’s a key situation of – it’s also a financial move, a comfort move, a get-what-you-want-for-the-money-you’re-spending move, a pride of ownership, and also just the enjoyment, the human fulfillment of saying, “This is mine and I did it.” So it’s driven by that. We’ve had customers that I don’t know for sure – I want to say that they are in their low, low 20s. And then we’ve had customers up until 78 years old.

Interviewer: Wow!

Steve Tuma: Different economic backgrounds, different education backgrounds, different life experiences, sometimes the people haven’t travelled as much, sometimes people have travelled a lot and they are saying, “Hey, I’ve seen it. This is where I want to be.” So it’s really just driven by the desire to have a cool place that’s yours.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: So it’s interesting. There really isn’t a filter for that. It’s just a desire. It’s just – I want to do it. That’s the way it is.

Interviewer: What do you see is the future for Landmark Home and Land Company? I mean where do you guys see yourselves as a company in two or five or ten years from now?

Steve Tuma: Well, as I joked a little earlier, if there’s a chance to build on the moon or on Mars as we are all hearing about, we would like to be there. The reality is we are going to listen to the customer and sense what they need and put it there so that we are right at the wave or step of a wave on what people need. So we are going to be pushing more into energy efficiency, sustainable processes, green items, unique designs, and then also just methods of building or designs that allow a person to have a house at the right price. There is a different trend on people wanting simple is more type of a situation and designs. So I think that’s what we are going to be doing. We are going to be making sure that we do everything that our customer understands what’s going on with their home project and how we can support them. And if they do have a particular need, we are going to do everything to get it taken care of. A lot of our learning is us coming up with ideas but also, an incredible amount of it is a customer saying, “Steve, have you ever done this?” And sometimes we will be like, “Yeah,” a bunch of times. Other times, we will be like, “Wait a second. Let’s talk about this.” And what we do with customers like that and it’s a lot of fun, we just do it. We figure it out. We don’t charge extra. We say, “Hey, this is it. We are going to go through and do what – the customer that wants to go and do something unique, let’s go do it.” If you want to build a house on piers over a rock cliff, taking advantage of the best sunset the world has ever seen, let’s do it.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Tuma: By the way, we have a house like that going.

Interviewer: That’s great.

Steve Tuma: So that’s what it’s about. So I think what it is, is keep the energy going just to have fun doing this and help people so that they tell their friends or they come back a little bit down the road. So theoretically in ten years, we will have probably 5, 10 people from this 10 years calling us to build again, maybe more.

Interviewer: When you think about it, you were talking about maybe moving out, maybe even building on Mars. The International Space Station, that’s kind of a panelized kind of deal, isn’t it?

Steve Tuma: Yeah, it’s kind of moduled. But the point about it is – what’s funny is you and I have digital equipment and digital watches because what was is, 50 years ago, they stepped on the moon. So the idea is that those technologies will drive things the way they take care of heat, the way they take care of cool that will eventually funnel down. So our ears and eyes are open for things like that because we want to have stuff that makes sense but also works in the budget. Sometime there’s this really cool stuff but it’s just so expensive that people don’t buy it. So we are watching for the makes sense move so that our customers are taking care of properly and using the money properly.

Interviewer: Sure. Well, this has been great. I think we learned a lot today about just who Landmark Home and Land Company is and why contacting you guys would be a good idea for any new home builder. So we are going to close up this episode of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show by having Steve fill us in on just how to get a hold of them over there at Landmark.

Steve Landmark: The best way to do and we don’t have our lunar office opening yet but the best way is just take a look at our website at LHLC.com. That’s basically the initials of Landmark Home Land Company, LHLC.com. You can see us on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest. You can also us. I’m available at [email protected] or you can give a call at 800-830-9788. Mike will answer the phone. If for some reason you get his voicemail that he will get back with you right away, he can work with you on preliminary stages and go through. If you would like to talk to me directly, he could pass it on. So we are very interested in getting to know our customers understand the land, what their kind of vision is for the house, and then that allows us to do the best to help them along and have fun along the way.

Interviewer: Great. All right then. So for Steve Tuma and myself, thanks for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. We always enjoy providing you with as much great information as we can. So be safe out there and we will see you next time.

Steve Landmark: Thank you.

Learn why building a custom panelized prefab home offers superior cost control, energy efficiency, and long-term satisfaction compared to buying an existing home or remodeling. We discuss how pre-engineered wall panels assemble on-site in days rather than months, drastically reducing dumpster fees, construction loan interest, and expensive specialized framing labor. Discover how complete, permit-ready blueprints eliminate contractor guesswork, allowing owner-builders to obtain firm subcontractor bids without surprise change orders. Explore architectural strategies for designing multi-generational floor plans—including acoustic soundproofing for shift workers, separate family suites, and aging-in-place features—that foster deep pride of ownership across generations.

A: Because wall panels and trusses arrive pre-assembled to exact blueprint specifications, a small crew consisting of one lead framer and general laborers can stand the structure in days instead of months. This rapid assembly eliminates the need for large, specialized on-site carpentry crews, minimizes job-site lumber waste, and significantly cuts dumpster rental fees.

A: Remodeling older homes frequently uncovers concealed plumbing failures, outdated electrical wiring, and dry rot that lead to expensive, compounding change orders. Building new establishes a predictable budget upfront, complies with modern energy and fire codes, and utilizes maintenance-free materials that lower monthly utility bills and future repair expenses.

A: Subcontractors often inflate bids when working from vague sketches to protect themselves against undefined project scope and unexpected labor. Detailed blueprints specify exact dimensions, window schedules, structural connections, and material finishes, giving trades the precise data needed to deliver firm, competitive bids without surprise add-on charges.

A: Blueprints can incorporate semi-private living wings with individual kitchenettes or quiet zones while maintaining a central great room for communal gatherings. Custom designs can also feature staggered meal areas and acoustic insulation in bedroom walls to prevent waking family members who work alternate shifts or keep different schedules.

A: In mountainous or northern regions with narrow summer building windows, conventional stick framing often cannot be completed before winter weather hits. Factory-built panelized packages allow the entire building shell to be stood up, tied into the roof trusses, and dried-in within a few days, enabling interior trades to continue working through freezing conditions.

Interviewer: Hello folks. Welcome to episode 35 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me in the studio in his usual chair 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 across the nation and worldwide since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how is it going my friend?

Steve Landmark: It’s a great day. It’s always a great day.

Interviewer: Especially when you’re doing something you love. That must be satisfying.

Steve Landmark: Yeah, it’s kind of fun. It’s actually a lot of fun. It’s rewarding to watch people get a new home.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Landmark: The design process, seeing that they can actually happen.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Landmark: It’s pretty cool.

Interviewer: Today if you don’t mind, I thought we would address the topic we get a lot of questions on from our listeners. It’s simple but complex I think. Why build your own home? I mean as opposed to simply buying a traditional house that’s ready to go. You know, dealing with realtors, et cetera. In other words, what are the many upsides to building a panelized house or even a traditional stick house as opposed to just buying a house that’s on the market? Let’s start with things like cost control. I mean how does building a panelized home save you, the builder, money?

Steve Landmark: Well, the key to it is the control of the project, the whole – you know, getting the architectural design, structural details of the plans together, so you understand the project. Also so you can submit for permits, pass inspections and then work with contractors to get the home built. There’s a huge savings when you combine that altogether and sometimes people just look at the cost of hey, the plans and the panelized package. They don’t realize that the efficiency of panelization, you’re going to save money on the actual installation of the panels because it goes up much quicker. You can have these houses up in days or a week or something like that where a more complex home can go on a month or two depending on the design. But it’s also things – there isn’t as much waste of settling your dumpster fees. Those would go down. It’s just quicker and easier. Also you basically just need a main framer with a couple of laborers compared to conventional stick building where you might need a variety of different higher quality labor, which ends up costing you more. A lot of people also go with panelization because of limited building seasons. You get into the Sierras or the Rockies, different – farther up north where they don’t have as much summers other parts of the country.

Interviewer: Sure, yeah.

Steve Landmark: They need to build a house in four months. So with the panelization, you’re able to get the structure up and then get the house sealed up and finished.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So there’s a lot of reasons why panelization works. We basically put it under the idea of control your project and know what you’re doing, which is the planning process where we’re able to support the customer to get the house that they want and then make sure that the plans are put together properly for the building department.

Now you brought something up. I think compared to like buying an existing home. Sometimes people go through and say, “Well, I could buy this existing home and I could build new. There’s good and bad to each one.” But the reality is that the new home, it’s the design you want. It’s the house you want. It’s the budget that you want and you’re also going to have the better insulation, the better safety for codes. It’s just going to be a more comfortable home and chances are through your ownership, it’s also going to be more affordable to build because it’s new. You’re using newer materials that have – you know, generally more maintenance-free. They’re more energy-efficient and the other thing that people don’t always look at is the actual design is probably going to be better for today’s modern living lifestyle.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Landmark: So that’s the key to it and then of course there’s personal pride. Hey, I built it. It’s the design I wanted. I’ve got a great view and my living room window is taking advantage of the great view. So a lot of people do it just because how do they – you know, once the house is built, how do they want to spend their weekends? Do they want to repair an old home or do they want to enjoy the new home that we helped them build?

Interviewer: I would imagine quality control even kind of comes into that, keeping the overall quality of your new home built up to your personal standards. I would imagine that has a lot – that piques a lot of people’s –

Steve Landmark: Well, that’s the key to it because a lot of our customers have a deep understanding of different components of the home and they want to know that it’s built right instead of just someone putting something in there because it’s cheap and then later they find out that there’s a problem.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Landmark: So that’s one of the biggest reasons is people want to know where their money is going. They’re working hard to get the money to build the house. So they want to know that the house is built right and is also going to take care of their family the way they want it to be done.

Interviewer: You just brought something up, the phrase “pride of ownership”. That’s an old phrase that seems to be heard less and less in this day and age and that’s – you’ve told me yourself that Landmark customers use that phrase a lot. Why do you suppose that is?

