Welcome to the FOC podcast. I'm your host, Kyle McLaughlin, appreciate you joining us today on the construction process. Right so we're talking all about construction. Last time we talked about pre construction. Now we're talking about that vertical construction phase and all the different steps that go into it. Let's take a sip of my water. And we will continue on to step number four. So that would be your drying phase right. And maybe you've heard some Builders and Contractors talk about what drying actually means. It's basically what it sounds like you're creating that structure and you're making it so water or other elements from other nature can't get in. Right. So normally when you're driving in a house, there's three major elements to that. You have obviously your windows and doors that need to be installed and sealed properly and waterproof properly. You have your garage door if you have one or any other rough openings that need to be enclosed. And then also of course you have your roof. So putting sheathing on. It isn't enough to waterproof and normally you're using some sort of membrane of some sort of ice and water barrier or any sort of drying barrier that you would use on top of that. Good evening, right. And I'm just looking at my notes here, because I have so many so many different notes. Yeah, you're gonna have your water barrier, your exterior waterproofing, and then any sort of other drying elements that you need for both the structure itself, depending on the construction type. So as I mentioned before, if you're using traditional materials such as wood or concrete, you will need some sort of waterproofing on the outside as both of those are porous. Materials that will soak up water, right. So mostly with would you use, if you've seen those house perhaps with Tyvek, that would be normally an indicator that that's a wood structure. If you've seen concrete block, normally, there's some sort of water barrier or waterproofing that they use, either through a primer, or even paint sometimes can be a waterproofer. And you'll see, you'll see that more normally, in that type of construction before the before the stucco or whatever exterior finish goes on top of that, right, which also needs to be painted in itself. Now for hours. For the extra shell wall assembly, right, our ballistic panel is non porous, meaning that it doesn't absorb water. So it is almost a it basically is a finished wall, obviously, you're gonna want to decorate it or paint it or put some Hardy board or any sort of veneer break, or even stucco on it. And when we have our own version of stucco, which we call stucco flecks that we like to use, that's more of an elastomeric base stucco that's pre painted and doesn't crack and like normal, stucco does, and it doesn't work over the course of time, especially once again in coastal areas that are exposed to lots of rain, lots of sea salt, water, and things of that nature. Right.

So again, recap, if you want to dry in the house, depending on the construction type, it's going to take a couple of different steps. If you're going with a North Star home and a North Star wall and a North Star structure, then you get to skip over some of those steps and go straight in the stucco. But nonetheless, still need your windows and doors still need your garage door and you still need to have your roof driving. Okay. And that is it for the dry in which was step number four. Now moving on to step number five, you'll have your interior framing, right so now that everything is dried in that we don't have to risk it raining and things getting wet on the inside, we can begin some of the work on the inside of the house. Right so first and foremost will be interior framing, you have a couple options here as well, as you did on the exterior, you can either do like gauge metal, for your interior non load bearing walls, where you're going to put your drywall up that's separates you know your, your kitchen, from your living room from your bedroom from your bathroom, right all the normal framing that you see in construction sites, or that you can do that out of wood as well. Now that's going to be based on personal preference. A lot of the the kind of the going thought in the in the industry is that if you're using wood for your interior framing, you're going to reduce the sound transfer within the house right? Metal is obviously thinner especially like gauge metal that's use for framing. So you will have a little bit more of an acoustical challenge there that you would have with wood because it's a thicker material, right? And you will avoid some rattling in the event that the structure shakes. Think of like an example is like a if you're in an earthquake prone area, but even like during a heavy thunderstorm right when thunder hits nearby or lightning strikes nearby and you hear the thunder clap and that sometimes can rattle a home depending on how close you are to it. So you may you may actually hear some of the walls rattle Believe it or not, but doesn't always happen obviously depends on the on the quality of the construction for your specific house or building structure. But nonetheless, you have those two options we do also offer at Northstar composite non load bearing framing for the interior which will once again replace the light gauge metal metal studs or wood studs as well. So once you have all basically think if you're looking at overhead at your floorplan once you have your floor plan quote unquote framed out all your rooms that started things are starting to take shape now things are getting exciting, you have the you know a little bit of a better idea of what your sense of space is going to be. So you have the difference between each bedroom each bathroom, each major living area kitchen, a garage, an attic, you know a bonus room a game room, what have you. So now you're kind of starting to see what this floorplan this layout is going to look like.

