March 12, 2025 • 46 mins
Flooding is a harsh reality for communities across Florida and the U.S. Rising tides, storm surges, and unpredictable weather have left many searching for solutions beyond sandbags and hope. But what if you could physically lift your home—or even an entire building—out of harm’s way?
In this episode of Take It To the Board, host Donna DiMaggio Berger sits down with Wayne Fairley, founder and managing director of Planet 3 (P3) Elevation, to explore the groundbreaking work of structural elevation. This innovative flood protection method quite literally raises homes and buildings above flood levels, providing a long-term safeguard against water damage.
The process may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it’s real—and remarkably effective. Skilled teams tunnel beneath structures, creating a network of passages to access the structural supports. Using hydraulic jacks and strategically placed concrete blocks, they gradually lift entire structures, slab and all, to safer elevations.
What’s even more surprising? The disruption to homeowners is minimal. Most families only need to leave for about a week during the lifting phase, with no need to move furniture. When they return, their home is exactly as they left it—just several feet higher. For residents of flood-prone areas like Houston’s Meyerland, where some have endured multiple remodels after repeat flooding, this solution has been life-changing.
Beyond flood protection, elevation restores property values, slashes insurance premiums, and delivers priceless peace of mind. For many, lifting their home isn’t just a precaution—it’s a necessity. While the cost—typically $200,000–$280,000 for a 2,500-square-foot home—is significant, it often proves more economical than repeated flood repairs. Plus, FEMA grants may help offset expenses.
As climate change drives more frequent and severe flooding across the United States, structural elevation offers a possible solution that works with nature rather than against it. Whether you're dealing with coastal storm surges, river overflows, or drainage issues from nearby development, lifting your home might be the most reliable way to rise above the water—literally.
Conversation Highlights Include:
- The ins and outs of the elevation process
- Grants available to homeowners who want to elevate their homes
- Height or weight limitations on the structures
- Minimum and maximum elevation heights
- Elevation for multifamily buildings
- The Slab Variable
- Potential downsides to elevating a structure
- What’s next for P3?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi everyone, I'm attorney Donna DiMaggio-Berger,
and this is Take it to the Boardwhere we speak.
Condo and HOA Homeownersthroughout the United States
know all too well thedevastation that flooding can
bring.
Rising tides, storm surges andunpredictable weather patterns
have left many communitiessearching for solutions beyond
(00:22):
sandbags and wishful thinking.
But what if you could quiteliterally lift your home or even
an entire structure out ofharm's way?
Today on Take it to the Board,we're diving into the innovative
world of structural elevationwith Wayne Fairley, who is the
managing director and one of thefounders of Planet 3, or P3
Elevation.
His company is transformingflood mitigation by raising
(00:44):
homes and buildings to protectthem from costly and
catastrophic water damage.
It's not just about liftingstructures.
It's about elevating resilience, property values and peace of
mind.
I didn't even know this kind ofelevation service was possible
until I read a recent article inthe New York Times in which P3
was mentioned.
It really piqued my interest tofind out how the process works,
(01:06):
what are the benefits andchallenges, and is this the
future of flood protection forcoastal and other flood-prone
communities?
Well, today we're going to findout.
Wayne, welcome to Take it tothe Board.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Thank you, donna, it's really good to be here.
Thanks for the invitation.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, we're in our fourth season, Wayne, and we've
never done an episode on thistype of service.
As I said in the introduction,I didn't even know this was
possible, Although when youthink about it, it should be.
So let me ask you what inspiredyou to get into this business.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, like you, I knew nothing about this.
And 10-ish years ago a coupleof guys came to me, one of whom
is my brother.
I knew my brother was workingin this industry.
I obviously know him well, butI didn't really understand it.
He and the other guy the threeof us being founders of P3, they
(01:57):
said to me we're the best inthe world at what we do, but the
environment in which we do itis very complex and we don't
want to have anything to do withthat environment, we just want
to do the work.
Would you start a company andlet us work for you, and we will
have a home, so to speak, to dothis.
(02:17):
We're tired of being kind ofnomads in the industry, working
for a lot of other people.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
At that point their business was elevation, was
elevating structures.
And what did they start?
How small did they start out?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well, one of my associates, one of the
co-founders, chad.
He comes from a family inMichigan that is.
They call them shack draggers.
They move houses.
Of course those are small orthose are frame houses that are
not concrete slab houses like wehave here along the Southern US
right.
So he had been in the homemoving business and house
(02:53):
lifting business literally allof his life.
I think third generation in thebusiness.
But he and his father hadteamed with FEMA and LSU about
going on 30 years ago now toprove that slab homes could be
elevated.
So they did.
A pilot in Denham Springs,louisiana, almost 25 years ago
(03:15):
proved that slabs could belifted and since then Chad
trained most of the people inthe country that know how to
lift a slab home.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
You've been around long enough now to know that
this works, right this?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
technology works.
Undoubtedly it works.
We've, as P3, since the threeof us founded this, we've done
many hundreds of homes, 90% ofwhich are heavy slab structures.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Well, I want to talk to you about this because, again
, like I said in theintroduction, I saw video.
I saw that you dig trenches andyou lift it and unfortunately
we're not capturing video onthis, but we can put a link to
you.
They really need to see howthis works.
But can you walk us through theelevation process?
Let's take a 2,500-square-foothome.
(04:02):
Okay, let's say it's alreadyflooded once they come to P3.
They say, wayne, we don't wantthis to happen again.
Can you walk us through theprocess beginning to end?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yes.
So there are a couple ofoptions on how you go about this
.
But I'm going to speak about a2,500 square foot home that has
been remodeled, mitigated andremodeled right so it is a
finished product been remodeled,mitigated and remodeled right
so it is a finished product.
So, since it's been remodeledrecently because of a flood,
it's a nice place.
They've really done theselatest designs, everything.
(04:33):
It's a nice place.
So we want to take great carewith that.
So in one sense, I say we movewedding cakes right.
You don't want to break awedding cake the last thing you
want to do.
So a wedding cake is alwaysbuilt on a sheet, on a platform
of some sort, right?
You don't want to break awedding cake the last thing you
want to do.
So a wedding cake is alwaysbuilt on a sheet, on a platform
of some sort, right?
So what we do is lift thewedding cake.
We don't try to lift thewedding cake individually in
(04:54):
pieces.
We lift whatever the weddingcake is sitting on and we lift
that up and support it atwhatever level is appropriate
for that home.
And I can speak about how highdo we lift.
That's always a discussion andthere are several parameters for
that.
But we would tunnel under thehome and literally dig under
(05:17):
that 2,500 square feet home,about 100 to 150 linear feet of
tunnels.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
And I know I apologize in advance.
I'm going to stop you a lotbecause you're talking to
somebody who doesn't knowanything about first of all,
what kind of machinery do youuse to tunnel and how far down
do you know to tunnel?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Well, the answer may be surprising, in that we use no
machinery whatsoever for thetunneling.
We have teams of men whose jobis to tunnel and they love to
tunnel, and the artistry oftheir tunnels show their pride
in doing their job, doing theirwork, and so they literally do
(06:01):
it all by hand.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Okay, I have to let that sink in, and so they
literally do it all by hand.
Okay, I have to let that sinkin.
So for a 2,500 square foot home, what size team would you need?
Because tunneling is the start.
First you have to get-.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Tunneling is the start.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yes, Okay, so how many people would you we go?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
to the house, we make sure everything is out of the
way, so to speak.
We start tunneling.
So there would typically be ateam of 10 excavators, 10 guys,
for about 7 to 10 working daysand the main thing they're doing
is tunneling.
So a home most slab homes, ifthey're built properly.
(06:36):
You know, the top of the flooris flat of the slab right, but
on the bottom it's got ridges.
I say that the top of the slabis a pancake, the bottom of the
slab is a waffle.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Okay, so what we actually lift is the waffle.
We find the thick parts of theslab, they're called grade beams
, and so in the tunnelingprocess we identify these grade
beams, because we actually liftthe platform using the ridges
and the waffle right.
And so we do that tunneling andthen, after we've identified
(07:09):
all of those, we start buildingthe foundation.
And the foundation is built outof concrete blocks that are
about the size of my largelaptop screen here large laptop
screen here square and solid,and they have a hole in them.
(07:31):
So we literally put those inthe tunnels under the waffle
section.
Tell me if I'm getting too muchdetail here.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
No, keep going.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
One hydraulic jack that goes out to a machine
that's pressurized, pressurizingthe hose and pressurizing the
jack, and there's two peopledoing it and they're using
verbal signals to each other andthe guy in the trench is
literally lining the block upand pushing that block into the
dirt.
And then we'll reset the jackup to 50 times to push
(08:02):
additional blocks on top of thatone deep into the earth, and
between each block there's asteel pin that locks those two
blocks together and the secretsauce is that we push that block
until the pressure against theblock is so great that, instead
of the block going down, thehouse starts to move up.
(08:23):
So a key part of the qualitycontrol is to make sure you have
someone there that recognizeswhen that moment of refusal it's
called, when that moment ofrefusal occurs, so that you
don't break the blocks or youdon't break the house.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, that's a lot.
So, 500 square foot home.
Let's say, 10 days to dig thetunnels.
At what point?
