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Samantha's question:
"My husband and I are about to start on a major home improvement
project. I have heard many horror stories about home remodeling
projects such as ours. I don't know much about the company
that we hired to do the job. We checked their reference and the
people we talked with said that remodeling in inconvenient, but they
were able to live with it. Somehow, these references weren't
convincing and don't fit with what I've read and heard about the
typical remodeling project. What can we do to avoid most
of the risks associated with this large, expensive project?"
Dear Samantha,
You seem to be reacting to the often quoted saying, "where
there is smoke, there is fire". You feel hesitant
and wary, because you want your home improvement project to proceed
smoothly and avoid the types of problems that have happened to
others. You are wise to be cautious and even wiser to take
preventative measures in advance. Some simple risk
management steps could save you considerable headache later.
Still, as standard as most of these home improvement jobs are, things
can still go wrong. The more unplanned things that go
wrong, the longer it takes to complete the job. The longer it
takes to complete the job, the more it costs. A good
construction job is one where the project is finished on time and on
budget. And that should be your goal.
If things go wrong, it is usually due to miscommunication and improper assumptions made by one or both parties. The first step towards prevention is vigilance. I suggest that you start by identifying and verifying both yours and the builder's assumptions with each other. If one side or the other is mistaken, the assumption can be corrected. Assumptions that depend on future events or third parties should be documented and watched. Make sure you know the downside consequence if an assumption doesn't hold. If the downside (cost or schedule impact) is considerable, it would be worthwhile finding a backup options in advance. Frequent contact and communication with the contractor is important to spot problems as early as possible and take corrective action right away. Catching and correcting problems while they are small prevents them from growing.
Take advantage of all the best practices that are standard in the industry. Your building contract should clearly spell out each of your responsibilities, liabilities, and penalties/incentives. Since most contracts are written by the builder, they are obviously written with their interests in mind. You should have your own lawyer review and modify the contract and add clauses that favor you - the home owner - or at least define what to do if things go wrong. Once the builder has committed to a price and work schedule, you will at least have predictability as to the timing of the workflow. Incidentally, in addition to penalties for performance, it may pay to have an incentive clause in the contract as well to motivate the builder to give extra priority to your job as opposed to others.
Finally, the more things you can anticipate in advance that could go wrong and cover them with a contingency or prevention, the less problems you are going to experience in your home improvement project. So, never stop thinking, "What If", and asking the builder for his concerns as well. Collaboratively, both you and the builder need to anticipate problems as much as possible before they happen and take preventative actions on the ones that can cause the most consequences. Good luck on your home improvement.
