How often do contractors' estimates go over or under original estimate? (muntin, lien)
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Oh you guys are taking me too seriously- I work with contractors all the time and yes, many are as honest as can be and most of the time the budget is busted by the change orders of the owners/clients or other unforeseen circumstances- such as conditions revealed only after walls are torn apart.
Perhaps the answer should be is that 100% of the time the job will go over the budget and time-line and it may or may not be the contractors fault or responsibility.
If you think this is correct after working with Contractors, you need to find different Contractors.
If you think this is correct after working with Contractors, you need to find different Contractors.
I don't "think" anything. I know. During these depression times, consumers are taking full advantage of the service industry by immoral means. And we just have to swallow it.
I don't "think" anything. I know. During these depression times, consumers are taking full advantage of the service industry by immoral means. And we just have to swallow it.
I was referring to his statement that a job will always go over time and over budget. I also KNOW what a screwing we take as Contractors from the general public.
we provide quotes, not estimates. find yourself a contractor who does the same. a quote will not change unless we find something extremely out of the ordinary after work has started, at which point we will stop and tell you what changes need to be made. this happens on less than 1% of our jobs, which is miniscule considering how many projects we turn. quotes will have a bit of padding to cover small things that may come up, and work will continue without asking the customer for more money.
some contractors will tell you its not possible to provide a hard number; keep searching until you do.
keep in mind though contractors who work this way will most likely not be the cheapest, but it gives you peace of mind. you will not be aware of whether the job came in under or over. the price remains the same regardless.
this is strictly for residential work; change orders are quite the norm on commercial jobs.
When you are talking about small time residential contrctors who are working directly for the homeowner, my experience is that every quoted price will be increased by changes or other "unanticipated" or "unincluded" costs. None of the work will be comeplted on time.
In the past 4 years we have hired over 25 different contractors. Many of them I believe to be honest. However not one of them completed the work for the original quoted price. Not one of them completed the work on time. Also if there was a mistake made. 90% of the time, the contractor intiailly tried to claim that it was either somehow my fault, someone else's fault, or the fault of my house. It is amazing how a contractor can do months work of work and believe that absoultely everything that they do is perfect and they never make a mistake.
The reason for the price additions is readily apparent. When providing a price, the contractor wants to get the job. They know that you will suffer sticker shock and they know that you will probably get more than one price. Thus, they assume a perfect job, exclude additional items of work that they know will be necessary, and bid based on the hceapest materials availabe. Things like obvious rot or termite damage will be ignored, but the quote will exclude replacing or repairing rot or termite damage. You may say that you only want one of four walls painted. They know that will look awful and you will end up painting all four walls, but they only give you a price for one wall. You will pay the price for adding the otehr three later when there is no competition.
This is because they will not get the job if they honestly tell you the scope of work that actually needs to be performed. In most cases, they are not trying to cheat you. They are just bidding the work the way that they know everyone else will bid it.
Later, you will learn that the basic materials are really poor quality and will probably not make you happy. You should upgrade and pay more for better mateirals, better methods, etc. Again, most of them are not trying to cheat you, but they cannot bid the higher quality materials up front and still get the job.
Of course, some are simply trying to cheat you. If you figure out how to tell the difference up front, write a book and make a million.
I think that one of the reasons that they always run over their time estimate is becuase you are less likely to give them future work than a big contractor or developer. Thus, if they have a job for you and a job for someone who will definitely give them future work, they will let your job sit for a while if necessary to provide premium service for the client who will bring them more work in the future. Some will not do this, but most, if they want to stay in business, have no choice. If they do not give the big guy premium service, someone else will.
The only exception that I have encountered is when I had a close friend of mine do work on our house. I told him up front that i know that he will give me a fair price, so please include whatever needs to be done and good materials. I told him that he already had the job, but I needed a firm price that will allow me to budget properly. Even then the price went up, but that is because I added some work that I specifically told him to exlcude at the beginning.
