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The Real Estate Addicts (REA) podcast is for anyone interested in developing real estate. The podcast covers a comprehensive range of topics related to real estate and investing and features interviews with savvy and successful entrepreneurs who share their career path, failures, successes and the stories behind the incredible companies they built. Listen in for big personalities and great conversation.
Co-hosted by Ray Hurteau, Dan Rubin (Instagram @dan.and.ray) and Marc Savatsky (Instagram @choose_boston)
Follow Real Estate Addicts Podcast on Instagram: @Real_Estate_Addicts
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So Mark, you were just out on a trip to Italy? Yeah, we were at Dolomites, Florence, and then Cinque Terre. Interesting. Where is that? For all stupid people like me, where is that? North, South, East? What coast? The Dolomites are north. After that, I don't know. But suffice it to say, we're talking about like interesting things about my trip to Italy. One, parmesan is not a thing in Italy. What do mean? Parmesan cheese isn't a thing? No, no. parmesan. Oh, chicken parm, It's an Italian, American Italian. Oh yeah, Americans bastardize everything. Like if you go to China, you're not gonna find Chinese food like we have here. Yeah, you're gonna get like sesame chicken, but I was surprised that like you can get eggplant parm, but not chicken parm. Oh really? Not a thing. Huh. They also don't cut your pizzas. So your pizza comes out and it's- Wait, what? It's on you with a fork and knife, which I think is barbaric. Whoa, wait, wait. Do they eat their pizza with fork and knife? No, but they cut it with a fork and knife instead of a pizza cutter. Why? What's the reason? I don't know. They hate their time. It takes way too long to do that. They take a lot of time off. And they take a lot of time to eat their meals. I'm at the table three hours later. like, can you bring my check? Yeah, I would love that. Well, I about three also eat a lot later. A lot of people eat at nine o'clock at night. Yeah, no cappuccino or espresso after 11 a.m. What is that, like an unwritten rule that you still were you just dying over there? Yeah, no butter with your bread. They bring out the bread. Oil though, right? You sometimes get oil, but no butter. A plain? Or you just dip it? I don't know. But how's the sauce though? It's gotta be so good. Oh, it's so good. And the fresh made pasta is, I dip so much better. And the olive oil's gotta be The pesto and all that stuff. olive oil tasting, yeah. I didn't even like pesto, and then I went there and I was like, now I like pesto. Not here, only there. Yeah, only there. See, that's the problem with seeing the world. see all these things that we've bastardized and then you become kind of a food snob, but not in a bad way. Just you appreciate what they have. Yeah. Although I ordered a cheeseburger and they put the cheese on top of the bun and sent it out of here. Yeah. I think he was either really confused or just screwing with me. He had to be messing with you. That's hysterical. That's dumb American. That's very funny. Well, that's good. Yeah. Anyway, we were, uh Dan recently moved into his new home. Yeah. I we take some time here. You're finally moved. Yeah. If we had like a trumpet sound effect, it'd be a good time for it. Yeah. Well, let's the Hold on, let me do this one. Okay. No, that wasn't it. And that wasn't even loud enough. Well, anyway. Bring us in. Give us the... There we go. Okay, so tell us about your house. How is it? You moved in, you're all set, I killed the music too soon. Are your clients happy? Are your clients? The real boss, Linda. We should have her here. Have the, I mean, there warranty issues The punch lists will be... It's still ongoing? My garbage disposal stopped working last night. Oh yeah, two days after I moved in. He texted me because I hate garbage. I hate garbage disposal so much. Dan knows this. He's like, oh man, you're going to probably laugh when I send you this video. I bought one of those nice like evolution, like one horsepower. Like a really nice one. Yeah, it's like a V8. Yeah, it's really nice. And what's going on here? Oh, sorry. That's our outro going on. Ignore. And it was working great. And last night we went to push the button and it was like, I was like, is this clogged already? So I went and used a little wrench on the bottom. Not clogged. It just didn't work. User error. other, what other warranty issues has Linda come up with? ah Too soon? Too, no, I don't think, I mean, obviously just like paint touch up stuff and like cleaning stuff. Yeah. But. So you bought this house when? And yeah. I bought it. We closed the day before Christmas of 2023. Damn. So single family renovation with your foot on the gas the whole time. Like, I feel like you weren't lackadaisical about anything. Well, I thought I'd be