The Construction Source

DECEMBER 2020 know much at the time, but he looked into it, and quickly came to believe it was the future of residential building. In 2016, he completed his Passive House Designer/ Consultant Certification – one of the industry’s most stringent building certifications for overall energy efficiency. Since then, Blue Water Concepts has strived to design and build increasingly-efficient homes and renovations. Recently, that effort culminated in the completion of Squamish’s first certified Passive House. “We try to implement as many Passive House principals into our new buildings as possible,” Mike says. “We don’t build any code minimum projects at all.” Today, Blue Water Concepts employs 21 people, including a full-time design team. All of their work to date has been client-driven, with roughly 75 per cent of their work designed in house, while 25 per cent is designed by external architects. They dabble in commercial work, but they mainly focus on high-end new construction and major renovations. Their projects have ranged in value anywhere from $75,000 to $2 million, with an average value of roughly $600,000. Mike believes that all of the company’s clients, no matter their budget, choose Blue Water Concepts for the depth of their service. “There’s no one in our town, no one in our market here in the Sea-to-Sky, that’s doing what we do,” he says. “We are the only true design-and-build company. We are the only ones that provide all the advantages of working with a designer that is also a general contractor.” At Blue Water Concepts, Mike explains that they take care of the client right from the first meeting all the way through the end. They design their own structural and architectural drawings and then handle the whole construction process from start-to-finish. They draw the plans, obtain the permits, then build from the plans themselves – they provide a “seamless construction process