I GC'd my own 4000 sq ft home. The biggest problem I had was having contractors show up on time, and get their work done, so it didn't hold up the next proceedure in the process. This happened all too often and thus what should have been a three month project took six months. The budget only changed when there were work order changes which was noted on the original contract and signed by both parties in agreement.
The other major problem I had was my framers misrepresented themselves as to their past work history and even went as far as to set up past jobs we visited and had "shills" testify to the quality of their workmanship. I had to prosecute them for fraud and poor quality work, and since they were licensed and insured in the state of CT, we recovered $30,000 against thier poor workmanship.
My mason was a knuckle dragging neanderthal that never showed up on time, and just did what he wanted to do. Half the time he had his assistant do the work who happened to be better than him anyway. His workmanship was satisfactory but the dampers he put in each fireplace weren't adjustable as I made clear to him in writing, so he already had them in after I discovered they weren't adjustable. I eneded up tearing them out and installing different ones.
Not too bad for a six month project, but the problems always seemed endless. I wouldn't GC my own project again.
I GC'd my own 4000 sq ft home. The biggest problem I had was having contractors show up on time, and get their work done, so it didn't hold up the next proceedure in the process. This happened all too often and thus what should have been a three month project took six months. The budget only changed when there were work order changes which was noted on the original contract and signed by both parties in agreement.
The other major problem I had was my framers misrepresented themselves as to their past work history and even went as far as to set up past jobs we visited and had "shills" testify to the quality of their workmanship. I had to prosecute them for fraud and poor quality work, and since they were licensed and insured in the state of CT, we recovered $30,000 against thier poor workmanship.
My mason was a knuckle dragging neanderthal that never showed up on time, and just did what he wanted to do. Half the time he had his assistant do the work who happened to be better than him anyway. His workmanship was satisfactory but the dampers he put in each fireplace weren't adjustable as I made clear to him in writing, so he already had them in after I discovered they weren't adjustable. I eneded up tearing them out and installing different ones.
Not too bad for a six month project, but the problems always seemed endless. I wouldn't GC my own project again.
Your lucky....getting judgment is one thing, getting the money is another.
I GC'd my own 4000 sq ft home. The biggest problem I had was having contractors show up on time, and get their work done, so it didn't hold up the next proceedure in the process. This happened all too often and thus what should have been a three month project took six months. The budget only changed when there were work order changes which was noted on the original contract and signed by both parties in agreement.
The other major problem I had was my framers misrepresented themselves as to their past work history and even went as far as to set up past jobs we visited and had "shills" testify to the quality of their workmanship. I had to prosecute them for fraud and poor quality work, and since they were licensed and insured in the state of CT, we recovered $30,000 against thier poor workmanship.
My mason was a knuckle dragging neanderthal that never showed up on time, and just did what he wanted to do. Half the time he had his assistant do the work who happened to be better than him anyway. His workmanship was satisfactory but the dampers he put in each fireplace weren't adjustable as I made clear to him in writing, so he already had them in after I discovered they weren't adjustable. I eneded up tearing them out and installing different ones.
Not too bad for a six month project, but the problems always seemed endless. I wouldn't GC my own project again.
------I wouldn't GC my own project again -----
I have heard that phrase many times.
I GC on building a 40x160 barn and would never do it again.
A " one time" GC job has no clout when it comes to maintaining a schedule.
Luckily, the construction company stepped in at the end to use a little of their clout to get the other various companies to at least keep me on their priority list.
We ran into the same problem. I am an experienced construction lawyer. I have handled hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars of construction contract issues. I know the business very very well. I prepared a really solid contract (which most trades contractors refused to sign, or took one look at and declined to take the job). I was able to work from our project house a lot of the time (but not all of the time) that the project was underway. I know more about the legal side than any project manager, and almost as much about the management side as most of them. I have helped companies manage projects in the hundreds of millions of dollars in cost. My older brother had been a licensed contractor for several years and was available to advise me. I felt I was well qualified to GC our project. What I did not know was that small time single home projects and contractors are very very different than the companies who work on multi-million dollar projects.