Typically and I knoweverything's different and I
want to talk to you about thedifferent type of slabs that you
might encounter in thedifferent procedures but let's
say it's a slab in goodcondition, at what point do you
hit that refusal?
(08:59):
After the tunnels andeverything's in place?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
It depends on the soil.
So the block, the pile, isinstalled to a certain pressure
and it depends on the nature ofthe soil into which the block is
being pushed.
And in Florida, where you havesand, it's difficult to use this
method.
We don't use this method incoastal and beach environments
(09:24):
because you can't push thatblock into sand.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I was going to ask you so what method do you use
for homes built on the sand?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Instead, we do the same tunneling, but we tunnel in
order to insert beams under thehome.
So we lift the beam.
We don't lift on the pile.
We lift on a beam by pushing upon steel beams.
The pile, we lift on a beam bypushing up on steel beams.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Does the age of the structure matter, wayne, in
terms of whether or not theunderlying slab has deteriorated
, especially because concreteand again I'm not a contractor,
I'm not an engineer, but I'm anattorney who deals with a lot of
condos and homeownersassociations it's my
(10:04):
understanding that concrete hasgotten more porous in nature and
it gets more porous over time.
So can you talk about the ageand condition of the slab?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I am not either a concrete expert.
I know that concrete's strength, the chemical reaction that
creates concrete from the waterevaporation.
You know it gets strongerquickly.
In seven days it gets to mostof its strength and then I
understand it keepsstrengthening for up to 10 years
and then after that there's aslow decline in the quality of
(10:37):
the concrete right, but it canlast for hundreds of years.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
So what I'm hearing is there any structure that's
too old for this method?
Like, have you done anyhistoric homes or buildings?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yes.
So most of the homes that weelevate, I would say, were built
in the 60s or 50s, many in the70s and up since, but concrete
didn't come into use as widelyas it is until about the 50s,
right?
So if you think of themid-century moderns the ones
(11:12):
that you might see Cary Grant orsomebody having a party in
that's when concrete came to bewidely used in home construction
as a slab home, everythingbefore that was pretty much
categorically called pier andbeam, right.
So we left a lot of 50s, 60sand 70s homes of very large
(11:36):
footprint size.
Right, those tend to be thehouses with the bigger
footprints.
We left homes that are lessthan a year old that are very
large, also because somebodymessed up and didn't didn't get
it built correctly, right or atthe correct height for uh, I can
.
I can tell you why.
We would do a brand new house,but, but we do that too as a
(11:59):
practical matter.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
The age doesn't matter, it's the condition it
does okay, but pyramid beam iswood right, so if you were
talking about a house built inthe 20s, the 1920, or the 1880s
could you elevate that kind ofstructure, Wayne?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, absolutely, and my reference point for that is
the city of Galveston.
At that time, 1900, there was ahurricane that hit Galveston.
Nobody knew it was coming right.
It wasn't around then andGalveston was bigger than
Houston.
After that flood, the entirecity of Galveston was elevated.
(12:34):
Every house there was pier andbeam and they elevated almost
every house there by about fivefeet.
Pier and beam homes are mucheasier to do than slab houses.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Wow, You've led me into my next question.
Is there a minimum?
Somebody calls you out, Do yousay we have to raise it at least
this much and we can only raisethe structure this high.
Is there a minimum and amaximum for elevation?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
because it's difficult to work under a house
that's only been lifted a fewinches or one foot.
It's difficult to do thefollow-up things that we need to
do, like rebuild or restore theplumbing underneath the home.
It's easier if you've got acrawl space of two or three feet
.
So the sweet spot for ourbusiness is about five feet.
(13:25):
We elevate many, many, manyhomes in the four to five and a
half foot range because that's avery economical point and it
solves for 80% of our customers.
It solves their issue we canlift the highest that we've ever
lifted is 18 feet.
But there is no practicallimitation.
(13:46):
We've lifted many, many homes10 feet also, and the thinking
being that if you lift a homefive feet, you can't use the
space underneath for anythingexcept maybe storing a kayak.
You can't walk around under itpractically.
If you lift a home 10 feet,you've got an area the size of
(14:07):
the entire house underneaththat's usable for parking or
storage, any number of things.
So seven feet is kind of a noman's land.
It's not high enough to befunctional, but yet it's pretty
high right.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, I imagine you also have to contend with local
zoning ordinances.
So I wanted to ask you arelocal ordinances catching up
with this technology and thegrowing demand for elevation,
because we continue to flood?
And I want to talk to you andask you how many homes you've
seen your customers who havecome to you who have flooded
multiple times before they madethe decision to elevate.
(14:44):
So two-part question.
One are local ordinancescatching up because of the
recurrence of flooding in manyareas, and are you seeing a lot
of customers who were floodedmore than once and that's why
they came to you?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yes, I'll take the second one Right.
So here in Houston we have anarea called Meyerland that was
built out in the 60s A very nice.
It's close to the Texas MedicalCenter.
There are a lot of well-to-dofamilies that live there and
about half the population isJewish.
The synagogues are there.
(15:17):
Everybody that lives therewants to stay there, but yet
they flooded in 2015 and 2016and 2017.
Imagine remodeling your housethree times in three years.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
No, Wayne, I cannot imagine it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
No, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but after the
second and third floods theycalled us and we lifted a lot of
houses.
In that you have theintersection there of people
with means and repetitiveflooding in nice homes and a
desire to stay there.
That is an outlier communitywhere you have all those factors
(15:55):
in one place.
But yes, many people call usafter one flood, definitely
after two or three.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
And what about the local ordinances?
Because you said that thehighest elevation you've ever
attained was, I think, 18 feet.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yes, I imagine that was that okay, or did you have
to get a variance?
Speaker 1 (16:12):
under the local code.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So, if you can imagine, we lift homes in
various kinds of communities.
Think of a subdivision right,we have these sprawling
subdivisions and then in otherplaces you have a river, a
valley setting that is morecasual right, and so that along
those settings in fact I'mpicturing the Guadalupe River
(16:37):
here in Texas where once adecade a wall of water comes
down that valley as a torrentright, and so those homes need
to be lifted quite high andthat's where the super high
lifts happen.
The 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 footelevations happen Not in a
subdivision, where your neighboris way down there and you're
(17:01):
like a water tower.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
You know this podcast is called.
Take it to the Board.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Right.
So we deal with a lot of boardissues.
So I'm imagining, because yousaid not everything's homogenous
, you mentioned a relativelyhomogenous community, but I'm
thinking of one of my large HOAsand maybe you have one
individual, one home, one familythat has said we've had enough,
we're going to, we're going toelevate this house and we'll get
it cost but I imagine they'resignificant to lift a twenty
(17:31):
five hundred or thirty fivehundred square foot home.
But their neighbors don't feelthe same way.
They may have suffered throughflooding, they may not have the
same means.
So now you've got one homewhere they were equal and maybe
it changes the neighbor's view,it may be cast a shadow.
So those are the kind of issuesI'm thinking about that you
could encounter, and have youencountered that?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yes, we have.
So there are a lot of issueswrapped up into that right.
So I would say that typicallywe don't create outliers in a
community.
We lift homes in a communityand the others might not be
lifted, but they all want to beand they all.
If you go back to Meyerland, welifted a lot of houses there.
(18:18):
Today, 10 years after thosefloods, 80% of the homes there
have either been torn down andrebuilt at a higher level, or
they've been elevated or they'revacant lots, because after
three floods no one's going tojust keep remodeling their house
right, or they're not worth it.
They've been abandoned.
(18:40):
There's a few of thosescattered in that very nice
neighborhood.
So I would say that elevationis kind of the first mover of
those are the first movers inour community.
Everybody else is going tofollow by eventually elevating
their house or needing to buildor rebuild an elevated house.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
That was my suspicion as well, that it's like the
first domino right and then therest fall because you see, your
neighbor is not suffering thesame amount of damage.
I live in homeownersassociation in Western Broward
County.
We are slightly elevated, butin South Florida I mean, we're
at sea level, so we don't have.
We don't have anywhere to goreally.
(19:21):
But there is one home in myneighborhood and I think there's
98 homes in my neighborhoodthat is on a hill.
I think there's 98 homes in myneighborhood that is on a hill.
I don't know how, I don't know.
These were all custom homes, soI don't know if that individual
just had foresight 30 years agoto say I want to you know, have
an elevated home, but you knowthey drive up a hill a slight
(19:41):
hill, but it's still a hill forFlorida to get to their home.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yes, and so there's the appearance in a neighborhood
and an elevated home being anoutlier in appearance, right.
But there's also amisconception that that elevated
home is going to cause otherhomes to flood by displacing
water, when in fact that's nottrue, because every home that we
elevate in most flood zones andmost jurisdictions require
(20:08):
venting of that crawl space thatwe create, which basically says
when there's a flood, we'regoing to park water under this
home so that it does notincrease the water level for in
other, in other areas, for thenext door neighbor or others.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
You read my mind because that I would think would
be a neighbor's concern that,oh, my neighbor is elevated five
, 10 feet above me.
It's going to run off and floodmy home, but do you always
elevate and build it wherethere's displacement underneath?
Is it ever a solid structureunderneath a solid slab?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
underneath.
It cannot be by regulation.
