Atmosphere Design Build

I’ve know Mela and Dave professionally for 10 years. They have been great mentors for me and were always willing to share their experience and expertise as I began to open my own firm. I have toured many of their completed projects and I’m in awe of the craft and ingenuity of this firm. Their passion and knowledge for passive homes really shows in each home they design and build. Every homeowner that I met along the tour expressed how much they enjoyed working with Atmosphere Design Build and how much they are in love with the beauty and comfort of their homes. Atmosphere Design Build is a talented, trustworthy and passionate design build firm.

We worked with Atmosphere Design Build on the construction of a 1986 square foot, two-story residence. The firm is at the forefront of high performance home design and construction. We were very pleased by the crew's attention to every detail from air sealing the floor, wall and roof assemblies, to the execution of precise metal cladding details and modern interior finishes. Dave has cultivated a construction crew that cares about the importance of building for the long term. Every member is educated about how to frame without unnecessary lumber and ensure that all connections are sealed to minimize air infiltration. This holistic approach to construction pays off with lower heating and cooling bills for the lifetime of the building. As a full service firm, you have the opportunity to receive design services in addition to a high level of construction. Mela treats each project as a precious opportunity to integrate design vision, comfort and a building that is well-fitted to the site. From an early stage, the consequences of design decisions on overall energy performance are considered. This is not typical of the average design firm and represents the genuine commitment of the firm to create buildings that tread as lightly as possible on the earth.

In 2017 I purchased a decommissioned Nevada City firehouse with the vision of converting into an open living space and energy efficient home . Several people referred me to Atmosphere Design Build for the project. Mela, Jeff and the team at ADB were terrific to work with all stages on the project, from initial design, to materials and systems selection to working with county departments. The resulting project is an extremely articulate and functional design. It features large interior elevations, East and West windows that support the flow of light from sunrise to sunset, and well insulated quite environment. I'd recommend Mela and her team to anyone looking to design a modern energy efficient home.

