Rich Text

Before you begin building a structure, you have to obtain permits and approvals from various civic bodies. This involves showing your plans to everyone from the building inspector to the fire captain to the health agent. In the best case, permitting is a Byzantine process requiring much patience and decent penmanship. (I begin to wonder how much more paperwork would be needed to nominate our house for sainthood.)

After several days of shuffling, stamping, stapling, and collating, we could see the light at the end of the tunnel. On a cool, early-Spring day, I dropped our kit off on the last stop of its red-taped odyssey: the Norwell Conservation Commission.

The Big Snag

A few days later, the Norwell Conservation Agent came by to look at our site. She looked about, took notes, and gave us some bad, bad news. Much of our lot fit the technical definition of a wetland, and consequently our project would be forced to operate under some rather onerous restrictions.

Before describing them, however, the term wetland requires a bit of explanation. The very word conjures images of a swamp, bayou, or tidal estuary, rife with manatees, mosquitoes, and malaria. It evokes liquid water, and this is somewhat misleading. According to the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, a wetland may or may not actually be saturated with surface or groundwater water at a given time, although it doesn’t necessarily require the constant presence of liquid water to be considered a wetland. The defining characteristics of a wetland are botanical. In other words, the presence of certain kinds of ferns, trees, or undergrowth determine whether or not a piece of land is considered a wetland, legally speaking. This is because the soil in a wetlands area is composed in such a way that only certain species are adapted to survive in them. (Believe it or not, Red Maple is wetland species.)

Much to our dismay, certain parts of our lot ran amok with a wide variety of wetland species. The Conservation Agent issued us a set of terms that had to be satisfied before we could proceed with construction. To wit, we were obligated to hire an environmental consultant to prepare an ecological impact statement. We also had to have a surveyor prepare detailed drawings of our lot, with elevations and markings denoting the flagged wetlands areas. Additionally, we had to design and install an erosion-control system, consisting of straw bales and plastic netting, which lined the perimeter of the wetlands areas.

There were other restrictions; namely, we couldn’t place a dumpster on site with several hundred feet of the flagged wetlands areas. Since our one-acre lot was barely 140 feet wide, this was a de facto ban on on-site waste disposal. Altogether, these conditions put us about six weeks behind schedule, and added tens of thousands of dollars of unexpected expenses to a project that hinged on thrift.

Steve Ivas: Environmental Consultant

Our first call after receiving the order of conditions from the Conservation Agent was Steve Ivas, an environmental consultant based in Norwell. I would highly recommend Steve to anyone contemplating land development in the South Shore of Massachusetts, and I will happily provide his contact information to anyone interested in retaining his services. Steve kept a bad situation from mushrooming out of control. He assisted us in preparing an impact statement, implementing erosion control measures, and surveying the affected areas. He also helped us understand the nature of the wetlands issues itself. He was featured prominently in a segment on the Bob Vila program.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Last time, I wrote about why we needed to build an addition onto my parent’s home in the suburbs of Boston, and how we came to do it on the Bob Vila television program. Today, we’ll get into everything that had to happen before we could break ground. Before beginning any project, you need to do your homework. For us, this meant designing the building, obtaining permits, and planning the work.

We began with the design. Dad had been playing around with ideas for the addition since 2002, but his drawings didn’t have the necessary polish or precision. We would require professional CAD drawings if we were to find other project participants and subcontractors.

I contacted Henry Weinberg, a friend and architect at Payette. I’ve known Henry for years, and have found him to be skilled, diligent and talented. Over the course of several weeks, Henry helped Dad turn his drawings and ideas into a set of plans that were structurally sound, and incorporated green design features.

Green/Sustainable Design

In recent years, there has been much talk about green design and construction. Green construction (also known as sustainability) originated as an outgrowth of the environmental movements of the 1970s, and also as a reaction against the energy crisis of the same period (some have suggested that the concept of “green construction” was first codified in E. F. Schumacher’s 1973 book Small is Beautiful). More specifically, green refers to non-toxic, sustainably-produced materials, energy efficiency, quality and durability, and reuse/recycling. Design features such as solar hot water, energy-efficient windows, and bamboo flooring are often considered to be “green”.

We knew what green design was, and we had a sense for how we wanted to incorporate them into our project. What we didn’t know was how to find manufacturers that would be interested in showcasing their products on our show. At Henry’s suggestion, I attended the Boston Society of Architects’ 2005 Build Boston convention. If you work in the construction industry and live in eastern New England, I highly recommend it. After walking the floor for a few hours, I had found what I needed: several prospects whose products and services were a perfect match for our addition. It was there that I met Tim Cutler of T.J.’s Plumbing & Heating, who would arrange for the donation of Viega PEX radiant tubing, and a Viessmann boiler and solar hot water array. Build Boston also yielded National Fiber, a manufacturer or recycled cellulose insulation, and GroSolar from Vermont, who donated a complete photovoltaic solar system.

Dad did his own research and found Reddi-Form, a New Jersey-based company manufacturing Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs). They were also motivated participate, and agreed to supply materials for all of the exterior and basement walls. This part of the process is really fascinating, and I’ll get into it in great detail later.

With our design in hand, we set out for town hall to get ourselves permitted and approved. I anticipated needing two weeks to get everything squared away, assuming that everything would go smoothly. In my next post, we’ll discuss the danger inherent in making assumptions.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!