Hire a designer to write the specifications and manage the process for you. It’s what we do. :-). Plus, until you have all of the design documented, each contractor is quoting what he is familiar with and uses, not necessarily what you want and envision.

Thanks! We do have residential drawings drawn up, and a solid sense of the finishes we want. That is helping, at least! But we did not hire someone to manage this for us.

(oops, I commented from my wife's account)

“a solid sense of the finishes we want” is not a Job Specification Sheet. Or Scope of Work.

You can get “bids” that are 70K or 170K for “the same” job, Because you are comparing apples and bananas, and don’t know enough about either to even know that they are different fruit. “Marble tile floor” is not “12x24 Carrara Bianco marble tile sourced from Daltile, set to TCNA standards, over Ditra uncoupling membrane with premium white thinset, and Flexcolor CQ grout, using 1/16 spacing.“.

"But we did not hire someone to manage this for us."

The you have resigned yourself to the painstaking time sink process of emailing and calling and then calling and emailing.

That makes sense. We've managed the process ourselves before when building, down to the spec sheet. We worked with the GC and his foreman.

For this remodel, two GCs wanted us to use "their" designer. One wanted to charge, one "included" it.

I didn't realize we are unusual in co-managing and co-designing alongside the GC.

It is part (a very important part) of the process. If you do perform due diligence now, you may have problems later.

Hours?! Should be Days!

Size of your project?

Start by writing and organizing your thoughts and selections. Ask friends for contractor referrals.

Hours is part of the process. Each contractor is spending hours figuring out your project also so if you run off the diligent contractors you're left with others.

Strongly agree -- as we say in my industry of web development, "weeks of development can save hours of planning!"

We are planners ourselves. We did hire a residential designer for measuring & producing drawings.

By "hours", I meant, hours just to meet, have a first conversation, and get a rough bid. Yes, it definitely adds up to days all told.

I'm wondering if there is a more efficient way to move from our state -- we have drawings, clarity on most (but never all) details, a budget -- and using that to identify the right GC partner.

It's still an arduous process, and one that has been painful for us before in this project. In the past, we signed an LOI with a contractor after getting 3 detailed bids. Several hours/days invested. We paid that GC along w/ the LOI, investing more time and money. They then jacked the price up nearly 2.5x with no, and I mean NO, scope change from us. So we walked away. We backed off the project for awhile, exhausted. Then we brought some different GCs in to estimate the same project and scope. All three again took significant time investment from us and them, and all three estimated within $5k of each other on a 65-70k project. (Which confirmed to us that we were right to walk away from the well-rated GC who doubled the price on us.) Of those three bids... one we decided we did not want to work with, one's communication became extremely spotty and they disappeared (covid-19 and all, I suppose), and the other changed their timeline and pushed the possible start date out from what they'd originally said would work (which is fine, means they are busy, but no longer worked for us).

So, we're at it again. Perhaps we are just unusual in our willingness to manage this? Bad luck? It seems like we should be able to manage and estimate this stage more smoothly.

Thanks Jeff. We appreciate diligence, and don't want a GC to spend hours on something they will end up not getting.

Today, I met with a GC I hope we go with. We talked for 1h 45min, and he warned me ahead of time that he asks a lot of questions. I can't thank him enough for the time investment. At the end, he is able to ask what I expect to spend and make sure we are in the ballpark.

This is what felt like it could've been handled with some plans, a video from me, maybe a few emails, to then decide if it's worth estimating. Maybe each situation is just too unique for anything but a detailed site visit to work.

Thanks Charles. How do you, as a builder, know if you are picking a good client?

This is one reason I just don't think major renovations are worth it. There are many other reasons. You put a lot of money into renovations, especially if you figure in the value of your time, and you never get your investment back when you sell.

IMO it's smarter to buy a house you can live with and enjoy, and when it's no longer satisfactory, move.

I don't mean you should neglect normal maintenance and painting, and avoid minor redecorating. But bigger projects like a whole new kitchen or bath, tearing out walls, reconfiguring the layout -- for such major changes I don't see enough upside for the homeowner. The ones who really benefit are the suppliers and contractors, and most of them are already QUITE well off, as you can see from the vehicles they drive.

