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We talk to general contractors McMaster + Hill about how to start the building process of your new house by hiring your general contractor, choosing an architect, and other general takeaways.
McMaster + Hill Construction started as a water & fire restoration contractor in 2017. Don McMaster & Jonathan Hill have now grown McMaster + Hill Construction into a full fledged company specializing in high end remodels, home additions, kitchen & bath remodels and complete fire rebuilds. With over 40 years of combined experience, Don and Jon have the skill set to fit any client’s needs. You can see their work at www.mcmasterhill.com.
Transcript
Jana:
Welcome, home builders and renovators. My goal for Dream It, Design It, Build It is to be an interior design podcast featuring the client experience of building a new home from the ground up, renovating an older home, and rebuilding after disaster. My guests today are Don McMaster and Jon Hill of McMaster & Hill Construction.
In 2017, McMaster & Hill Construction started as a water and fire restoration contractor. Over the past two years, Don McMaster and Jonathan Hill have grown McMaster & Hill Construction into a full service contracting company.
Both have spent their entire lives growing up in the Conejo Valley, which is just north of Los Angeles, and are passionate about making MHC a leading remodeling and design firm.
McMaster & Hill Construction now specializes in high-end remodels, home additions, kitchen and bath remodels, and complete fire rebuilds. With over 40 years of combined experience, Don and Jon have the skillset to fit any client’s needs. And I am the lucky interior designer that just got to work with them recently on two homes!
Before we get started, just give me a little bit of an idea of how you guys met and became a partnership.
Don McMaster: Well, I’ll handle that at the beginning. This is Don. I’ve been doing construction for 45 years, and I had another company where I was working at and I met Jon as a younger guy. He’s considerably younger than I am.
When he first came to work for us, we were trying to figure out what his skillsets were, and one of the things he is especially good at is the computer. And one of the things that is the hardest thing for contractors to do is to do paperwork. I’m good at doing buildings and putting them together, not so good at maybe the paperwork and stuff like that.
When John first came to our company, the other company that I worked at, I had him doing estimates and we are doing insurance jobs. One of the things that we had him do was go out and learn how to do the estimating, how to put that together for the insurance companies, which most contractors do not know how to do. They can do standard estimating, but contracting with the insurance companies is a real specialty.
Jon Hill: Basically we worked together for probably, I don’t know, 12, 13 years. 14 years. And then, we decided to start our own thing together. So we’ve been doing that… now it’s 2021, it’s two and a half, three years already.
Jana: That’s awesome. And it’s amazing how far you’ve come as a partnership.
So when the idea of doing a podcast was brought to me, it was framed as a 12-month commitment, and I immediately thought about the 12-month timeline that I’ve used to build more than 15 new homes from the ground up with my clients over the past 10 years.
I use this outline to make sure that I have what builders like yourselves need as soon as they need it. And I’ve been working with you guys for the last 12 months on two homes that were devastated from the Woolsey fires in Southern California.
And I came aboard after the architect was done with his plans and one home was in framing and the other house you hadn’t even quite done pouring the foundation. And so I missed a certain amount of that early process, and that’s what I’m hoping that we can talk about today.
I want to talk about just precisely how the process begins. Let’s call the first one we completed the modern house, and the other one, the craftsman house. I think that will be easy for us to remember. So the first question is, how soon after a fire do potential clients begin to call?
Jon Hill: I would say a campaign fire such as the Woolsey, which is affecting hundreds of homes, it could take several months for the customer to call the contractor. Usually, the first few weeks and months is working with the insurance company to file the claim, get a claim adjuster out to the property, have it written up, and by that time the client’s starting to review contractors. If it’s a normal house fire, just in the area, usually within a few days to a week.
Jana: If it’s not a total loss, then it doesn’t take as long to be able to start to talk to you guys.
Jon Hill: Correct. Exactly.
Jana: And so how did both of the Oak Park projects find you?
