Nauss Homes

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Over the years, although Nauss Homes’ service offering has evolved, their commitment to quality and customer satisfaction has stayed the same. From the beginning, company founder and owner Richie Nauss says they have always taken the utmost pride in providing “quality work” and a “personalized and responsive experience.”

“We are a team of skilled and experienced craftsmen dedicated to delivering exceptional quality while building,” Richie says. “We take pride in our work and have built a reputation for building close relationships with our clients and providing them with a high-quality home.”

“Our team is committed to delivering exceptional craftsmanship and attention to detail, no matter the scope of the project. We understand that building a home is a significant investment, and we work closely with our clients to ensure that their vision is brought to life.”

When Richie first founded Nauss Homes, he was a one-man-band focusing on small renovations and other odd jobs. As the years progressed, he was able to add team members who shared his values and together they started taking on larger contracts. These days, the company focuses on new custom home builds and additions. They try to incorporate energy efficiency into every project as much as possible.

“I feel like that’s where the industry is headed,” Richie explains. “The codes are going to keep evolving. Insulation is going to become more and more important. I think building passive is going to become more and more popular. I’m trying to stay ahead of the curve.”

In addition to being smart business, Richie is also personally very passionate about energy efficiency and sustainable building. Most of Nauss Homes’ work takes place in their home base of Moncton – but for passive homes, Richie is willing to venture all over the Maritimes, which speaks to his enthusiasm and commitment.

That passion, Richie believes, is one of the main reasons clients ultimately choose to work with Nauss Homes. When prospective clients contact him, he believes his passion is evident right from their initial conversations – and those conversations are with him as the owner, and he believes that personal connection also means a lot.

“We’re not that big of a company so when you call Nauss Homes, you get me, you get the owner,” he explains. “You don’t get my secretary or my assistant. You get me. And once we’re working together, I encourage clients to reach out whenever they have a question. Communication is very important to me.”

Quality is also very important to Richie – he believes that’s one more thing that clients respond to, and he credits that quality to the calibre and commitment of his team:

“The guys who work with me are like me in that they have a passion for homes,” he says. “They’re not just workers putting in a shift for the day. They care about what they are building.”

“We’ve been working with the same guys for years now,” he adds, “and we do as much as we can in-house, under one roof. The same guys who frame the home are the guys putting the flooring down and doing the trimming, so the quality and care is consistent throughout. We’re not just subbing everything out. We always have the same guys on site and they are guys who take pride in their work.”

When it comes to the subcontractors they do use, Richie says the consistency is still there, because almost all of those relationships are longstanding – they have been working with most of their subcontractors for at least a decade, Richie explains. Just like himself and his direct team, he says those subcontractors also take a lot of pride in their work, and that’s why Nauss Homes has been so loyal.

That collective pride is reflected in the company’s Google reviews, which are overwhelmingly positive. (The company was also recently voted a ‘Top 3 Builder’ in Moncton by ThreeBestRated.ca.) In addition to praising the company’s quality, those reviews also often praise Richie and his team for their conduct and comportment on site. A lot of reviews commend them for keeping a clean site, for example.

“That cleanliness is credit to all of us,” Richie says. “It’s a credit to every single guy who works for and with Nauss Homes. We all care about keeping the site clean. We’re all OCD about it, almost. We can’t work with big piles of mess all around. We all enjoy having a clean site. And we’ve always been that way; it’s not something I have to harp on the guys about. When I get to site, it’s usually cleaned up. Very seldom do I have to say anything or go around and clean up myself. It’s just the way we are and that often resonates with the clients.”

Additionally, Nauss Homes has eliminated dumpsters on their sites, which also contributes to their cleanliness. Instead of putting “one big ugly bin on site” to get continuously filled up, Richie personally takes the garbage off site every day with his own truck and dump trailer.

One more common theme in Nauss Homes’ reviews is praise for the company’s reliability and responsiveness. Richie is particularly proud of that kind of feedback because it’s such a point of emphasis for him and his team:

“We take pride in doing what we say we’re going to do,” he says. “We show up on time, we stick around, we don’t just start jobs and leave. We answer the phone when it rings. Those are common complaints that clients often have about contractors, but we try to eliminate those complaints. We prepare as best we can, we communicate as best we can, and we try as to be as efficient as possible.”

“I think if clients can tell you’re trying your best, they are very forgiving when mistakes happen, and mistakes will happen,” he adds. “We’re all human. But when they do, I’m honest with my clients. Even when I have bad news, I give it to them straight. If there’s a problem, we don’t dance around it – communicate it with the client right away and then we try to come up with a solution to get past it.” 

Proving their capabilities

As previously mentioned, Nauss Homes is currently constructing their second ever passive home. That home was designed by Passive Design Solutions, one of Canada’s most experienced passive house design firm, who happen to be based only 260 kilometres away in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They recommended Nauss Homes to one of their clients after doing some research on the company and talking to Richie.

“That’s been a lengthy project but a very rewarding project,” Richie says. “The clients so far are happy and the build is going really well.”

That project is one of the largest and most expensive homes Nauss Homes has done to date – which is exciting, because those are the calibre of projects Richie and his team hope to do more of moving forward.

“This is the kind of work we want to be doing,” Richie explains. “This is what we’re shooting for. We want to keep raising the bar. We want to be building multimillion dollar homes. Those aren’t super common around here, but there are people up here building them, and we want to work with those people. That’s our goal. Those are the projects where we can really show what we’re capable of.”

In their quest to do bigger projects, however, Richie says they don’t want to veer away from doing single-family homes. He says the temptation for a lot of companies like theirs is to get into multi-unit projects. He says “maybe someday” Nauss Homes will consider that, but for now they want to stay focused on building “custom quality homes.” 

“We want to work with clients who appreciate quality, and we want to give those clients a quality experience,” Richie says.

Lastly, Richie projects that Nauss Homes will continue to grow alongside the scale of their projects, but he says the company will never grow to the point of compromising their personal service.

“We never want to grow to the point where we lose what sets us apart,” he concludes. “I personally want to be able to attend each site each day and speak to each client each day. If we ever grow to the point where I feel I can’t do that, then that’s probably as far as we’re going to go. Right now I feel like I can double what we’re doing now and still be able to provide that service, but I think that’s probably where we’ll draw the line.”

For more on Nauss Homes, their approach, their past projects, and their award recognition – and to get in touch with Richie and his team – visit https://nausshomes.ca/