Single Family Home

Canton

Herbert Construction Co.

Canton, Georgia

Herbert Construction Co. of Marietta, Georgia is a Project of the Year winner for the foundation of a 19,942 square foot home currently under construction in Canton, Georgia.

When the homeowners purchase an entire new subdivision to build their home, you know the house will be something special.  Before the foundation for the main house was started, Herbert Construction was “tested” on the guesthouse within the same exclusive subdivision.  The guesthouse itself was a 4,625 square foot home, a large home by most standards.

When the main residence was started it was a hurry-up job, complicated by the fact that the architect was still drawing it.  Josh Morris, who draws all of Herbert’s jobs on CAD, was working extremely long hours to expedite the job drawings, “only portions of the foundation would be released for construction at a time, but even when a section was supposedly finalized, the architect, engineer, or the home owner would change something.  It was impossible to get ahead.”

One of the most difficult portions of the project was the 385 lineal feet of radius walls with various wall heights of 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 feet tall.  “In several instances, circular walls intersected into other circular walls.  In one instance, three circular walls intersected at the same point,” said Doug Herbert, President of Herbert Construction Co. “Deep brick ledge in most of the curved walls further complicated the construction.”

Amanda Morris, VP of Operations, schedules all the crews, calculates and orders the concrete and schedules the pumps.  She indicated that concrete scheduling was quite difficult on this project.  “From a scheduling standpoint the job was much more difficult than usual because it was so out of the ordinary.  We’re not used to that many tall radius walls and it was hard to know how much wall we’d get set each day.  Each wall was a different radius and a different height.”

Most residential foundations are drawn with primarily ninety-degree corners.  Ninety-degree corners are the easiest to form because any other angle requires special corner forms, special fillers, and extra bracing.  In this project there were a total of 2,682 vertical feet of corners other than ninety-degrees.

The multifaceted structure included two garages, separated from the main foundation area, but attached by second story framing, creating a porte-cochere with an automobile court behind the garages.  Two hundred seventy-five feet of retaining walls were also part of the project.  There were a total of 935 cubic yards of concrete in the walls and footings, and 35 tons of rebar.

It’s nice to be complimented for a job well done, especially when the scope of the project is so extensive.  “From the start, Leonard Jacklett with Jacklett Construction, Inc.—the general contractor—made his expectations clear regarding the level of quality and professionalism he needed from us, and the schedule that we had to hit,” said Carl Hire, who managed the job for Herbert Construction.  “He expressed a genuine level of appreciation for the job we were doing.  His sincere thanks always assured me that we were exceeding his expectations.”

Doug Herbert recognizes the marketing benefits of winning a national award such as this.  “Winning this award brings our company national attention,” he said.  “However, the real benefit for us comes from publicizing it in our own building markets.  We will incorporate this award into all of our sales and marketing efforts.  This separates our company from all of the other concrete contractors in our area.  It’s a huge advantage for us.”

Project Specifications:

• Size
  • Total Lin. Ft: 2,570
  • Total Sq. Ft: 11,000
  • Walls: 650 yds
  • Footings: 285 yds
• Steel Used
  • Walls: 40,445 lbs
  • Footings: 29,004 lbs
• Wall Heights: 32 different wall types varying from 1′ to 18′
• Wall Thickness: 8 different wall thicknesses varying from 6″ to 24″