10 Nightmares and a decision
May 2024
Everyone says that renovating your home is stressful. However, I don’t think they understand how stressful it is until they consider the nightmare scenario, which sadly, many homeowners have experienced.
The nightmare goes like this.
You’ve sent out your project description to several contractors. You’ve gotten estimated costs and schedules back from them, and they all are a bit more than you expected. That said, you’re really excited about the project and you choose the one that fits your needs best. You settle on a date to begin, you write a big check for a deposit, and you then wait eagerly for the project to start.
The first couple months go well. The walls come down, appliances and fixtures get ordered, and things seem to be progressing well.
You stop by the site periodically to check on progress. The first couple of check ins are fine, but then things seem to stall. It seems like no one is there working.
You call your contractor to ask what the holdup is, and they tell you they found some framizes in your whatsamahoozies, and they’re going to need some time and more money to resolve it. You aren’t happy, but you sign the change order anyway.
And still little happens.
You call the contractor again. They say they’ll be there tomorrow or the next day. They don’t show up.
Rinse and repeat until you’ve had it and need to do something else.
Your options now are limited:
- Keep nagging the contractor and hope that they finish the job at whatever cost.
- Find another contractor who will finish the job.
- Sue the original contractor.
And until you figure this out, your house is in pieces. And you are either living with those pieces or paying rent to stay somewhere else. In the back of your mind, this situation could remain unresolved longer than you can remain solvent.
An alternative scenario is one where the contractor shows up regularly, but always finds something that will cost more than was in their original quote. Again, this might continue until you run out of money, and then you are stuck.
These are the nightmares that lurk in the back of our minds as we try to choose a contractor.
As homeowners, we have a lot of tools to mitigate these risks. Specifically, - We’ve already checked each contractors references, and they’ve all checked out. Customers tell us that no nightmares have happened to them. - We’ve checked with the Better Business Bureau to see if there are outstanding complaints. - We’ve gone and looked at other jobs they’ve done and liked what we’ve seen.
With all that said though, we only have some pretty vague estimates of the work to be done and no hard schedules to work from. Betting a half million dollars or more on some vague estimates doesn’t feel like a smart investment.
Fortunately, one of the contractors has suggested a process by which we can get more information
The process that this builder proposes is one where we pay them for what they call an exploration phase. During this piece of the project, they will investigate many of the unknowns we face. This will be invasive – they’ll actually cut holes in the walls to investigate the underlying structure and find issues that may add to the cost of the project. However, at the end of the exploration, they would then be able to give us a fixed price and schedule for the rest of the project.
While the fact we have to pay for this investigation might put off some, I like this approach because I recognize it from my research contracting days. When we were proposing some unproven piece of research, we’d often suggest a phase 1 study that tested our assumptions to reduce the risk that the main project would fail. If the phase 1 study was successful, we’d move forward with the main project. If it failed, the contracting entity had only spent a fraction of its budget and could fund a different approach.
Best of all, we’re not risking a ton of money by going this way because the price for the exploration phase is a tiny fraction of the project cost. So we’d end up spending a little now to ensure we don’t spend a lot later.
This is the same contractor that also promises an on-site supervisor, a dedicated project manager, and access to an interior designer. Their back of the envelope estimate is higher than the others, but they are also the ones who acknowledged that no one can provide an accurate estimate without doing a deeper dive. And best of all, they have submitted a documented process for how they’ll approach the project and payments in phases with milestones along the way. That feels just a lot more structured than what we feel would be more of a “pay us and pray” approach from the other contractors.
So with that, we’ve made our decision. We’re planning to sign with Gilmore Building Company from Grafton as our general contractor. Carolyn and I will go out and meet with them on May 21 and, assuming all the paperwork is in order, we’ll sign the contract.
Carolyn and I feel good about this decision. This approach will eliminate some of those “known unknowns” we’re worrying about and reduce the overall project risk. They might even keep the nightmares at bay.
We’ll just have to see how it goes.