Don McMaster: I’ll take that one. So a friend of mine happened to know one of the owners up there, and he was also a general contractor. But like I had said earlier, he did not have the expertise in the insurance stuff. So one of the first things when the insurance company starts talking, he was like, “They’re not talking my language. I’m not sure what they’re asking me.”
So he came to me and said, “Look, can you handle this job, and maybe you can work with these people, but this isn’t something I really specialize in.” And he goes, “And I know you do, so maybe you could handle that.”
So he introduced me to the owner. And we all sat down, and we explained to him how the insurance companies work, what to expect over the next 12 months, what they were going to ask him. And so just interfaced between him and the insurance company.
Jana: So you were talking to them before they had gotten that far into the insurance process.
Don McMaster: First thing, especially with the fire this big, when you have this big fire come through the area, there are not very many adjusters, so it takes them time to get to it. As opposed to, let’s say, you catch your house on fire, because your stove went up and smoke, that you can do pretty quick.
But because of the scale of what had happened and the insurance companies, there’s so many homes that are devastated, and people are actually not worried about that right now. They’re trying to find a place to live, and then everybody’s trying to move in. And they’re competing against people for rentals. So that’s their first thought, and then they think, “Okay, I’ll do something about my house.”
Jana: Okay, that makes sense.
Don McMaster: We started to explain to them what the insurance companies would be looking for when they did talk to them, and that we would help them through that process.
Jana: Well, I know from experience that you always need that help. It’s a very challenging process. So this is a bit of a chicken and egg question. Who comes first, the architect or the builders?
Was there already an architect when you started to talk to them? Or would you guys introduced them to the architect? How did that process go with these two houses?
Jon Hill: Well, in this case, on both of these homes, we had met the owners through a mutual friend, as we said. And so we recommended the architect. They didn’t know where to turn, which architects to hire, et cetera. So in this case, we recommended an architect we work close with. And so they had hired him to start the architectural and engineering process.
Jana: Did they entertain other architects at that time? Did they talk to a few people? Or how did they settle?
Jon Hill: At that time, both customers, I believe had met with several to get initial pricing from. Because as you know, that’s kind of the first step for a contractor to be able to provide a detailed budget or estimate for a rebuild is to have a working set of plans.
So that’s what we highly recommended with both homeowners is to get the process started with a licensed architect and engineer.
Jana: So at the very beginning, when people start to be able to look for their builders and contractors, is there a lot of competition at that stage? Do you feel like the same six guys are looking at every project? Or how does that work for you?
Don McMaster: Well, I don’t know who the competition is on each one, but it may have been the same six guys. I don’t know.
The homeowners in this instance did talk to different people, and they were talking to us at the same time. And most of the time, let’s say, contractor A, B, and C would each have their own architect that they’re used to working with. And so they would be talking to those people too. So there is some competition going on.
Who does the owner feel comfortable with? Who knows how to do this kind of stuff? So that’s kind of how it goes.
Jana: Well, Jon, didn’t you end up playing cards with these guys once a week? You hit it off pretty well!
Jon Hill: I did. It’s more than just a general contractor, homeowner. I consider all of our clients good friends and good people, and that’s what makes it fun. Building something that was such a disaster into a beautiful home. It’s really rewarding.
Jana: I know how you feel. So, then, how are you actually hired? You’re getting to know them, you’re talking them through the process. At what point do you stop needing to give them information that you’re not paid for and get into a situation where there’s a contract? Can you do that before there’s a plan, or not till there’s a plan, so you can make a budget? How does that actually work?
Don McMaster: Well, I would say in this one we have a ballpark idea of what the house would cost to rebuild it. And so, let’s make it real simple, you could tell somebody, “I’m doing a bath remodel, it’s not $70,000, but it’s not $10,000, it’s something in the middle.”
So on these two particular houses, they know what their insurance companies were able to give them. They were insured for X amount of dollars. And they could also at that time say, “Hey, I’m willing to put in $100,000 more.” They know what their budget is.
We talked about what their idea was, how many square feet, how many rooms, what they were looking for, and is that going to meet the budget that I have, the money that I’m getting from my insurance company? So they have that amount of money, and then they have what they might want to put into it.
