Quality Control
On the list of attributes that make custom home builder Bruce Lee's firm stand out from the crowd is a talent Lee describes as the ability to instantly recognize the slightest inaccuracy or inconsistency in construction. It is this talent that elevates the homes he builds to the high-end category of the market. "I can walk by something and if it doesn't feel right, I know there's a reason why. And then I start looking, and I say, 'Oh, there it is.' So, I have the ability to see things that other people can't see. And it could be just small little details. It could be an eighth-of-an-inch or a quarter-of-an-inch. To me, that's huge, and other people, they say, 'Ah, that's only an eighth-of-an-inch.' Well, it's still an eighth-of-an-inch, and it means something," he says.
One of Bruce Lee's laws of construction is to always fix what's not right. "For instance, this sill right here. We added a sill piece underneath, which you might not be able to see. The projection wasn't out far enough. When you're standing out there from the street and you're looking at it, it didn't fit right," he said. "The choice was either rip it off or add another piece to it. We chose to add another piece to it, which actually worked out really well because it created another detail. It cost more money because we had the labor and material costs. But, it's not the amount of money you spend, it's how well you do something that overrides the cost."
Sacrificing the look of a house for cost is not an option, Lee insists. Cost isn't as important as achieving a good look. When somebody says, "Hey, that's OK," it's not necessarily good, especially when building a house of this style, he explains. "OK is not good enough. It has to be done right. So, yes, it cost more money to add this sill because of the material and the labor, but that (is secondary to) the quality of the house. The quality of the house is more important than the cost."
Lee sees his job as quality control manager, and to make sure the crew does its job the proper way. "They're good carpenters and good technicians and they do great work, but they might miss something. So if they miss something, it's up to me to look at it, see if it's not quite right, and tell them]we're going to fix it. We're going to rip it off, and we're going to redo it, but we're going to fix it."
