Stauffer and Sons Construction will be hosting a seminar with Ent Federal Credit Union on Saturday, November 21st. This event is FREE and open to the public. Here are the details:

Building a Home: Help from the Ground Up

Saturday, November 21st

10:00am-12:00pm

Ent FCU’s Galley Service Center

4545 Galley Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80915 (Click here for a map).

Free childcare will be provided at the center. RSVPs are required, so please call (719) 574-1100 ext 6670, or register online here.

We’ll discuss all aspects of the home building process. Topics include:

• Construction Loans/Financing Questions
• Designing & Drawing Blueprints
• Budgeting and Square-Foot Pricing
• Site Selection
• Buying The Right Lot
• Grading & Excavating
• Foundations
• Framing
• Plumbing
• Electricity
• Wells & Septic Systems
• Layout Of The Home/Square Footage
• Roof
• Landscaping
• Your Needs In A Home
• And more

Free coffee and donuts will be provided. Come ready to ask lots of questions! We hope to see you there.

Taking the time to do a job the right way wins every time. Our Stauffer & Sons field employees’ motto for years has been: “Safety, Quality, Speed“—in that order. Aside from safety, which is has top priority, we focus hard on quality over speed. Why? The following equation explains. Let’s use a common scenario in construction: building a wall.

Why every wasted hour actually equals five:

• 1 hour spent building a wall, and making a mistake in it
• 1 hour spent tearing down the improperly-built wall
• 1 hour spent building a new wall, properly
• 1 hour of time lost during tear down of bad wall
• 1 hour of time lost while building wall the second time

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

= 5 TOTAL HOURS WASTED

When you’re having a home built, make sure your builder is putting quality over speed. Some builders have made a business model out of cranking homes out as fast as possible, to move on the next quickly. Stauffer & Sons works fast, but never places speed above doing the job right from the ground up. It is much more cost effective to do a job correctly the first time, because as the equation shows, it actually wastes five whole hours by spending one hour doing a job the wrong way!

1. Our LEED Platinum home in Divide (we’ll be hosting an Open House around Thanksgiving of this year), and
2. SIP (Structural Insulated Panel) building systems (a specialty building method for energy-efficient homes).

We were glad to be a part of this year’s tour, and will be back next year. Thanks to everyone who came, and a special thanks to Cliff Kotnik, Cathy Crawley and the very friendly UCCS staff and SECRES volunteers. You were great to work with!

Below are some photos of our booth:

Ron Jr. standing by our Structural Insulated Panel display and LEED Platinum banner

Ken Matthews, our associate with Building Alternatives, Inc.

This was our table. We had our Fox21 News clip on a loop, and had a signup sheet for our Open House this Fall.

SECRES (The South Eastern Colorado Renewable Energy Society) is hosting a Solar Tour in the Pikes Peak Region this Saturday (October 3rd, 2009) in Colorado Springs. It will be a great opportunity for those interested in Solar Energy technology to come and see it in real-life action!

Stauffer & Sons Construction will have a booth at the UCCS Recreation Center building (itself a LEED Gold building), where the event is hosted. Click HERE to view directions and details of the Solar Tour on SECRES’ website. UCCS will be the “information hub” where you can come and see the booths of solar vendors, talk to SECRES representatives, and purchase maps of the homes that are open for touring ($5 donation).

The booths will be open from 9:00am-1:00pm, and you can tour any of the homes until 4:00pm that night.. Come see us to learn more about our LEED Platinum home in Divide, Colorado!

• El Paso
• Teller
• Pueblo
• Park
• Las Animas

Stauffer & Sons Construction is always open to building in new places, we are not intimidated by building outside our native El Paso County. In fact, over the years, we’ve developed a very strong system for building in remote locations. We’re happy to consider a job just about anywhere in Colorado. We’ve also worked out of state, in Wyoming and Kansas, on the occasional job that doesn’t require a full GC License.

Below is a chart of where we currently hold GC Licensing. We’ll be adding to these in the future.

Here’s the back room where we’ll have a few small offices.

This is our front office, with communications center on the left (copier, fax, etc), bathroom in the middle, and coffee bar on the right.