So as long as we knew that we were in the same ballpark, we continued to talk. And then we said, “Once they met with the architect,” they hired the architect separately, he drew the plan, I said, “then we can give you a final number.” But we already pretty much knew we were close to what that number would be. So then we didn’t sign a contract with them until after we had that budget and everything was approved.
Jana: So is that a per square foot budget? Or is that too random?
Don McMaster: Not really. I mean the per square foot thing is a general deal, so we can look at it, but it depends. You could have a 3000 square foot house with all gold faucets and gold floors, and the other guy’s got a 3000 square foot house with the drywall.
And so it’s a ballpark thing with square footage, but once you start detailing it, then it becomes a different deal.
Jana: Okay. So let me see if I have that chicken and egg right. You have the insurance company, you know what the house is insured for, so they know how much coverage they have. So based on that, it makes it so that they can have conversations with you guys.
And then they start the design process, and then you go back and that’s when you do the more complete budget, after the house is drafted where you really start to go through it.
And we’ll probably do another whole show on the budgeting process, but I just want to get that initial idea of the order. Is that about right?
Jon Hill: That’s exactly right. We start with a ballpark budget and once we get a set of working plans, we fine tune it into a detailed exact budget.
Jana: And that’s when you guys enter contract?
Jon Hill: Correct. We enter contract with a final number based on the working drawings from the architect and engineer.
Jana: So you have to have a little bit of faith…
Jon Hill: Yeah, we definitely do, because it takes weeks, hours and hours to give a detailed budget. But we have faith that we’re in the ballpark with the customer, and we’re going to fine tune it and give them an exact dollar figure on the house that has been drawn up by the architect and engineer.
Jana: It’s amazing to me, in this day and age or even any age, that really you’re required to make a certain amount of investment of your time and attention in this relationship before it’s a relationship you know is going to be profitable. And I don’t think people give you guys enough credit for that.
I think it’s an amazing gift to be teaching them and leading them through the process before you even have a commitment. So that’s pretty awesome.
Don McMaster: You’re absolutely right, so we do put in a lot of time, we just signed a contract in the last couple days with somebody else whose house had burned in the fire two years ago. And we’ve spent, I’m going to say, a year with this person already.
One thing, it does help you start to understand that person, and you could also say… “You know what? Maybe this isn’t the person for me?” I really can’t work with this person. They’re going to have to find someone else and someone else might be better suited for them.”
Jana: It is a pretty intimate relationship. I mean, certainly on the interior designer’s end also, but you guys have a lot more responsibility than I do. I mean, I’m just there to make it pretty, and hopefully, not piss you guys off. But essentially, really, it’s about that client relationship on your end. And in that regard, what are the specific things the client should be looking for in the contractor?
Jon Hill: I would say reputation would be a huge part of that. A contractor that’s honest, straightforward, willing to give them the good with the bad.
And also people they know or people in the community have worked with them, and they’ve started a project, finished it on time, on budget. They said what they were going to do.
I think that’s probably the biggest thing as a homeowner is just to find out about the experiences that customers had with the contractor, good, bad, ugly.
I think that’s the number one thing is to actually vet them and find out how the experience was. Because I think communication’s one of the biggest things in a relationship with a contractor and client. And if you get along with them, it makes it fun and a lot easier for everybody.
Don McMaster: I just wanted to add one more thing to that, the state of California has a website where you can go to and you can vet your contractor to find out that he hasn’t broken any laws or had his contractor’s license suspended.
And we do go out to a lot of jobs where the people said, “Hey, the guy left and he didn’t finish the job and we want you to come finish this job.”
Jana: Yeah, that’s heartbreaking.
Don McMaster: And then we say, “So how did you vet the person?” And they said, well, they really didn’t. And you go, “You just go on the website and find out that he has six violations for…”
And I’m not saying that that doesn’t happen once in a while to somebody, two personalities, they don’t see things the same. But if you see a pattern, you see a bunch of things on the contractor website with the state of California, you probably go, “You know what? Maybe that’s not a good guy for me.”