So you mentioned a neighbor ona hill right so they brought in
fill and probably compacted itand built that house on top
right.
It's unusual to be able tobring fill into a community, at
least an urban community or asuburban community.
Most are built with the abilityto again park water under the
(21:07):
house.
They're suspended elevations,not built on fill.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Do you have any feedback from real estate
professionals as to whether ornot elevated real property these
days has an enhanced propertyvalue?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I'll answer that a different way.
It restores value.
It doesn't necessarily enhancevalue.
So again back to Meyerland.
If you go there today and youbuy a 2,500 square foot house
most of them are larger, but youbuy a home there it really
doesn't matter if it's anelevated home or a new home that
was built elevated, they're allmarket value homes, whereas the
(21:46):
home that's not been liftedthere has severely diminished
value, right?
So we restore the value of theones we elevate.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Doing what I do, knowing what I know, because I
have all these fabulous guestson the podcast.
If I were looking to downsizebecause I'm in a home that we,
you know, raised our family inand too big for us, maybe
looking to downsize I would belooking for something elevated.
I mean, I love the coast.
Right now I'm inland in westernBroward County.
(22:14):
I don't know if I would bemoving to the coast for a
variety of reasons, includinghurricanes, insurance and
everything else, but I think ifI were going to buy again, it
would be.
I'd be looking.
Elevation would be a factortoday when it wasn't, you know,
30 years ago.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Absolutely the same with me.
I would never build a house ona slab close to the ground.
I would at least fill, if Icould, a foot, maybe two, but I
would never build it.
Many of our customers, theydon't flood from widespread
flooding, they flood fromimmediate environmental changes.
(22:49):
Across the street they built alarge complex of some sort.
Now the drainage pattern haschanged and now their home is
getting flooded repeatedly.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah, I did an episode, wayne, with my partner,
katie Berkey, on constructiongoing up next door and I keep
trying to urge listeners ifthere is construction going up
next door, and I keep trying tourge listeners if there is
construction going up next door,it's important that you get
involved in that process.
It's not just about traffic andnoise and density.
You've hit on one of the othercrucial impacts new construction
(23:20):
can have on existingconstruction, and that's
drainage and flooding.
Yes, it really is huge.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
It's real.
Yes, you should be aware.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Have you had any repeat customers where you
raised them a few feet and thenthey came back and said we need
to do it again?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
One customer One and yeah, it's a gentleman in North
Houston that we raised thishouse four feet, and he was.
I can get into why we raised ita certain height, right, but he
thought four feet would coverevery contingency.
It covered every historicalconcern and then, literally
(24:00):
within the year, it had floodeda couple of inches in his house
and he had already beendisrupted three years in a row
and we went back and I chargedhim nothing to do that.
I don't like seeing grown mencry, but it was a very emotional
day for him and his family.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Well, that's very nice of you.
We haven't even talked aboutcost yet, so what are the costs?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
We get calls every day about I want to elevate my
house.
What's the price?
And that's an impossiblequestion to answer on the phone,
right, but I always tell folkseven before I go see them.
There are really three costs toelevation, and if someone's
giving you numbers, make surethat you're able to compare
(24:45):
apples and apples right.
And so the costs are thestructural cost, basically the
lifting it and putting afoundation under it, as I say,
that's going to hold it in placefor at least 100 years.
So there's the structural costs.
And then you have I call itfunctional costs.
You've disrupted some someplumbing, you disrupted some
(25:08):
electrical wires.
You've got to have steps now toyou know, or at least extend
steps to get in the house.
These are functional things tomake the house functional and
practically functional at thatlevel.
And then the third category isaesthetic costs, to make it
beautiful again and to make itlook like it was designed to,
was designed in that way.
(25:30):
So the first part is probablywhat you're most interested in.
The structural costs we don'tquote by the square foot, but
there's a correlation of squarefeet, two square feet over time.
And for a home that we'relifting, this is for slab homes,
not pier and beam a home thatwe're lifting.
This is for slab homes, notpier and beam, right?
(25:52):
No-transcript?
Just to give you a ballparkunderstanding.
So that 2,500 square foot houseis going to be 200 to 250,000
or 280,000.
It more depends on theaesthetics than anything else.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Sure, and if you live in a homeowners association,
you can be assured that theaesthetics are going to count.
So you're not just going toleave it like a construction
site when you're done.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
That is correct, and even if we're not doing the work
, all those aesthetics wecommonly do commonly do not, but
they're always an issue and Idon't want to elevate your house
unless there's a plan to makeit beautiful.
I don't want to leave aFrankenstein right.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
So I imagine there have to be grants available to
homeowners who want to do this.
It probably varies by geography, but can you talk about some of
the available grants?
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yes, there are three common kinds of grants and
they're all ultimately funded byFEMA.
And I got to tell you, donna,your head is going to hurt after
we talk about this.
It's a very complex world, okay.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
I'm somewhat familiar with it, Wayne.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Okay, well, fema has.
You know there are communitieswhere there's been repetitive
flooding, so FEMA has a nationallist of what they call SRL
properties severe repetitiveloss properties so if you have
one or more of those in yourcommunity, you can apply to FEMA
for categorically it's called aFMA grant Flood Mitigation
(27:27):
Assistance right, and what Iwant to tell you about that is
that it's a long process andvery few people get it.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yes, and that's by design, Wayne.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Maybe.
So FEMA, every year they createa pool of money just call it
$200 million.
Every year they create a poolof money just call it $200
million and all communities canapply for that.
I don't know what the win-lossratio is, but it's a pretty
small win percentage that get itand it depends on the score.
They call it the benefit-costratio, right?
(28:00):
So if you tell FEMA you'regoing to save them a lot of
money and it's not going to costthem much, you're probably
going to be high at the list ofgrants.
So there are only about 500houses a year in the country
that get that grant.
It correlates closely towinning the lottery, literally.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Have any of your customers gotten the grants?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yes, many, many.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
And does FEMA pay you directly or they reimburse the
owner?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Well, it's the state that applies for the money.
The state is the applicant, thecommunity is the sub-applicant
and the homeowner is thebeneficiary.
So there are lots of layers ofbureaucratic process.
So in year one, fema makes themoney available and you apply.
Year two, you get noticed thatyour community got this grant,
(28:48):
you know $8.6 million orwhatever it is.
Year three, it's finalized andthey advertise for contractors
to do this work right.
And then year four, it goesback up through the chain and
there's specific contracts andbids and proposals and that goes
back up to FEMA for approval.
(29:08):
And then in year five, somemore gets done.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
I'm thinking about who else benefits from being a
recipient of these grants.
I think the lenders do as well.
It's protecting theircollateral.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yes, and we rarely have involvement of the lender.
You know if we don't do it, thelender is going to be involved.
You know there's probably mightbe a default, a higher
percentage of defaults, and soon.
Doing elevation is less of anissue for the lender.
You're protecting thecollateral Exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Do we know?
Well, I was going to ask alsoare there any of your customers
who obtain loans to do thiselevation work?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yes, many of them In fact, immediately after
disasters where there's SBAassistance, many of them get an
SBA loan to do this work.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I would imagine that the one thing I haven't asked
you so far is whether or notyou've ever elevated a
multifamily building.
Have you ever elevated amultifamily?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yes, primarily, I'll categorically call them
townhomes, right, these aremultifamily in a horizontal
sense, not in a vertical sense.
They're attached homes.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
There was an article a few months back I think it was
a Miami Herald article and itwas talking about a number of
relatively new high-rise luxurybuildings in Miami-Dade that are
sinking Not at a catastrophicrate, but they are.
They did a subsidence report.
Is that something thatelevation could address?
(30:41):
Yes, it is.
Is that something thatelevation could address?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yes, it is.
You know, there'd be a fineline between elevating it and
just repairing it, right?
But it would involve the samemethodology of tunneling and
using a unified jacking systemto push it back up or push it to
level or to elevate it.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yes, so, Wayne, is P3 going to gear up for elevating
major high rises?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
We are, we can, yes, we do some industrial work.
That's similar, right?
Let's say there was a buildingat NASA last year that needed to
be elevated by two feet, and wedid that.
It was quite a large structure.
So it doesn't matter how thebuilding is configured, it's a
heavy structure, right?
It doesn't matter how thebuilding is configured, it's a
heavy structure, right?
(31:27):
A building of some sort, itdoesn't matter that it's
residential or not.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
No, it doesn't.
I would imagine the technologyis the same, which leads me to
my next question Is P3 doing anygovernment contracts?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Well, not directly with the government A lot of our
work is funded by thegovernment but indirectly
through the state and throughvarious cities and counties.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Are you collaborating with any similar companies
elsewhere in the world?
I imagine you share technology.
Maybe you go to differentindustry events in industry
events?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
We actually don't.
We borrow and lend someequipment at times, but no,
we're sort of heads down busy inour own world and, no, we don't
get out much.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
But I'm picturing when people hear about you,
maybe in Europe or whereverthey're experiencing the same
thing with rising water, they'rereaching out to you to see what
you all are doing.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
We do have a plan to expand by partnering with some
larger enterprises thatunderstand the vision and
understand our capabilities, sowe can take this to many other
states and other industries.
It's very extensible in acouple of directions.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I don't think flooding is going to suddenly go
away.
