Here are some Tips for Remodeling your Home

What are some tips for remodeling your home?

I recently added a thousand square feet to my home and although we initially got three quotes ranging from “Wow, that’s really a lot” to “We can’t afford that unless we fake our own deaths and cash in the life insurance”, finished for just under half of those first three estimates. The short and simple rules for this ring true for any project: find the best people, get them bought in, and help remove obstacles so they can perform.

Here are some things that worked for us:

1. Find the good, local General Contractor.

In every neighborhood with enough houses, there are some good, local general contractors (GC). These people are highly motivated to do good, inexpensive work in their own backyard. They may be screwing over everybody else in the world, but on your block they’re under- promising and over-delivering. We spent weeks pestering locals at get-togethers and spamming Nextdoor to see who’d been most active.

Having found the good, local GC, my neighbors keep showing up asking how it’s going. Of course he’s happy (and so are we) to tell them about how under-budget and ahead of schedule we are. Surprise, surprise he’s talking to two neighbors across the street and one a couple blocks over about how well it’s going and is super motivated to crush it for us.

2. Architects are great, but not necessary on every project.

I started by getting three quotes from local and well respected architects which were all consistently in the same range – something like “you’ll never be able to afford this, hahaha”. But once I found a GC with a willing structural engineer who was willing to work without an architect, I got him to quote 40% lower than the lowest quote from an architect.

When I investigated with one of the architects why his quote was so much higher and his project was scheduled to take four months longer in the form of “what exactly do you do for all that damn money?” he told me it was for marriage counseling. Basically that for the first three months he’d be working to dissolve inevitable disagreements between my wife and I around every single decision on the project. My wife and I immediately disproved the need for this by agreeing that it was ridiculous and proceeding without an architect on our project.

What about plans? Good GC’s like the ones we work with can generate CAD drawings and send them back and forth until everybody’s happy. A good structural engineer will turn those into actionable documents that pass inspection at the city planner’s office to get you permits. We had permits within three weeks of making this selection, including a fun trip to “defend” our plans against The Public in a hearing where I told the GC and engineer not to bother showing up.

3. Agree on a percentage-based fee up front rather than building fees into the job.

Our GC asked us if we wanted him to bake his fee into the components of the project or to just agree on a fee and percentage up front. We chose the latter, here’s why:

• I work better when I know how much I’m going to make; I wanted our GC just as engaged and comfortable in our partnership on this project.
• When the GC is taking a piece of the subcontracts, you may lose the freedom to swap in one of your own, and you have to assume the GC is biased towards not selecting the lowest price subcontractors. By agreeing to a fee up front, the GC is on my side when negotiating with subs. He wants to get as far under budget as possible and is willing to hunt day and night for the lowest cost subs to do this.
• I wanted to personally buy some of the materials; and so what does he care? He’s no longer building in overhead on materials. You want to go to Lowe’s yourself? Knock yourself out!
• Several opportunities appeared for real cost savings. The GC was all for this because his fee is fixed. He was constantly making suggestions about where we should save money vs invest more in long term upgrades (like in Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning for example, where saving $1000 up front could cost a few thousand down the road).

4. Pay in cash, pay early, pay often.

Overall we realized about $10k in “convenience” discounts by agreeing to pay subcontractors more aggressively and in ways that are easier for them. You want me to pay for materials directly? Sure. You want to pay for them? No problem. You want me to meet you in a McDonald’s parking lot at 4AM with a brown bag full of singles? Whatever’s clever. Just deliver.

5. When someone shows up at your house with tools, let them in and make them want to stay.

The hard part with good crews (and good workers in general) is getting them on the job and working. Good crews are in demand and can be selective about where they work. Make it tough for them and “delays” around inspections and parts not being ready can start appearing out of nowhere. I’ve seen houses under construction sit dormant for weeks because a key sub pulled out.

The first week of the job they were waiting in their cars in front of my house until 8AM. I went out and told them to come in. By the second week they were starting at 6:30AM and working until the sun went down. We’d run parallel crews on swing shift so they wouldn’t get in each other’s way. Our rule was that if someone worked past 7 I’d personally make a pizza run. We had them on Saturday mornings, Sunday nights, during parties, on a holiday, etc. That’s how you go from 9 months to 5 months.

In our area the crews typically drive 50 miles in a beat up truck to get to here and if they can squeeze two more hours out of the first four days they don’t have to pay for gas on the fifth day. Happy workers make for good work. The work is better, faster, cheaper, and everybody’s happy.

From the original quotes we got from architects, we were able to knock 40% off the top and go from a 9 to 5 month estimate by going with a GC and structural engineer. We were then able to save an additional 20% by scoping and paying in advance whenever possible. In allowing the work crews full, unfettered access to the property when it was most convenient for them, we were able to hold an initial estimate to deadline despite some change orders and permit delays.