Creating a dream house shouldn't be a nightmare, but we've all heard the horror stories. Hiring a contractor is an enormous investment and a high-risk endeavor involving decisions that will last forever. This book is a survival guide for anyone trying to make it through the construction, expansion or renovation of their home with their dreams, budget and sanity in tact.
Back to Books page

INTRODUCTION

Building from Smart to Finish

A Wing and a Prayer

Every day, unsuspecting people wander into construction projects like babes in the woods, and they come out wondering what the heck happened in there. They suffer cost overruns, disputes, missed deadlines, and poor workmanship. Remarkably, no one thinks it can happen to him, but according to the Better Business Bureau, it happens to many. Contractors are the most complained- about group in America. Why is getting something built such a high risk endeavor? For starters, owners enter a culture that’s much less straightforward than it appears from the outside, and everyone in it knows more than they do. They can expect to make fifteen hundred decisions when building a new home. Add to that a dozen new relationships, deadlines, taste, quality standards, and more money than they’ll ever spend on anything else, and you have a formula for potential disaster. Most people don’t know how to get themselves prepared for this undertaking, and to date, few in the industry have wanted to tell them.

Not for Dummies

It might surprise you to know that when people in the construction industry get together socially, the conversation often turns to ethical and philosophi- cal debate regarding all the fascinating scenarios that grow out of construction projects. There are no easy answers for problem projects, only lost opportunities for prevention, because all successful projects start with a great plan. The big- gest difference between a professional and a layperson managing a construction project is that a professional spends about 80 percent of his time in the setup, the work done before a shovel hits the turf. An informed homeowner needs to be likewise proactive, not reactive.

This book reveals the real deal about how to be a proactive owner. It explains the work you’ll have to do and the strategies you’ll have to employ to maxi- mize your chances of a successful project. The laypeople I’ve met who want to undergo such projects are ambitious and bright. They surprise me with their ability to handle the sometimes heady information that I now convey in this book, and they go on to have sensational projects. This book is written for them . . . and I hope you.

About This Book

This book wasn’t my idea. I was told to write it.

When I meet people for the first time, they tend to gush forth with their build- ing horror stories once they find out I manage construction projects for people. After ten years of this, I thought, “There’s got to be a better way.” I began offer- ing seminars on construction management to homeowners. At the end of each seminar, at least one overachiever would come up to me and say, “I’ve read fif- teen books on this. None of them has this stuff, and this is what I needed. You have to write a book.” I investigated and found that they were right. Most of the books on this subject are written by contractors and focus on technical aspects of the construction trades. While this information may be interesting and cer- tainly can help you in monitoring your project, it’s not what keeps a project from derailing. Plus, a little knowledge can be dangerous and just make you an annoyance on the construction site. This book is written from the perspective of someone who has been in your shoes. I have designed and built or renovated more than two hundred buildings as a function of my work, and restored six of my own homes as well. This book reveals lessons hard-learned, and it focuses on an owner’s strategies for setting up a project that preempts problems, just like the pros do it.

This book is not about how to swing a hammer, or even how to be your own gen- eral contractor. It is about how to be a savvy consumer of design and construc- tion services and a competent participant in your own project. It lays out how a professional owner’s representative goes about mitigating risk to bring a con- struction project to completion. However, no one can prove a negative. I can’t tell you if you don’t drive defensively, you will be hit by another car. But your odds are greatly increased. I can’t say if you don’t have a construction contract for your project, it will be an unbearable hassle and you’ll lose a lot of money. But your odds are greatly increased. This book hits all the low points where risks lie. Nonetheless, no two projects are alike, and so, few people, whether professionals or laypeople, would carry out every task described in these pages. Based on your standards, your budget, your time, and all the other factors of your project, it’s up to you to weigh your options and choose the tasks you want to execute to avoid risk.