able to submit my plans and just start building. Thought it was supposed to be by right, right? I thought it was by right based on... So I guess I'll take a step back. So doing a bunch of research on the lot and what I wanted to do, and obviously I got a site plan done and noticed that my front yard setback wasn't in compliance with the local city zoning. So, but then I did a bunch of research on the lot because I'm at the end of a cul-de-sac and they built the subdivision that I'm in in the fifties. And originally there was no cul-de-sac. It was just a dead end street. And then 10 years after the subdivision was built, the city did what they call a taking, which they were like, okay, we want to make this a nice little cul-de-sac roundabout, we'll put in sidewalks and stuff. But in doing so, We're going to do a taking of all of the lots at the end of the cul-de-sac. So they took about a thousand square, there's three lots at the end of the cul-de-sac. They took a thousand square feet from each lot and cut in and made the cul-de-sac and made a nice like circle. But in doing so they cut it. So my, my house, when it was built, cause I found the original site plan, it was zoning compliant, but by doing the taking, it forced into non-compliance. specifically, my front yard setback was in non-compliance. And so I looked at the zoning code and there was a stipulation in the zoning code. There was language in the zoning code that said, in the event the city does a taking or does something to affect the size of your lot to force it into non-compliance or whatever your house is or the lot or property is exempt from your. So in my mind, I thought that language meant that I would be able to just go in and say, Hey, because of the taking, you know, It wasn't my fault that it forced, it was the city's fault that forced me into non-compliance with the Front yard Setback Zoning Violation. the city's interpretation or the city's zoning, you know, czar, their interpretation was no, it's not an exception where you can just go and submit. But the exception is that we will allow you to get a special or apply for a special permit. to do the renovation versus you're in non-compliance period end of story, you can't even apply for a special permit. was like, I don't know if that's, I agree with that, but like, but after speaking with my, with the zone, I hired a zoning attorney, local to Newton, which actually you referred me to Mark, thank you for that. And he was like, it's just, it's not worth fighting them over this. Just go for the special permit. will, but you know, the problem is it took, It basically delayed my project nine months. were exacerbating a nonconformity by extending up one story. Correct. Had you left the street wall in place, or I don't think that's the right term, but had you left the existing front wall and not... If I pushed the second floor addition back. Yeah. And I wouldn't have had to... Because that was existing. Nonetheless, I agree with you entirely that... that provision would make great sense. Like you built it, when you built it, it complied and then the city did something to change your lot line. And now you're gonna suffer. Exactly, why is it on now on me? That's crazy. But the exemption, did it say specifically that language, the special permit or versus disallowed entirely? didn't say any of that. of absent on it. It was absent on that. So it just said, just said, know, exempt. I'll trade you one back. This is the other side of the spectrum, but I have two attached single family homes, which I, they've kind of like live their useful life. They're getting to be a bit run down. So I, it's time to invest in them again. And I went to file plans to convert them each to two families. The concept being dig out the basement, duplex the lower floor and add a third story on such that you get an upper duplex, lower duplex on both sides of the firewall and thus two, families. So my work description said that, and I got a call from the plans and zoning counter who said they were very confused reviewing my application that what I currently own is not an attached single family. The last known long form is says that they are both three families. What? Yeah. Never happens. Yeah. I was going to say that's like bank error in your favor. Yeah. So both of them. Yeah. Both of them. So Ipso facto, I went from five variances to two because all of it, like, for example, insufficient parking, you need 1.5 parking spaces per unit, but like, I'm just reducing the nonconformity. So insufficient parking is not a variance. And you could go down the list, like lot size per dwelling unit, number of units, not a variance, not a variance. That's pretty amazing. It's pretty nice. have no idea. could you technically, if you didn't change the footprint of the building, can you just make three units? Yeah, think, yes. right? Yeah. Yeah, I've no idea how is that like a tiny. Yeah, that's that micro. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. I'm not looking any further into it. I'm just Yeah, I don't know what you do in the situation like that because there's a lot of different ways you could move forward with it. Like you could you could you expand the footprint, but you then you'd have like an FAR violation. do have an FAR is one of my two violations. You're always going to have FAR is the problem. Yeah, I have restricted roof structures because I'm ripping the roof off and going up a story. I have FAR actually I have three and I have a side yard set back. And the only reason I have side yard is because there's no exemption for a connected building. Of course not. is this discussion today by zoning and nonsense zoning? Yeah. Is that where we're going? Yeah. Just about like, things that you could, that you find out that you think you, you know how you're going to navigate. Yeah. The zoning code is so, especially in the city of Boston is so complex. that it's like, you think that you know what you're getting yourself into or just like even paper trail stuff. It's like, I love, you know, Mark Lacasse episode four, you know, his zoning attorney came on and he said, it's funny that they call it entitlements because you're not entitled to anything. You know, if you want, if you think you have an as of right project, be careful because it's, it's how the. Inspectional services department interprets that or has. taken the stance traditionally. like the other example, one of our mutual friends who proposed a number of townhouses, connected townhouses, the lot frontage per dwell, lot frontage requirement, the width was applied per townhouse rather than for the respective lot of land. that seems absolutely ridiculous. like A true townhouse is a fee simple parcel that you've subdivided that has its own sewer lateral, its own utility connections, a two hour firewall, but these are really like condominiums in a townhouse design with a one hour firewall, shared utilities. And so that's why you shouldn't interpret that as a per. No, it's, it's a, I'll just call it what it is. It's a bullshit thing. here's why I'm going it interpreted that way, they would be attached single families. And here's what I would be. Yeah. And here's why I would say that. What if you were building, building a three story multifamily? Are they going to say, well, you need the frontage times three or however many units. they're just, it's another, it's very frustrating dealing with zoning. well, problem is also when you get down to like one variance, you know, like the safe bet for a plans examiner is to send you through the process, like get them for one thing. So there's any number of like subjective zoning. Another one that I like. that I frequently will see is insufficient maneuverability. So the concept is that a car must be able to make a traditional three point turn out their spot and exit nose first. Like. that's with respect to on-site parking in general. Yeah. Yeah. They don't want people backing out into the street blind spots. Yeah. Kind of makes sense. I want to get back to what you were saying earlier though. Sure. You know, and it's part of the zoning, but you, the, the existing. use and occupancy that's on file with the building department. I mean, here in Boston, that's something that they focus on. you brought up Dan and I did a project a few years back where we thought it was a three unit building because when we bought it, it was being used as three separate units. had three utilities. And then when we went to pull our permit, they said, oh, the legal occupancy isn't on file. So in other words, the inspectional services mysteriously didn't have any documentation for whatever reason. So then they send somebody out to do an inspection and who knows what that looks like. then they go out and they're like, oh, do you have three gas meters? Do you have three of basically everything? And it's like, okay, three family. And it was like, that's kind of bizarre. I've been through that as well. it's three second means of egress. And in this particular case, they came back and said, no, it's two. And that was it, end of story. Like, oh no, we think it's two. So we had to pivot the whole plan and change what we were gonna do on that one. You know, another, so yeah, that's called like seeking occupancy committee. And typically you'd file your own long form permit that just the work description is like established. Yeah. Confirm occupancy. Confirm occupancy. No, no. Yeah. We went through all that. Yeah. But it was ridiculous. We even went back to the Boston public library and looked at old census records and confirmed there had been three, it had been used traditionally as three units with three different names when they went door to door and people signed the book and then that gets scanned in. mean, Yeah. We would, this was, this was