From every guest I've had onthis show, it seems like not
only is flooding here to stay,but it's going to get worse.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yes, absolutely so.
The industry today has beenmade up of a lot of small
specialist characters, right,and I'll say there's characters
that there's a founder andthere's always these stories
about these characters.
These are people that you knowthat live under houses,
tunneling and lifting you canalmost call them hobbyists and
(33:21):
we're trying to turn it into amainstream industry that can
assist counties, states,homeowners, nationwide, with all
sorts of structures and someinnovative thinking about what
might be possible.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I like your approach to the flooding problem, as
opposed to building up levees sohigh.
I have a lot of family membersin New Orleans, so one of New
Orleans responses to hurricanesand floodings is to build the
levees up very high.
What can happen, though, isthat you can feel like you're
(33:58):
literally living in the bottomof a bathtub, looking up over a
levee, but by elevating, youdon't have that issue.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Exactly, and you know we have some customers that
have looked at every possibility.
The pain is so great, right, wehave people that looked at
every option.
They come back to us and saythis is really the only
guarantee that I'm not going toflood.
It's all sorts of contraptionsand mechanisms and other
approaches, but this is the one,after exhausting it, this is
(34:27):
the one they like best.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
So for our listeners, Wayne, who say, well, I think
it was a one-off.
You know, like lightning's notgoing to strike me twice, I
don't think I'm going to getflooded twice.
But if they're in a flood-pronearea, what do you say?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Well, I have had the misfortune of seeing repetitive
flooding over now a long periodof time, right.
So I think anything is possibleand a lot of it is probable in
due time.
I was with a family thismorning that engaged with us
this morning to lift their houseand you know it affects their
(35:06):
lives.
You know every day if it'sraining or if there's a storm
coming.
I do not sleep.
Those are the words I heardthis morning.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I was going to say the mental and emotional toll
must be significant.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yes, and I first spoke to her seven years ago,
and she came back to me thismorning and signed up after
doing a lot of homework.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
I want to get back to what it's like to actually
raise the house.
Do the people need to do theoccupants need to vacate the
home?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I'm glad you asked.
So no material possessions needto leave the home during our
process.
We tell them if you have aPicasso on the wall, you should
probably take it right, or youhave something that's
irreplaceable or valuable, takeit with you.
Otherwise you just need yourtoothbrush and plan to be gone,
for it depends on how high thehouse is going to go.
(35:56):
But we get a lot of people backinto their homes, living in
their homes, in less than oneweek.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Less than one week.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yes, we start this excavation process.
They still live there.
There's guys working under thehouse but they still live there.
We have to lift the house.
We start disrupting theplumbing and electrical and air
conditioning.
They need to move out.
But we can put all that backtogether.
We can lift it and get thosethings back in place in less
(36:28):
than a week and they can moveback in.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Does anyone think that you're like shooting up the
house like a rocket?
This is incremental.
It's like what like about aninch a day that it's going up.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
No, we lift.
In most homes that we lift thatare going to go up less than
five feet, it's a one dayprocess.
We lift them eight inches,about eight inches an hour.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Eight inches an hour, but it's still not a rocket.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Safety is paramount in this process, right?
So we use a short jack, shortjack.
So we never have the housesuspended in midair without many
layers of support by more thaneight inches, so it's an
eight-inch increment processthat recurs about once an hour.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
I was going to ask you, Wayne, if there's any
downsides to attempting toelevate a structure, and I'm
specifically thinking aboutFlorida's six-month hurricane
season here.
So you know, is that, can youelevate during the six-month
season, and what happens ifyou're in the midst of elevating
and a storm comes in?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I don't have a tremendous amount of you know.
There hasn't been enough dataover the last 10 years to give
you an absolute answer.
I could just give you a coupleof data points.
There was a video published inthe New York Times, as you
mentioned earlier, of a home 17feet up sitting on temporary
(37:56):
cribbing, and that home took adirect hit from Hurricane Harvey
in Seguin, Texas, while it wassitting 17 feet up on cribbing
with no concrete under it for 17feet, and it did not waver.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
It did not, it was fine.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
No, it was fine.
Yeah, but I don't want to testthat very many times.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
No, you'd prefer not to be doing this in the midst of
a hurricane.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
But we do this year round.
I mean, we're in HurricaneAlley here in Texas, right, and
we've lifted some homes inFlorida and I could tell you
about that, but we just keepgoing.
We can't predict the storms, wejust keep going.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Have you had confirmation of insurance
mitigation credits for homesthat have been elevated?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yes, that was very predictable.
Until the last I'll call itthree years Almost every home
that we elevated to a heightthat was comfortably, that was
at FEMA's standard base floodelevation or higher their flood
insurance premiums alwaysdropped to the minimum.
(39:06):
We've not seen that in the lastthree years.
They have come down, but itseems some arbitrary number
right.
We have a lot of customers thathave flood insurance premiums
north of $10,000 a year and somenorth of $20,000 a year.
So those come down but not tothat minimum, like we used to
(39:27):
always see, of about $600, right.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
I don't know.
The market always seems toadjust, even to innovation.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Well, fema has something called a 2.0, right,
and so they're taking a.
The model has changed and Idon't yet understand the model.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
So what's next for P3 ?
I mean, it sounds like you guysare super.
Are you super busy, wayne?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
We are super busy.
Yes, we have.
Yes, we are, and it's good.
But we have a lot of capacityalso and we have a lot of talent
and when you're doing thesethings, the nuances, all the
nuances, matter right.
So it's not easy to scale upand to scale down.
(40:12):
We carry a large crew of peoplebecause they're specialists and
they know the nuances of thebusiness.
You can't just call in peoplewhen business flourishes.
So we cultivate a teamconstantly.
So we cultivate a teamconstantly and it enables us, it
enables me, to sleep well, youknow, knowing that things are
safe and that we're doing thingscorrectly and durably.
(40:49):
That's reassuring, because everytime well, listen, I'm down
here in South.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Florida.
But every time we have asignificant storm or a hurricane
, we do have a lot of, you know,out of state people come in
brand new people joining them tohelp out.
You know the level of theirexperience, the level of their
training, their credentials allcome into question.
So that's reassuring that youhave, you know, a longstanding
workforce.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
It is and there's really not a substitute for it,
and it's very painful to knowthat there are a lot of less
competent operators that arejust presenting themselves as
somebody they cannot possibly be.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Well, I was going to ask you that because, as we
continue to see these recurringfloods and recurring flood
damage, are you seeing morepeople get into your industry,
the elevation industry?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
It's been slow growth .
There are constraints on talentto do this, so what we have
done is taken a process.
Everything that we do, we areprocessizing right so that it
can be scalable and repeatable.
We're just looking for theright capital partners to help
(41:54):
us.
You know we need an academy ofelevation.
Right, it doesn't have to be abig academy, but there needs to
be standards and there needs tobe quality control of all things
.
There's tremendous demand fromthis.
We get calls from all over thecountry constantly.
Can you elevate my house inNorth Carolina, south Carolina,
(42:16):
tennessee, you name itCalifornia?
We've worked in California withcity of San Jose, for example.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
So you'll try.
I mean, I read on your website11 states you've done business
in.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yes, yeah, most of that experience is my
co-founders right.
I don't even consider myself anelevation guy.
You know I don't tunnel underthe house.
I handle this environment inwhich we do that tunneling.
It's a very complex environmentand they told me that I was
(42:46):
going to have the hard job andthey were absolutely right the
regulatory, environmental andfinance and things.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
You know, Wayne, as I'm sitting here talking to you
and we take this episode, I liveon a golf course and FDOT came
in and the golf course todisplace water and drainage.
I'm probably going to need yournumber on the dial at some point
Now that I'm probably going toneed your number on the dial at
some point now that I'm thinkingabout the drainage and my golf
(43:12):
course and where that water isprobably likely to go.
We'll see.
We'll see, you know.
Any final words for ourlisteners Because I have to tell
you, I really hope that we'veenlightened some people.
Like I said, I didn't know thatthis was a service that was
possible.
I should have, but I didn't.
I imagine some of our listeners.
(43:32):
This is also eye-opening forthem.
So any final words for ourlisteners and please let them
know where they can find you.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Thank you.
Well, of course they can alwaysfind us at p3elevationcom.
That's the best place.
Since you're concerned aboutboards, you know here in Texas
we have very active homeownersassociations and they do care a
lot about elevation, primarilythat aesthetic component.
So the state has gotteninvolved.
You'll have to look up theregulations.
(44:01):
But there are certain disarmingof homeowners associations
where there was a prohibition onelevating their home.
You can do more research onthat.
But we do have some strong HOAsand a lot of times the HOA is
the holdup in getting the workdone right and it's a fine line
between creating another hazardfor the family versus upholding
(44:24):
the community standard.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, so to that point it would be.
Texas has decided it's in thebest interest of the public that
, notwithstanding the homeownerarchitectural restrictions, that
people be allowed to safeguardtheir homes from flood damage.
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
That contention is going to persist.
Obviously right, and it is veryreal.
There's been HOAs that haveheld up and then the home floods
again and that's a lawsuit.
Well, you know, we'll leavethat to you.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
I'd probably be trying to defend it, but you're
right.
I mean, listen, in Florida wehaven't.