Like the people in my seminars, you may feel overwhelmed as you take in this information. It’s a lot. But also like them, as you learn the principles behind the owner’s tasks, you’ll see they’re undeniable, and you’ll likely find yourself understanding how projects can go so wrong for the uninitiated. As you come to accept all you have to do, try to think of it this way: Wouldn’t you rather learn all this the easy way, before you’re in the middle of a project, than the hard way like those tellers of horror stories? Sure, you won’t follow every step in this book, but your project will benefit just from your heightened knowledge. If you hear a plumber complain to a general contractor about late payment, you’ll take notice because you’ll learn how that might affect your bank loan. If you’re quoted a price that you worry you can’t afford, maybe you’ll flip back to the sec- tion on how to build in options now for what you might be able to afford later. So while there’s great benefit in doing all the tasks spelled out in this book, the greater benefit is simply understanding them.

You may come away more knowledgeable than some of the professionals on your project. Licensed architects and large contractors will be familiar with all this information, but some designers and small contractors may not. Plus, everyone has his own slight variations on how to do things. Be prepared to do a little training of your own, and accommodate where needed, even as you insist on protecting your project. The tone of this book is very hands-on for you, the owner. However, there are plenty of professionals out there able to help you with whatever tasks you don’t want to take on yourself.

This book includes samples of some of the paperwork associated with a project: a budget, a construction schedule, a draw schedule, a site plan, a floor plan, a set of job meeting minutes, a change order, a lien waiver, and a requisition. These all work in concert and are based on the following project:
The Dorseys are building a 1,250-square-foot, two-story addition to their home. It will have a full basement, clapboard siding, and an asphalt shingled roof. The first floor will be a family room with hardwood floors, a brick fireplace, six windows, stairs leading to the second floor, and French doors leading out to the location of a future deck. It will also have a half bathroom with ceramic tile floors. The second floor will be the new master bedroom with carpeted floors, seven windows, and a full bath with ceramic tile floors and walls. Both floors will be heated and wired to code.

There were three challenges unique to writing on this topic. The biggest chal- lenge was the sequencing of information. If you were to lay out everything related to a building project in its proper sequence, it wouldn’t be a bit linear, but rather look more like a family tree, with things interconnecting and dou- bling back. For instance, dealing with your budget happens from the first day of your project to the last. Town officials will hop in and out of your project at various intervals. So the information in this book has been laid out roughly chronologically, but also by theme. You will see page numbers in parentheses indicating where you can jump forward or back in the book to see how else and when else this topic pertains to your project. I recommend you read through the whole book and then use it as a reference on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Words you may not know are defined in the glossary. Speaking of words, although the role of women is ever expanding in this field, I’m sorry, but The Chicago Manual of Style dictates that “he” is the pronoun of choice.

The second challenge was accurately presenting the weird workings of an indus- try wherein you guard against those you employ. You address in planning and contracts against the worst eventualities and then work hard to make sure the contracts just gather dust. Maybe the closest parallel would be the design and negotiation of a prenuptial agreement followed by a great marriage. At any rate, I would like to state for the record that a good share of people undergoing con- struction projects have a pleasant and successful time of it. That’s a nice thing to know, but it doesn’t help you much. No, in order to prepare you well I had to write this book to the highest common denominator for risk, spelling out every potential problem, what generates it, how you spot it, and what your options are for avoiding it. I would be remiss to do otherwise. This means I’m making reference to some level of malevolence or incompetence at almost every turn. In its totality, does this book represent life in the design and building world fairly? No, not at all! I would give up this line of work today if it did. But each indi- vidual problem explained in these pages is common. I’ve done my best to be fair to all parties, but this book has a slanted perspective because it’s you and your risk I’m addressing foremost.

The third challenge was writing this book for all projects when no two are alike in terms of scale or the nature of the work. Some of you are planning a little bathroom remodel. Some of you will be building the retirement home you’ve dreamed of your whole life. So the only solution was to write it to the highest common denominator again, the full blown, custom designed and constructed home, which requires everything covered herein. In other words, this is how a professional would do the tasks associated with a very large project if he never cut one corner.

Whether you’re renovating your beloved older home, putting on an addition, building a barn, or just updating your home office, I hope you’ll still find much that pertains to you and your project. Take what you need from it.

TABLE OF CONTENTS