Welcome to The Journal

Most of what we know about building in Nevada County was learned on job sites, not in a classroom — on foothill lots, since 1981. This is where we are going to start writing some of it down.

Homeowners ask us the same questions before a project starts. What will this actually cost? How long will it take? Why does that slope change the foundation? Do I need a permit for this? What happens if we find something once the walls are open? Those are good questions, and they deserve better than a rushed answer over the phone.

What is The Journal?

The Journal is Talon Construction Company's working notebook, published. It is where we answer the questions homeowners actually ask us, one at a time, in enough detail to be useful before you have hired anybody.

It is not a news feed and it is not a portfolio. If we do not have something useful to say about a subject, we will wait until we do. A post here should either save you a phone call or tell you what to ask on the next one.

What will we write about?

Three things, in roughly equal measure.

• Building in the foothills. Slopes, access, drainage, lake-area requirements, aging structures, and the weather that shapes all of it — the conditions that make a Nevada County build different from a build on flat ground.
• Planning and budget. The part of a project most likely to go wrong, and the easiest to get right early. Scope, allowances, unknowns, and where the money actually goes.
• The work itself. What we are building, what we ran into, and how it was solved. Specific projects rather than general advice.

Where a post is about a real project, we will say which one and what the conditions were. A claim about how something performs is worth reading only if you can tell where it came from.

Who is writing this?

Talon is three people. Jordon O'Hara works in the field, on building knowledge and day-to-day leadership on site. Mike Novo founded the company and holds the license. Erik Oxenbol works on management, and how a project gets organized and run from start to finish. All three work to the standards Mike set, and you will see all three names in what gets written here.

Talon Construction Company is a California licensed general contractor working out of Penn Valley. Michael Novo has personally held license CSLB #397350 since January 1981 — not the company, him, for forty-five years.

That license carries four classifications:

• Class A, General Engineering Contractor
• Class B, General Building Contractor
• C-12, Earthwork and Paving Contractors
• C-42, Sanitation System Contractor

Together those cover site engineering, the building itself, earthwork and septic. That is close to the range a foothill project tends to ask for. You can check any California contractor's license yourself, including ours, on the CSLB license lookup. We would rather you did.

Where does Talon work?

Talon works across Nevada County and into the surrounding foothills: Penn Valley, Lake Wildwood, Lake of the Pines, Grass Valley, Nevada City, Rough and Ready, North San Juan, Colfax, Truckee and Tahoe City.

Those places do not build the same way. A lake-area remodel answers to rules a Grass Valley addition never sees. Truckee carries a snow load and a season that closes early. Where a post applies to one of them in particular, we will say so rather than leave you to guess.

What should we write about?

If there is something you would like us to cover, call us at (530) 432-3633 or send it through the contact form. A question you have not been able to get a straight answer to is exactly the kind we want. That is a genuine offer — the best posts here will come from questions homeowners actually asked.

The standard we try to hold to here is the same one we bring to a job. Say what is true, explain the decisions, and do not promise what cannot be delivered.