Steve Landmark: Well, they want to take the project on and know that it’s done right. So when you have a home that was done at a price that’s good for you, you know it’s done right. You know the design is good so your family could live the way that they need, that it fits on the land properly and that you can enjoy it. It’s just really cool compared to having to settle for something that’s there. That kind of does the job. Our customers want to know that the house does what they want. They want it to be the house. So what they do is they take the time to build it. So then their enjoyment of the home while they live there is way up. It’s just pride. It’s also the personal part of they built it. They know it’s built right. They understand what’s going on. It’s a big accomplishment. It’s very, very rewarding to build the house. Yes, it is a lot of work. But it’s pretty cool when you look back and say that – that’s pretty amazing. We’ve been doing it for decades and it’s still amazing to us every single house, to just see that it gets built and how it helps the family.

Interviewer: Right. Now speaking of families, I mean Landmark deals with a lot of families, like young families starting out, families with teenagers. You know, families where the grandparents are now living at home. What do you find is the overall experience with families who become Landmark customers?

Steve Landmark: I think they all really enjoy it because the thing is – you know, say there’s a couple of kids. They each get to work on their room.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Landmark: They get to lay it out. They get into it. So suddenly they learn the process. It’s a life experience and whether it’s the grandfather helping, the kids, the main family that’s building, whatever it is, it’s a unifying situation for people to go through and see this. It changes people’s lives and perspectives. But when you take it that – you know, the grandparents can help with the design, work or just help manage or sometimes financially, a lot of families will get together and take a couple of generations and put them in a house, so that they could live in a place they want to be or maybe it makes sense for babysitting or healthcare or just convenience. So it’s pretty amazing to see how the families will work together to get a house going. In some situations – we have a family right now. I think it’s a couple of generations condensing into one home so that they can have – the land has been in the family I want to say since 1920. It has gone through a couple of generations and there’s an actual Civil War medic building on it. They just said, “Hey, for the purpose of having energy efficiency, this and this, we designed a home that actually has a variety of suites in it and then one central family area.”  It has got a big dining room but separate little eating areas. You know, some families wake up earlier. They eat dinner at a different time. But they’ve developed a design so that it works for the way their family flows. So in that particular situation, they were able to together get a very nice home, have it new so it’s more comfortable and it’s a maintenance-free situation for them. So it’s – if there are a couple of generations involved, they all work together. Everyone comes away going, “Wow, that was amazing.” There might have been some spots where it was like, wow, that was challenging. That was a lot of work or hey, it just took a lot to do it. But the end result, it’s there. It’s kind of like a good workout. When you’re working out, you’re like, wow, this is a lot of work. But at the end of your workout, you feel like, “Wow, that was great. I got to do it again.”

Interviewer: Yeah, accomplishment.

Steve Landmark: That’s it. It’s the accomplishment.

Interviewer: I would imagine the do-it-yourself aspect. You were talking about the kids building their own room or the grandparents helping out. You know, the grandfather gets his old toolkit out and I imagine that that’s a great aspect of the panelized home building project.

Steve Landmark: Well, yeah, and with Landmark, we’re able to go through and design the home. So different – families are fundamentally the same. But in that sense, they’re different. There are different hobbies. There are different work schedules. There are different recreational activities. There’s different ways they celebrate holidays and birthdays. There are just different situations. So sometimes people want a big great room because people get together on the weekend or they want a big back porch. They get together on the weekend. Other people have – they have different types of work where one person is gone or at home or different shifts. They have different rooms or maybe where the sleeping room, it has got extra insulation. So they’re sound-deadening so that if the family is out there watching a football game, someone could still sleep. So it’s pretty interesting to work through the process to go through and make it customized. Now what’s interesting about this work is it takes a little bit of extra time and a little bit of extra thought. It’s not actually that much harder to go through and make sure that the customer works with us, so that they end up with the house that they want.

That’s the key point. If you’re going to spend the money, may as well get the house you want instead of something that’s OK. You should be excited about it.

Interviewer: Sure. Let’s go back to cost for a minute and something I’m always bringing up is contractor cost. How can Landmark help me to control that?

Steve Landmark: Well, what we’re able to do is develop an accurate set of plans so that people know exactly what’s to be built. So a customer can then go through and figure out the cost to build. They’re probably already done some pre kind of budgeting upfront to make sure it makes sense. But when you have an accurate set of plans, you can actually go through and get the exact cost. So instead of going to a contractor saying, “Hey, how much is a garage?” you can say, “Hey, how much is this two-and-a-half-car garage or three-window?” You know, how much is it to drywall it or run electric in it or whatever it would be?

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: They’re able to have the information to have an educated conversation where they actually gather real information and that’s the main point is the understanding of the process and the kind of behind-the-scene support. So we set our customers up so that they’re in good position to be able to work with the contractors for proper costing. Then if for some reason something comes out of the range of what works for their budget, we’re able to work with them and design elements that – you know, to push it so that things do work out. So it’s the behind-the-scene support that we provide our customers that they find to be very important and enjoyable.

Interviewer: And back to the pride of ownership thing, it seems to me like a lot of Landmark customers, most find they actually end up with a nicer house than they even imagined when all is said and done.

Steve Landmark: Well, the point is that they get to build the way they want it. You know, if they want a certain kitchen cabinet or even if they want to make their own kitchen cabinets. We’ve had a lot of customers do that where they’re in woodworking. They make their own cabinets.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: Or they want to put a window on a certain location to do it. So a lot of builders, you know, they’re like, “Well, I have this plan and no changes.”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: Well, in our case, it’s like let’s build what you want. So we’re able to go through and do it – I think that’s the happiness that comes out of it is you’re getting what you want for your hard-earned money.

Interviewer: So let’s go over something that we’ve – we’ve touched on this in other episodes. But there are certain things I think we just need to reiterate. So let’s go over codes and energy efficiency – just energy efficiency. I will spit it out. Just because I think we can’t express enough the importance of Landmark’s expertise in those subjects and how helpful you guys really can be to a new home builder.

Steve Landmark: Well, on codes and energy efficiency, we understand all the codes. We have licensed engineers if you’re in an area that needs engineer-stamped plans. So we have the professionals to go through and do the architectural design and there’s a lot of code issues people don’t even think about, like the size of windows in case you need to get out for – you know, in case of an emergency. You know, different details. Fire doors between the garage and the house. You know, enough drywall on the wall between the garage and the house say in case there was to be a fire. So we can take care of all the architectural code issues. We can also take care of the structural design to make sure structurally the house is significant for whatever the concerns are, whether you’re in hurricane, high snow load, expansive soils, earthquake areas, what – or places sometimes have two or three of those. So we’re able to do that design. We’re also able to do plumbing design, electrical design, HVAC design, site planning. We can get into landscape design. So we can kind of take care of a lot of issues for people to really go through and put it together. We’re kind of a resource for the people. We don’t want to tell people what house they want. But if they want it done right, we have the knowledge to put it together and then if they have questions, we also have the time and desire to help them understand what’s going on with their home so that they know why a house has to be built a certain way or why it’s advantageous to do one – you know, do it one way versus another way and we will spend the time with people to make sure they understand it. Some people will just say, “Hey, I just want it to pass the energy codes.” Other people want to analyze why. What type of insulation? What happens if I do this here? What happens if I do that there? And kind of role-play it so that they can spend their money wisely.

Interviewer: Right. There are so many important things that you’ve brought up today. But one thing that I think this “Why do it yourself?” Landmark is a one-stop shop and you guys do help the new homeowner, the guy, or the new home builder. But there’s also the relationships that your customers build with you. I mean I think that’s – you’ve told me in the past how people you built houses for 20 years ago and they still come back to you and say, “Wow, we’re still in our house. We love it. It’s a great experience,” and sometimes they say, “Let’s build another one.” That must be satisfying.

Steve Landmark: Well, that’s extremely satisfying. But sometimes it goes beyond that. They’re like, “Hey, Steve. Remember 20 years ago we had a son? It’s his turn.”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: You know, or something like that or hey, someone moved back or someone came back from the military or whatever the situation is. We’ve had some families where we’ve helped every single adult in their family build a house.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: We’re working right now with a family. They’re buying 10 acres. They’re getting it subdivided so each family member gets two acres each.

Interviewer: Wow.

Steve Landmark: You know, so there’s a lot of situations. This is a life-changing event for people and yeah, the relationships are there. It’s amazing. I wish I could go to all the barbecues I get invited to. It’s just a time thing but I also – I probably put on 30 pounds each weekend. You know, hanging out with the people, just getting – you know, and enjoying the housewarming party.

Interviewer: Yeah, the moving back home thing. That’s a new sort of phenomenon over the last 15 years or so and you’re seeing it more and more and yeah, it’s – I find it just interesting that Landmark has been doing this for years.

Steve Landmark: Right.

Interviewer: Building homes that can be adaptable to the family that goes away and comes back.

Steve Landmark: Right, right. And it’s interesting why things like that happen.

Interviewer: There’s a lot of reasons, yeah.

Steve Landmark: Yeah. I mean sometimes it’s divorces. Sometimes it’s health. Sometimes it’s babysitters. Sometimes it’s just cool. The people are like, “Hey, we all like getting together. What are we doing living 700 miles apart from each other?”

Interviewer: Right, right.

Steve Landmark: And then in other areas where real estate is more expensive, people are saying, “Hey, if we move grandma and grandpa in, we will have a babysitter. But you know what? We can also live an hour closer to work because now we can afford a more expensive community.”

Interviewer: And that stuff happens and it is important even in my own my family. You know, my sister and her husband lived hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles away, a couple of thousand miles away at one point. Then finally one day after they had their first grandchild just went, “You know what? I think it’s time to move back,” and I can understand that happening.

Great conversation today, Steve. As it happens a lot on this show, I look back and go, “Wow, the time just flew by.” So I always feel we just get started and the clock sort of runs out on us. But Steve, tell the listeners how you can find out – how they can find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company.

Steve Landmark: Well, one thing I forgot. What episode is this? Thirty-five. We’ve got 34 other episodes they can look at on our website and through the podcast services if they just want to kind of get a grip on what’s happening and how we can help. But they’re always welcome to check our website out,  www.lhlc.com. Then they can see us on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube and then they’re – we always suggest people call.