We haven't seen that yet, butone of the things we saw in
Florida was is there escaping?
We haven't seen that yet, butone of the things we saw in
Florida was is there escaping?
It was public.
The Florida legislature decidedthat it's in the public.
It's good public policy toallow owners to install drought
resistant landscaping, even ifit's not that pretty.
(45:18):
So homeowners associationcannot deny it because you know
Florida thinks it's a good thingand it's more economic.
Florida thinks it's a good thingand it's more economic yes.
You're right.
I think, as climate issuescontinue to mount, we're going
to see legislatures step in andallow their citizens to take
(45:39):
whatever steps they need to take.
Safeguard, you know, person andproperty.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I believe that this is a solution for the masses
right, and doing it in masswould bring the cost down
significantly and I do think itneeds to be considered broadly
as a solution.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Wayne, I really want to thank you for coming on the
show today.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Thank you very much for the conversation today.
It's been very enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Thank you for joining us today.
Don't forget to follow and rateus on your favorite podcast
platform, or visittakeittotheboardcom for more
ways to connect.
Hi everyone, I'm attorney Donna DiMaggio-Berger,
and this is Take it to the Boardwhere we speak.
Condo and HOA Homeownersthroughout the United States
know all too well thedevastation that flooding can
bring.
Rising tides, storm surges andunpredictable weather patterns
have left many communitiessearching for solutions beyond
(00:22):
sandbags and wishful thinking.
But what if you could quiteliterally lift your home or even
an entire structure out ofharm's way?
Today on Take it to the Board,we're diving into the innovative
world of structural elevationwith Wayne Fairley, who is the
managing director and one of thefounders of Planet 3, or P3
Elevation.
His company is transformingflood mitigation by raising
(00:44):
homes and buildings to protectthem from costly and
catastrophic water damage.
It's not just about liftingstructures.
It's about elevating resilience, property values and peace of
mind.
I didn't even know this kind ofelevation service was possible
until I read a recent article inthe New York Times in which P3
was mentioned.
It really piqued my interest tofind out how the process works,
(01:06):
what are the benefits andchallenges, and is this the
future of flood protection forcoastal and other flood-prone
communities?
Well, today we're going to findout.
Wayne, welcome to Take it tothe Board.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Thank you, donna, it's really good to be here.
Thanks for the invitation.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, we're in our fourth season, Wayne, and we've
never done an episode on thistype of service.
As I said in the introduction,I didn't even know this was
possible, Although when youthink about it, it should be.
So let me ask you what inspiredyou to get into this business.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, like you, I knew nothing about this.
And 10-ish years ago a coupleof guys came to me, one of whom
is my brother.
I knew my brother was workingin this industry.
I obviously know him well, butI didn't really understand it.
He and the other guy the threeof us being founders of P3, they
(01:57):
said to me we're the best inthe world at what we do, but the
environment in which we do itis very complex and we don't
want to have anything to do withthat environment, we just want
to do the work.
Would you start a company andlet us work for you, and we will
have a home, so to speak, to dothis.
(02:17):
We're tired of being kind ofnomads in the industry, working
for a lot of other people.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
At that point their business was elevation, was
elevating structures.
And what did they start?
How small did they start out?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well, one of my associates, one of the
co-founders, chad.
He comes from a family inMichigan that is.
They call them shack draggers.
They move houses.
Of course those are small orthose are frame houses that are
not concrete slab houses like wehave here along the Southern US
right.
So he had been in the homemoving business and house
(02:53):
lifting business literally allof his life.
I think third generation in thebusiness.
But he and his father hadteamed with FEMA and LSU about
going on 30 years ago now toprove that slab homes could be
elevated.
So they did.
A pilot in Denham Springs,louisiana, almost 25 years ago
(03:15):
proved that slabs could belifted and since then Chad
trained most of the people inthe country that know how to
lift a slab home.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
You've been around long enough now to know that
this works, right this?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
technology works.
Undoubtedly it works.
We've, as P3, since the threeof us founded this, we've done
many hundreds of homes, 90% ofwhich are heavy slab structures.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Well, I want to talk to you about this because, again
, like I said in theintroduction, I saw video.
I saw that you dig trenches andyou lift it and unfortunately
we're not capturing video onthis, but we can put a link to
you.
They really need to see howthis works.
But can you walk us through theelevation process?
Let's take a 2,500-square-foothome.
(04:02):
Okay, let's say it's alreadyflooded once they come to P3.
They say, wayne, we don't wantthis to happen again.
Can you walk us through theprocess beginning to end?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yes.
So there are a couple ofoptions on how you go about this
.
But I'm going to speak about a2,500 square foot home that has
been remodeled, mitigated andremodeled right so it is a
finished product been remodeled,mitigated and remodeled right
so it is a finished product.
So, since it's been remodeledrecently because of a flood,
it's a nice place.
They've really done theselatest designs, everything.
(04:33):
It's a nice place.
So we want to take great carewith that.
So in one sense, I say we movewedding cakes right.
You don't want to break awedding cake the last thing you
want to do.
So a wedding cake is alwaysbuilt on a sheet, on a platform
of some sort, right?
You don't want to break awedding cake the last thing you
want to do.
So a wedding cake is alwaysbuilt on a sheet, on a platform
of some sort, right?
So what we do is lift thewedding cake.
We don't try to lift thewedding cake individually in
(04:54):
pieces.
We lift whatever the weddingcake is sitting on and we lift
that up and support it atwhatever level is appropriate
for that home.
And I can speak about how highdo we lift.
That's always a discussion andthere are several parameters for
that.
But we would tunnel under thehome and literally dig under
(05:17):
that 2,500 square feet home,about 100 to 150 linear feet of
tunnels.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
And I know I apologize in advance.
I'm going to stop you a lotbecause you're talking to
somebody who doesn't knowanything about first of all,
what kind of machinery do youuse to tunnel and how far down
do you know to tunnel?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Well, the answer may be surprising, in that we use no
machinery whatsoever for thetunneling.
We have teams of men whose jobis to tunnel and they love to
tunnel, and the artistry oftheir tunnels show their pride
in doing their job, doing theirwork, and so they literally do
(06:01):
it all by hand.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Okay, I have to let that sink in, and so they
literally do it all by hand.
Okay, I have to let that sinkin.
So for a 2,500 square foot home, what size team would you need?
Because tunneling is the start.
First you have to get-.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Tunneling is the start.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yes, Okay, so how many people would you we go?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
to the house, we make sure everything is out of the
way, so to speak.
We start tunneling.
So there would typically be ateam of 10 excavators, 10 guys,
for about 7 to 10 working daysand the main thing they're doing
is tunneling.
So a home most slab homes, ifthey're built properly.
(06:36):
You know, the top of the flooris flat of the slab right, but
on the bottom it's got ridges.
I say that the top of the slabis a pancake, the bottom of the
slab is a waffle.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Okay, so what we actually lift is the waffle.
We find the thick parts of theslab, they're called grade beams
, and so in the tunnelingprocess we identify these grade
beams, because we actually liftthe platform using the ridges
and the waffle right.
And so we do that tunneling andthen, after we've identified
(07:09):
all of those, we start buildingthe foundation.
And the foundation is built outof concrete blocks that are
about the size of my largelaptop screen here large laptop
screen here square and solid,and they have a hole in them.
(07:31):
So we literally put those inthe tunnels under the waffle
section.
Tell me if I'm getting too muchdetail here.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
No, keep going.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
One hydraulic jack that goes out to a machine
that's pressurized, pressurizingthe hose and pressurizing the
jack, and there's two peopledoing it and they're using
verbal signals to each other andthe guy in the trench is
literally lining the block upand pushing that block into the
dirt.
And then we'll reset the jackup to 50 times to push
(08:02):
additional blocks on top of thatone deep into the earth, and
between each block there's asteel pin that locks those two
blocks together and the secretsauce is that we push that block
until the pressure against theblock is so great that, instead
of the block going down, thehouse starts to move up.
(08:23):
So a key part of the qualitycontrol is to make sure you have
someone there that recognizeswhen that moment of refusal it's
called, when that moment ofrefusal occurs, so that you
don't break the blocks or youdon't break the house.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, that's a lot.
So, 500 square foot home.
Let's say, 10 days to dig thetunnels.
At what point?
Typically and I knoweverything's different and I
want to talk to you about thedifferent type of slabs that you
might encounter in thedifferent procedures but let's
say it's a slab in goodcondition, at what point do you
hit that refusal?
(08:59):
After the tunnels andeverything's in place?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
It depends on the soil.
So the block, the pile, isinstalled to a certain pressure
and it depends on the nature ofthe soil into which the block is
being pushed.
And in Florida, where you havesand, it's difficult to use this
method.
We don't use this method incoastal and beach environments
(09:24):
because you can't push thatblock into sand.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I was going to ask you so what method do you use
for homes built on the sand?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Instead, we do the same tunneling, but we tunnel in
order to insert beams under thehome.
So we lift the beam.
We don't lift on the pile.
We lift on a beam by pushing upon steel beams.
The pile, we lift on a beam bypushing up on steel beams.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Does the age of the structure matter, wayne, in
terms of whether or not theunderlying slab has deteriorated
, especially because concreteand again I'm not a contractor,
I'm not an engineer, but I'm anattorney who deals with a lot of
condos and homeownersassociations it's my
(10:04):
understanding that concrete hasgotten more porous in nature and
it gets more porous over time.
