Ahlert is involved in two types of bidding. In the first type, the client gets the completed plans, along with a spec sheet, and puts it out to bid to two or three contractors. Everyone is bidding on the same thing and the client usually selects the remodeler with the lowest price. “The other process, which we prefer,” Ahlert says, “is where the client interviews three or four contractors and picks the one they will get along best with for the next six months. It’s not just about price.”
Collins, too, works with Walter, and gets involved from the “very onset of design,” he says. His company does few projects in which a client turns up with a completed design. “We’re usually under contract before we know what the budget is. As the project progresses, we’ll give the owner and architect a couple of points of reference as to where the budget is and where it’s headed so design and budget can evolve together in a way that doesn’t create unpleasantness at the end of the design phase.”
Unlike many remodelers, Collins offers full disclosure to his clients, including markup. “This puts everyone on the same page trying to accomplish the same goals,” he says. “We regard ourselves as an asset manager for the homeowner. It’s important for them to have clarity on where the money is going. It takes a degree of stress out of the project.”
Early budgeting pays off in dollars as well. Before participating in the process, Collins has a signed contract and a non-refundable deposit based on the project’s size and complexity.
Allowances can throw off anyone’s estimate. Up-front planning involving all parties can smooth out the bumps. Communication is key. Remodelers may butt heads with an architect when certain assumptions are made, Ahlert says. “We may assume a finish is a medium-grade finish and we may put porcelain tile in our budget when the clients are figuring stone.” During the bidding process, Ahlert meets with clients and gets a feel for what they want based on the existing products in the home and whether they’re looking to upgrade. Doing so helps target his ballpark figure. Of course, it’s inevitable there will be changes.
One way to avoid a slew of change orders is by using a quality-assurance checklist, says Cress Carter, who developed such a list with Chris Withers, his co-owner at Old Greenwich Builders, in Denver. “Chris will spend a whole day going through the architect’s final set of plans. That will generate two to five pages of questions for the architect,” Carter says, stressing the importance of going back to the architect and not to the homeowner; it doesn’t do anyone any good to bad-mouth the architect to the client (or vice versa on the architect’s part). “The architects really appreciate it. We’re a third set of eyes.”
WHO’S IN CHARGE? The best relationships are ones in which control is shared or, more likely, passed back and forth. “In the design phase it’s 85% to 15% with the architect in control,” Walter says. “And during construction it’s 85% to 15% with the contractor in control. That 15% is to help troubleshoot to make things happen in the field the way they were supposed to happen on paper.”
This assumes everyone puts his or her ego aside. If either party has trouble sharing control, you won’t work well together. Good remodelers and architects know when to take a back seat. Carter, who works with 10 or 12 architects regularly, has an expectations meeting with the architect. “We ask them five things they love and five things they hate about their favorite or least favorite remodelers,” he says. “We discuss how they might handle a problem. We’re happy to go by whatever they want to do. If we run into [an ego-driven] architect, we disarm [him or her] by asking how they want things done. We’ve never had a tense situation.”