So you’ve been saving up for years. Maybe even skipped vacationing the last year or two in order to help save for your brand new kitchen or room addition.
You’re so excited to get this project going!
You talk to a couple contractors the internet told you about… One was too expensive (of course). A couple of them didn’t show up for the walkthrough. The other guy/girl actually showed up! You liked them, but they never sent you an estimate… You’ve called them four times now and they haven’t returned your call. Mother F***er!
Why is this happening!?
The reason is- Your potential contractor never took a business course. Hell, he never took any course. He’s been swinging a hammer since he was 16 and that’s about all he knows in life. He’s really good at his job, but his business admin skills are seriously lacking. He is probably running multiple jobs and needs to hire some more help, but again, he doesn’t know s**t about business. He’s burning the candle at both ends and running his crew to the bone.
Due to his lack of business skills, and your lack of knowledge of the renovation process, you are about to make a huuuge mistake. You are going to sign an absurdly vague contract. One that basically says, “Build very very nice kitchen for lady, for X amount of dollars.” If you’re not familiar with the term “death by change order,” you gone learn today! Once you sign on the dotted line, everything that comes up during the job, that wasn’t in the contract, is subject to charge. He now has your happiness and sanity in the palm of his hand. This is what we call the balancing act. You are now contractually obligated to balance the fact that, if you push him too hard, he won’t show up for a week, but if you don’t push hard enough, the exhaust fan that needs to be installed with a humidity sensor is going to all the sudden cost you an extra $450. What are you going to do at this point? Fire him? Hire someone else? LOL. Good luck.
Luckily, you are smart. You are reading my blog and I am here to help you not get, got. Or at least help you stay out of a hole you can’t dig your way out of.
Here are a few things that will help you when hiring your contractor. Keep these things in mind next time you need some work done and I promise you will survive this process
1. Have the job completely finished on paper BEFORE you start. Be specific. Ask your contractor about the portions of the job that may change in price during the project. What are the problems you could run into on the items that he isn’t 100% sure about? What is the best/ worst case in those scenarios, as well as a potential cost?
2. Ask how many projects they are running congruently with your project. Remember, most of these dudes don’t have business skills. Biting off more than they can chew could delay you to death. If they have no other projects going on, you might want to wonder why they don’t have any work!
3. Ask for an itemized breakdown of the time and succession of the project. Get a map of the journey you are about to embark on.
4. Get an itemized breakdown for the cost of the job. (It’s much harder to pad prices if each item has a price.)
Keep these four simple things in mind and your dream project probably won’t become a nightmare.