Jana: I’m sure that all states have a vetting process. I think one of the reasons I want to do the show is that people need to know that they should look. And that it’s just like when you’re buying an expensive appliance, you look it up in Consumer Reports.
There are ways to get information on people and businesses, for sure, and learn their histories. And in that regard, what do you feel makes you guys different from your competition, besides that your really nice guys?
Don McMaster: Well… Well, that’s obvious.
Jana: Clearly… you’re here!
Jon Hill: I think what makes McMaster & Hill Construction different from other contractors is just how honest and straightforward we are with the customer, and the communication skills that we use, whether it’s phone calls, text message, email. We’re always available, whether it’s 7:00 in the morning, six o’clock at night, we’re always there to listen, answer questions.
A lot of families work separate jobs, so when they get home at 6:00, they finally have a chance to sit down and talk about their house or their remodel or the decisions or the finishes that they’re going to make. It’s after hours, but just being available to answer questions I think is something that kind of separates us. And the quality of workmanship, obviously, has to be up there.
Jana: Well, I can vouch for the quality of workmanship. I mean, as an interior designer, I never really know what I’m getting into with a contractor. So communication wise, also, you guys are great, always very straightforward. No one was trying to play games with each other or trip anyone up.
And even if we’ve had different experiences that led us toward different solutions, it was great to be able to talk about them. It’s just a really interesting process.
Don McMaster: Let me just interject one other thing, and I’m talking about what separates us from others. Me and Jon own the company, we have supervisors and stuff like that, but you see a lot of us on-site. With some companies you never meet the owner, or, you might meet the owner one time and then it’s the supervisor.
So I’m out there looking at the jobs constantly, and Jon’s doing the same thing. And that helps, because we’re the decision makers. We’re the people that go, “Hey, this is going to go or it’s not going to go,” or, “We need to fix this and let’s get on it right now.”
There’s no, “Hey, we got to go talk to our boss and see what they might think,” or whatever. So with us out there going, “Hey, this is our money on the line, not only the homeowner, but it’s our profit, we don’t want to lose that money. We want to make sure everything’s done right the first time.”
It helps to have us involved in the daily activities of building something.
Jana: Absolutely. I know that I love the home-building process. I love to watch a plot of earth get planted with a foundation, and I like to watch it grow through the framing, and each phase has some other additional sort of thrilling aspect to me.
Can you tell me what are your favorite parts of the process? What do you love about what you do?
Jon Hill: Well, we love it all. I mean, like you said, every step is completely different, whether it’s pouring the foundation, framing it, putting it on the roof, putting light fixtures, or drywall. Every month, every week, everything’s changing. But I think overall it’s just helping people and families, and seeing something on paper come to life. It’s really rewarding.
Obviously, the construction part for the first six months you don’t see a lot of the finishes, but then you bring someone like Jana in to help design, and you see the pendant lights and the ceiling fans and the wallpaper and the paint colors and the countertops and it just completely comes to life. And it’s very rewarding, very exciting to see that.
In 12 months, a whole house can be built and beautiful, and someone gets to enjoy it.
Don McMaster: I would say for myself, the same thing. There’s a lot of jobs where you can’t always tell later on what you did or how you did it. One thing about building something is you can go back and look at it.
A couple months ago I was in Palm Springs, so, boy, I’m going to say 35 years ago I was building houses in Palm Springs. I bought the lot and I built the houses. My wife and I, we just went driving back to “the old neighborhood” to see some of the houses that we had built, to see what the people were doing with them. too take a look at them and just say, “Oh wow, look at that, they’ve taken good care of our house. It’s been their house for 30 years. It still looks pretty good, we did alright!” So, that’s a good thing!
Jana: I have, of course, a similar experience. I have some clients with whom I know I’m not going to go back a lot after I finish a house, because it may never look the same.