There’s nothing that we would rather do than talk to people and find out what’s going on and help them out and kind of get them positioned to get the ball rolling and they can also email. Oh, the phone number, it’s 1-800-830-9788 and Mike will answer the phone. If he’s busy, you’re going to get this voicemail, he will get back to you right away. We are very good at communicating and talking to people and staying on top of their project. You can email Mike at [email protected] or I’m available, Steve, at  [email protected]. We believe in communicating, supporting our customers and having a good time doing it to make sure that they get the best house possible.

Interviewer: And as Steve just said, I can’t encourage you more to go to the Landmark website if you haven’t already and find all the past episodes of this podcast and feel free to let us know how much you’re enjoying them. We enjoy doing them and I learn a lot every day. So for Steve Tuma and myself, have a great day and we will see you next time.

Steve Landmark: Thank you.

Learn how first-time homebuilders can successfully manage and construct a custom panelized kit home without previous construction or carpentry experience. We discuss how owner-builders act as general managers to control project schedules, budgets, and subcontractor bids using clear, site-specific blueprints. Discover how pre-engineered panelized packages prevent finger-pointing between architects, structural engineers, and framers by matching the factory framing kit directly to municipal permit approvals. Explore how early architectural revisions during preliminary drafting control construction expenses, how to navigate strict building inspectors and regional code requirements (including WUI fire-safety and residential fire sprinklers), and why hands-on involvement creates deep family pride of ownership.

A: Yes, because building as an owner-builder is primarily a project management and coordination role rather than manual labor. First-time builders succeed by scheduling specialized licensed subcontractors—such as excavators, foundation contractors, and electricians—using comprehensive, permit-approved blueprints that detail every dimension and connection.

A: Stock online plans leave critical dimensions and structural connections undefined, forcing contractors to guess and submit inflated or inaccurate estimates. Detailed, permit-ready blueprints clearly establish ceiling heights, exact window locations, and foundation engineering upfront, giving subcontractors the precise scope required to deliver firm, binding bids.

A: In traditional custom construction, architects, structural engineers, building inspectors, and framing crews often blame one another when drawings do not match job-site realities. A unified panelized kit home system eliminates this disconnect by drafting, engineering, and factory-manufacturing the structural wall panels and trusses to match the exact approved permit set.

A: Revising digital CAD drawings before structural engineering and factory production begins allows builders to remove expensive foundation corners, adjust square footage, or reconfigure rooflines on paper for free. Making these modifications early avoids costly framing teardowns and emergency field change orders after construction starts.

A: Building codes regulate stair rise-and-run, hallway widths, and entry door dimensions to guarantee life-safety egress and daily functionality. These standards ensure occupants can safely evacuate during a fire, prevent falls, and provide the physical clearance needed to move furniture and allow emergency responders to navigate the home.

Interviewer: Hello. Hello. It’s Episode 34 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me in our studio is Founder and President of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want exactly as they want across the nation and worldwide since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how is it going today?

Steve Landmark: It’s a very nice day. We’ve been busy helping people all around the country design their homes, getting details together for their floor plans and house design so that it looks the way they wanted and get them ready for a permit application.

Interviewer: Busy business as usual over at Landmark Home and Land Company. So Landmark receives a lot of inquiries from folks who are thinking about building a new home but have never really taken on a building project before. So I thought it’s time we perhaps address those folks and sort of lay out what a first-time builder might be dealing with. How about we give that a go?

Steve Landmark: Well, it’s kind of an interesting process there because the concept of building your own home to some people is kind of like, “Wow! I never thought of that.”

Interviewer: Yeah. I mean let’s say I’m a first-time home builder like talk to me like there must be a – do I need a certain level of knowledge before beginning? I mean I may not have built anything as hard as a home before. Is it a management job or an actual hammer and nails type of project? What should I know?

Steve Landmark: Well, that’s the interesting part is, is it a management job or is it a hammer and nail kind of getting in there? It can be either and it can be both. We’ve had customers that have never picked a hammer up but understand that they need to understand the design of the home, the budgeting, the scheduling and working with the right people to get it built. And then we’ve had the other extreme where they’ve literally done everything, the family is involved in the trades, someone does foundation works, someone does electric, someone does framing and they get it put together. And then most customers are somewhere in the middle where they are managing it and then they are doing the work that they choose to do or know how to do. We never suggest that someone go out there and do a job that they don’t know anything about. We always suggest that they work with people that do know what’s going on in the project and then they take care of the work that they are capable of doing. So to answer the question, it can literally be a management job or it could be get in there and swing the hammer and run some wires and paint type of a project. So the people that have done this with us have been all different types of people. They have been people that have been managers at upper level. They have been some people that are very top level management. They have been some people that are in the building trades or some people that just got divorced and said, “Hey, this is the only way I can afford a home.” There are some people that have gone through different situations and realized that they can get a better quality home by building it. So there isn’t at least that I can see is – there isn’t like one thing that you have to have to build a home. You just have to have the desire to learn the process, understand it, develop a schedule and be able to manage it and move forward. And that’s the key element. And what’s nice is we are also able to help people. So depending upon how deep you want to get into the actual building processes, that’s something you can control and that’s a nice thing because even just by managing the building of your home, you are going to save a considerable amount of money compared to hiring a general contractor.

Interviewer: Let’s say I go on to the Landmark website and I find one of the many, many plans that are available there to look at and I decide that I’m going to use one of those plans. How do the Landmark Home plans help me as a new builder?

Steve Landmark: Well, what we do is we develop a set of plans for your specific project. So these aren’t just canned plans that are like, “Hey, here is your house, go build it.” These are plans that are designed the way you want the house to be designed. We then go through make sure that everything is fine for the building department, all the building department details or that it fits on your land, the foundation design is right. So the plans actually become kind of a communication method. So you could take them and send them to the building department for permits. You can also send them to your contractors and subcontractors for doing the different portions of building the home. So it’s a nice tool to be able to pass your concept because sometimes what people do is they will say, “Well, I met with my contractor and I asked them how much it is to build a 2000-square-foot home.” And so the customer thinks they have an idea in their head and then the contractor is sitting there saying, “What did you just tell me? Much less, how am I supposed to remember that?” So by having an accurate set of plans, it allows them to work with contractors and have the contractor understand these people are serious. They have a real set of plans. They know what they are doing. It’s planned out properly. So it just helps in the overall scheduling, controlling of the budget, and ease of the process of going through it.

But you asked I think how Landmark Home and Land Company helps, is we help the people go through and develop an accurate set of plans. Instead of a set of plans that says, “Hey, here’s a 2000-square-foot, 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 2-car garage home,” someone could see the exact home and how it sets on the land and all the details and dimensions, ceiling, heights, windows, stuff like that so that it’s very easy for the contractor to understand what the customer is wanting to do.

Interviewer: Right. Well, let’s get down to what Landmark actually provides aside from a great plans that are available on the website. What about the Landmark’s especially the panelized home kits? How can that help me, a panelized home kit, the first-time home builder?

Steve Landmark: Well, where it helps is we are able to control the cost. We are able to give you a guaranteed cost for your house package designed and delivered. And that’s the key. I’m going to tie it back and kind of hit the rewind button. Our panel kits also include all the plans for your specific building department.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So if they need simple plans or complex plans or a lot of additional details, we will supply those. So the idea is that you can take those plans, turn them into the building department, get the plans approved and then our panelized home kit matches that approved set of plans. So you as the owner/builder have control of the cost and the quality of the product to know exactly to be what’s built. You don’t end up in a situation where draftsman, architect points their finger at a structural engineer who then points a finger at the building department and then the framer sitting here saying, “OK, what do you guys saying?” You’re avoiding the finger point. It’s extremely clear as to what is there and what’s going to be built so it helps with the permitting, the assembly of the home package, the inspection, and then also you the owner/builder understanding what is being built.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: And the panelized home kit is tying that all to the plans. It’s the one-stop shop. We can go through and make sure everything is fine for your design ideas but also make sure that it’s good for your building department and also make sure that the panel kit matches. It just avoids you having to manage between 7 and 10 people to get your plans done, approved, engineered properly, energy codes, and the framing system going. It’s ease.

Interviewer: Now, what about – we talked about the plans. We talked about the panelized home kits, et cetera. Are there any let’s call them behind the scenes type of support systems, things that aren’t outwardly in your face if you will, they are easy to see? Any kind of those support systems to help a Landmark customer?

Steve Landmark: Yes. And that’s an extremely important part because we will get calls from people and say, “Well, I got this guy and he drew these plans up,” or whatever, “Hey, I bought them off the internet,” or whatever and there they are and we are like, “Well, that’s great but what’s happening here? What’s happening there?” They are like, “I don’t know.” And then the designer doesn’t get back to them. So we are able to help them go through and work the little nuances of their project. So if they have an issue with the building site, if they have an issue with the plan change, the structural change, an energy code situation, a building department situation, working with contractors, how to budget different things, we are there to support our customers from beginning all the way through until they finish the house and then hopefully they come back and build another one or tell a friend. So that’s the key to it is it’s not just the one-stop shop of, “Hey, get your plans, your engineering, your energy codes, your site plan, your panelized home kit.” It’s what does this all mean? How does it go? How does it work together? What if I have a question? What if I need my HVAC system designed? How do I know that the ductwork from an HVAC system is going to go through the chase sets designed in the house?” These are all kind of deeper things that once people get into it, they see the value that we are able to provide. So it’s the customer support and customer service that is the most important thing. Not all plans are the same. Not all structural engineers are the same. But when you come to Landmark, we will wrap it all together so as a unit the customer understands what’s going on and we do it at a set and guaranteed cost.

Interviewer: Got it. Well, let’s talk about cost a little bit. Now, what if let’s say, I choose a certain plan, a design that I find on the Landmark website, is that design going to be adaptable or changeable at all if I need to readjust my budget during the process?

Steve Landmark: Oh yes! That’s something that we work with. We always suggest that people review the plan and make sure it works in their budget. But we can do different things. If someone says, “Hey, Steve, we got this house. It’s a beautiful house but it’s $350,000 and we would rather spend $300,000. What can we do?”