Now you can move on to step number six, which is going to be your MEPs. So remember earlier when we talked about during the foundation slab process how you had a rough in your pipes for sewage and your pipes for water and some of your underground electrical components. That's where that comes into handy now, because as you'll have access to those rough endpoints, you can begin the rest of your MEP construction from the inside. Normally what we like to do first is work on our HVAC systems or air conditioning. Whether you're doing a traditional one or mini splits, you're still gonna have some duct work that needs to go in between you know the trust cavities needs to go in between the wall cavities if that's applicable for your construction that needs to obviously spider from each room Back to the main, what we call an air handler up north, and they call it a furnace. So once that's installed, and all of these, all the ductwork will vent out of that, or spider out of that into each specific room in which you need airflow, right, and that can be a bathroom, it could be a closet, it can be obviously your main living areas, your kitchen, and any other areas that you have in your home that you require to be under air, right, that's where that term comes from. So once all that duct work is done, and we have some basic venting going on that's attached, either to the floor assembly, some people vent from from the floor, or the roof assembly, some people obviously most people, most construction, especially down here in Florida, is vented from the roof, then you're basically ready, at least from from our perspective and how we like to do our order operations, we move on to our electrical wire, right, so that's going to be all your access points for both your plugs, and also your light switches and all of the electrical currency, that current excuse me, that's carried through those also for your major appliances such as that air handler slash furnace that I was talking about earlier. And then also some of your major kitchen appliances that are going to need power, right. A little bit of a caveat to that is if you're doing if your home is powered by gas or any other alternative energy source. And obviously you would replace or include gas lines, or any other sort of power line that you happen to be using. But the standard and most people use electric, they do use some gas components specifically for cooking, and maybe for heating up a pool, things of that nature or even a fireplace would happen with gas as well. But it can also happen with electrical right, so we have our major mechanical, so MEPs stands for mechanical, electrical plumbing, we've done our mechanical which is our AC, we've done our electrical, which is all the electrical wiring that I just spoke about. And then we move on to plumbing, right, so you have your inbound plumbing and your outbound plumbing and down is the water coming in outbound is obviously other waste going out and they use the water going out. In between that we also have hot and cold water lines, we use a material called Tex, which we found to be the industry leader in in materials for hot and water hot and cold water movements, right. So we'll do all of our all of our plumbing, and all the packs will run through the house as well for all areas, obviously, that require water and drainage. So that can be again, your kitchen, your bathroom, any outdoor kitchen, you may have if you have a pool as well, obviously, that's going to have its own set of mechanical and plumbing and electrical components that are running in and out of it. And that can be a whole different training on different podcasts that will do at a certain time, just specific to pools and other auxilary items that are in your house that are being ran off with their own MEPs. Right. And that is basically step six.

