I took part in a tremendously educational meeting today inolving a professional remodel contractor, a home buyer, and the house she’s considering buying.
The buyer had hired the contractor to walk through the house while going over a bullet-pointed list we’d created of all her remodel ideas. The goal was to end up with a reasonably accurate price range so she could make a decision about the house.
For just over an hour we toured the house, inside and out. Occasionally the buyer or I would get too specific, such as talking about whether to go with bamboo flooring or maple. “For the purposes of what we’re doing here today,” the contractor would reign us in, “they’re close enough in price that it’s a wash. Next item…” He did a fantastic job of keeping us at the right “depth” and in doing that he maximized his time and my client’s consulting dollars.
We’re talking about a pretty major remodel here, including the following and more:
- Full kitchen reconfiguration and new everything;
- Knocking out or moving 3 to 4 major walls;
- At least 1000 square feet of new hardwood flooring;
- Full bathroom reconfiguration;
- Replacing 5 to 8 fixed glass picture windows with opening casement windows;
- Adding a complete master suite above the garage;
- Transforming a heavy texture into smoothwall and repainting the entire sheetrock surface;
And so on. Full remodel, to be sure, on an already-very-custom home.
At the end of the hour-long tour, the contractor took 15 minutes to work up some numbers and do some math, then he sat us down.
“In estimating costs for a project like this,” he began, “you have a gauge. On the far left you have a S.W.A.G. — scientific wild-ass guess. On the far right of the gauge, you have a bid.”
He explained that, when his company actually “bids” a job, they know E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Exact cabinet dimensions, materials, drawer joints, hinges, pulls, counter-tops and back-splashes, appliance makes and models, electrical layout, fixtures, right down to the CFM of the stove exhaust fan. EVERYTHING! Otherwise they can’t accurately bid the job.
That process, he explained, takes dozen and dozens of hours, and involves members of the design team, sub contractors, estimators, suppliers, engineers, the whole team. All by itself, a bid is a major undertaking, and that’s why most contractors won’t do them. They instead try to sell customers on “time and materials.”
On the other end of the scale is the S.W.A.G… and that’s a number based solely on a brief look and whatever experience the guy giving it can rely on. It can easily be off by 100%. Easily.
In the middle, you’ve got an estimate. And that’s what we had hired the contractor to deliver, in no more than 2 hours on site. And he absolutely did, within a 15% margin, he explained. And that was close enough for this buyer to make her decision.
My point in telling you this story is that, the next time you ask any service provider for a price, be clear as to where on the gauge the price is coming from. Be CRYSTAL clear. SWAGs and Bids are a world apart.
