When your home is being remodeled or repaired -- Understand and be Prepared
In home remodeling or even some repairs, before the work
begins it is important for a homeowner to understand that there will be some
things they must deal with and be willing to accept. The larger, more involved, and time consuming the project,
the more these will be the case.
Remodeling a room, or doing major repairs takes time.
Preparation time, materials
gathering time, tear out time, installation time. And, often additional time for any unforeseen problems that
might arise with any of the above, or other uncontrollable things such as
weather or scheduling difficulties with either homeowner, materials
availability and delivery, or others involved in some part of the whole
project.
There is no way around the time needs, and while there can be
good planning and procedures set forth to make the time from start to finish
as short as possible, there is no way to force a job to take less time than
it takes to do, and particularly to do it with quality. And regardless of how meticulous, communicative, and planning
oriented your contractor is, you are, and others who may be involved --
quite often, problems and mistakes can occur which will take additional time
to resolve.
Homeowners must understand this, and accept that areas of a
home in the process of being remodeled or repaired will not be fully
useable, or possibly not even accessible, until the job is complete.
As for myself, I do one job at a time, start to finish.
I have always worked this way, because I like to finish a job before
starting another one, and my customers have all liked it that way as well.
It can certainly be an advantage to work this way, considering the
homeowners end of things. Most
contractors do not do this. They
will pile into their schedule as many jobs as possible, jumping from one to
the next, do a little on this one -- then go do a little on that one -- and
so on, until they get done. Either way though, your contractor needs
reasonable time to do your job, as well as time factored in for all the
other parts/people needed to accomplish the work.
Assuming that your contractor is living up to his/her part by
working diligently to do and complete the project, it is both
unrealistic and unconstructive to become upset and moaning to your
contractor / workers, about the time it is taking to do the work and the
inconvenience of it to you in the use of your home where the
remodeling/repairs is taking place. A
good and considerate contractor already fully understands this, and will be
working hard and as efficiently as possible to complete your project, and to
do it well.
Remember too, that the more you interrupt the contractor while he/she
is doing the work, the longer it will take to get the job done.
Taking a look at how the job is being done from time to time, or
expressing concerns or questions along the way is certainly fine and in my
opinion should be accommodated by any contractor.
But hanging ‘over the shoulder’ of your contractor more often
than not, asking questions/ requiring discussion about every single detail
about why he is doing this that way, or how he is going to do that ----
basically puts the contractor in a position of having to be conducting a
class on the work being done, while trying to get it done.
This does not help with the time, and can also become very
distractive, and shall I say…..not appreciated by the contractor who is
trying to do the work, who you hired and have trusted in his expertise to do
it. Which, by the way, is why I
and no other contractor I know of will agree to a homeowners request that he
or she do part of the work with the contractor, such as for the purpose of
getting the cost of the labor reduced.
Such an arrangement simply does not work well at all, and in fact can
be totally counterproductive to the job and the time it takes to do it.
You would not ask a vehicle mechanic if you could work with him on
your car while it is in the shop to reduce the price.
You would not ask a surgeon if you could assist in the surgery room
while he/she is working on your loved one or a friend.
Well…. You could ask, but you know what the answers would be.
And the ‘no’ would be for the same reasons.
I can give a projected time for how long a job will take.
But how accurate a projection, will depend on the size, type, and
complexity of the project, as well as if there is potential for unforeseen
problems (an example would be running into dry rot or other unknown problems
during the project), homeowner changes or interruptions during the work, or
delays stemming from materials availability/delivery, weather etc.
For smaller jobs, I can usually give a pretty accurate time frame to
complete. For larger jobs such
as a kitchen or bath remodel, a whole house trim carpentry job, replacing
several windows or doors, a large new deck …etc., I can only give a
ballpark guess.
Homeowners need to understand and accept that there are going
to be messes in the process.
A considerate contractor will
strive to do a reasonable job of cleaning up work messes both during the job
and when it is complete, as well as to protect anything when necessary that
may be in the room/area being worked on with tarps etc.
I vacuum and sweep up primary work messes I have made during
and at the end of a job, and strive to keep a jobsite neat and in order.
But…there can still be some dust, which settles onto things, or
drifts into other rooms, and the homeowner must accept that some work cannot
be done without this happening to some degree.
I do not, and cannot spend the time to go through a home as a
professional house cleaner and maid with a feather duster.
The important thing to remember and accept before your contractor
begins work is that there is likely going to be sawdust, there is going to
be work tools/equipment around, there is going to be dust or dirt, there can
be odors from the materials in construction process, there is going to be
debris from old materials torn out and scraps from new ones put in.
I do not offer debris hauling, but if the customer requests it, I
always put any such debris wherever the homeowner wants it on the property
of the jobsite for them to have hauled away later by someone else.
I always try to let my customers know of all these things before I begin a
job for them. I try and set the
stage for them to be prepared, and just as importantly, accepting of the
inconveniences, projected time it will be that way till job completion, and
also the facts of life concerning construction sites and work messes and
debris. Assuming I can relay
that and get acceptance of the realities to it, I then suggest that people
try to put themselves into an upbeat and positive attitude about their
upcoming project. It should and
can be an exciting and rewarding experience to see nice things being done to
your home, not a stressful one. But
much of that can only come with the understanding of the homeowner to the
realities of what is going to be going on, and without having unrealistic or
impossible expectations.
My best,
Wayne Snyder R&C
Snyder LLC