So we have again, all the MEP work that we did all the venting work that we did all the duct work that we did. And now we get to move on to Step seven, which is our exterior and interior trim work. Okay, for a move on, I want to pause there for a sec, because it's important that you know that you'll have a couple of different inspections happening during your construction process, right. And once again, depending on the material that you're using, you may have five inspections you may have 10, it again depends on the material. But some of the the inspections that you'll have, regardless of your building material are going to be your roof and inspection, your framing, inspection and roof inspection, your framing inspection, a structural inspection and obviously a drying inspection as well. Those are always no matter that what you'll have, you will be subject to those inspections. So make sure that you're communicating with your jurisdiction or with your GC with your building authority. Or if you're using a private provider, you're communicating with their inspectors as well to make sure that those inspections are scheduled on a timely matter. And it matches up with when your construction crew is actually finishing their scope of work, whatever it may be on site. Very, very, very important. Okay, without further delay. Moving on to Step seven. We're a little bit more than halfway in the construction building process here at the FOC podcast. Again, I'm your host, Tyler McLaughlin, and we are powering through these different steps. Moving on to exterior and interior trim, you're going to obviously have some of your exterior finishes. Depending on the design intent or the architectural intent, this will vary. Some of the standard finishes are going to be stucco or stucco flex which I mentioned earlier. Break for those of you that are up north or some other areas here that the architectural attempt is more colonial or cottagey. The near Hardy board which is the planking or the siding that you see on some of the more coastal bakes based homes, or just regular stucco and paint on top of that, right it just depends on what you're designing. So it was for the house or for the building that you were building right commercial you'll see you know till wall construction, you'll see metal finishes You'll see all sorts of different things that we're not really going to get into in this specific episode. But be aware that in commercial, you will have some different exterior finishing options as well to be aware of, okay. After that, we have our roof finished as well, right, so we did the dry in earlier in the steps of this episode, we have the membrane underneath. And then if you're going in with, let's just say, shingle, right or tile or a metal roof, that's basically the finished part of your of your roof depending on what your selection was there. I'm a big fan of flat slate tile. From a design look and feel. I like the look of that I also really, really like standing seam metal roofs, standing seam are the ones that basically they're your traditional Florida style metal roofs in which you can't see any of the seams of the bolts, which is why they call a standing seam. And then if you prefer to just have regular asphalt or composite shingles, obviously that's an option as well.

Okay, now, moving into the interior, you've done all your exterior work your house, this is really coming together on the interior. And then keep in mind, some of these things will happen in different orders depending on your builder depending on your location, depending on your architectural style, some of these things are happening not in the same order after you know as we moved on to Step Seven and beyond, okay, on the inside, pretty, pretty obvious right? What happens on the inside we have our sheet rock that we that needs to be hung, aka drywall. Right, so that is hung, then it's taped, then it's mudded. And then obviously you've sanded or textured depending on the design intent that you're going for the interior almost forgot before you hang your drywall, you are going to need your installation, right you got a couple different options there to to insulate your house does two things, it helps with your energy efficiency, first and foremost, it also uncertain, and depending on the material you're using for your installation can be a fire suppressant, right or, or any sort of fire rating will be associated with that which is always helpful. And then you have your option to either do blowing insulation, which is usually the fiberglass that's getting blown into your roof or your attic cavity. You obviously have banded insulation, so like a mineral wool, we use Owens Corning, thermo fiber, we their performance is, is incredible. And we use that in most of our homes, unless you're doing something like a spray on Icynene, which is going to be your most expensive option. Normally, that's only done in between Florida floor assemblies, or also in the roof as well as we mentioned earlier, but I've seen people also doing the walls if that's what they want. If they want a very energy efficient home, they can do that as well. Right. So we have the installation Once the installation is all packed in or blown in or sprayed in, then we can hang our drywall, right and then go back to the process I was talking about earlier, which is tape, I'm sorry, mudding and taping and sanding and finishing that texture. Okay. Now the house is really coming together now that you can see in between the studs anymore. Now you get a really, really good sense of dimension, you get a good sense of space, you get a good sense of like how much furniture you can bring in or how big it can be. So this is really where your house is starting to come to light, right. And now we move to step number eight, which is your finishes. And we're almost done here.