I hired husband and wife team of Mela Breen and Dave Good at Atmoshere Design + Build to design and build a Certified Passive House (PH) with a slab-on-grade floor in snow country at 5,000 feet in the Sierras just north of Lake Tahoe. It was the worst and most costly mistake I’ve ever made. I ended up with a set of unfinished plans, a partially built foundation that’s wrong and pretty much useless, and a barn full of insulation that’ll be difficult to get rid of. I fired them in less than 3 months, before we were fully out of the ground. The pressure was pretty relentless to get to permits in April of 2018. We were eight months into the design and already two or more months behind the original schedule, which was to be fully enclosed by Thanksgiving. We modified the schedule to complete the foundation and pour the slab by early September, 2018, and start the framing, roof and enclosure in May, 2019. They had other projects in progress and I much preferred to get my house right rather than just get it done. Mela filed for permits with an incomplete set of plans in early May. Solar plans were omitted. Cal-Fire was omitted. The electric plan omitted the meter and the exterior master cut-off switch for the fire department. It only showed the house sub-panel and very few fixtures, lights and plugs. The site plan, pretty much an after thought, omitted a lot of conduits and pipes. Vanity items like a humidity controlled wine closet were incomplete. The roofing plan called for an 8:12 upper roof designed to shed snow onto a lower 1:12 roof where it will accumulate, block the upper floor windows in winter, and increase the chance of water penetrations and ice dams. Mela was unconcerned. Cleats and snow fences were omitted; roofing structural detail was omitted. The plans call for 4” of styrofoam sandwiched between two plywood decks, but no where in the plans is it shown how the upper deck is supported or attached. The unvented roofing plan calls for 12” of blown-in cellulose stuck to the underneath of the lower roof deck. How to keep it stuck there is not addressed in the plans - e.g., some sort of levitation? Special framing around and through the trusses? The addition of an adhesive? There were no control joints for the slab floor and there was no penetration plan for the floor and stem walls. A lot of sleeves were required for well, septic, electric, solar, and DHW. During the build, two penetrations were omitted and a third is undersized. Wing insulation underneath a three-sided wrap-around concrete porch was omitted and “ground gutters” underneath the eaves had scant detail. The bottom sill plate, wall sheathing, exterior cladding and door sills are all 1.5” above the concrete porch. When snow drifts or the porch is hosed off, the cladding and possibly the sheathing and bottom plate will get wet risking premature rot. There were inconsistencies within the plans themselves. I’m still not sure if the walls are to be R40, that being the PH requirement I’m told, or R37 as most of the detail calls for? The WRB was shown in two or more places in the wall detail - against the sheathing in one place and over the rigid exterior insulation in others. Specifics were omitted - e.g., the type of caulk - butyl, silicone or latex, which matters when you have polyethylene, styrofoam, wood and cement to bond in different places. Sealing tape was generically described and fasteners for furring strips through 4” of rigid insulation were not specified. Roof underlayment, WRB, adhesive flashing and other membranes were generically described with few specifics or manufacturers named. When I mentioned several times that filing for permits was premature, the answers were: “These plans are good enough for the County.” “We need to get permits ASAP.” “The builder makes these calls in the field.” “We can amend the plans later.” “We’re not going to start the walls and roof until next spring so don’t worry.” “Trust me.” “Dave knows how to build this house.” This being my first time building any house, let alone a certified PH, I believed the expert. With hind sight, I think they pressured me to get this project started so they could finance their own house and other projects. The County issued permits about mid-July and after that, we could not get answers to any questions. Mela abandoned us within the first month of construction and moved on. She resented my questions; we were on our own. The plans were “finished” as far as she was concerned. After filing for permits, Mela pawned me off on her husband, Dave. At the first formal meeting, he assured me he had the crew and time for my job and it wouldn’t interfere with his other projects. Then I got a lecture on “trust” and its importance to the building process. “This from a guy I don’t know and haven’t worked with?” I thought that was strange, but what do I know? This is my first time at building a house. I wanted a fixed fee to be able to deal with the bank; he wanted cost plus 20% (T&M) which was 5% higher than the going rate. He said there were too many uncertainties (“time necessary for his crew to unload trucks” is one uncertainty I recall) and every house is unique. It’d be too difficult to estimate accurately. He’d have to markup his fee by 40% to cover the uncertainties, where as he’d only markup 20% if we went T&M. I countered stating that he’s built this kind of floor, walls and roofs before; they’re standard PH design. “You must know the generic cost per linear foot of wall or square foot of concrete for these assemblies. Why don’t you give me those at a fixed fee and a range or line items with your best guess at what you’re uncertain of.” We never discussed it much after that. Dave showed up on-site a few days before permits were issued with a contract, just when I was wondering if he was going to build it. His contract called for binding arbitration in Grass Valley at cost plus 20%. The scope had been limited to the foundation and slab only and the duration was to be 1.5 months. Dave said he’d alter the contract after his time freed up in the Fall. Considering the late hour and pressure to start, my lack of experience, limited scope, distance from his normal work area, and his unfamiliarity with local subs and suppliers, I acquiesced. I had no reason to distrust him at that point but I felt like I was being hustled. Those feelings were accurate. After the contract was signed, we only saw Dave four times in three months before he was fired, and that was to collect money. “Where’s the GC?” became the standing on-site joke and I wondered why I was paying him anything at all. His two carpenters showed up a week after signing and started chalking the foundation. About a week after that an 18-wheel flatbed showed up with about 50 bundles of styrofoam board insulation. It was for the whole house (except the wing insulation) even though we knew we wouldn’t need 3/4 of it for another year. Whether this was Dave’s method of generating quick cash from his markup to use on other projects, I can’t say for sure, but I was not consulted and my cash flow was not a consideration. That insulation is still in the barn impeding ranch operations and I have no way to dispose of it yet. It’s costing me interest on the loan used to pay for it. Meanwhile, the excavator had some free time and wanted to start on the electric and water trenches, and the septic system. Of course he had lots of questions. I told him to consult the plans. If that