What is it like to work with me?

What's it like to work with me? How much do I charge?

I get these questions a lot, and thought it would help for me to offer this information here so that you can decide how my services might fit into your project.

I help clients at every stage of building a new custom home, including looking for land, designing a home, and building the home. I work remotely but can sometimes help you find and screen local architects, contractors and inspectors if needed.

Step 1: Set up an Introductory Call

This gives us both a chance to get to know each other and decide whether we’re the right fit for each other. If we decide to move forward, I’ll credit the $25 fee towards our first consulting call.

Step 2: Enter into an agreement

Ours will be a process-based partnership. Since I’ll never set foot on your build site, I have no control over the outcome of your project.  My contract is the chance for us to agree to that in writing.

Step 3: Take my classes

I offer two classes that will empower you to take charge of your home build: Buying Healthy Land (and Keeping it that Way) and Building a Healthy and Resilient Home.  All the essential information about land selection, home design, and homebuilding that I learned in my years-long journey to become a triple-certified Building Biologist, Certified Passive House Tradesperson, and Certified Permaculture Designer is in those classes. Unlike most other classes, they're intended for homeowners, not trade professionals. Taking my classes will save you money working with me. In fact, you may find you don't even need my consulting guidance after you've taken them. If you need my help, buying my Building a Healthy and Resilient Home will give you half off your first hour of consulting with me. Your class purchase includes three seats: one for you and your project partner, one for your contractor, and one for your architect.

Step 4: Review and develop plans

My Building a Healthy and Resilient Home class comes with a workbook that you can use to design your healthy home as you go through the class. You can give that workbook to your architect as an informed starting point for your home design. Once you and your architect have come up with a basic floorplan based on your requirements, I can go over it and audit it for anything that might create a risk of mold, condensation or EMF exposure, and offer alternative suggestions.  We then talk about assemblies together.  I can offer suggestions.  Once we agree how the home will be built, I can offer places to find a starting point for detail drawings.  I can audit your final plans to make sure that all of your control layers (thermal, water, vapor and air) make sense and are contiguous as needed.  I am available for short and more involved questions that come up during the iterative design process.

Note that most residential architectural plans say what will be built; not how it will be built.  Figuring out the “how” upfront, and getting it in writing as part of the drawings that will become part of your contract with your contractor, is the single most important thing you can do to make sure your house is built intentionally and correctly. I can help with that.

Step 5: Quality control 

Once the plans are nearing completion, most of my clients buy my Construction Inspection Checkpoints guide.  

This inspection checklist tells you what details need to be correct before moving on to each stage of construction.  It will let you as a homeowner, and also any inspector you want to hire, know what to inspect for at each stage of construction so you catch any issues before they become a problem.  It is also great for your contractor because he knows exactly what he needs to do and can make sure it gets done right in the first place so he doesn't have to fix it or get callbacks later.  I can be available during construction as needed to clarify any expectations. 

The checklist has inspection points for 26 different stages of construction, and contains eight pages of inspection points. This checklist goes far beyond code minimum.  

For example, here is a list of things I suggest verifying before pouring your stem walls in a slab foundation.

Prior to stem wall pour

• Dimensions of stem walls are correct per plan.

• Use standard 6/8/10 check to make sure corners are square, and then check for square across entire building.

• Check building for parallel.  Make sure sides have same length.

• Anchor bolts are correctly placed in the stem walls (i.e. for 24 for OC framing, bolts are every 24”, and don’t allow for any blind thermal bridging corners. Refer to and follow the structural plan exactly.)

• Rebar is tied into the stem walls.

• Video-tape all stem walls before the pour.

• Basement waterproofing is continuous across exterior of stem walls and extends all the way to the bottom of the stem wall.

• Dimple board is installed, properly terminated at top with a termination bar, and extends over foundation drain at the bottom.

• Foundation drain is at the low point of the foundation.

I sell the basic inspection checklist for $500, and then charge my hourly rate to customize it for your particular assembly.  

My hourly rate is currently $150.  I have a minimum charge of $15, so if you email me a quick question and it takes me a 6 minutes or less to answer it, then I'll only charge you $15 for that interaction.  The vast majority of questions asked by established clients are taken care of with that $15 minimum charge. Most of my clients spend between $3000-5000 total on my services during the build, but it can vary depending on how much help you need. You are not locked into any kind of minimum expenditure. Once we are in contract, I am a resource for you as needed throughout your design and build process. You're in charge; I'm here when you need me.

Assuming that your home costs an average of $300,000-500,000 to build, that means my services will account for 1% of your total home build. General contractors usually charge 20+%.  Realtors charge 6%.  1% of your home build to make sure you have a design that accounts for how the home is being built, and a checklist for making sure it gets built that way, is nothing.  I try to keep my pricing very fair, because my family has been down this path as well, and I know firsthand how devastating it can be.  My goal in life is to help people build healthy homes.  Let me help you build one, too.

Why me?

The book I wrote, Destination Blue Sky, talks about how my husband and I healed our own family from PANS, Mold and environmental illness, Lyme and co-infections, and cancer, by building a healthy home. I run the Facebook group Beyond Build Defects in New Construction.  I serve on the Board of Directors for the Building Biology Institute of North America.

I have the following certifications:​

• Certified Passive House Tradesperson (International Passive House Association)

• Triple-Certified Building Biologist: New Build Consultant (BBNC), Electromagnetic Radiation Specialist (EMRS), and Environmental Consultant (BBEC) (Building Biology Institute)

• Certified Permaculture Designer (Permaculture Institute of North America)