We're on the on the homestretch of your of your home or your commercial structure or what have you been built right. So on your finishes, obviously, you're going to have your floor. And of course there's endless amount of options there. popular ones are tile, wood, carpet LVT can't go wrong. I'm a big fan of tile that especially the tile that looks like wood, it may come in those big planks. I think those are super cool. Obviously once your floor is in then you can you have some of your cabinets that are already either being hung for your uppers or being installed on the floor for your lowers. On top of the counter, I'm sorry, on top of the cabinets will go your countertops, if you're creating a vanity in your bathroom, whether it's custom made or you bought one from Home Depot or your builders provider, one those those vanities are being installed. You're having your light fixtures installed as well for you know, either recessed lighting, canned lighting, or any light fixtures that are going in your bathroom or your kitchen or any other areas that need to be lit, right. And then your plumbing fixtures as well or all of your running water in your sinks, or in any of your outdoor kitchens or anything like that. Right. So at this point, the house is pretty much done. You got your paint that you're doing, hopefully before some of those steps that I just mentioned, right? Usually, you'll do upfront ACOTA prime, you'll hang your your cabinets and then you'll finish painting off the rest of the house to avoid getting things dirty. You'll see you know you're good builders will lay down some sort of floor protection or or paper or visqueen or something to avoid dust or paint getting on to cabinetry or even countertops for that matter. Right. So again, recap you guys Get your cabinets to get your flooring, you get your countertops, you got your paint, you have your lighting fixtures and your plumbing fixtures. And at this point, guys, the house is pretty much moving ready, right, we've still got a couple more steps before we can turn that key. But we are almost there. Moving on to step number nine. And again, the order doesn't have to be specifically this one. But this is normally how we do. We have our driveway, we have our pavers, we have our sidewalks that are being installed. If you're doing a poor driveway poured concrete, obviously that's a different installation than pavers, different costs, different options. But that's happening nonetheless.

Then you're having your landscaping come in your side, your mulch, your shrubbery, depending on what your selections were, everything's really coming together your backyard, if you installed the pool, you're doing the pool decking, you're doing that you know whether it's poured or pavers as well. And then any landscaping in the rear of the house, the backyard as well. That's your driveway and landscaping step. And then as we move on here to The Final Countdown, we have step number 10, which is your certificate of occupancy and your final inspection. Right. So we are done for the most part, right, we just are pending the last final inspection by your building authority, your private provider that can say okay, you're good to go. Here is your certificate of occupancy, quote unquote, your SEO and you're good to move into your home. Right? There is a final inspection associated with that there might be some punch list items that the inspector requires you to complete before issuing you that CEO. But at this point, you're done. Right. And that was basically the entire construction process in about 30 minutes. fit of a lot of information. You know, obviously I don't expect you to remember a lot of that. So what we will do is we will provide a handy dandy downloadable spreadsheet and downloadable PDF that you will have access to whether you're watching this on YouTube, or you're listening to this on our podcast channels, you will have access to download that as a link. So you can see the process step by step. And I'll include much more detail than I have time to talk about during this episode. And as always, our lines are open, our emails are open if you want to visit our website, North Star tgi.com or North Star homes.us. You can fill out a contact us form and ask us a question guys, we we love what we do. We love construction. We love talking about it. We love educating the general public, which I think is something that's severely lacking in the industry. It has come a long way now that through the use of technologies channels such as this one and YouTube and podcast, which we can provide some education, but nothing is better than just calling somebody up or emailing them and getting some direct answers to some very specific questions.

As I mentioned, the beginning of the episode, every construction type method building is completely unique and different. Even if you're creating the floor plan over and over and over and over again as the same one, it doesn't matter. Because each lot is very unique and it's all going to come with its own set of things that you need to do in order to build on top of it or challenges or things that you need to be aware of. So please don't be shy. Don't hesitate to reach out to us directly. Some of those contact methods that I provided earlier to make sure that you are very, very educated on the construction process, right? So again, now that you have your CO, you think you're done. You think you're ready to move in, but honestly, there is one more step and one more step that I really, really want to go over with you guys, which will be the next episode of our FOC podcast series for the whole construction step one to final step. We talked about pre-construction today. We talked about the actual construction process, pre-construction was a previous episode.

If you want to go back and see the previous episode, we talk all about design, architecture, engineering. In this episode, we talked about construction. The next episode, we'll talk about some of these checklist items for punch out before you fully have the house turned over to you from your builder. There are some checklist items that I think you'll find a great, great value, which we'll be providing for free. Basically some what to know is before the turnover process and you take full possession, full legal possession of your property. So I look forward to seeing you on that episode. Again, this is Kyle McLaughlin. This is the FOC podcast and we are transforming the future of construction. Thank you guys.