But I have a lot of clients who I go back to and it looks like I just left. And it is so rewarding for me. I mean, they’re living in the house, but they respect the process and what we created and are enjoying it so much that it just only gets more lived in. But we can still see all of our input is still a big part of it.
And that’s another reason to vet the people that you start working with. Because if you don’t like them in the end, it’s very unrewarding. It’s hard to not be able to experience the end product with joy.
Jon Hill: Very true.
Jana: So then specifically with the Oak Park projects, what I loved from the beginning, I couldn’t believe it, was that I’ve got to simultaneously do this house that I’m going to call modern, it’s really transitional. They’ve got a lot of traditional aspects as well as contemporary aspects.
And then there’s the craftsman house, which is craftsman on the outside. We did employ some concepts of craftsman on the inside, but inside it’s also a little more contemporary. And so, for me, it’s just the thrill of that dichotomy that has been an awesome year of work.
What about these two projects for you, what have you enjoyed most about these two?
Jon Hill: Well, I’d say the same thing. I’d say, number one, the designer that we’re working with, and both the clients. I mean both of the clients I love dearly, both great families, great people, easy to communicate with. And that always makes a job as a contractor easier.
There’s a lot that goes into it, a lot of blood, sweat, tears, sleepless nights, and just knowing that you’re doing something amazing for one of your clients and that they’re going to appreciate it is very helpful.
And the two contrasting styles of the houses has been so fun to do, because as you know, we like to mix things up a little, right? You do a modern and then you switch it up with a craftsman and it kind of really tests your skills, your knowledge, makes you think outside the box a lot more. And I always think that’s fun, when you’re being challenged weekly, daily, monthly, on building two homes that are completely different.
Don McMaster: I would say just the satisfaction of doing a good job, and at the end that the homeowner’s pleased with what he selected or she selected, and says, “You know what? I really like my home.”
This is where people have their biggest investment in life, for the most part, is in their house. So the fact that they like it, they like living there, and they tell us that, “:Hey, this really came out maybe better than I thought. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get.”
Because most people, obviously, who had a fire, did not expect to be making these decisions anytime soon. It’s not like they planned to do this for five years, or they’ve been planning on building their own house. This happened to them accidentally and suddenly. And it is a heartache on them. It is hard. This is not what you were expecting to do, especially in the case of one of these fires. So I like at the end, they say, “Hey, we still like you guys.”
Jana: Yeah, exactly.
Don McMaster: And we like what we were able to accomplish, because it is really tough on them. And I don’t think any of us understand what it would be like to lose everything and work through that trauma. Now, we’re going to ask you a ton of questions, and they weren’t ready for these questions.
Jana: Exactly. I am always reminded of the fact that the people who are rebuilding after a disaster were maybe not the kind of people that had ever thought in their million years that they would build a house from the ground up.
There are people with whom that’s always been a dream. And then there are these people who are put in a position where all of a sudden they’re building a house, and who knew? And they have to make decisions, really fast, they don’t know how to make.
What’s the difference in the process for you with someone who comes to you who’s been thinking about this for 10 years and now it’s their time to do it?
Jon Hill: Well, I’d say, they’re ready to answer the questions we have to ask. If you’ve never built a house or never thought of it, the first questions are challenging.
That’s why we always recommend working with a designer like yourself. It just really makes the process so much easier between the client and the contractor. It’s kind of a go between. The designer sits down and goes over all the details, kind of breaks it out into terms the homeowner can understand, and provides samples, selections, choices. I think that’s a huge part of it.
But I think for anyone, even if they were planning on building a new house, involving a designer is always the way to go.
Jana: It is still a challenging process, even if you always wanted to do it.
Jon Hill: Absolutely.
Jana: So speaking of challenges, were there any specific challenges because of the circumstances of the Woolsey fire or of these two lots or anything else about the time that made these any more difficult than usual?
Don McMaster: I would say right off the top, just the process of building a house. We did give them a schedule. We said, “Here’s what we’re going to be doing.”