not controversial and it became a major issue as we had to pivot. So we made it into two duplexes, but talk about not expecting some issues to come up. Your heart sinks when you open that letter, right? You know, unless it's telling you that you're a three family instead of a one fam, right? I mean, you expect to open the walls and find issues on any renovation, but you don't expect something that seems so obvious to become contentious. what can you do now? Like let's be practical rather than complaining. You can go to the record room at your local building department and ask for the last known occupancy on the property. And it's something that they should turn around and give back to you. Boston does a very nice job at that. Yeah, they're pretty good about having that type of access and information available. You can find it online if you want to search through the jacket, we call it, permit history. The one time I got surprised early in my career, I bought a store and a residential unit above it. Whereas I thought I was buying a two family and it was was zoned like commercial on the ground. Yeah. And I also lost my occupancy committee battle. And one of the things I did too was I went for voting records and proved that people had been voting there two different families forever. And I didn't, didn't win the day. was their reason? Just out of curiosity. I don't know the way the winds were blowing. I think my best guess is that they probably look at egress and they they make a determination to say like. Yeah, but a house that was built a hundred years ago, it's like, it's not gonna have, it's not up to code. It's like, come on. Yeah, that's a one. Well, I guess it's part of due diligence and that's the lesson learned, right? You just confirm occupancy and have discussions Yeah, if you're renovating an existing building and you're not tearing it down and going through a whole process, then yeah, you wanna, as part of your DD. I mean, let's talk. AL like an alteration permit versus a new construction ERT permit to work. Like there's something very magic about existing to remain. Right. And one of those things might be like if accessibility codes, which can be pretty demanding, won't come into play if you have a, if you're altering an existing building. what people have gotten called on recently is getting a little too cute with the definition of existing to remain. So. I think I know what you mean. there is a stipulation for how much of the exterior wall needs to stay standing. Right. Like do you just keep one wall and part of a- Can't just be the door, front door frame. Three of the four foundation pieces. Yeah. I know what you mean there. You know, I won't, I won't comment on what we've done on that, but we've done that as well. You where you kind of, Hey, the rules get bent against you in some ways and then you use them to your advantage in other ways. And that's just how it goes. It's like taxes, you make the rules, I play by them. I'm not gonna voluntarily. Right. I love that tax one. like, well, you tell me how much you owe. Well, we know what you owe, you gotta tell us. But if you know, just tell me what I owe. Yeah, you think you could go to ISD and say, well, just tell me what I can do. Oh, it's crazy. Yeah, I mean, there's, I don't know, I think no matter how much. due diligence you can do as part of a project, there's always going to be a surprise at some point that you're not going to know about or is going to come up and. Yeah. Yeah. It's just the way it's just how you deal with them is kind of the important part. think another valuable lesson is a zoning code versus building code. So oftentimes you can purchase an approved project that means, you know, perhaps that it it's been entitled, so it's gone through zoning. but they haven't resubmitted their permit documents for building code review. This would be the construction documents, the full CD set. Well, not even CD. There is, there is a distinction between a permit set and a hundred percent construction documents. Like I can get a permit set stamped by my design professionals, not suitable for construction, but it is good enough to be reviewed for issuance of permit. Then the next step is a hundred percent. So the delineation there is there's the approval set, essentially, you know, what will zoning code allow? Then there's, if you choose to go that route, there's a lot of times people just skip right to CD. You could, you could do permit set and that's the, once you've gone through zoning, now you're going through building code and basically everything on a permit set is pertinent to that. And then the CD set is more how you kind of. wall flashings. How's the window going to be going? More for the actual people, feet on the ground. Okay. So anyway, idea is that you can buy something that's entitled and zoning approved, but is littered with building code problems. So we had this