So can you talk about the ageand condition of the slab?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I am not either a concrete expert.
I know that concrete's strength, the chemical reaction that
creates concrete from the waterevaporation.
You know it gets strongerquickly.
In seven days it gets to mostof its strength and then I
understand it keepsstrengthening for up to 10 years
and then after that there's aslow decline in the quality of
(10:37):
the concrete right, but it canlast for hundreds of years.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
So what I'm hearing is there any structure that's
too old for this method?
Like, have you done anyhistoric homes or buildings?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yes.
So most of the homes that weelevate, I would say, were built
in the 60s or 50s, many in the70s and up since, but concrete
didn't come into use as widelyas it is until about the 50s,
right?
So if you think of themid-century moderns the ones
(11:12):
that you might see Cary Grant orsomebody having a party in
that's when concrete came to bewidely used in home construction
as a slab home, everythingbefore that was pretty much
categorically called pier andbeam, right.
So we left a lot of 50s, 60sand 70s homes of very large
(11:36):
footprint size.
Right, those tend to be thehouses with the bigger
footprints.
We left homes that are lessthan a year old that are very
large, also because somebodymessed up and didn't didn't get
it built correctly, right or atthe correct height for uh, I can
.
I can tell you why.
We would do a brand new house,but, but we do that too as a
(11:59):
practical matter.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
The age doesn't matter, it's the condition it
does okay, but pyramid beam iswood right, so if you were
talking about a house built inthe 20s, the 1920, or the 1880s
could you elevate that kind ofstructure, Wayne?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, absolutely, and my reference point for that is
the city of Galveston.
At that time, 1900, there was ahurricane that hit Galveston.
Nobody knew it was coming right.
It wasn't around then andGalveston was bigger than
Houston.
After that flood, the entirecity of Galveston was elevated.
(12:34):
Every house there was pier andbeam and they elevated almost
every house there by about fivefeet.
Pier and beam homes are mucheasier to do than slab houses.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Wow, You've led me into my next question.
Is there a minimum?
Somebody calls you out, Do yousay we have to raise it at least
this much and we can only raisethe structure this high.
Is there a minimum and amaximum for elevation?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
because it's difficult to work under a house
that's only been lifted a fewinches or one foot.
It's difficult to do thefollow-up things that we need to
do, like rebuild or restore theplumbing underneath the home.
It's easier if you've got acrawl space of two or three feet
.
So the sweet spot for ourbusiness is about five feet.
(13:25):
We elevate many, many, manyhomes in the four to five and a
half foot range because that's avery economical point and it
solves for 80% of our customers.
It solves their issue we canlift the highest that we've ever
lifted is 18 feet.
But there is no practicallimitation.
(13:46):
We've lifted many, many homes10 feet also, and the thinking
being that if you lift a homefive feet, you can't use the
space underneath for anythingexcept maybe storing a kayak.
You can't walk around under itpractically.
If you lift a home 10 feet,you've got an area the size of
(14:07):
the entire house underneaththat's usable for parking or
storage, any number of things.
So seven feet is kind of a noman's land.
It's not high enough to befunctional, but yet it's pretty
high right.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, I imagine you also have to contend with local
zoning ordinances.
So I wanted to ask you arelocal ordinances catching up
with this technology and thegrowing demand for elevation,
because we continue to flood?
And I want to talk to you andask you how many homes you've
seen your customers who havecome to you who have flooded
multiple times before they madethe decision to elevate.
(14:44):
So two-part question.
One are local ordinancescatching up because of the
recurrence of flooding in manyareas, and are you seeing a lot
of customers who were floodedmore than once and that's why
they came to you?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yes, I'll take the second one Right.
So here in Houston we have anarea called Meyerland that was
built out in the 60s A very nice.
It's close to the Texas MedicalCenter.
There are a lot of well-to-dofamilies that live there and
about half the population isJewish.
The synagogues are there.
(15:17):
Everybody that lives therewants to stay there, but yet
they flooded in 2015 and 2016and 2017.
Imagine remodeling your housethree times in three years.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
No, Wayne, I cannot imagine it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
No, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but after the
second and third floods theycalled us and we lifted a lot of
houses.
In that you have theintersection there of people
with means and repetitiveflooding in nice homes and a
desire to stay there.
That is an outlier communitywhere you have all those factors
(15:55):
in one place.
But yes, many people call usafter one flood, definitely
after two or three.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
And what about the local ordinances?
Because you said that thehighest elevation you've ever
attained was, I think, 18 feet.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yes, I imagine that was that okay, or did you have
to get a variance?
Speaker 1 (16:12):
under the local code.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So, if you can imagine, we lift homes in
various kinds of communities.
Think of a subdivision right,we have these sprawling
subdivisions and then in otherplaces you have a river, a
valley setting that is morecasual right, and so that along
those settings in fact I'mpicturing the Guadalupe River
(16:37):
here in Texas where once adecade a wall of water comes
down that valley as a torrentright, and so those homes need
to be lifted quite high andthat's where the super high
lifts happen.
The 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 footelevations happen Not in a
subdivision, where your neighboris way down there and you're
(17:01):
like a water tower.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
You know this podcast is called.
Take it to the Board.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Right.
So we deal with a lot of boardissues.
So I'm imagining, because yousaid not everything's homogenous
, you mentioned a relativelyhomogenous community, but I'm
thinking of one of my large HOAsand maybe you have one
individual, one home, one familythat has said we've had enough,
we're going to, we're going toelevate this house and we'll get
it cost but I imagine they'resignificant to lift a twenty
(17:31):
five hundred or thirty fivehundred square foot home.
But their neighbors don't feelthe same way.
They may have suffered throughflooding, they may not have the
same means.
So now you've got one homewhere they were equal and maybe
it changes the neighbor's view,it may be cast a shadow.
So those are the kind of issuesI'm thinking about that you
could encounter, and have youencountered that?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yes, we have.
So there are a lot of issueswrapped up into that right.
So I would say that typicallywe don't create outliers in a
community.
We lift homes in a communityand the others might not be
lifted, but they all want to beand they all.
If you go back to Meyerland, welifted a lot of houses there.
(18:18):
Today, 10 years after thosefloods, 80% of the homes there
have either been torn down andrebuilt at a higher level, or
they've been elevated or they'revacant lots, because after
three floods no one's going tojust keep remodeling their house
right, or they're not worth it.
They've been abandoned.
(18:40):
There's a few of thosescattered in that very nice
neighborhood.
So I would say that elevationis kind of the first mover of
those are the first movers inour community.
Everybody else is going tofollow by eventually elevating
their house or needing to buildor rebuild an elevated house.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
That was my suspicion as well, that it's like the
first domino right and then therest fall because you see, your
neighbor is not suffering thesame amount of damage.
I live in homeownersassociation in Western Broward
County.
We are slightly elevated, butin South Florida I mean, we're
at sea level, so we don't have.
We don't have anywhere to goreally.
(19:21):
But there is one home in myneighborhood and I think there's
98 homes in my neighborhoodthat is on a hill.
I think there's 98 homes in myneighborhood that is on a hill.
I don't know how, I don't know.
These were all custom homes, soI don't know if that individual
just had foresight 30 years agoto say I want to you know, have
an elevated home, but you knowthey drive up a hill a slight
(19:41):
hill, but it's still a hill forFlorida to get to their home.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yes, and so there's the appearance in a neighborhood
and an elevated home being anoutlier in appearance, right.
But there's also amisconception that that elevated
home is going to cause otherhomes to flood by displacing
water, when in fact that's nottrue, because every home that we
elevate in most flood zones andmost jurisdictions require
(20:08):
venting of that crawl space thatwe create, which basically says
when there's a flood, we'regoing to park water under this
home so that it does notincrease the water level for in
other, in other areas, for thenext door neighbor or others.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
You read my mind because that I would think would
be a neighbor's concern that,oh, my neighbor is elevated five
, 10 feet above me.
It's going to run off and floodmy home, but do you always
elevate and build it wherethere's displacement underneath?
Is it ever a solid structureunderneath a solid slab?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
underneath.
It cannot be by regulation.
So you mentioned a neighbor ona hill right so they brought in
fill and probably compacted itand built that house on top
right.
It's unusual to be able tobring fill into a community, at
least an urban community or asuburban community.
Most are built with the abilityto again park water under the
(21:07):
house.
They're suspended elevations,not built on fill.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Do you have any feedback from real estate
professionals as to whether ornot elevated real property these
days has an enhanced propertyvalue?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I'll answer that a different way.
It restores value.
It doesn't necessarily enhancevalue.
So again back to Meyerland.
If you go there today and youbuy a 2,500 square foot house
most of them are larger, but youbuy a home there it really
doesn't matter if it's anelevated home or a new home that
was built elevated, they're allmarket value homes, whereas the
(21:46):
home that's not been liftedthere has severely diminished
value, right?
So we restore the value of theones we elevate.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Doing what I do, knowing what I know, because I
have all these fabulous guestson the podcast.
If I were looking to downsizebecause I'm in a home that we,
you know, raised our family inand too big for us, maybe
looking to downsize I would belooking for something elevated.