This is the main conference room. We’ll be adding a round table for discussion and a photo gallery in front of the windows for a fully-lit nighttime display.

Here’s our new address and phone:

76-L South Sierra Madre Street

Colorado Springs, CO 80903

Phone: (719) 492-2639

This is our new street address, as well as our new mailing address, so please update your records accordingly. It is still under construction, and we haven’t opened yet, but we will have a Grand Opening when everything is complete. This is tentatively scheduled for mid-october of this year. (Check in again later this month for more details.)

Our new space is a better fit for us, and once completed it will have several new features, including:

• Espresso/Coffee Bar
• Round-Table Conference Room
• Wi-Fi Hotspot
• Projector Screen for Presentations

Check back for progress photos as we finish construction!

Our good friends at RemodelConnect have shared with us a part of their interview with the Director of Business Development for the Southern Colorado BBB. We’ve condensed it down to 10 Questions and Answers. Hopefully these can help answer some of the questions and misconceptions you may have about the Better Business Bureau and what Accreditation means. Stauffer & Sons Construction is a BBB Accredited business with an “A+” rating, and we’re happy to say that we have zero complaints against us.

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Question 1: How exactly is the BBB structured? Is there just one Nationwide Better Business Bureau Database, or do you have local offices?

Answer: The Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado is governed by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB). The CBBB governs all the BBB’s in the US and Canada.  Colorado has four locations. The Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado services 25 counties in southern Colorado.

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Question 2: Is the BBB run by the government? Or are you a nonprofit?

Answer: The BBB is not affiliated with the US Government. Contrary to popular belief, the BBB is not a regulatory or legal agency.  Your second guess was right–the BBB is a nonprofit, neutral, third party organization whose mission is to create confidence and trust in the marketplace for both consumers and businesses.

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Question 3: What is it exactly that the BBB is looking for when checking on a contractor?

Answer: When a business applies for BBB Accreditation, they must meet certain qualifications and commit to upholding the BBB Code of Business Practices. Our staff then verifies that the company has been in business for a specified length of time, has a physical location, maintains their industry’s required licensing, and can substantiate their advertising. The BBB team also checks the company’s references they provide.  The final approval of BBB Accredited Businesses is given by our local BBB Board of Directors who actually live and work in the community.

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Question 4: Just about everyone knows that the BBB is a “complaints center” for consumers with bad business experiences, but what is the “BBB Accreditation” you’re referring to?

Answer: It is true that consumers and businesses can file complaints businesses with us. However, we’re not just looking at the fact that a company has a complaint filed against them–we’re interested in how that business handles it. One of the factors that distinguishes a BBB Accredited Business from an unaccredited business is that a BBB Accredited Business has committed to working through these issues with consumers or other businesses. If a BBB Accredited Business is concerned that someone is going to file a complaint, they can proactively contact the BBB. When that happens, we will call the consumer, as a neutral third party, and can sometimes get to the bottom of a conflict before a complaint is even filed. We are often able to re-open lines of communication between parties.

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Question 5: One concern we’ve heard several times from homeowners is “I’ve heard that the BBB is just a club that anyone can join by filling out an application and paying yearly fee.” Is there any truth to this?

Answer: No. Businesses have to be eligible for accreditation. Companies must complete the application process and be approved by both the BBB staff and the Board of Directors. There is no guarantee that completing an application will result in accreditation.

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Question 6: Can you tell us some of the important differences between a company that is not “BBB Accredited,” and one that is?

Answer: Sure. There are obviously good businesses in our service area that are not accredited. BBB Accreditation demonstrates the trustworthiness that a business has already earned. The benefit of BBB Accreditation is that consumers recognize that Accredited Businesses have been ‘checked out first.’ Because of the high consumer recognition of the BBB brand, BBB Accredited Businesses gain marketplace exposure that they may not get otherwise. Often, a savvy consumer will check references on a contractor prior to entering into a contract in the first place, however, many consumers do not. Consumers who choose not to do their own research recognize that the BBB has already done that work for them. The BBB verifies who the company says they are. The BBB checks on the company’s references, verifies current licensing and insurance requirements for the type of work the company does, and keeps a database of information showing how the company works with their customers. We don’t add any trustworthiness to an existing business–we just recognize the trustworthiness the company has already earned by how they do business. BBB Accreditation gives them a greater presence in the marketplace.