recently where the elevator lobbies were too small. The bathrooms didn't work at all for turn radiuses. so is your point that was, is a scenario that could happen as you navigate into the building permit side and you get to the building code. could that impact the building itself in such a way that causes you to have to go back in front of the zoning committee? Absolutely. And so you're going to go back and you hope that it might just be what they call board final arbiter, at least in Boston, which is like kind of a made up concept. I'd love to see like a written definition of when board final arbiter is appropriate. But the idea is that you have something that's changed in, I guess, an immaterial way between zoning and when you're building. and you're going back just to reconfirm but. The other thing you want to be careful about is if you're buying an entitled plans, if there's no, if they don't have anything else done, like they don't have structural done, MEPs or anything like that, you want to be careful with that as well because you can, everything looks pretty on a piece of paper and in a rendering and on a plan. And then you go and start looking at how this thing's actually gonna be built. know, like, holy shit, this is going to be expensive. And those utility will serve letters and how you're gonna get power to, especially a large dense project. Transformers is a great big one. you you think you have 10 parking spots and then they locate the columns and you now have seven. Yeah, exactly. The other interesting thing that we've come across, and I don't know if you've come across yet, is the kind of, I don't know if it's, it's not really inviting, but the differences between departments within the city. So for instance, here in Boston, when you get something approved at the zoning board level, 99 % of the time, if it's not, if it hasn't gone through like larger small project review, you gotta go to BPDA design review. And we ran into a situation where we got six unit building approved at the zoning board. that had nine parking spots. I think it was 13. Was it 13? Oh yes, 13 parking spots. Because everybody in the community, in the feedback We went through the community process and everyone wanted at least two parking, two spots per unit. He's like, okay, that's fine. Lots big enough to accommodate. Go to BPDA design review. We don't want you to have 13 parking spots. We only want you to have seven. We were like, how is that gonna work? We just got ZBA approval for 13. And the commune, like it's just. Yeah, well you provided me private security detail. Yeah. From my angry neighbors. Yeah. Like. You can go tell them that you don't want It's like, well now I'm going to look like the liar. Yeah. In front of everybody. I know. It's just like, I. And it wasn't a transit oriented, you know, area, I think it's a bus line nearby, but it's not like it was right next to a subway stop. They wanted seven parking spots and they wanted us to build this like weird, like pergola type structure for like bike parking. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, what are we, what do you do in that situation? How do you, how do you navigate that? know, do like what we did and sell the approved plans. Then if someone else's problem going back. I finished a project recently while we're just complaining, but the utility company did not pull the proper permits when they trenched across the street. So I'm going for my certificate of occupancy and there's no permit for the underground trench work that The electrical utility company did, you know, they're not under my contract. I don't hire them. They don't work for me as evidenced by the fact that I have no idea when they're coming, if they're coming and they held up my certificate of occupancy for the better part of a month until the utility company retroactively applied for the permit. It's just like, it's not. But they did the work before they got the permit. They did the work. I had permanent power. Everything was good. But they were, their concern was that like they would lose leverage if they gave me the CFO. I'm like, I don't have any leverage on you. Yeah. I leverage on the utility company for what? typical bullying. Just like I will because I can. It's also interesting that if, if you're doing a vault or something, a transformer in the sidewalk or in like a yeah, a public way or city owned property, the utility company has to go before the municipality or city council and get an easement to put it in. so, cause we learned that when we were doing our project up in Lynn. And so, I mean, most of the time it's typically like a rubber stamp. like group a bunch of these easements together and then just like read off the addresses and then the city council says, okay. But like, what if, what if the city council says no? the city of Boston does not like transformers in the sidewalk. That is never a thing. Is