I mean, I love the coast.
Right now I'm inland in westernBroward County.
(22:14):
I don't know if I would bemoving to the coast for a
variety of reasons, includinghurricanes, insurance and
everything else, but I think ifI were going to buy again, it
would be.
I'd be looking.
Elevation would be a factortoday when it wasn't, you know,
30 years ago.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Absolutely the same with me.
I would never build a house ona slab close to the ground.
I would at least fill, if Icould, a foot, maybe two, but I
would never build it.
Many of our customers, theydon't flood from widespread
flooding, they flood fromimmediate environmental changes.
(22:49):
Across the street they built alarge complex of some sort.
Now the drainage pattern haschanged and now their home is
getting flooded repeatedly.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah, I did an episode, wayne, with my partner,
katie Berkey, on constructiongoing up next door and I keep
trying to urge listeners ifthere is construction going up
next door, and I keep trying tourge listeners if there is
construction going up next door,it's important that you get
involved in that process.
It's not just about traffic andnoise and density.
You've hit on one of the othercrucial impacts new construction
(23:20):
can have on existingconstruction, and that's
drainage and flooding.
Yes, it really is huge.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
It's real.
Yes, you should be aware.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Have you had any repeat customers where you
raised them a few feet and thenthey came back and said we need
to do it again?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
One customer One and yeah, it's a gentleman in North
Houston that we raised thishouse four feet, and he was.
I can get into why we raised ita certain height, right, but he
thought four feet would coverevery contingency.
It covered every historicalconcern and then, literally
(24:00):
within the year, it had floodeda couple of inches in his house
and he had already beendisrupted three years in a row
and we went back and I chargedhim nothing to do that.
I don't like seeing grown mencry, but it was a very emotional
day for him and his family.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Well, that's very nice of you.
We haven't even talked aboutcost yet, so what are the costs?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
We get calls every day about I want to elevate my
house.
What's the price?
And that's an impossiblequestion to answer on the phone,
right, but I always tell folkseven before I go see them.
There are really three costs toelevation, and if someone's
giving you numbers, make surethat you're able to compare
(24:45):
apples and apples right.
And so the costs are thestructural cost, basically the
lifting it and putting afoundation under it, as I say,
that's going to hold it in placefor at least 100 years.
So there's the structural costs.
And then you have I call itfunctional costs.
You've disrupted some someplumbing, you disrupted some
(25:08):
electrical wires.
You've got to have steps now toyou know, or at least extend
steps to get in the house.
These are functional things tomake the house functional and
practically functional at thatlevel.
And then the third category isaesthetic costs, to make it
beautiful again and to make itlook like it was designed to,
was designed in that way.
(25:30):
So the first part is probablywhat you're most interested in.
The structural costs we don'tquote by the square foot, but
there's a correlation of squarefeet, two square feet over time.
And for a home that we'relifting, this is for slab homes,
not pier and beam a home thatwe're lifting.
This is for slab homes, notpier and beam, right?
(25:52):
No-transcript?
Just to give you a ballparkunderstanding.
So that 2,500 square foot houseis going to be 200 to 250,000
or 280,000.
It more depends on theaesthetics than anything else.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Sure, and if you live in a homeowners association,
you can be assured that theaesthetics are going to count.
So you're not just going toleave it like a construction
site when you're done.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
That is correct, and even if we're not doing the work
, all those aesthetics wecommonly do commonly do not, but
they're always an issue and Idon't want to elevate your house
unless there's a plan to makeit beautiful.
I don't want to leave aFrankenstein right.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
So I imagine there have to be grants available to
homeowners who want to do this.
It probably varies by geography, but can you talk about some of
the available grants?
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yes, there are three common kinds of grants and
they're all ultimately funded byFEMA.
And I got to tell you, donna,your head is going to hurt after
we talk about this.
It's a very complex world, okay.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
I'm somewhat familiar with it, Wayne.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Okay, well, fema has.
You know there are communitieswhere there's been repetitive
flooding, so FEMA has a nationallist of what they call SRL
properties severe repetitiveloss properties so if you have
one or more of those in yourcommunity, you can apply to FEMA
for categorically it's called aFMA grant Flood Mitigation
(27:27):
Assistance right, and what Iwant to tell you about that is
that it's a long process andvery few people get it.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yes, and that's by design, Wayne.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Maybe.
So FEMA, every year they createa pool of money just call it
$200 million.
Every year they create a poolof money just call it $200
million and all communities canapply for that.
I don't know what the win-lossratio is, but it's a pretty
small win percentage that get itand it depends on the score.
They call it the benefit-costratio, right?
(28:00):
So if you tell FEMA you'regoing to save them a lot of
money and it's not going to costthem much, you're probably
going to be high at the list ofgrants.
So there are only about 500houses a year in the country
that get that grant.
It correlates closely towinning the lottery, literally.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Have any of your customers gotten the grants?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yes, many, many.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
And does FEMA pay you directly or they reimburse the
owner?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Well, it's the state that applies for the money.
The state is the applicant, thecommunity is the sub-applicant
and the homeowner is thebeneficiary.
So there are lots of layers ofbureaucratic process.
So in year one, fema makes themoney available and you apply.
Year two, you get noticed thatyour community got this grant,
(28:48):
you know $8.6 million orwhatever it is.
Year three, it's finalized andthey advertise for contractors
to do this work right.
And then year four, it goesback up through the chain and
there's specific contracts andbids and proposals and that goes
back up to FEMA for approval.
(29:08):
And then in year five, somemore gets done.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
I'm thinking about who else benefits from being a
recipient of these grants.
I think the lenders do as well.
It's protecting theircollateral.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yes, and we rarely have involvement of the lender.
You know if we don't do it, thelender is going to be involved.
You know there's probably mightbe a default, a higher
percentage of defaults, and soon.
Doing elevation is less of anissue for the lender.
You're protecting thecollateral Exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Do we know?
Well, I was going to ask alsoare there any of your customers
who obtain loans to do thiselevation work?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yes, many of them In fact, immediately after
disasters where there's SBAassistance, many of them get an
SBA loan to do this work.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I would imagine that the one thing I haven't asked
you so far is whether or notyou've ever elevated a
multifamily building.
Have you ever elevated amultifamily?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yes, primarily, I'll categorically call them
townhomes, right, these aremultifamily in a horizontal
sense, not in a vertical sense.
They're attached homes.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
There was an article a few months back I think it was
a Miami Herald article and itwas talking about a number of
relatively new high-rise luxurybuildings in Miami-Dade that are
sinking Not at a catastrophicrate, but they are.
They did a subsidence report.
Is that something thatelevation could address?
(30:41):
Yes, it is.
Is that something thatelevation could address?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yes, it is.
You know, there'd be a fineline between elevating it and
just repairing it, right?
But it would involve the samemethodology of tunneling and
using a unified jacking systemto push it back up or push it to
level or to elevate it.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yes, so, Wayne, is P3 going to gear up for elevating
major high rises?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
We are, we can, yes, we do some industrial work.
That's similar, right?
Let's say there was a buildingat NASA last year that needed to
be elevated by two feet, and wedid that.
It was quite a large structure.
So it doesn't matter how thebuilding is configured, it's a
heavy structure, right?
It doesn't matter how thebuilding is configured, it's a
heavy structure, right?
(31:27):
A building of some sort, itdoesn't matter that it's
residential or not.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
No, it doesn't.
I would imagine the technologyis the same, which leads me to
my next question Is P3 doing anygovernment contracts?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Well, not directly with the government A lot of our
work is funded by thegovernment but indirectly
through the state and throughvarious cities and counties.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Are you collaborating with any similar companies
elsewhere in the world?
I imagine you share technology.
Maybe you go to differentindustry events in industry
events?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
We actually don't.
We borrow and lend someequipment at times, but no,
we're sort of heads down busy inour own world and, no, we don't
get out much.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
But I'm picturing when people hear about you,
maybe in Europe or whereverthey're experiencing the same
thing with rising water, they'rereaching out to you to see what
you all are doing.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
We do have a plan to expand by partnering with some
larger enterprises thatunderstand the vision and
understand our capabilities, sowe can take this to many other
states and other industries.
It's very extensible in acouple of directions.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I don't think flooding is going to suddenly go
away.
From every guest I've had onthis show, it seems like not
only is flooding here to stay,but it's going to get worse.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yes, absolutely so.
The industry today has beenmade up of a lot of small
specialist characters, right,and I'll say there's characters
that there's a founder andthere's always these stories
about these characters.
These are people that you knowthat live under houses,
tunneling and lifting you canalmost call them hobbyists and
(33:21):
we're trying to turn it into amainstream industry that can
assist counties, states,homeowners, nationwide, with all
sorts of structures and someinnovative thinking about what
might be possible.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I like your approach to the flooding problem, as
opposed to building up levees sohigh.
I have a lot of family membersin New Orleans, so one of New
Orleans responses to hurricanesand floodings is to build the
levees up very high.
What can happen, though, isthat you can feel like you're
(33:58):
literally living in the bottomof a bathtub, looking up over a
levee, but by elevating, youdon't have that issue.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Exactly, and you know we have some customers that
have looked at every possibility.
The pain is so great, right, wehave people that looked at
every option.
They come back to us and saythis is really the only
guarantee that I'm not going toflood.