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Landmark: As long as we are in the preliminary plan stage, it’s very easy to go through and do changes and say, “Hey, let’s get rid of a couple of corners. Let’s do this. Let’s do that.” We kind of have a decent idea as to what it would take to simplify a project to control the cost. Sometimes it’s just a matter you got to make it smaller. Sometimes there are design elements that can be taken out. Sometimes there’s a little give and take situation. So you might keep the house the same size but maybe you change the flooring. You put a less expensive carpet in instead of custom hardwood floors because you are able to control the cost. At least you have the main home and then a little bit down the road you can change it if you choose to. So yes, we are fully capable of doing changes and we like to do them all in the preliminary stages going through to make sure it’s all done on the CAD system so we know that everywhere works with the codes, the building department, and it’s very clear. So we are all up for it. We work with people to do revisions and a couple of sets revisions to make sure everything comes together. But yes, if for some reason our customer would get stuck and they had a significant change that they didn’t seem to overcome, yeah, we will just work with them on a different design or a big redesign to make sure it comes together. That’s part of the support system because sometimes people think, “Oh, an architect is like a lawyer. They are going to charge me $200 an hour to do changes. I don’t want to deal with that.” It’s part of our system to help and support the proper design of your home to make sure it’s successful. They will work with you so you can verify it’s the right budget. But ultimately, make sure it’s something that’s going to go smoothly. And that’s the support that we can help.

Interviewer: I would imagine getting those changes decided on and changed early in the process would be the ideal thing.

Steve Landmark: Right. Every once in a while, things will happen and people will have a house framed and say, “Steve, look at what just happened. We got pregnant. We need another bedroom.” So it’s like uh-uh. But we’ve done it. We know how to do it. Of course, we understand it. So what might be a big problem to someone else is probably something that we dealt with multiple times. So we are able to work through. Now, that being said, yes, it is better to do all the changes on paper instead of after the house is built. If something really, really comes up, we are always there to take care of our customers even if it’s something that seems to be unreasonable. If that’s what they want, it becomes very reasonable to us to support them and help them through the process.

Interviewer: Now that we are talking, something has come into my head. We’ve gone over this on earlier podcast but I think as we go through this, it’s relevant enough to this topic to bring it up again. How can Landmark help me if my building department in my area is known as being really tough to deal with or just very picky?

Steve Landmark: Well, we’ve got a lot of experience dealing with building departments and understanding what they need and generally what they look for. But yes, it is amazing that’s some building departments don’t know what they are looking for. And in some cases, some building departments don’t always know how to process a set of plans to know that the information is on the plans. There are a lot of changes in codes. There are a lot of changes in the way building is done. There are a lot of changes in the way the inspection process is happening especially in areas where there might be hurricanes, earthquakes, or high snow loads. There is a lot happening. But even in the areas where there aren’t as many natural disasters, those building departments are changing. They are slowly seeing that there are things they should be paying attention to because people aren’t building their homes right so they want to make it picky. So the thing about tough is sometimes people don’t understand what the building department is asking for so it’s a challenge to them or to us. We’ve done a lot so we likely have an understanding. But let’s just say someone does have that one – the one out of a hundred inspector that decides he is going to show you who is king and we’re going to do this, we’ve got all the pros, structural people, architectural people, energy code people, green code design, HVAC design, electrical engineering, plumbing engineering. We are going to have the right answer. So I don’t think that there’s going to be a situation where there are going to be held back. What I found is the tough and very picky, it’s just that they themselves are learning how to go through a process and there might be a new code change. So we are able to work with them and get it taken care of. Every set of plans has been permitted in all the states whether it’s a big metropolitan area or it’s a rural area. We’ve been able to take care of. And that’s the advantage because we work in some areas that are extreme sticklers for every single detail that when someone comes up from another area, we’ve likely experienced the situation before and understand it.

Now, every once in a while, there is a building inspector that will throw a curve ball. So far, we’ve taken care of every single one. So that’s customer support part we’ve been talking about. You just give us a call and say, “Hey, I talked to my building inspector and he said, ‘Hey, what about this and what about that?’ What does this mean?”

I can have a nice discussion with the people and explain to them. And suddenly, it’s easier when they start realizing that hey, this is – when they understand what the building inspector is asking for. That’s the key point in customer service and support is everyone’s project is different. It’s a different design. It’s on a different piece of land. That different piece of land is different. It could be on the side of a hill. It could be flat. It’s a different building department. So that’s the kind of behind-the-scene support that can we supply so that people understand that they have help in case something odd comes up. So far, no one has stomped us. Everyone – we’ve taken care of every customer.

Interviewer: And again, I want everyone, all our listeners to know when we bring up building departments, we are not demonizing building departments at all. Mostly as you’ve said in the past, most building departments are great people and they are just making sure you get the house done right so things don’t come up later. And I think you are right. Most building departments are pretty amazing.

Steve Landmark: What it is, is sometimes people look at the building department as an enemy. Sometimes it could get a little interesting. But the reality is, most codes are for safety.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Landmark: So people – like staircases have to have a certain rise and run to the stairs, that just so it’s not steep that you fall down.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Landmark: Staircases have to have hand railings so you can hold on to it. Doors have to be a certain size so you can get furniture in and out. There’s stuff like that that’s interesting. A lot of places are imposing that you must have fire sprinklers in your house. Sometimes people are like, “Oh, that’s a lot of money.”

Interviewer: I heard that.

Steve Landmark: And I kind of understand it. It’s like, “Hey, you’d rather show me a cool kitchen than your cool sprinkler head.” But the reality is, is if you look at the information on the safety, the amount of – how quickly a sprinkler will respond to put say, like a little fire out so if something happened in a garbage can or whatever, it’s very quick. Yeah, your carpet might get wet but at least your house isn’t burned down.

Interviewer: Sure. Yeah.

Steve Landmark: So sometimes there’s a little resistance on that and I understand it. But if people were to say, “Hey, wait a second. If there was an issue, would I rather have smoldering fire go out in my garbage can or whatever or would I rather have half of my house gone?”

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Landmark: So sometimes because it’s different, it’s a change and it’s money that they weren’t exactly planning, there could be a little resistance. But when you look at it, the safety is there, the resell value is there, the comfort is there. A lot of situations come up. Now, I can’t stand up for every single code because some of them do seem to be very funny or contradictory but we worked it through so the design works, the building department works and things are smooth. And like I said, if someone runs into an issue, they just contact us and we will jump on it right away and do everything we can to work it through so it’s a positive event.

Interviewer: Yeah. It’s also you see in other countries, there natural disasters where you see thousands of people are killed and that doesn’t happen in the States and a lot of that has to do with we have great codes and building departments and they get – there’s a reason for that.

Steve Landmark: Right. And as the reason is tightening up because as you see in like hurricanes, there seems to be more and more of them. before, it seemed to be big one every five, ten years. Now it seems like every hurricane season, there’s a new one there, sometimes multiple. The fires, there just seemed to be more and more fires. So having the proper design, the WUI, Wildlife Urban Interface design in your home can save your house. So it’s nice to have those details there. So ultimately, it’s safety. But the key to – just look, we’ve talked about fires, we’ve talked about getting your sofa in the door, going down staircase, the key is that it ultimately will work to make a house usable and safe. So I was talking to one person. He said, “Hey, can’t I make my living room bigger by making the staircase a foot wide?” And I jokingly said, “Who is the last person you’ve seen that’s a foot wide?”

So the person said, “I didn’t really think of that.” They were thinking about their living room. They weren’t thinking about the reality of flooring around the house. So there are a lot of situations like that where it makes sense and the electrical design as well, a gas piping, different things so that there’s enough juice flowing. We’ve all been in old homes where you turn a toaster on and a hairdryer on and it flips the circuit. So it’s better to have it designed right to avoid issues like that.

Interviewer: I like when you go into it. A historic home, something built in the early to mid-1800s and you see the doorways and stairways are so tiny. We are just bigger people now.

Steve Landmark: Yeah, they didn’t have supersize. You’re out there growing your food and being healthy.

Interviewer: Right. And I’m one of the worst about that.

Steve Landmark: But see, a lot of those situations, it is kind of interesting but those things have evolved. Let me bring something else up. An older home generally has taller windows. They didn’t have air conditioning. They have taller double hangs to allow cool air to come in and hot air to flow.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So over time as the evolution of technology or lifestyles moves on, the house changes with it.

Interviewer: Are you saying we are getting shorter and lighter?

Steve Landmark: There might be something like that. Hey, let’s bring – here’s something else that’s kind of funny about that is you bring it up, you go on an old home, the closet might be like 3 feet wide and 18 inches deep and they hang like the two shirts they had on a hanger. They don’t really have coat racks and big walk-in closets. So imagine if someone didn’t catch on to that to say, “Hey, your bedroom should be a certain size or hey your hallway should be a certain size.” So a lot of these things are things we take for granted. We never really think about, “Hey, why is my window so big? So that I could crawl out of it in case of a fire. Hey, why does the door have to be a certain size?”  This and that. So yeah, we are kind of joking about it but the reality is it’s a serious situation. That’s what we can help with. We can go through and take care of those odds and ends that people don’t understand or don’t even realize exist to work it through. And that’s a fun part because a lot of people just build because the want to do it. It’s cool. They are learning. They watch the show. Their grandpa did it. It’s a lifetime achievement.

Interviewer: Let’s a little personal now on the customer end of things. What have you found, you personally, Steve Tuma, the President of the company, what have you found or being told by your customers as the most rewarding part of a panelized home project build to your customers?

Steve Landmark: I think it’s the concept of “I did it!” They took it from a concept. Everything kind of starts with a dream and then they work with us to get plans, and that’s exciting. Then they get permits and excitement builds. And then there’s a whole dug and it’s like, “Wow! This is real.” Then it gets framed and it comes to life. I would say the most amazing thing is the picture that they send us at the end or during the process really and say, “Steve, I can’t believe this. My family is getting a new home. We are going to have what we need. It’s in the setting we want it to be. It’s in the community, the right school. Maybe they are kayakers and they are by a river, whatever it maybe. And it’s that self-achievement, the reward of, “I did it!” It has been very interesting to see how many people build. They’ve been thinking about it their whole life. They’ve been thinking about their whole life, they realized by owning or building they could do it at a better budget. They can also control the quality and know exactly how their house is built. There have also been a lot of families doing it and they are 9, 10, 11, 12-year-old kids who are deep into the project. They understand responsibility and management to get it done and follow through.

