Coffey Park Fire Rebuild
Like many home builders in the North Bay, Thompson Construction, Inc. has worked with families who’ve lost their homes to wildfire. Over the past few months, we’ve been working with Dina, a single mother with two children whose home on a cul-de-sac in Coffey Park, Santa Rosa, was destroyed by the 2017 Tubbs Fire. When Dina first contacted us, she was troubled by what she had seen other fire victims go through when scouting construction bids. Builders had given quotes to her neighbors and then kept raising costs little by little. We assured Dina that our quote was a true reflection of labor and materials for building a completely finished home. We’ve been in the business long enough to know a job’s true cost.
We started building this 1,500-square-foot home from scratch at the end of October. The whole cul-de-sac is now a bustling construction site with several homes going up at once. Coordinating the comings and goings of the countless trucks, trailers and delivery vans has been a little crazy! Nonetheless, we’ve made steady progress on Dina’s home and expect the family will be able to move in by the end of March. Best of all, this will be a truly turn-key home once completed.
A change of plans
It’s not unusual for clients to want to change their building plans once construction gets underway. When building a new home, it’s almost inevitable. Shortly after we poured the foundations for Dina’s new home, she realized she had made a mistake and was very concerned—she now wanted the home’s back wall to extend out an additional three feet. A change like this would be significant, but we thought of a creative solution to give Dina the house she wanted.
Redoing the foundation would be too costly, so we came up with an alternative plan. We would engineer a cantilevered room off the back section of the house. Dina would get the extra space she desired for about half the cost of redoing the foundation. We bring decades of experience and creative problem-solving skills to every job, and it’s great to see when this experience benefits our clients.
We’re a smaller company who can work efficiently
We started construction on Dina’s home at the same time as several others on the cul-de-sac. A few months later, we’re almost finished whereas many others on the street have a long way to go toward completion.
Thompson Construction, Inc. is a smaller company, and we know that’s part of the reason we’re able to complete projects quickly. When clients ask for a change, we can easily shift gears without having to go through a big corporate structure to re-order parts or refile the billing.
Another reason Thompson Construction, Inc. can work faster is that we’ve spent decades building a strong reputation within the construction industry. Our subcontractors and suppliers know that we’re a trustworthy company with high standards.
Lastly, beyond our experience in building, we also have made a science out of project management. On a major project like Dina’s new home, there was someone working on the job site every day; there were no gaps as the labor shifted from one task to the next.
Over the years, we’ve seen many examples of how clients have benefited from our ability to combine efficiency and craftsmanship; being able to put our skills to use to help Dina and her family has been something special, and we can’t wait to see her in her finished home.