didn’t work, consult the GC. He couldn’t get answers and neither could I. No one knew what conduit the solar people needed or where the inverter should be located. No one knew where the meter was supposed to be, what kind of conduit was required or where to put splice boxes. The excavator, on-site supervisor and I spent a week tripping over ourselves to get answers. When none were forth coming, I started going directly to the source. The electrician and I started drawing our own plans. During that process we noticed that we were working from two different floor plans. Turned out the on-site supervisor had still another set of plans. “What a joke this is!” I thought. I asked about conduit for the septic and the reply from Mela’s assistant was “we thought you were doing the septic!” I was in shock; is this a government bureaucrat? After talking to the solar contractor I got an email from Mela: “Quit bad mouthing us with our colleagues.” Apparently I made the faux-pas of telling him that we were abandoned and tying to backfill trenches. That was the last straw. “This is a real disaster,” I thought. “I don’t have an architect or I have an immature, clueless one. And we’re not much more than a month into the build! What kind of amateurs am I dealing with?” I was acting as GC by default and I had never built a house before! Yikes! I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to get their attention? About a week after that, the second carpenter quit ostensibly because the commute was too far. The on-site supervisor and Dave assured me this would only delay the project a week or two while they found a replacement. Two weeks later Dave admitted he had no replacement. After that, the on-site supervisor, who was an excellent carpenter but a little over his head and spending at least half his day on the phone arranging for materials and subcontractors (Isn’t that the GC’s job?), pretty much lost interest in the project. He started taking more time off and leaving early. This was mid-September, about two months into the build. Meanwhile night time temps were into the mid-twenties, too cold to pour concrete without mitigating measures, and we were a good month or two from being ready to pour the slab floor. Dave insisted the pour could be done in a couple weeks; I was skeptical and wanted to pull the plug. By then I had learned that Dave’s time estimates were way, way overly optimistic and unrealistic. We decided to pour the garage slab and see what happened. Hairline cracks started appearing about a week later. For the garage floor, the on-site supervisor came to me on a Monday morning towards the end of October and said they were pouring the garage slab the next day. Did I want a brushed finish as called for in the plans? We discussed it and concluded a smooth finish would be preferable. The next day I could not be on-site and babysit. On Wednesday morning I looked at the slab. Despite our discussion less than 48 hours earlier, I had a brushed finish! I was evidently in shock as he volunteered: “Oh, but it’s a light-brushed finish.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Inclined toward the latter, I just left. It wasn’t even worth trying to find out what went wrong. The next day I told Dave to shut the job down. We were done. No way were these clowns coming back in the Spring. I needed an on-site GC to supervise the whole process - e.g., septic, Cal-Fire, solar, interior design - not just to collect money and frame the house. By now I had learned that Dave loves to improvise and thrives on chaos. He will always be overextended and scrambling to make “fixes.” With unfinished plans and no architect, I was convinced this house was going to be designed on-site and improvised! Who knows what I’d end up with after spending 7 figures. Dave showed up a couple days later with a final invoice and informed me the crew wouldn’t be returning in the Spring. The job was too far away and he didn’t have the resources. But he felt bad about abandoning me. He’d like to introduce me to a contractor-friend that was willing to take over as on-site supervisor. He had a crew and was closer to the site. While I respected his self-serving attempt at empathy, “there’s no way Dave is GC’ing this job next Spring or any other time,” I told myself. “He didn’t even get this incomplete project right.” After the shut-down, I realized board insulation had been laminated to the exterior of the stem wall throughout. Consequently, a critical piece of air and water sealing tape, lapped from 2” down the stem wall, over the bottom sill and bottom of the sheathing could not be placed. Not only was this in the plans, it’s a pretty standard PH technique for sealing that critical seam. Given that this house has the seam 1.5” above the porch and more prone to water leakage, sealing the bottom sill is twice as important. With a PH the sequence matters; Dave and the on-site supervisor got the sequence wrong. The insulation shouldn’t have been laminated to the stem wall until after the bottom plate and sheathing were installed and taped. After shut-down, a few more self-serving inquiries were made during the fall about a consulting contract to supervise another builder. But I thought, “there’s no way I’m giving Dave a contract with no responsibility or accountability for the final product, no matter who the builder is, how experienced, or how inexpensive.” Mela made a few feeble attempts to hustle more money out of me too. “We’ll be glad to work with you to alter and simplify the design,” she offered - a design she screwed up. Besides, she had abandoned me once already; I wasn’t about to risk that happening again. Mela is stuck on low-angle, warm, unvented shed roofs and lots of metal siding. Hopefully that’s a passing phase, but it’s the design you’ll probably get. In snow country, while that can work when necessary, why create unneeded expense and risks; flat roofs are just not appropriate in snow country. In my opinion, Mela shows a lot of potential but she needs about five years more experience and the tutelage of a veteran architect who knows what’s practical and can teach her client relations. Once she’s settled on a design, she is extremely inflexible and resistant to change. You’re more likely than with other architects of getting “her house” instead of yours when all is said and done. The only unanswered question in my mind is: “Am I the victim of just another set of overambitious amateurs so common in the building trades? Or are these two thieves?” I prefer to think the former, but only Dave and Mela know for sure. My heart is still broken; I am in the second of the Five Steps of Loss and Grief. Not only did I lose my 20-year dream of building the most energy efficient, showcase house at this time in the northern Sierra to retire in, but I’ve spent over a quarter million on this project with very little to show for it. The Passive House dream is dashed. I had a gorgeous home site which is now marred with an incomplete foundation. I have a set of incomplete plans that no one locally, including Dave, can build correctly. I have a barn full of insulation I don’t want and can’t get rid of. If the foundation hadn’t been partially built, I’d start all over from scratch with a house designed for snow country - no flat roof, pressure tank inside the house, and a 6 inch or more step down to the wrap-around porch - that a local can build. I just hope this tragedy doesn’t happen to you.