So I could go on and on but I think basically the biggest thing is I did it and I got something that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. That’s it. Whether it’s a retirement home, a first home, the main family home as the family is expanding, the getaway house, whatever it is, it’s really that fulfillment of, “Hey, I did that and isn’t that cool?”

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Landmark: And I got to say, we’ve been helping people for decades. I don’t know how many people we’ve helped. It’s still exciting to us to go, “Wow! Look at that family. Look at what just happened.”

Interviewer: Yeah, of course.

Steve Landmark: It could be the first home in the family. It could be the 10th home. It could be the 50th home. It could be the 5th one that they built with us. It’s still cool when they call up and go, “Steve, that was just fun.”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: It’s the satisfaction. They’ve helped their family. They’ve helped themselves. It’s a good financial move.

Interviewer: Well, time just flew by. This was such an interesting topic and I love some of the stuff you were saying just about what it means to be not just a homeowner but somebody that creates and builds their own house. It’s great. So anyway, we’re going to wrap it up for this episode of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. But before we go, Steve, as usual can you let the listeners know how to get more info about Landmark Home and Land Company?

Steve Landmark: It’s very easy. We have a website, LHLC.com. That’s kind of the initials of Landmark Home Land Company, LHLC.com. We are also are on Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.

And you can also call us, 800-830-9788. Mike will answer the phone. If he isn’t able to answer, you will get his voicemail. He will get back with you right away. We are very responsive and proactive and we appreciate your call. And you can also email Mike at [email protected] or you can email me, Steve at [email protected]. And I love talking to people about their projects and kind of seeing their vision and understanding what it is that they want to do. Then we kind of come in and help them put it together.

Interviewer: Fantastic. So for Steve Tuma and myself, thanks for listening once again to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. Be safe out there and we will see you next time.

Steve Landmark: Thank you.

Learn about the practical evolution of tiny homes, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), granny flats, and backyard guest houses. We discuss why microscopic 200-square-foot trailer builds are giving way to functional, code-compliant 500-to-800-square-foot cottages that accommodate genuine multi-generational living, rental income, and remote workspaces. Discover how local zoning boards regulate secondary dwellings through minimum square-footage thresholds, lot-coverage ratios, utility tap requirements, and main-house prerequisites. Explore the critical differences between full kitchens and permitted wet bars, how connecting an ADU via an enclosed breezeway affects zoning and septic sizing, and why small-footprint panelized homes offer an efficient, low-impact solution for off-grid and scenic building sites.

A: Extremely small 200-to-300-square-foot trailer builds face severe municipal zoning prohibitions, odor issues, and daily living limitations for families. Transitioning to permanent foundation cottages between 500 and 800 square feet allows homeowners to satisfy local minimum building code standards, fit comfortable multi-room layouts, and secure permanent utility infrastructure.

A: Zoning departments regulate accessory structures by verifying minimum parcel acreage, property line setbacks, environmental health requirements for water and sewer, and maximum allowed floor-area ratios. Most jurisdictions also mandate that the primary single-family residence must be fully permitted and constructed before any detached accessory dwelling unit can be built.

A: Municipal building codes generally classify a room as a kitchen if it contains dedicated 220V electrical or natural gas connections for a primary cooking range or stove. In single-family zones that prohibit dual kitchens on one parcel, homeowners can maintain code compliance by installing extended wet bars with sinks, compact refrigerators, and dedicated counter space for small countertop appliances.

A: Depending on local municipal zoning definitions, connecting an accessory building to the primary house with an enclosed or covered breezeway often reclassifies the structure from a detached secondary dwelling into a primary home addition. However, adding conditioned bedrooms through an attached wing can still trigger mandatory upgrades to verify that the existing on-site septic system has sufficient capacity.

A: High-cost infrastructure components—such as kitchen cabinets, plumbing rough-ins, bathroom fixtures, heating and air-conditioning units, and electrical service panels—are required regardless of a home’s overall size. Because these expensive mechanical systems are concentrated into a small footprint without large open living areas to dilute the average, the final cost per square foot increases.

Interviewer: Hello everybody. It’s Episode 33 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me in studio 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 across the nation and worldwide since 1993, Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you doing, buddy?

Steve Landmark: I am doing great.

Interviewer: Fantastic.

Steve Landmark: It’s always a good day in Landmark Home and Land Company Land, helping people come up with some cool ideas on how to get their home.

Interviewer: So Steve, today I want to bring up a subject that seems to be on the minds of a whole lot of people on social media, in magazines, at coffee houses, and that’s a subject of tiny houses. People seem to be downsizing their lives all over the place, their cars, their stuff really, and now this phenomenon known as the tiny house. So if you will, tell our listeners what the heck is a tiny house?

Steve Landmark: Well, tiny home is kind of an interesting concept that evolved. I think after the economic crash in ‘08 and ‘09 where people are building big houses and then suddenly financially, the world had a huge amount of problems. So suddenly go the other way. Instead of build a big McMansion, let’s go build a tiny home. So the concept being that hey, do we really need 8,000 square feet, 14 garages, 12 bedrooms, things like that? And what’s the reality of what you need? So the kind of the pendulum swung the other way to like, “Hey, let’s live in 200-square-foot homes.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So my belief and from what I saw is that the concept came that there are a lot of people that weren’t able to afford a home for financial reasons, loss of job, variety of different situations that came up. So the concept came up of, “Hey, I’ll go move into the parents’ or my friend’s yard. I’ll just put a little house on a trailer because I could get around zoning and building codes.” As long as the trailer has a license, you can live in it just like if you had a motor home in your driveway.

So what happens is people came up and started developing these tiny homes. It kind of sounded cool. It’s in Vogue. It’s like, “Hey, there are financial issues. Let’s go the other way. Let’s build a little house. I’ll live in 200 or 300 square feet.” So what ends up happening with that is it sounds kind of cool but imagine all your clothes in the close and everything and you’re just cooking this killer garlic dinner and it gets through your whole 200-square-foot home and for the next week your clothes smell like garlic? So there is the neat idea behind it and then there’s OK, as it settles and people get into it, the reality of this, of you can’t really put a husband and wife, two kids, and a dog in 200 square feet. So sometimes these homes get a little bit bigger. So I think now they kind of consider tiny homes less than 800 or 1000 square feet.

So in that evolution of this where they started having a lot of people putting these secondary houses like on trailers on their backyard, people are like, “Hey, wait a second. Neighbors are looking over the fence saying, “Is there a septic in that tiny home? Where is the water? Why suddenly are there 12 people at this house?”

So the Zoning and Building Departments and communities kind of started pushing the word they have to regulate it. So sometimes what it has evolved to is where you have some communities will allow smaller homes. So if you check with building departments, a lot of them will have a minimum of 900 or 1000 square feet.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So in a lot of these places, they would not allowed them but there are communities I think that are being developed in certain parts of the country that are helping with this. And I think some of the community development programs are actually coming through to help people that are getting back on their feet or vets or different types of people to go through and give them a leg up and a nice, comfortable, efficient home so that it’s easier for them to get going and back into their life. So the tiny home has been in my opinion a result of the economic crash in the late 2000. Of course, tiny homes have been around forever. Way back you would see smaller homes but they weren’t 200, 300 square feet.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So it’s an interesting evolution. So now as the pendulum swinging back, it’s a little bit of the reality check of, “Hey, can my bed really be my desk, really be my drawing board, really be my cooking surface?” It’s kind of hard of to work in all of those areas and really have it put together and as codes catch up with all of these things. I think the tiny home is evolving to a smaller home, 500. 600, 700 square feet instead of a 200 or 300-sqaure-foot home.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: What people have to realize with the tiny homes is they are very cool. It’s a nice concept. But to plum a 1-bath tiny home that’s 200 square feet probably costs the same as doing it in a 1000-sqaure-foot home.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Landmark: So the cost for a smaller home gets very expensive. They might say, “Hey, it’s only $50,000.” But if you say, “OK, it’s 200 square feet,” that’s a lot of money per square foot. So there is a little bit of a balancing going on but we are able to help people with a tiny homes and tiny home design or smaller home to make it a workable project.

Interviewer: Do you find you are doing a lot more of those type of builds?

Steve Landmark: We are getting involved with those more projects. They are not the 200 and 300-square-foot. They are the 600, 700-square-foot situation for starter homes, community redevelopment with some community governments. There are some private investors that are working on different projects to allow housing like this because there’s – United States is an incredible country and there are big cities, little cities, there are cities that are hanging on some of their experience of rebirth and then others go through times where there’s a temporary large demand. Pipelines are being built or whatever is going on, so they need kind of a simple house for it. So it really varies by the economic base of what’s happening in an area. But the reality is, you could do a tiny home in an area where there’s a factory where someone lives there during the week and goes home on weekends or people just want a little lake house. They don’t want the big house but they want little ones. Or if people have lands, say someone’s family has 10 acres somewhere and they want to live by their parents or bring their parents back to them, they could stick a home on the land. So there are a lot of reasons for it. It’s not just economic. It’s family support. It’s temporary housing, whatever it may be. And a lot of people are using it for the short-term rentals as well.

Interviewer: So that would be – that would fall under like if you were to add an additional structure to your home. Like what’s the difference between an ADU, a guesthouse, or what people are calling a granny flat?

Steve Landmark: In a sense, they are kind of the same word, ADU, guesthouse, and granny flat. It’s kind of – ADU is additional dwelling unit and so you could call that a granny flat if your grandma was going to live there, a guesthouse if it’s just for a guest that’s coming through. So it’s kind of different words for the same thing but that would be an additional unit. So in certain parts of the country, it’s normal to have a guesthouse. It’s normal to have a space or a lot of people are doing it for a short-term rentals and a lot of communities are getting into it because they are just so expensive that before, they would not allow an additional dwelling unit on a lot but then they realized that hey, they have to take care of affordable housing. So a lot of areas are now saying, “Hey, we will give you the ability to put a home up to a certain size on your lot,” so that they can offer affordable housing because what’s happening in some of these communities, people have to make $200,000 – $300,000 to live there while meanwhile the support of the community really allows the communities to survive or a lot of lower-paying jobs. So those people can’t commute 2 and 3 hours so it’s good to have a blend of people in the community.

