Finding Land
Blu’s goal is to help you find a piece of land that fits your lifestyle needs, minimizes your costs and dramatically reduces environmental disturbance.
Blu Homes Benefits in Finding Land
i) Blu’s unique foundation and building system both makes it possible to build in many sites where conventional builders cannot go, and lowers your foundation costs, in turn allowing you to build more easily on a wide variety of land types.
Standard in our pricing is a pier foundation that works well in most conditions, dramatically reduces land disturbance and can cost effectively work in areas like with ledge, high water zones, etc.
With our standard foundation, Blu guarantees the pricing, so our clients are not subject to unexpected and stressful changes in the costs of foundation and excavation work.
ii) Blu uses pre-visualization tools to take one of our home models, place it on your land, and position it to maximize passive solar benefits and give you tools with which to imagine your seasonal views and natural light exposures.
Here is an example of how Blu uses pre-visualization tools in order to site a potential new home on a salt marsh peninsula in the Northeast, and optimize the home model for views and solar exposure.
With our proprietary visualization and energy modeling technology, Blu helps you start off being as green as possible, by making sure you situate your home to take advantage of the foliage, sun patterns, wind patterns and other environmental characteristics of your piece of land.
Conventional Builders Land Process
i) Conventional builders often use foundations that are expensive and increase the risk of extra costs and delays from unexpected site problems.
For example, when digging a conventional basement, costs can rise when you hit ledge or granite, run into high water tables, discover exposure to radon, or find that the soils are shifting or are otherwise problematic.
In addition, the excavation involved in conventional foundations is disruptive to the land, and can have unpredictable permit or schedule issues due to the issues mentioned above.
ii) Conventional building use only a series of line drawings to show 2-D views of how your home fits on the land. These tools are typically prepared for a permit office and do not help most clients answer questions about the optimal orientation of the home, placement of windows, etc. In fact, many people have difficulty envisioning a 3-D home from only 2-D drawings.
Blu Resources for Finding Land
Blu homes work well on any ‘buildable’ piece of land. To determine buildability, clients needs to consider issues like:
1. Zoning – are there restrictions on the ‘look and feel’ of a house, due to a historical commission's, architectural review board, homeowner’s association or any other local city regulations? In addition, what are the setbacks requirements on the parcel and how much buildable land does that leave?
2. Wetlands, conservation, or coastal area restrictions on where buildings can be placed on the land can be important with some sites.
3. Special building code requirements for parcels that are in earthquake, hurricane, high wind or other extreme zones can be important.
4. Existing infrastructure can be important to fully understand. Are there utilities (gas, electric, water) “stubbed out” to the site, or not? Is your site in an area with public sewer provided, or will you need to build your own septic? Wells, septic systems, long trenches for stubbing out utilities and infrastructure like driveways and sidewalks can add large extra costs to your home and should be considered before planning to build on any piece of land.
Blu will help construct a budget for you that will include all of these costs as you forecast the complete expenses for your new home.
Client To Dos for Finding Land
To start,
1. contact your local building department and find out the answers to the questions on this checklist.
2. Determine which Blu design would fit best on this land, and where the views are. We will situate the house on your land using Google Earth and consider the views as well as an analysis of passive solar and wind benefits from window placement, etc.
3. Look into whether there is an existing survey on the land, or if not, obtain a survey in the course of your land purchase. A survey or site plan will be necessary to move forward with Blu and with your permit office.