The HVAC contractor disappeared for six months. We went through eight plumbers. The Grader did 80% of the work and then abandoned us for a bigger job and was never heard from again (other than to send an invoice a year later). I could not be there all day every day to watch the work. The insulation guy just blew insulation on the floor to make it look like they put it in the walls, they did not. We found that out over a year later when I discovered that some walls had no insulation in them at all (woodpeckers exposed this when they pecked holes in the siding). The electrician disappeared after doing the service entrance and one circuit. I finished the wiring myself. The carpenters argued with me all the way through. They said I and my brother do not know anything. In the long term, it turned out that we were right. The window guy was the worst. The first set of windows were for some other house. The second set had no weather stripping and some of them had glued on muntins. (actually stuck on with double sided tape - they fell off the first time it rained). Later, the window mechanisms literally fell out of the windows. Now the windows will not stay closed unless we put screws in them (then they will not open). The roofer cut through a roof rafter and then tried to claim it was somehow my fault. When that failed he tried to claim it was always that way (even though a fresh cut is very obvious in a 170 year old beam). The drywall finishers got more mud on things in the house (like my tools) than they did no the walls. The drywall hangers tried to get away with using thinner drywall (I required 5/8" commercial grade). The flooring contractor did a good job, but had a product failure. We had problems with virtually every trade.
Then the materials often did not arrive on time, or they were incorrect. We had to send back entire truckloads of lumber because it was too warped and/or too wet to use. Various contractors mixed concrete or concrete materials (like the stuff you use as a bed for a tile shower) incorrectly and it had to be torn out and replaced. The tile guy did not show up and the carpenters tried to do the tile work and made a mess of it. I had to make them tear much of it out and re-do it. It took them five times longer than the tile guy's estimate (I felt sorry for them).
One worker fell off a scaffold and broke his back. One painter had a heart attack. One plumber's brother committed suicide the morning that they were supposed to start work. Two workers got in a fight (one with an axe). Another worker was found spitting chewing tobacco juice on our bedroom floor. People stole things from me and from each other. The carpenter's trailer was stolen from another job and burned (all of his tools and some of mine were in his trailer and he had no insurance). Someone plugged a drill motor into the sup pump outlet and left it laying outside. It shorted out and the sump pump went out. In the morning I found almost 3 feet of ice cold water in the basement. (which I had to wade through to reset the sump pump GFI). There were another two or three similar personnel problems.
Pretty much everyone disappeared for a time, no one showed up on time, no one finished on time, almost everyone had change orders. Pretty much everyone messed up or simply did not complete their work. We could sue most of them, except that would mean that I would need to take a year off and do nothing but sue our various trades contractors and the suits would be for $5,000 - $10,000 issues (not worth the time and expense). Many of them are not collectible anyway.
So Yes, hiring a GC would have been a good idea. However not just any GC I think that you want a large well known company with very good connections. Not a retired guy who knows a lot about construction. Someone who knows who does a good job. Someone that is going to provide additional work to good contractors and can get them to show up and stay on the job. Someone who can pay if the job gets Marjory messed up. It would have cost us an additional $50,000 to $70,000, but it would have been worth it. It just seemed like it was not necessary at the time. Surprise.
What I learned is that for most small time contractors, if they can take advantage of you, they will. Some of them are honest and upright but the necessities of the market require them to place you second or third or fifteenth. Some make mistakes that they cannot afford to absorb and they get desperate to blame you or someone else in order to avoid bankruptcy. Some end up disappearing altogether, even if they were decent people. It is a mess. Do not do it.
I would tackle management of a huge road, bridge, or dam project before I would take on another damn single family home one time project.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 07-13-2010 at 01:26 PM..
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