Interviewer: Right. Now, what about zoning restrictions? I mean how do I go about adding another living unit on to my land as opposed to say, small shop or something?

Steve Landmark: Well, something like that, you’ve got to talk to the building department. You’ve got to go through and find out if there are restrictions to build a second unit, if there are size restrictions, location restrictions, does the land have to be a certain size, does it have to have its own water and sewer connections? So the place to start is the Zoning and Building Department to go see what is available so that everything can – you can make sure you are putting something together because sometimes there are restrictions on lot size, lot location, what is currently on the land, geotechnical situation, septic systems, things like that. So Zoning Department is the first place to start.

Interviewer: And that would be where I would go to decide or to figure out what the size restrictions might be of the building or the structure I want to put up on my land.

Steve Landmark: Right. And in general, in some areas, they will go through and some areas will say, “Hey, it’s a certain size. It’s 1200 square feet maximum or 900,” whatever it is. But others will get into percentages of the existing home. And what a lot of these places will also do is restrict that you must have a main home first. You can’t do the ADU first.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So if you are going to build two homes, the main home and then the ADU later, they generally would not let you do the ADU and then the house.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So there are little things. But we at Landmark, we can help people kind of navigate the waters and understand what’s going on.

Interviewer: Well, let’s say you are building a granny flat or a guesthouse, what about bathrooms and kitchens? Can these things have kitchens?

Steve Landmark: Well, that’s the interesting part. Some areas restrict it because the zoning will be for one family and that’s why you have to talk to your Zoning Department. So sometimes they will go through and they will allow zoning where only one family can live. So they don’t want this ADU or granny unit to have a separate kitchen. A kitchen is generally defined by does it have a stove or doesn’t it? So what people find is a lot of these granny flats have very big wet bars. You can still – you can put a little refrigerator in there and they are called offices or …

Interviewer: A good microwave.

Steve Landmark: … or studios and things like that. So you have really got to check it out because sometimes these homes are literally with a lot of people telecommuting with the internet and everything going on, the secondary buildings are literally second offices or studios or whatever it might be. So in some cases, they are just – some people want to work in a separate area than their actual home. Sometimes it’s IRS reasons, other times it’s just the way they work. So that’s the key in understanding the zoning is what is the “intent?” So if the intent is to go out there and have a secondary office above a garage or something like that, you can generally work through that. And there are limitations or different considerations on it that’s attached or unattached to the home.

Interviewer: Right. And back in the day, you would see those old black and white TV shows where people would get kicked out of their rooms because they were using a hot plate.

Steve Landmark: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean there’s certain reasonableness to it I guess is what they are after.

Interviewer: I wonder how many homes were burned to the ground because of hot plates being left on. So what about design limitations to a smaller home? What have you run into regarding that?

Steve Landmark: Well, the nature of smaller homes is there’s less space. So an interesting comment and it’s very justified, someone says, “Well, can’t you just take my 500-square-foot home and push a magic button and shrink it to 300 square feet?” And the theory of that is right, but the thing is whether you have a mini home or regular home. There are certain sizes of space that you need around toilets and hallways and windows for ventilation and also for egress. So you’ve got to consider all those details. And that’s the biggest point is you still have to follow the codes. Just because you only have 200 square feet and there’s no space for some safety consideration doesn’t mean they are going to let you build it. They still want to make sure that it’s safe. And I think people still have to realize that that the cost element is there. It’s kind of like a gallon of milk, a gallon of say $3, a half gallon is $2.50. So in building the smaller home, you’re going to end up with a non-proportionate cost. But the dollars will be less but the cost like per square foot will go up.

But on design elements, it’s just – you’ve got limited space. If someone thinks they’re going to put a master suite, a bathroom, walk-in shower, kitchen and dining room at 300 square feet, they would really have to work on the design to make sure that each square foot has multiple, multiple uses.

Interviewer: Right. Right.

Steve Landmark: So you can get a little creative. And then what I always tell people on the projects is, “Are you doing this just because it’s a cool thing or are you doing this thinking about the reality of the space you’re going to have?” If you want to stretch out while you’re watching TV, if you want to have a friend over for your – just the actual space. But the actual design, you can make it look like a gothic home you can make it look like a simple house, you can make it look modern, contemporary, whatever it would be. The actual design capabilities are fully there.

Interviewer: Now, what about attaching an additional living space to an existing home like by a breezeway let’s say? Is that considered a separate home or …?

Steve Landmark: It really depends by the building department and it kind of depends on the selective enforcement and how they choose to interpret it. Some will say, “Hey, if you take a separate build – a main home, say you have a 2000-square-foot main home and a 400-sqaure-foot ADU, they are going to say that’s two different buildings. But some building departments, if you attached by a breezeway, consider it to be the main home.

Interviewer: Got it.

Steve Landmark: So sometimes building departments will allow that. Sometimes they would not. But it’s something that you really want to check out because sometimes what people may not realize is if the original home was 3 bedrooms and designed for the septic, if it has one, or it’s designed for 3 bedrooms and suddenly you go add this ADU which has another bedroom and you add another one or two people to it, you’ve got to realize that there are other little catches there to make sure that you don’t create a problem down the road.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark:  And that’s where we can help people. So some places, they will consider it an addition if you connect it by a breezeway. So sometimes we run in a situation where someone says a breezeway is just like a covered walkway. Other times it becomes a 3-season room where there are walls on both sides so it is. You have the main home, a little artist studio, and then you got an additional wing. So there are a lot of different ways to work through this. And it’s basically a zoning issue.

Interviewer: I would imagine that these structures, additional structures on the property could provide – can crunch the numbers, provide affordable housing to a community overall.

Steve Landmark: Well, that’s the key element. And I think why the tiny home, the ADU, granny units are becoming more important is it’s just expensive. It’s expensive to live places and get a lot of these details. So it’s not just the expenses. It’s also the availability of land. Certain parts of California, they have opened the door for ADUs where a couple of years ago, they were kind of pushing it away. But in order to conform with national guidelines on having a certain amount of affordable housing, suddenly they opened it up. But the idea being, Steve, if you’re out there and say you have 5 acres in Iowa or something and you wanted to build a home, you’re someone that is rebuilding their life or wants to downsize and simplify, do you really need 5000 square feet?

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: Why not go with 700, 800, 900 and have something simple and travel or work in your yard or whatever it would be? So yes, the affordable housing because it’s smaller is there but it’s also allowing people to have these ADUs in more dense populations where the land is very expensive or someone at a more moderate pay level wouldn’t be able to live.

Interviewer: I’ve got friends, actual people I know who are actually kind of well-off and had pretty big houses and then the kids move away and then all of a sudden they find themselves in these huge houses. And a lot of people that I know are just downsizing overall and I think that’s kind of a cool thing.

Steve Landmark: Right. And that’s where it is. So sometimes the idea of tiny home originally started at 200 square feet, 300, basically something I would fit on a trailer that you could pull behind a car or an SUV. It has kind of evolved in this 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 square feet because a couple of people could live in that. If you have a properly designed home, you can still have 2 bedrooms or a nice living room.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Landmark: In that place. And you could do it and not have it. So it’s not just the freeing up of the money, it’s the freeing up of your time. Your friend that you are talking about, if that person had a big house, there’s heating, there’s cleaning, there’s the yard maintenance or stuff like that, maybe they don’t want to spend their time doing that anymore. They want to spend their time travelling but they still want to have a home base. And that’s why people are doing it. So I brought up where it kind of started with the economic crunch but it’s actually something where it has kind of hit a reset button for people saying, “Why do I need this?”

Interviewer: Sure. Yeah. And this all comes back to what we always talk about and that’s how helpful Landmark Home and Land Company is when it comes to designing. Because talking to you, I might have a whole idea about what I might be able to squeeze into a smaller structure and you might come to me and tell me, “You know what? I think you can do better. I think you can get – if you design it right, you maybe even get maybe an extra bedroom or something like that.”

Steve Landmark: Well, a properly designed home that’s smaller square footage is actually more livable than bigger home that isn’t designed right.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So there’s kind of one of these things. Bigger isn’t always better. So that’s where we can work with it. So it’s an enjoyment of life situation as well. So it’s something – oh let me bring something else up.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Steve Landmark: A lot of people are doing these homes off the grid. They are putting solar panels, different types of situations so that they could sustain and they are getting some extremely unique building sites. I mean just absolutely beautiful building sites. So some of the idea behind that is, hey, if y are in a challenging or very pretty or unique area, you don’t want to just go out and put some big block out there in the middle of a beautiful view. You want to have something little that kind of blends in.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So you could let nature take into it. So the idea of building off the grid is also very important as it’s less electric, it’s less the heat, less the cool, and it’s a very environmental-friendly type of situation.

Interviewer: Yeah. The technology today, it’s like more and more people are – it used to be if you are off the grid, you are considered an antisocial hillbilly or something. And now, it’s like getting to be pretty common.

Steve Landmark: Hey, I got to tell you. I’ve got a lot of people, they’re not maybe a hundred percent off the grid. They are leaving the big populations and going to a lower cost, higher quality life communities because now they can telecommute or there are all the video conferencing and everything going on. So we have a few people that work for huge corporations that are leaving the huge metropolitan areas and going to places with a slower pace. It’s a health and attitude and relaxation, a clear mind being able to think. It’s pretty interesting what’s going on.

Interviewer: Well, we are going to wrap it up for this episode. See, you’ve been great as always, answering our questions and explaining things in great details. So that’s going to do it for the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. But before we go, Steve, tell our listeners how they can learn more about Landmark Home and Land Company.