It is rare that we get to write a review with such pleasure and admiration for our subject. Atmosphere Design Build (Mela Breen, architect, and David Good, building contractor, a wife/husband team) shepherded the creation of our Net Zero home with a remarkable blend of creativity and knowledge of their own, while also drawing on the expertise and competence of many professionals in our area. . In addition to her deep commitment to sustainability, Mela brought consummate artistry and down to earth practicality to every aspect of the design. Dave is a certified Passive House builder and brought a wealth of knowledge and a great spirit to all aspects of managing the construction of our house. The home that they produced not only achieves incredible energy efficiency, but provides us with a beautiful, healthy abode, that is remarkably easy to live in. We feel very fortunate to have worked with them and give them the highest recommendtation.

We found this company on Houzz and called them since they were in our area. We are now getting to the completion of our project which involved new build with 3 car garage, mud room and a 1500 sq foot apartment above. Working with Dave and Mela is an absolute pleasure! Their quality of work both in design and craftsmanship is everything we could want. The whole crew they have working for them are a great bunch. Having both architect and builder in one business together makes the communications go very smoothly. We would not hesitate to recommend them and hire them again. In fact, we plan to!

David and Mela were wonderful to work with. Not only did they have creative, practical ideals, but they were waste and safety conscious. They discussed their ideas in very clear ways and were flexible with their planning. My husband and I finally feel that our deck is at last safe, attractive and functional. jgirdler

I hired Atmosphere Design build a few years ago to help me remodel my partial log home and could not have been more pleased. The ability of this company to provide both the design and construction services ensured that my expectations from the conceptual stages through to the construction completion were not only met but exceeded. Their experience retrofitting log homes proved invaluable in tackling the complexities of the remodel, and the quality of craftsmanship and attention to detail was superb. My budget was rather limited given the extent of the project, so they offered to collaborate with me on many of the construction aspects. By me providing some of the labor we were able to offset some of the costs and complete the project as initially envisioned, on time, and on budget. Their commitment to incorporating Green building techniques and materials allowed for logs from my property to be incorporated into the construction, providing a very personalized end product. In addition almost all the materials from the demolition were salvaged and reused on the project to the extent that a dumpster was never needed. I really enjoyed working with Atmosphere Besign Build as a company and as individuals and would certainly hire them again.

Mela and Dave took an old summer cabin in the high Sierra and transformed it into an energy efficient, modern and stylish family cabin that everyone loves. Very few would have had the fortitude. They did. It was a difficult project with a beautiful outcome. They kept an eye on energy, beauty and function.

Dave and Mela were an excellent team to work with during our kitchen remodel. Visualizing what you'll end with is a big help for making all those minor adjustments to the plan, and their flexibility with the myriad of people types that we all are was easy. The end result was awesome! As a team their breadth of knowledge and focus on sustainable design [Passive] is a big plus when making such a significant investment. I'd work with them again and absolutely recommend that you should too.

Mela at Atmosphere Designs is a genius. She has great vision in her design work and an attention to detail in everything she does. Her work is unique and her ideas very creative yet practical. She is also a pleasure to work with, fun, witty and professional. We are thrilled with the work her and Dave did on our house and would recommend them in a heartbeat.

Atmosphere Design Build is fantastic! Mela helped us think through our needs, priorities, and budget and arrived at a great design suited to our lifestyle and aesthetic. We absolutely LOVE our house! In addition to being a great design for the way we live, Mela helped us arrive at a design that is very efficient, using passive solar in the winter, and good shading in the summer so that our house is always very pleasant with minimal need for heating/cooling. Working with Mela is always a pleasure- she is professional but really fun to work with as well. I unequivocally recommend Atmosphere Design Build!