Plan check fee estimate

The Seattle Dept. of Planning and Development (Seattle DPD) has a spreadsheet available for download that calculates permit costs.

For a project valuation of $72,895, they charge $991.50 for plan review, and the same for permit fee. Total is $1,987.50, with $1,487.25 up front and $500.25 when the permit is issued.

They based the valuation on what I tell them it will cost to renovate existing areas, such as the bathroom, and $121.39/SF for additions ($46.77/SF for the garage). The additions guestimated at 250 SF = $30,647.50 plus the garage: 140 SF = $6,547.80.

I could tell them it was 0 SF addition, but $100,000 additional, and they would charge $2,529.50, so we can use 2.5% as a rough permit fee estimate based on our cost estimate. If it was $10,000, the fee would be $529.50 or 5.25%, so it goes up. $200,000 would be $3,479.50 or 1.75%.

The permit fee is around 2.5% of total valuation:

$10,000 5.25%
$100,000 2.5%
$200,000 1.75%

I don't know what other permits are necessary (plumbing, electrical, perhaps heating?)

The list of remodelers

Coming back from the holidays, I started a list of local remodeling contractors.

At the top of the list is U Build It of Greenlake. They are a franchise that aggregates sub-contractors and helps homeowners be their own general. It's a little off-putting that the Greenlake location bills itself as Bellevue.

A number of contractors on the list of about 40, drawn from Google, Yelp, and Houzz, seem ready to re-do a kitchen or a bathroom, but don't have any more extensive remodels in their portfolios.

Hammer & Hand seems to be able to handle real architecture.

Hammer & Hand, of Portland and Seattle, have an architectural home on their web site.

Sam Alhadeff lives a few blocks north of Trees House. His Alhadeff Group has an interior designer on staff.

I like the look of Dyna Contracting of Ballard. They have a custom fab shop called Dyna Metal for things like steel and cable railings.

Comparable, with accent on the first syllable

Here's a new house, offered at $829,000, in Broadview, that might be useful as a guide. It is 2419 SF, 3 bedrooms, 13/4 baths upstairs and a 1/2 bath downstairs (they say 2.25 bath). Two-car garage has translucent glass door. The lot is 8,235 SF (0.189ac). 214 NW 140th Street.

The main floor has nearly 10' ceilings. The doorway from kitchen to living room is 8'. Upstairs is more ordinary, but the master has a vaulted ceiling. There's a linear fireplace in the living room and directly above it in the master bedroom.

It's a corner lot with no rear yard. The lawns shown here are two big side yards.

The rooms are heated with individual electric heaters (the house has gas, too), as well as Hydronic Heating, which they had a brochure about. It involves a closed-loop water line that moves heat from source to destination. The water heater is tankless (on the wall in the garage). There is a mud room between the garage and the dining room that seems very practical and also has a door to the rear.

Kitchen is nice enough. Note the asymmetric sink window. A cabinet stack is out of frame on the left.

Lackluster stairs off the entry, hall to dining. Fireplace enclosure is ceramic tile that looks like rusted tin.

Extra-high bathroom counter. Shower has heads on opposite walls, drain in the center. Master and the other upstairs bath both have two sinks.

Oil furnace tune up

I have an annual maintenance contract with Sound Oil, so they sent Ron out for a once-a-year tune-up. He taught me all about the system. It's a modern Armstrong furnace and it seems to be in good shape.

Ron replaced the nozzle, the part that meters the spray of oil into the burner. There was an old electronic filter that pre-dated the furnace. Now it's just a box with a paper filter in it--Ron replaced the 20x25x1 filter, and we found the "guts" of the electronic filter device behind the furnace box.

He replaced the oil filter (it's the lower cylinder in the photo). The glass cylinder is a "tiger loop" that eliminates the need for an oil line back to the top of the tank. An abandoned line is in the floor. The remaining oil line comes from the bottom of the tank.

He tested the efficiency with an electronic meter. The furnace label says 81%, and Ron measured 82%. The meter read absolutely 0 monocarbons in the exhaust and a net stack temperature of 375 (actually the meter said 420 or so, and Ron calculated the adjustment himself). 8.1% of the exhaust was O2.

He saw a little oil in the base of the chassis. He explained that a few drops come out of the nozzle after it's been shut off. They are designed to run into the firebox, but if the furnace isn't installed level, the oil runs the other way. Ron dusted the inside with "Odorgon" powder.

Ron showed me where the reset button is and explained that there's a lock-out mechanism if you press reset 3 times. They want to avoid "flooding" the burner with oil that's not being burned. There's also a safety switch if the blower shuts off and the furnace itself overheats. Ron tested it and it's working.

Ron put new Sound Oil stickers over the old ones--Sound Oil bought the old company. In fact, Ron found his initials on a service call from 1996.

Ron measured the oil in the tank. 18" in a 300-gallon tanks means I have about 140 gallons. I thought they had filled it, so I'm burning it at an incredible rate if so. He smeared a chemical on the dipstick that changes color if it touches water. If there is water in the tank, Ron explained, it sinks to the bottom. The very bottom of the dipstick turned red--a trace of water is not a problem.

Surveyors onsite

Two guys, led by Derek (sp?) from GeoDimensions are assessing the ol' metes and bounds. I expect a site plan from the company this Friday, Dec. 19. We got permission from Kris Swierz, and then his wife, Shelly, to measure the setback of their garage.

Van in the driveway (left), surveyor with theodolite hiding in the vegetation (right).

The crew was here almost 4 hours, but there were no surprises--the property lines are actually where the property lines seem to be. They drove white stakes at all four corners, and found existing monuments at at least 2 of them. The SW corner, slightly down the cliff, was a Parks Dept. monument. The west property line runs right along where the fence is and has been, and bisects two big trees.

Derek walked me around the corners and said that they included the neighboring topology, as required for ECA, and said that they located every tree, not just the big ones. Very professional.

It's beginning to look a lot like....you know

Roof lines

Experimenting with Plan A...moving the wall closer to the street. I want a cascade of roofs and by going high in the entry and low in the bedroom behind, I can open clerestories to a view of the forest.

Imagine forest green sheet metal roof

To the left of the garage is the media room, now on a plane with the garage doors. Further left, the kitchen and entry bump out a bit. Behind the media room, we get clerestories and the higher roof of the trees room. Left of the entry, the triple windows of the living room remain.

We keep the hip roof over the garage and apartment, but we pull the ridge toward the street. That is, we add new hip ridges on the front (because the garage extends toward the street). Also, I'm imagining a lower plate height at the garage door and at the workshop on the west side. So, the hip looks similar, but it's not the same.

Here's what the existing north elevation looks like: