If you're in a hurry, here's the key points:
We recently had an opportunity to provide an estimate for a small addition. We always follow the same routine. We meet with our customers for a free consultation, and discuss exactly what they want and need from their project. This can take up to 2 hours, sometimes more. If needed, we'll schedule another follow-up meeting to break up the meetings, since 2 hours is a long time. Bigger projects, especially additions, always require more time. This is a crucial part of us getting to understand how we can best help you achieve your goals for your project.
Our emphasis is on getting all of the details right the first time.
In the particular instance we mentioned, we spent around 2 hours to learn what the client needed and we did a thorough walk-through where the addition would go, took our measurements, and took a lot of photos for our own reference. Within a week we turned in our proposal. Our proposals will always give an estimated range of the project's costs and a very detailed scope of work to explain what you are getting within that budget.
Side Note:
At this point, you need to understand how contractors work up an estimate. Nobody is quoting a detailed set of plans because they haven't been made yet!
If you are getting multiple quotes, this can really distort the comparison between quotes, because it's NEVER apples to apples. There are so many details that are yet to be decided, and each contractor will interpret the project their own way.
Also, consider that you haven't made any selections yet which will affect at least 50% of the job budget. And in our particular instance, engineering was also a concern. There could be extra measures needed to fortify the existing structure where the addition would go. And engineers cost money.
The best you can do if you are comparing quotes, is to carefully compare the provided scope of work with the budget. If the contractor doesn't provide you with a scope of work with their proposal, that's a huge red flag. I would think twice about working with them.
So we don't have any plans:
But this is where we thrive. We have more than a decade of experience in construction, and we know how to build just about anything. While preparing our proposals, we develop a preliminary set of plans in-house and we work up a budget to account for every 2x4 and every nail. We even provide allowances for the finishes you told us you wanted when we met earlier, so there's no guessing what your selections might cost. We do all of this work in the background, before we send you our initial proposal. This can take us a full day or longer, and we do it for free. We want to make sure we can help you before we take any of your money.
Now back to the story:
In the end, this particular customer decided to go with another contractor. What we later learned, through the customer, was our initial proposal was $15,000 more than the other contractor's proposal.
That means we were projecting our costs to be approximately 38% more than the other contractor had anticipated.
This is where it gets interesting:
The contractor had to issue change orders for $10,000 worth of work, to get the job done right. That was a whopping 25% of his initial estimate! That is a lot of money for anyone to cough up halfway through a project, especially without warning. And that brought him within $5,000 of our initial ballpark estimate, only a difference of 10%. It's likely we could have easily saved the extra $5,000 while budgeting for the selections, because this job had a lot of options to choose from - exterior trim, a handful of windows, flooring, and many other finishes.
Think about it this way:
You can work with a contractor who is thorough up front, listens carefully to your needs, and provides a detailed estimate - or - you can work with an optimistic contractor who stops buy for a short chat, doesn't ask any good questions, and doesn't take the time back at the office to put together a solid estimate. You end up paying for their optimism later.
It never turns out well if you go with the lowest bidder. It may be tempting, because it looks like you'll save money (in this case $10,000 - $15,000, which is a lot!). But you always pay for it later.
Would you rather get money back, or pay more later?
That's for you to decide. We hear stories like this all of the time. Many potential customers we met who chose another contractor will later tell us a story of how their chosen contractor ended up costing the same or more than our projected budget - or worse, a part of the project went horribly wrong.
That's the reason why we emphasize attention to details up front and clarity with our pricing. We don't aim to be the cheapest, we aim to tell you the real costs upfront. In the end, every competent contractor who does the work right will cost close to the same amount - typically within 5% of each other. Just remember that if you are getting multiple quotes.
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