Steve Landmark: The best thing to do is check our website out at LHLC.com. It’s like the initials of Landmark Home Land Company. It’s actually Landmark Home and Land Company but LHLC.com. That’s the best place. You could check out our Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram. You could also give a call at 800-830-9788. I’ll say that again. I said it a little fast. It’s 800-830-9788. And Mike will answer the phone. By the way, we do answer the phone. If for some reason you get voicemail, we will call back right away. We are very proactive in taking care of people. And you can also email Mike at [email protected] or email me, Steve at [email protected]. And like I say, we are on top of it. We are going to communicate with you, help you through your process, get a good vision as to how we can help you achieve your housing goal and move forward.

Interviewer: Excellent. There you go. So for Steve Tuma and myself, thanks for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show and we will see you next time.

Steve Landmark: Well, thank you.

Learn how comprehensive customer service, ongoing technical support, and unified architectural drafting directly impact the success of a custom panelized kit home build. We discuss why home building is not a commodity, highlighting how coordinated blueprints eliminate the costly disconnect between architects, structural engineers, trade contractors, and municipal building departments. Discover how preliminary CAD modifications protect your budget without punitive hourly design fees, why building department plan-check comments must be addressed with exact technical documentation, and how clear architectural drawings act as an essential communication tool to secure binding, competitive subcontractor bids without mid-construction price hikes.

A: Unlike buying standard lumber off a shelf, building a custom home requires unifying architectural layouts, site-specific structural loads, mechanical duct pathways, and strict regional energy calculations. Expert customer support ensures these overlapping engineering disciplines match the physical terrain and pass municipal plan checks before materials arrive on-site.

A: Rather than billing hourly like traditional architectural firms, a collaborative home kit company incorporates structural and dimensional revisions directly into the preliminary CAD drafting phase. Modifications are finalized digitally before manufacturing begins, protecting the homeowner’s budget and avoiding expensive field tear-downs.

A: Owner-builders should direct complicated plan-check inquiries directly to their design and engineering team. A full-service provider reviews municipal comments, communicates with officials, and provides the exact structural calculations, energy sheets, or cross-sections required to clear review comments and secure permits.

A: When architectural plans, independent structural engineering, and third-party mechanical layouts are drawn in isolation, they often contradict each other during plan check or framing assembly. Unified plans ensure electrical panels match HVAC demands, plumbing drops avoid structural joists, and energy-code insulation fits within framed wall depths.

A: Subcontractors submit higher estimates when quoting from rough sketches to pad their profit against undefined scope and unexpected job-site delays. Complete, dimensioned blueprints detail every wall height, foundation step, and utility path, allowing trade contractors to calculate exact labor and material needs without adding speculative contingency fees.

Interviewer: Hello everybody and welcome to episode 32 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me in studio as always 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, across the nation and worldwide since 1993 and that man would be Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how is it going?

Steve Landmark: Hey, it’s an excellent day. Thirty-two episodes. So what do we have? Like six, seven, eight, a hundred minutes of stuff for people to listen to.

Interviewer: Yeah. I would say at least and so far we haven’t been too redundant, which is surprising.

Steve Landmark: Extremely valuable knowledge. It’s actually pretty cool because I was wondering. You know, someone is listening to all these. We had a customer last week who said, “I listen to the podcast. I drive from my job. I learned everything.”

Interviewer: Wow.

Steve Landmark: Yeah. So we’re helping him with the home. He lives in the Denver area and he’s going to build in Nevada.

Interviewer: Yeah. What did he say about me? No, I’m –

Steve Landmark: He said, “Hey, it’s that sidekick over there. He just knows everything. He’s the real reason.” That’s what he said.

Interviewer: So I was going over some ideas for a few new shows and I’ve been wanting to do – you know, so change it up a little bit and I – you know, just keep a – keep a notebook handy and I ran across an idea I had a while back. But we haven’t gotten to yet and that idea being as a – as a potential panelized home builder, who goes into any aspect of my life thinking I know everything about everything, that’s just who I am and I’m always wrong. So talk to me as though I don’t know anything, which is pretty true. When building a new home, what should I look for that I don’t realize I actually need to know? In other words, educate me on panelized home building. For instance, customer service. Why do you think customer service and positive attitude is – they’re so important to the success of a new home building project?

Steve Landmark: Well, it’s kind of interesting because sometimes people look at when they’re buying stuff as like it’s a commodity. A gallon of milk. Like hey, this gallon of milk is the same as that gallon of milk. So how can you possibly be any different in the home building business? Well, this isn’t a gallon of milk. There’s a lot of details that need to go into knowing if your house will fit on the land. Is it the right house? Energy codes, mechanical details, structural design. We offer a very high level of customer service. We will take the time with each and every customer individually specific to their project, to make sure it goes on because a lot of owner builders are building because it makes sense. It saves them money. They get a home with the details that they want. But a lot of them just want to do it. We’ve had customers that have built two, three, four, five, ten homes. It’s just what they want to do.

Interviewer: Rather than buy a preexisting home, just build.

Steve Landmark: Right, right. So someone may have built a home. You know, say five years ago. Well the codes are different. Energy codes are up. So even though what you did five years ago or ten or twenty years ago, the concepts are the same, the way you do it is different.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So this is kind of a situation of if you ask us a question, we’re going to give you a complete answer. We’re going to let you understand what’s going on because our customers are essentially the general contractor. They’re coordinating. They’re working with different people. They’re taking care of issues one by one as they arise and we want to be a resource to them. So if they get stuck with something, the building department asked them a funny question, they don’t understand something, we’re able to help them. So there’s a difference of just going somewhere and saying, “Hey, I need a hundred two-by-fours,” compared to “Hey, how do I use those hundred two-by-fours properly and efficiently to make sure that my house is built right?”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So it’s not just buying materials. It’s making sure the home is done right. I think that’s the key element to it is it’s a big project. It’s a big project building homes. It’s a big project understanding the processes and the nuances to different homes and different areas. So that’s why we tell people and we act on it. We provide the service. That’s just part of what we do. It’s just in us to help people do it. So sometimes people say, “Well, I just want the cheapest house.” I’m like, “Well, do you want the cheapest house or do you want the best house built at the best price?”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: And that’s a key to it because you don’t want the cheapest house later to find out it’s not energy-efficient or you’ve got issues with the building department. You want to make sure that it’s done right.

Interviewer: Now you guys are pretty hands-on then with your customers. So I would imagine that there – you’ve had customers that want to make a lot of changes or they’re making last minute changes. How do you go about letting people know that that’s going to affect their overall budget and schedule if they make a lot of changes throughout the process?

Steve Landmark: Well, that’s an interesting thing because the actual change process, we want people to get the right home and sometimes there are situations where customers need to change because they just haven’t settled on how they want something put together. Other times, they’re kind of stuck in a situation for a code issue or a land situation. So we will work with them to get the house right. We don’t just want to do changes for the purpose of doing them. But if something needs to be done to take care of a customer, we do it. We don’t charge extra.

Now if they go add something, say they’re starting with a 1500-square-foot home and they’re expanding to a 2000-square-foot home, the cost of those materials would obviously be more. But we’re not going to say, hey, that’s a plan change. It’s not like an architect or a lawyer where they just want to rack up bills and send you details. So we will go through and supply whatever is necessary to make sure that the home is put together.

Now, there’s a couple of facets to what you brought up on changes because sometimes people will say, “Well, it’s a panelized home. It’s prebuilt. You can’t change it.” Yes, you can.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: You don’t always want to because what ends up happening with changes is they end up costing more. If you have a wall in place and you decide you need to move it, well, it might be a structural wall. That wall might already have plumbing in it. So you’re kind of paying to take it down and redo it. So you really want to do all the changes upfront on paper going through the process. But let’s just say something happens where someone needs a change.

This happened to us. A couple starts designing a home. We go through the process. They get everything going. We go through permitting. Suddenly they find out they’re pregnant. They need an extra room for the grandparents to come over to play babysitter and it’s like, “Steve, how do we put four bedrooms in this house?” It’s like OK, I guess we got to do it. It sounds like a good reason.

So we figure it out. So if somebody has a situation like that, we’re not there nickel-and-diming people to say, hey, give me – you know, you need this. You’re stuck. We’re going to charge you. No, we’re going to be extremely cooperative and do what we can to make it work so that the customer is happy. Bottom line is if a customer is happy, they tell a friend.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: We get a customer next year.

Interviewer: You were talking earlier, just a few minutes ago, about local building departments and what info that they might need from me, the customer. But what if my local building department asks for things that I just don’t know or I can’t answer?

Steve Landmark: Well, that’s something we could look at their website. We can call them. We can review the situation or if a customer feels that they want to transfer their questions to us, we can answer them and do a – the chances are we’ve seen and experienced the question that’s being posed. So what is a customer – it might be the first time or third time around building a home with us. We’ve been doing it 25 years. We’ve probably seen the situation before. So a customer – we always encourage our customers to contact us by email. They can text us, call us, whatever it is. If they have questions, we look at the time that we spend upfront, developing a relationship, letting our customer know how we can support them through their project. They see the big value in that.

Interviewer: Yeah. I mean there’s no replacing experience, that’s for sure. Now we had done a show about – we already touched upon contractors in the past. I don’t remember which episode that was. But what about contractors and information that they may need? Can Landmark jump on the phone with a contractor and help with questions that I the customer probably just can’t answer?

Steve Landmark: Oh, yes. We’re more than happy to communicate with anyone that’s involved with the project to make sure that everything is clear. But generally what we do in that case is we would develop the first set of plans with a customer and send it to them. So then the contractor has something very clear. That contractor can then say, “Hey, it’s this house on that lot,” and if there’s any questions, they can review them with us and we will go through. The reason for that is that sometimes there are just different practices in different parts of the country or an individual contractor says, “Hey, this is the way I like to do it,” because of whatever reason. If that’s the case, we can work with them to get it taken care of. The key to that kind of preview, it just kind of gets everyone on the same wavelength.

Interviewer: Right. Now, you’re pretty much thinking that in – to be prepared as a good home builder, that I should have a unified set of plans, right? I mean I can’t just call an architect or an engineer and expect them to do all of the work for me, though that might be nice.

Steve Landmark: Right. The reason being is that – let’s just say you’re doing a house project in an estate where they need architectural plans, structural plans, a site plan, energy codes, green codes and plumbing, electric and heat design. So you can go to all those different people and have them do their work. But then who’s putting it together to make sure it’s unified?