it ever source doesn't or in the city? I don't know. think the city doesn't want to have national grid, so that doesn't matter. But I think they try to stay away from it for obvious reasons. don't, you know, you don't want to put them in willy nilly, but I think they're very appropriate in downtown urban areas. I mean, why would you not? All the, all of the underground electric is there anyway. So to have a pole or a ground mounted transformer, I mean, we would have loved if we could have, but But if you're in a downtown urban setting and you have a zero lot line building, and now you have to either carve a piece of that building out to put a pad mount in the transformer, which is also not visibly attractive in walking by a building, right? have to put ballers all around. Clearances beyond the transformer, above it. It's not just And then if you want to it inside the building, you're basically creating a bomb. pretty much creating a bomb shelter within the building. And again, it has to be like, you know, 20 feet high. So you're like carving out a part of your entire building to put it inside. So it's like, I don't understand from an urban planning standpoint should allow them in sidewalk. Yeah. Well, they did one push, come to shove, which was good. yes. But it was fighting tooth and nail on that one. Well, it took longer. We engaged National Grid before we bought the building and we were still fighting them. Like, we even, you know, we even built the vault for them, took all of that financial responsibility and management side of it to make it easy, right? Like we're going to give you what you need. All you gotta do is drop the transformer in. Which is also bizarre too, because they, they got the easement from the city, but we're building the vault. I don't know where, like there's a weird gray area there with like liability wise. Well, I think somewhere in our work order or what have you, right? The paperwork between us and them. I don't know. way. mean, the other thing is the other thing I was going to say is like, you really have to think about, no, I totally forgot. There was some other, there was some other construct like pre-con construction consideration. I'll think of it in a second. Oh, let's go back to the single family renovation. You know, I mean, this was to call it a renovation is perhaps an understatement. You ripped the roof off. added a story to it. Sounds like one of those sketchy alteration permits you talking You kept the fireplace as existing chimney. kept two exterior walls and I kept the existing found the old tundish. Are you comfortable talking about your budget or your timeline on construction? Either or. I mean, did you stay on budget? Let's start there. I went over. Yeah. I went over. Partly necessitated by like you probably had 25, 30 grand of site work that only had to happen as a result of the special permit. ah Drainage, recharge. Paving. Yes, there was a good amount so- Pervious paving. The, well, yeah, the entire, yes, my groundwater, I did not anticipate that. But you wouldn't have needed it had you not triggered I would have just, would not have needed it. Right. Engineering review, I wouldn't have had to pay civil to create the whole drainage plan and impervious calculation and open space and all that. Yeah. So all of this absurdity. This is the absurdity the whole, I had to replace the entire sidewalk and curbing. was not in my budget. No, that's expensive. But would that have happened no matter That 15 grand. 15 grand, Let's say you were not going through special permit for reasons we already mentioned. Would that have still been in scope though? That I don't know. Because what you're Yes, because as part of special permit, had to create, I had to submit to like engineering with all of my, like the groundwater. and drainage and all that. So that was all part of the special permit process. So I think in my mind, I was just anticipating replacing two pads that I was gonna rip up to put my new water and sewer lines in and nope. So the other, what I mean by the absurdity of it is so because you had to go through special permit and only because you had to go through that, you had to do groundwater recharge and add those things to your Yeah, it triggered all this additional stuff. So see, isn't that kind of stupid? Like either require it or don't. don't do this wishy washy special permit nonsense. And then also in addition to that, in addition to that, so I applied for a kind of a renovation permit. was what's not new construction, right? And, but in the city's mind, they were like, do the extent of renovation, we're classifying this as new construction. So now I have to, my HERS score has to hit new construction, HERS rating. Oh, right. They forced me. Yeah, I had to get a 42 versus a, renovation I think was like 48. And that was, and that's changed just based on the permit date too. They've made it even harder. Yeah, they made it hard, but still, which is also crazy because like I'm keeping the old foundation. I'm keeping old two by four framing. So it's like, and now they're expecting me to hit new construction numbers. Wild. Wild. Well, how long did it take you start to finish once you had your permit to build? I started demo. I started demo end of September of 24. And you're moving in now. And I moved in last week. That's incredible. That's good. Again, it just goes to many months is that? I'm so bad at 10 months. 