Most homeowners do not lose money on a renovation because of bad carpentry. They lose it in the parts nobody taught them: the planning, the hiring, the paperwork, and the payments.
Written by an architect with more than fifty years in design and construction, these are the fourteen rules that close the holes money leaks out of. Free, plain-language, and ready to use before you get a single bid.
Each rule closes a specific hole that money leaks out of. Here is the full list you will get.
Scope before bids: you cannot compare bids on a job you have not defined.
Get every bid broken down: a sub who will not itemize is a sub you cannot check.
The lowest bid usually misread the job, and you pay the difference later.
No certificate, no work: verify license and insurance before day one.
No waiver, no check: the paper that stops a lien on your home.
Order long-lead items on day one, before the schedule stalls waiting on them.
Keep your money behind the work, never ahead of it.
No work without a signed change order: price and sign it before it happens.
Hold retainage until the punch list closes, so the final details get done.
Nothing gets covered before it is inspected, or you tear it open later.
Done means done to standard: do not pay for almost right.
Write every defect down the day you see it, with a date and a photo.
Decide fast: your delay is the job's delay, and you pay for it.
Know when not to be your own GC. The best judgment is knowing which jobs to hand off.
The complete system behind these rules, from deciding whether to GC your own project all the way to closing it out. Plus more than 20 ready-to-use worksheets: the four-layer budget, the bid-comparison sheet, the insurance and lien tracker, the inspection checklists, and the punch list.
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