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: You know, make sure that the electric matches the HVAC, to make sure the plumbing works matches the floor plan, to make sure that the insulation fits within the structure, to make sure it’s drawn on the architectural plans. So you notice – this isn’t true all the time. But you can’t exactly go to a typical grocery store and say, “Hey, here’s some pepperoni. Here’s some cheese. Here’s some dough. Here are some tomatoes. Make my pizza.” No. They’re like, “We sell pieces. You have to put it together,” and that’s the art and that’s kind of the situation that we do is go through and get it put together because each of these disciplines usually does their job but they’re overlapping to make sure it’s tied together unified as we call it. It makes sense because more and more building departments are actually checking to make sure that things make sense. They’re not just saying, “Hey, you turned an energy code. We will check that off the list.”

They’re actually reading them to make sure they’re right and reflected on the plans and that’s what we’ve been doing for decades. So it’s not a new concept to us but that’s it. But sometimes people think hey, I’m just going to go call this guy and he’s going to magically do this and this guy is going to do that and some amount is going to come together. That’s not always the case. We do a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure the foundation design works for the land, works for the house. The insulation works for the house. The mechanical design works for the house. Energy codes match up. Green codes and everything are there and it’s the details. That’s really why you want it, so that it’s clear. By having a clear set of plans, it’s easier to get permits. It’s easier for inspections. It’s easier to get stuff done and it’s easier to keep communication clean so that someone doesn’t come back and say, “Well, I thought you wanted purple siding.” So we put details on the plans to show what a customer wants.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So therefore, it’s accurate. So it’s very clear what’s to be done and there’s no finger pointing.

Interviewer: Now what about just questions that I as an owner builder might have? I mean will Landmark be there? You guys are able to be there to answer my questions, just my questions as the builder during the design and building process?

Steve Landmark: Oh, yes. That’s part of the customer service part. We want our customers to understand what’s going on. They act as the general contractor or they may hire a general contractor. But they come to us to have a certain level of control and understanding of their project. So they may ask. Hey, why was the calculation done this way? Hey, why has this happened? What about this or hey, can we do that?

That’s what we’re able to go through. Now, some customers just rely on us to get it done right. Other customers will have a variety of questions. Whatever works, we’re going to do it right. We’re going to provide the best set of plans and provide customer support throughout the whole project. We do communicate with our customers even after the delivery of the house. It could be months later. I’m just communicating, saying, “Hey, how is everything going?”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: We want to know it’s done right. We’re proud of the product we supply and we want people to be proud of their home.

Interviewer: You were telling me once. I think it was on an episode of this show as a matter of the fact that you’ve got customers from years ago who still send Christmas cards and stuff.

Steve Landmark: Oh, yeah. We will get people to call. You know, Steve, remember me? We built 19 years ago.

Interviewer: That’s awesome.

Steve Landmark: You want to do it? I will be like, “Yeah, let’s go do it.” He goes, “Remember that son I told you about? He needs a house,” and I’m just like, “Wow!”

Interviewer: He has got three kids of his own.

Steve Landmark: I’m glad I didn’t age 19 years in that time your son grew up. But yeah, it’s – no, literally stuff like that is happening. It’s just kind of a trip. It’s kind of like whoa. You know, that’s when you realize we’ve been doing this 25 years. There’s another generation in there of customers that maybe they’re retiring. Maybe there’s a kid coming along. Maybe families are condensing into one home with the grandparents or something. So it’s pretty interesting to see how small the world is and who knows who to help different people, but also where people end up and what they choose to do. We had a customer. He lives in Napa, building some rental units in – outside of Oklahoma City. But he wants to design his home for the Canary Islands, his retirement home. So we’re able to help the people and that’s the key thing. We help people. We have a good time doing it. That’s the key.

Interviewer: There’s almost a generational word of mouth going on. That’s pretty awesome.

Steve Landmark: Yeah.

Interviewer: It’s like people go to their high school reunion and say, “Why does everyone look so much older than me?”

Steve Landmark: Yeah, exactly. It’s true.

Interviewer: Why do my customers look so much older than me? Twenty-five years ago. That’s funny.

Steve Landmark: Yeah. But that’s the key thing about it is different people have different concerns. Some people, they want to know the technical parts. Other people just want it to look a certain way. Other people just want to know it’s energy-efficient. You know, so whatever aspect it is, we’ve been doing this a while and I’m extremely confident and know that we can take care of each customer individually. We’ve been doing it – what? Going on 26 years.

Interviewer: Yeah. Now we were talking about contractors a little bit a little earlier and let’s talk about subcontractors a bit. So is it possible that – you know, we’re talking about unified plans. Is it possible to make my plans themselves let’s say a communication tool to get like even the best pricing or scheduling for my subcontractors?

Steve Landmark: Yes, and that is extremely important. This brings something up. Yeah, that’s a great question because there are people that go on the internet and will go through and they will find a website that says it costs so much to build here and it costs so much to build there and without ever getting a set of plans, they will go through and determine that their new mansion is going to cost a certain amount of money without ever once getting a set of plans and without ever once talking to a contractor or a building department. Although that might sound good in theory, we’re always a believer that laborer rates can change. Different items in different places can change. Different building sites dictate different situations. So we’re believers that someone should have an accurate and clear set of plans. So that when they’re at the site with the foundation guy or talking to the electrician, it’s extremely clear what you’re asking to be done. By the clear set of plans, the contractors know what you want so they can give you a sharper price.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: If you just go through and say, “Steve, I’m thinking about plumbing a 4000-square-foot house. What’s the cost?”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: Well, the contractor is kind of like looking up in the sky going, “Let me pick a start out. What’s this like?” It’s just kind of a dream world. So it’s kind of like – I always joke. I mentioned this a couple of times. It’s like calling the grocery store and asking how much dinner is. So you might be able to get a general ballpark. But when you’re serious about it, you want to have a set of plans that are drawn, so that you can talk to the contractors and it would be very clear what needs to be done. You will find out that your budget is better. Your schedule will be better. The whole thing will be good because the contractors want to help. But in order to help, they need to know what you want. You don’t just go into a restaurant and say, “Give me food.”

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: You say, “Hey, I want some spaghetti with shrimp,” or something.

Interviewer: That goes back to communication.

Steve Landmark: Right, and that’s what we consider our set of plans to be is a communication tool. So we can take our customers’ ideas, put them together so that the building department can review them, but also so that the contractor understands what’s there and the financings involved so that the bank understands.

Interviewer: Sure. Well, you know, Landmark is known for its solid customer service and that includes great communication. I mean it’s so important between you guys and your customers. Have you found that diligent communication has added a lot to the success of your company and that your customer’s home design and building projects have been successful because of that? Obviously 25, 26 years in the business, it would appear the proof is right there.

Steve Landmark: Yes, it is because it’s one of the key elements because when you understand what you’re doing, when you ask a question and you get a real and complete answer, you’re able to make a better decision which therefore leads to a better home. You can go through and understand your project. It’s more fulfilling and like I said, a lot of our customers are doing it because they want to. They like it. It’s fun.

Some of it, it’s a financial thing. So they want to know. Hey, what can I do? I need to cut a little bit of money out of my house. What can I do to eliminate some cost? And we could work with them. So we’re not just someone that says – you know, when someone says, “Hey, I need to cut $5000 out of my house cost. How do I do it?” we don’t just say make it smaller because that idea – you know, a different space in a home has a different price. It’s misleading. That’s – so it would be better and what we would do is go through and say, “OK, you want to cut this amount of money out. Let’s review a couple of features. This is abnormally expensive. That’s abnormally expensive. This and that. Do you need this?” A lot of times, people are like, “You know what? I didn’t even know that. It’s right on the plan and it just didn’t register.” So we’re able to go through and let them understand that hey, more corners in the house means it’s going to cost more. Taller ceilings are going to cost more. Different architectural details are going to cost more and sometimes there are situations. Myself, if I was working on a house and there was a budget restriction on something, I might say, “Hey, let’s make sure we get the sized house we want. But let’s put a little cheaper carpet in.” Then in five years or two years or whenever, you can upgrade the carpet. But at least you’ve got the main home that you need.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: So there are different ways of planning it depending upon what the challenge is. Is it something restricted by the lot size? Is it a budget thing? What is the budget situation? We’re able to go through. So our desire to help our customer not just build a good house but understand what they’re doing is a key element and I think that wraps into the beginning part. You know, the customer service. By getting a complete answer, you have a better understanding of what you’re doing, so our customer can then go on and build our home and have a better level of knowledge. It’s more fulfilling when you’re building stuff and you understand it because everyone has got a friend with an opinion.

Interviewer: Right.

Steve Landmark: But asking them if they’ve ever built a house or why they have that opinion, it’s kind of weird and it can be confusing because you go to your different – you go to five friends and you get seven different answers. Then it’s like, OK, how do I put this together? Hey, I read this on the internet. It’s kind of like, well, let’s put this in a reality check of how it actually matters for your project. No generalities. Let’s talk about what happens for your project and your piece of land. That’s what we’re here for. You hit the key element. Knowledge, support, help. That’s why people like to work with us.

Interviewer: I told you it’s all about me, man. That’s why this show is successful.

Steve Landmark: That’s it.

Interviewer: So we’re clean out of time for this episode of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. But before we go, Steve, can you let the people know how to learn more about Landmark and how to – Landmark Home and Land Company and how to get a hold of you guys?

Steve Landmark: We have our website at www.lhlc.com. That’s kind of the initials of Landmark Home and Land Company, www.lhlc.com. You can see us on YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook. You can also give us a call, 1-800-830-9788. Mike will answer the phone. If for some reason you get a voicemail, we will get back with you very quickly and work to get you taken care of and you could also email  [email protected]. We are proactive. We take care of people. We answer the phone. We get what you need, so you can make a decision and build the best house possible.

Interviewer: And there you go. So for Steve Tuma and myself, thanks for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. We always enjoy providing you with great information. So there you go. Be safe out there and we will see you next time.

Steve Landmark: Have a great day. Thank you.