10 months. Great. Yeah. Yeah. That's right on the money. Yeah. That's great. That's really good. What about cost per square foot? You need a calculator? Yes. I got you. Well, see, I don't have any purview into this. While you're looking that up, the other thing I was thinking of, which I told you I'd think of it. Is like construction management, traffic management plans, having to get those all put in place, ball, you know, barriers. are getting harder and harder. Yeah. mean, expect a lot of things. think you can do a pretty good logistics plan. Well, no, you hire someone to put one together for you. just mean going through that process. Well, no, you shouldn't have to, in my opinion. In Boston, you need to, you need to now, but that's another thing that's just gone crazy. a good superintendent can draw out, you know, on some grid paper. they intend to do, where they intend to the sidewalk. Like, why do you need a transportation engineer for a five unit building for a construction management plan? It's like six grand that nobody accounted for and it's not necessary. It's overkill. Right. Yeah. It's like, yes, a high rise downtown, get a team of transportation engineers, but a small multifamily project, like what are we doing? Right. Came out at $2.22 a foot. That's great. That's awesome. 10 months, $2.20 a foot. Now remember, I didn't have to do- GC fee. No GZV. also like all that, like I had a small addition. I didn't have to do all new form work, which saved me a bunch. Site work saved me a bunch there because I kept the old foundation. With those existing walls, did you, did you sister the Joyce and kind of make them two by sixes or you kept them two by four? I kept them two by four and then I just did close cell in those walls. What's something you really splurged on during the renovation? Probably my Lutron lighting system. Aw, I think your stairs. My stairs. Oh yeah. Yeah, and my stairs. Those stairs are sick. Talk about them. I did, well, it's kind of a split level setup where it's, the way the grading is, I'm like built almost into a, I'm built into a hill almost. And so the stairs from the basement to the first floor, just regular stairs, but the stairs from the first floor to the second floor are floating. those floating stairs, but not the type of floating stairs where you typically see kind of like the steel member in the mono stringer. Oh, is that what it's called? A mono stringer. you see this center, like it's a center piece of steel that goes right up in the middle. Mine, I had my steel fabricator and structural engineer work it out where he built this tube steel and I hit it in a wall. And then he had what you welded plates, plated steel onto the tube steel to stick out. And then I had my treads were built almost like they're hollow. And so I sandwiched, I bolted two pieces of plywood to the steel and then I slid. Who made those for you? Which. So, so every tread is floating off of the. It correct. That's what it looks like. And who made the treads? to go over the metal brine. My steel fabricator put me in touch with someone that he's had them build these before. he works with them. What was like your cost per tread on that? Oh God. Not for the steel, but just the wood guy. Oh, the wood was pretty inexpensive. Really? Yeah, think I did. I think it's, I got 14 treads and it was like 7,500 bucks. You're talking about just the treads? What? Are there any risers on it or is it no? No risers? No, point is there's risers. The tread is like a box. Right, right. So that is like I mean, you're $530 per tread. Correct. Compared to a typical oak stair. To say nothing of carpet, but oak, you're probably 50 to 60 bucks. Correct. And another. Well, that's why my first stair run is not floating. Yeah. It's also like basement to first floor, so it would look bizarre if that was floating, because I'd see like into my unfinished area. It'd be awkward. Yeah. So. But it came out nice. But yeah, I splurged, that's, the stairs are probably the biggest splurge. The stairs are so cool. Like if you do a staircase right. And like I have all steel. Yeah. Ballasters and railings and stuff. So, which I was, I'm glad I did because before I put the railings in, there was definitely a bounce. Like a little bit of a bounce. And once I put the railing in, because it's steel and it locked it all in because the, posts. it more rigid. The posts are, are