Finding a Builder for Your EkoBuilt Passive House: Part 2

Flexible passive house kit

In our first post on this series about Finding a Builder for Your EkoBuilt Passive House, we focused on how best to find a builder, and what to look for in a builder, including specific skills.

We also shared what information and elements a prospective builder will need when quoting for your home’s build, and the resources we provide to them to ensure a quality build.

In this post, we’re taking a closer look at our process, pricing expectations from builders, financing, and issues to anticipate.

The building process

When you work with EkoBuilt, this is what the process looks like:

1. We start with a plan or a layout – pick a plan from our website, send us an inspiration picture/plan, or send us your own sketch or layout, and any notes or comments. 
2. We provide you with a cost analysis to assess budget feasibility and determine an overall exterior house footprint that will fit your budget. (Note:  all plans on our website have turnkey cost analysis documents; we are happy to modify any floorplan to suit your requirements at no additional charge.)
3. Then we engage in a design process, where we will work with you to customize your plan and house the way you want it and provide you with an Architect Design package including Floorplans, Elevations, and 3D Renders. 
4. We iterate on the design and once you are comfortable with the Elevations, 3D Renders and Floorplan for the house, we will develop a set of detailed architecture construction drawings.
5. You then use these detailed drawings to:
   • Shop for a local builder and/or trades to build your home.
   • Apply for your Building Permit.

Pricing expectations for your build

Builders may provide you with a fixed fee quote or a cost-plus quote.  

A fixed fee estimate will include everything in your build for a specific price.  For any additional or different options, the builder would prepare a change order, and then add the pricing for those changes to your final bill.

For a cost-plus estimate, the builder will add anywhere from 10% to 20% to the base price of materials, and subcontractors, while providing you a labour price for items they would use their own staff for. This approach is more often used when a project isn’t yet fully defined.

In most cases, if you are dealing with bank financing, you will need to be closer to the fixed price quote, since the bank will want to have some assurance that there is sufficient financing to complete the build.

Financing for your passive home

Anyone who chooses an EkoBuilt passive home is looking to build the most energy efficient home they can afford.

Financing for a mortgage can be easily obtained through any mortgage broker or bank. It’s the same process for any custom home, and we would argue that a passive home is an even better bet for a potential lender, as your running costs will be substantially lower than with a conventionally built home (making it easier to meet your mortgage payments).

Why might a builder not want to work with us?

There could be various reasons why your build might not be attractive to a builder, so you will have to address these issues or find alternatives:

1. Unfamiliar with passive or double wall systems: They are simply unfamiliar with passive house and do not want to take on something unknown. There are multiple building systems out there, some are complex. There is also lots of misinformation that might make building highly energy efficient buildings seem not as straightforward. At EkoBuilt, we have gone to great lengths to develop a building system that is simple to install and relies on the skills of a traditional carpenter or framer who has wood framing experience. We can help communicate some of this information to them, but it does not mean it will resonate with your prospective builder.
2. Does not like the partnership model: Some builders are used to building and procuring all their own materials. In this case, they need to build the high-performance building envelope as per the passive house design we provide and the material kit we provide for the building envelope. Builders should view EkoBuilt as simply another material vendor, in this case for the building envelope assembly. We make it easier for them by:
   • identifying all material lists;
   • designing, packaging and shipping all the passive certified material, along with the information they require to build your home’s high-performance shell.
   • NOTE: This is no different from purchasing exterior siding from a particular vendor who supplies materials and instructions on how to install, which builders do regularly.
3. Less profitable: The builder might perceive working with EkoBuilt as less profitable because they feel like they cannot add their margin to lumber and other components they might be used to purchasing locally to build and frame houses. We provide home owners with transparent access to the Weathertight Shell or building envelope materials kit pricing. Some builders are okay with not taking a margin on the EkoBuilt material kit and we have seen several instances of this. An alternative and fair model that we have seen work well is home owners negotiating a 10% to 15% margin for builders (usually general contractors, not individual trades) related to the EkoBuilt material kit prices.

Your passive home build

In the next post, we’ll get more into project management and other elements of your home’s build.

Ready to discuss your passive home? We’d love to talk – give us a shout!