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Question 7: Are there companies who aren’t eligible to become an accredited business?

Answer: Yes, there are a few things that may prevent a contractor from becoming accredited. Some include: not being in business long enough; they may have outstanding, unanswered complaints; and/or for a larger company or franchise, if their corporate headquarters has an “F” rating with the BBB. (This is the worst possible BBB rating a business can receive).

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Question 8: When a homeowner hires a contractor to work on his or her home, he or she is taking a potentially vulnerable step in doing so. Generally, remodeling work is done during daytime hours, when people are at home. The construction industry, unfortunately, is notorious for being a place where criminals seek employment. Does the BBB do a background check on a company to ensure that the remodeling company representative who shows up to a homeowner’s front door isn’t a criminal?

Answer: No. We do not do any formal criminal background checks, and cannot guarantee that a contractor doesn’t have a history of run-ins with the law.  We do require that our applicants disclose any legal issues they’ve been involved in over the years. We do reference checks and check public records.  You’d be surprised–through our basic checks, staff reviews, and approval process by our BBB Board of Directors, we have uncovered many issues that have prevented companies from being accredited. As a nonprofit, we have limited resources, but do as much as we can to ensure that an accredited contractor’s reputation is solid. Ultimately, it’s up to the homeowner to do their due diligence and make an informed decision. As previously mentioned, we’re constantly educating the public. We provide tips on hiring reputable companies, and remind them to do their homework before doing business with a company and being cautious about who they let into their homes.

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Question 9: In the construction industry, there are, unfortunately, a lot of “fly by night” startup companies that stay in business for a few months, do shoddy work, stiff their customers, and then go out of business and start a “new company” with a different name. Does the BBB catch companies involved in these “serial startups”?

Answer: As much as we can, yes. However, we have two limitations on this: 1) we depend on local companies registering their company through the official channels which would make their information public, and 2) we are dependent on other businesses and consumers to file a complaint on a company when they have had a bad experience. If a consumer reports on a ‘serial startup’ or files a complaint with a contractor who happens to be a fly-by-night operation, we’ll have that information in our database. “Serial Startups” with unanswered complaints cannot become a BBB Accredited Business. We keep track of companies based on who their owners are. Consumers are then able to read reports on the companies previously owned by that person. Consumers can also visit our “Consumer Alerts” section of our website, where we alert the public to common scams in our area, and trends in suspect and fraudulent business practices that we’re seeing. Visit http://southerncolorado.bbb.org/Consumer-Alerts/ for more information.

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Question 10: If a homeowner has a bad experience with a contractor, can he or she still file a complaint with the BBB even if the company they’re complaining about is not accredited?

Answer: Yes, consumers can file a complaint about any business–whether they’re BBB Accredited or not.  BBB Accredited Businesses commit to answering and working with their customers. Unfortunately, when a complaint is filed against an unaccredited businesses, that business has not committed to our policy of resolving conflicts, which leaves us with little recourse, which of course is why consumers prefer to do business with Accredited Businesses in the first place.

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[Note: This is an excerpt of an interview taken by our friends over at www.remodelconnect.com. Used with permission. All content copyright^© RemodelConnect.]

Click HERE to sign up for a Green Building Seminar we’ll be hosting in September.

• How To Hire A General Contractor
• Green Building Techniques
• Which Kinds Of Remodels Build Home Equity The Fastest
• How To Build A Home, From Start To Finish
• Upcoming Seminars, Conventions And Other Shows
• Interviews With Previous Clients and Building Industry Professionals
• Reasons Why Construction Projects Go Sour
• How To Not Let Your Remodel Ruin Your Life

We send out four newsletters per year, and we respect your privacy. We will never sell or rent your information to anyone. To sign up for our newsletter, simply visit our signup page at www.staufferandsons.com/newsletters.