bolted into. the landings and then the the ballsters are epoxied into each tread. So it kind of like locked everything together. Cool. Yeah, that's awesome. How about that? have my TempSeal. How does the window work with the privacy frosting? That was pretty cool. Oh yeah, did like the, have you seen that? smart tint? No. Where it's. Oh, I saw it on your Instagram. Tell Yeah, so it's like, you've probably seen them in like conference rooms where it's like you have all glass conference rooms and you hit a button when you want privacy and it goes private. I did that because I have a big window in my front staircase and it's really tall. And I was like, I don't know if I really, A, a window treatment for this is going to be really expensive. And then it's like, it kind of look weird because it's like. So it's not integral to the window? It's not integral, it's aftermarket. Yeah, it's a film that you put on. Who does this for you and what does this cost? So it's company called Smart Tint. You can go online and you basically give them the measurements and then they'll cut, they'll send you the whole kit and then they have preferred installers locally all over. And so I got connected with a local installer who just installs, it's almost like a guy like, Any guy that does like, you know, any type of window tinting or if you're doing privacy film, they can install it. What does it need for power? It's low voltage. it has two little wires that stick out the top. And then what you do is you hide, you buy like, it comes with like a little plastic channel that you like, and then they sell them in different colors. So if like your window's black, they'll give you a black one. it like almost, it hides it. And then you just have a low voltage line, kind of like if you're doing. hardwired blinds or shades that comes out the side and they just connect to that, goes down to a transformer. And then I don't know how the technology works, but you just hit the button and- Witchcraft. Witchcraft. How much did it cost? The whole setup with like the tint, the transformer, all that stuff was 800 bucks. No way. Yeah, it's not that bad. The install was- I would exclude it from your warranty. Oh, I'm not selling it. Well, I don't want Linda to call you later. have an issue with this and now you got to fix this somehow? Although, my movers scratched the tint. Jesus. now I gotta, I think I got a file a claim with the moving company. Cause it's very apparent. That sucks. But yeah, it was, so it's actually the install was more expensive. It was a thousand bucks to install it. One of my buyers from a recent project. They expanded on their kitchen. It's pretty dope. Like they added a wine column next to their existing Fisher Piquel refrigerator and then ran some additional base cabinets. But anyway, he asked me if I would do it for him. I was like, it's like kind of a small project. It's tough to even charge enough to make it really worth your while. So I said like, look, he's pretty handy. He's an awesome guy. I was like, I'm here to support you. Like I'll give you contacts. But like you'll be there when they're doing the install. Like I just can't keep coming over there for anyway. The electrician pulled out the refrigerator. to add a circuit and did not put the wheels down and scratch the herringbone floors. And the repair took like three visits. Did they have to rip them out? No, they were able to do it surgically, but like they had to shim them to the right heights and use some filler, really paying attention. Bottom line is like the best 15 % I never made. Sorry, Matt. Was there a lot of clearance on the top side? Yeah, I think it would have been Would have been fine. I'm sure he just didn't know to. one thing, one thing I've seen and that I've never used, but looked into is they've got these awesome, you know, really strong, you almost see them like in. It's like a blood pressure cuff. Yeah. It's, it's a pad that will inflate and kind of floats. Yeah. Similar to like how if a big truck tips over. Cause I watched those big rig record shows and they will inflate them to get them back up in like weird terrain. You can get it and float it out. Yeah. I did that with a stack washer dryer at my place in Florida. Did it work well? Yeah. I bought these, were like, they were very inexpensive. 40 bucks. Do you inflate it just like it's a pump? Yeah, think of a blood pressure cuff that you're just like, psst. That's hysterical. And then it just somehow moves on the floor, low friction. Yeah, that sucks. know, those are good for windows too, if you're installing a window and trying to get it like perfectly, sure you put one in the jam. Oh yeah, my- And it two more pumps, one more pump. I've seen that. Actually, the guys who installed the windows at my house, because they were really heavy. They uh Just let this go. Just let it go. There we go. We need to fix the audio. Good mixer.