It's all sorts of contraptionsand mechanisms and other
approaches, but this is the one,after exhausting it, this is
(34:27):
the one they like best.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
So for our listeners, Wayne, who say, well, I think
it was a one-off.
You know, like lightning's notgoing to strike me twice, I
don't think I'm going to getflooded twice.
But if they're in a flood-pronearea, what do you say?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Well, I have had the misfortune of seeing repetitive
flooding over now a long periodof time, right.
So I think anything is possibleand a lot of it is probable in
due time.
I was with a family thismorning that engaged with us
this morning to lift their houseand you know it affects their
(35:06):
lives.
You know every day if it'sraining or if there's a storm
coming.
I do not sleep.
Those are the words I heardthis morning.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I was going to say the mental and emotional toll
must be significant.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yes, and I first spoke to her seven years ago,
and she came back to me thismorning and signed up after
doing a lot of homework.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
I want to get back to what it's like to actually
raise the house.
Do the people need to do theoccupants need to vacate the
home?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I'm glad you asked.
So no material possessions needto leave the home during our
process.
We tell them if you have aPicasso on the wall, you should
probably take it right, or youhave something that's
irreplaceable or valuable, takeit with you.
Otherwise you just need yourtoothbrush and plan to be gone,
for it depends on how high thehouse is going to go.
(35:56):
But we get a lot of people backinto their homes, living in
their homes, in less than oneweek.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Less than one week.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yes, we start this excavation process.
They still live there.
There's guys working under thehouse but they still live there.
We have to lift the house.
We start disrupting theplumbing and electrical and air
conditioning.
They need to move out.
But we can put all that backtogether.
We can lift it and get thosethings back in place in less
(36:28):
than a week and they can moveback in.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Does anyone think that you're like shooting up the
house like a rocket?
This is incremental.
It's like what like about aninch a day that it's going up.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
No, we lift.
In most homes that we lift thatare going to go up less than
five feet, it's a one dayprocess.
We lift them eight inches,about eight inches an hour.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Eight inches an hour, but it's still not a rocket.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Safety is paramount in this process, right?
So we use a short jack, shortjack.
So we never have the housesuspended in midair without many
layers of support by more thaneight inches, so it's an
eight-inch increment processthat recurs about once an hour.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
I was going to ask you, Wayne, if there's any
downsides to attempting toelevate a structure, and I'm
specifically thinking aboutFlorida's six-month hurricane
season here.
So you know, is that, can youelevate during the six-month
season, and what happens ifyou're in the midst of elevating
and a storm comes in?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I don't have a tremendous amount of you know.
There hasn't been enough dataover the last 10 years to give
you an absolute answer.
I could just give you a coupleof data points.
There was a video published inthe New York Times, as you
mentioned earlier, of a home 17feet up sitting on temporary
(37:56):
cribbing, and that home took adirect hit from Hurricane Harvey
in Seguin, Texas, while it wassitting 17 feet up on cribbing
with no concrete under it for 17feet, and it did not waver.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
It did not, it was fine.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
No, it was fine.
Yeah, but I don't want to testthat very many times.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
No, you'd prefer not to be doing this in the midst of
a hurricane.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
But we do this year round.
I mean, we're in HurricaneAlley here in Texas, right, and
we've lifted some homes inFlorida and I could tell you
about that, but we just keepgoing.
We can't predict the storms, wejust keep going.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Have you had confirmation of insurance
mitigation credits for homesthat have been elevated?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yes, that was very predictable.
Until the last I'll call itthree years Almost every home
that we elevated to a heightthat was comfortably, that was
at FEMA's standard base floodelevation or higher their flood
insurance premiums alwaysdropped to the minimum.
(39:06):
We've not seen that in the lastthree years.
They have come down, but itseems some arbitrary number
right.
We have a lot of customers thathave flood insurance premiums
north of $10,000 a year and somenorth of $20,000 a year.
So those come down but not tothat minimum, like we used to
(39:27):
always see, of about $600, right.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
I don't know.
The market always seems toadjust, even to innovation.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Well, fema has something called a 2.0, right,
and so they're taking a.
The model has changed and Idon't yet understand the model.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
So what's next for P3 ?
I mean, it sounds like you guysare super.
Are you super busy, wayne?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
We are super busy.
Yes, we have.
Yes, we are, and it's good.
But we have a lot of capacityalso and we have a lot of talent
and when you're doing thesethings, the nuances, all the
nuances, matter right.
So it's not easy to scale upand to scale down.
(40:12):
We carry a large crew of peoplebecause they're specialists and
they know the nuances of thebusiness.
You can't just call in peoplewhen business flourishes.
So we cultivate a teamconstantly.
So we cultivate a teamconstantly and it enables us, it
enables me, to sleep well, youknow, knowing that things are
safe and that we're doing thingscorrectly and durably.
(40:49):
That's reassuring, because everytime well, listen, I'm down
here in South.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Florida.
But every time we have asignificant storm or a hurricane
, we do have a lot of, you know,out of state people come in
brand new people joining them tohelp out.
You know the level of theirexperience, the level of their
training, their credentials allcome into question.
So that's reassuring that youhave, you know, a longstanding
workforce.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
It is and there's really not a substitute for it,
and it's very painful to knowthat there are a lot of less
competent operators that arejust presenting themselves as
somebody they cannot possibly be.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Well, I was going to ask you that because, as we
continue to see these recurringfloods and recurring flood
damage, are you seeing morepeople get into your industry,
the elevation industry?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
It's been slow growth .
There are constraints on talentto do this, so what we have
done is taken a process.
Everything that we do, we areprocessizing right so that it
can be scalable and repeatable.
We're just looking for theright capital partners to help
(41:54):
us.
You know we need an academy ofelevation.
Right, it doesn't have to be abig academy, but there needs to
be standards and there needs tobe quality control of all things
.
There's tremendous demand fromthis.
We get calls from all over thecountry constantly.
Can you elevate my house inNorth Carolina, south Carolina,
(42:16):
tennessee, you name itCalifornia?
We've worked in California withcity of San Jose, for example.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
So you'll try.
I mean, I read on your website11 states you've done business
in.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yes, yeah, most of that experience is my
co-founders right.
I don't even consider myself anelevation guy.
You know I don't tunnel underthe house.
I handle this environment inwhich we do that tunneling.
It's a very complex environmentand they told me that I was
(42:46):
going to have the hard job andthey were absolutely right the
regulatory, environmental andfinance and things.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
You know, Wayne, as I'm sitting here talking to you
and we take this episode, I liveon a golf course and FDOT came
in and the golf course todisplace water and drainage.
I'm probably going to need yournumber on the dial at some point
Now that I'm probably going toneed your number on the dial at
some point now that I'm thinkingabout the drainage and my golf
(43:12):
course and where that water isprobably likely to go.
We'll see.
We'll see, you know.
Any final words for ourlisteners Because I have to tell
you, I really hope that we'veenlightened some people.
Like I said, I didn't know thatthis was a service that was
possible.
I should have, but I didn't.
I imagine some of our listeners.
(43:32):
This is also eye-opening forthem.
So any final words for ourlisteners and please let them
know where they can find you.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Thank you.
Well, of course they can alwaysfind us at p3elevationcom.
That's the best place.
Since you're concerned aboutboards, you know here in Texas
we have very active homeownersassociations and they do care a
lot about elevation, primarilythat aesthetic component.
So the state has gotteninvolved.
You'll have to look up theregulations.
(44:01):
But there are certain disarmingof homeowners associations
where there was a prohibition onelevating their home.
You can do more research onthat.
But we do have some strong HOAsand a lot of times the HOA is
the holdup in getting the workdone right and it's a fine line
between creating another hazardfor the family versus upholding
(44:24):
the community standard.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, so to that point it would be.
Texas has decided it's in thebest interest of the public that
, notwithstanding the homeownerarchitectural restrictions, that
people be allowed to safeguardtheir homes from flood damage.
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
That contention is going to persist.
Obviously right, and it is veryreal.
There's been HOAs that haveheld up and then the home floods
again and that's a lawsuit.
Well, you know, we'll leavethat to you.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
I'd probably be trying to defend it, but you're
right.
I mean, listen, in Florida wehaven't.
We haven't seen that yet, butone of the things we saw in
Florida was is there escaping?
We haven't seen that yet, butone of the things we saw in
Florida was is there escaping?
It was public.
The Florida legislature decidedthat it's in the public.
It's good public policy toallow owners to install drought
resistant landscaping, even ifit's not that pretty.
(45:18):
So homeowners associationcannot deny it because you know
Florida thinks it's a good thingand it's more economic.
Florida thinks it's a good thingand it's more economic yes.
You're right.
I think, as climate issuescontinue to mount, we're going
to see legislatures step in andallow their citizens to take
(45:39):
whatever steps they need to take.
Safeguard, you know, person andproperty.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I believe that this is a solution for the masses
right, and doing it in masswould bring the cost down
significantly and I do think itneeds to be considered broadly
as a solution.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Wayne, I really want to thank you for coming on the
show today.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Thank you very much for the conversation today.
It's been very enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Thank you for joining us today.
Don't forget to follow and rateus on your favorite podcast
platform, or visittakeittotheboardcom for more
ways to connect.
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