And so to stay on that schedule, is the hardest part I would say. Especially this year, and more so than any other, as two things happened. One, workers could get sick and get COVID. We were allowed to keep working, where other people weren’t, so that was good, framers, drywall guys, roofers.
But we would lose people once in a while and say, “Hey, you know what? We’ve lost two members of our crew and they have to quarantine for two weeks.” And then the other thing that would happen was some of the factories, let’s say window factories, door factories, roofing factories have the same quarantines slowing them down.
Jon Hill: And, appliances
Don McMaster:
Yeah, appliances, they also lost workers. So we used to schedule this out so that we could get in two weeks, three weeks max, turned into, you can get this stuff in two months or three months, we hope. But, obviously, this year, that was the biggest hurdle for us, really working through that.
Jana: It’s amazing really that the supply line issues didn’t push it out any further. Because you still made miraculous time on the modern house, and the craftsman house is coming along. It got a little bit of a later start. Was that because they started later?
Jon Hill: The craftsman house got to later start just due to weather.
Jana Rosenblatt: Oh, right.
Jon Hill: Last year, we got a lot of rain. And so every time we would dig footings and put rebar, they’d fill up with three feet of water. So we spun our wheels there for a couple months, until we were able to get the foundation poured, and then we were off and running. But, yeah, we’re at the mercy of Mother Nature.
Jana: Yeah, I remember that now. And you know what I didn’t mention that the audience might find interesting is that these houses were one block apart, still are. And so it was really amazing to be running back and forth between the two locations, so close.
So before we go today, I wondered if you have any one specific tip, what is literally the first step if you find that all of a sudden, you’re out of your home and you’re going to need to rebuild?
Jon Hill: Well, I’d say the first step was be realistic with your budget and hire an architect, work with an architect, and let him know your budget. Because if you give an architect or an engineer free rein, they might design a 3000 square foot house that’s going to cost $4 million when you only have 1.5.
If they know what your realistic budget is, they can tame the expectations of the house and be real with you up front, before you spend all this money on something that can’t be built.
And then the second thing would be to hire a designer, and work with a team, including an architect, designer, and a contractor, who understands your budget, and you like their personalities. Because it’s a long process, it’s 12 to 15 months where you’re dealing weekly, monthly with everybody. And it should be enjoyable.
You shouldn’t have to stress about calling the designer or the architect or the contractor about a question or something that they’re concerned about. It should be fun and it should be something that everybody’s on the same page with and comfortable with. Because it is, it’s a relationship for quite a bit of time.
So I’d say take your time and pick the personality that fits best with you.
Don McMaster: My first thing would probably be to make sure you have good communications with your insurance company, if you have an insurance company. We do have some that didn’t have insurance.
Jana: Oh, my goodness.
Don McMaster: Especially in the Malibu area, there were a lot of people that were underinsured, or actually no insurance whatsoever.
But if you have insurance, make sure you understand the policy. One of the things that did happen and has happened, oh, I’ve had a lot of insurance brokers calling me and asking me, “Hey, here’s what I have these houses insured for, are they going to be actually able to rebuild their house with this insurance?”
And so I would probably stress to everybody at this point that they check their insurance policy and understand exactly what it says. And then find out either from their agent or a contractor, “Hey, if something were really to happen to me, am I insured properly, and not underinsured?”
Because just the amount of people that were underinsured when this fire came through here a couple years ago was phenomenal.
Jana: Those are both brilliant things for people to realize they have to consider. And I know we’ll talk in future weeks together, and I’ll tell you more about my disaster story because we were out of our house for 14 months. But I knew I was insured from the moment I bought the house, because I knew what could happen.
So over the next year, I’m hoping that we can check in with you guys for additional insights as we lay out for our listeners in real time the process of building a home from the ground up.
And Don what you were just talking about with the insurance situation is a great segue into our next show. Next week we can start to talk about what the nuts and bolts of that process are. Is there anything else before we sign off for this episode?
Jon Hill: Thank you for your time. Enjoyed talking with you.
Jana: Thank you so much. Wwe will talk to you again very soon.
Don McMaster: Thank you.
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