I agree that it’s a relationship you’re building each time you meet and talk to a contractor. You get to know them and get a feel for their trustworthiness, timeliness, communication styles etc. It’s worth the investment, I feel. There were so many flakes or folks who did not want to take the time to even talk to us. It’s good to find that out from the beginning. I loved working with my contractor-he was the right fit for us, and it made the work of a major reno worth it.

I agree with Charles Ross Homes. When we finished our basement a couple of years ago, it took us about 6 months, and interviews with 7 different contractors, to find one that we were comfortable with. We had contractors that we met with for at least 2 hours; because we were working with such a blank slate, they gave us good ideas, things we hadn't thought about. The more we interviewed, the more we then knew what direction we wanted to go in.

I will add that we are thorough, probably to a fault. We research everything but didn't want to come across as know it alls just because we knew how to use Google. The contractor we felt most comfortable with we went back and forth with a few times before we actually signed the contract. We both didn't want to waste each other's time but at the same time, he knew it was a big decision and didn't pressure us. Fortunately we were happy with the company we used and recommended them to friends.

In other words, take your time. This is a big investment of both your time and money.

FWIW, I don't ever want to go through a major remodel like that again. I wanted to move to a house that already had a finished basement, but I lost that argument.

@Porter,

Great question. "Fit" is a two-way street. The remodeler needs to be the right fit for the client and the client needs to be the right fit for the remodeler. Kinda like a marriage, but with a shorter time frame.

We assess fit as follows:

The project scope is within the scope of our competencies.

The project meets our basic screening criteria.

The client has realistic expectations about the cost, time, inconvenience, dust generated, etc. required to execute the project.

The client values our experience and expertise and would be a good "project partner" versus a superior and subordinate relationship.

The client won't be one likely confuse the roles of remodeler and client (engineers, accountants, and control freaks take note.)

Thanks everyone. What I am doing in this round is emailing a GC, asking if they have interest based on a brief description, and asking if I can send floor plans/drawings to get a preliminary estimate *range*, before setting up a site visit (which is similar to what I did before, but just quite a bit more up front detail this time).

Goal is saving them and me time, and helping keep a healthy social distance. I like seeing who responds and how.

Feels like there should be something like a Care-dot-com for this. My family has used Care to post a job (typically, long-term childcare help) with details about us and the job, and see who responds, how they respond, etc. Vs. copy-pasting the same email over and over to GCs. Not sure if GCs or homeowners would go for that.

Renovation is way to site specific. If you need random numbers go to the internet. There are tons of online sites that purport to connect you to contractors- heck even houzz will ‘match’ you to someone. They are all terrible and are just lead services. You want the guy who isn’t chasing work but is booked out six months because he is skilled and priced correctly. You find that out through neighbors and meeting them in person at your property.

I found our contractor while walking around the neighborhood. There were 3 houses under construction. All seemed pretty extensive, so I had initially called all 3, plus others I’d gotten verbal recommendations for. I had taken pics of all three job name boards in front of the homes...guess who had the neatest construction site?

And then guess who called me back right away? Which ones came for a site visit vs “send me plans when they’re ready.”

You can tell a lot from those seemingly minor things.

Someone who’s not organized/focused enough to call you back? Or too busy to come to your site to see your home/existing conditions? That person is probably not going to be able to send a crew to work on your house everyday. Guess who did have workers here every day? Guess who moved me back into a house almost to the day he promised 7 months prior?

You can’t get that off the internet.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5332686/10-tests-for-you-and-your-contractor-s-first-meeting

Agree, I do not want random numbers! And I don't like lead gen either, I don't fill out the questionnaires at Houzz/Porch/etc. The lead gen stuff seems like a pain for everyone involved, though clearly it gets used by others. (Love your portfolio, btw, @HALLETT & Co.)

@hemina I agree the little things add-up. People remove themselves from my list with things like that, especially failure to follow through. For me, I get signals from people online as well as offline -- timely & frequent response, answering my questions & showing they read what I wrote, etc. This is definitely an art.

We homeowners signal a lot as well, as Charles Ross Homes indicates above.

I would never give a rough estimate of a job without a site visit probably even more that one. What you might think is a small item can have huge repercussions .If you don’t want to hire a person to do this work then you are it . Why do you think those pros charge so much. I also never get very interested or committed to a job where I do not meet the people face to face. There is no way to get a feel for anyone on the internet and I need that face to face to be able to see if we have a meeting of the minds . What you think is a partial renovation and what I think is a partial renovation can be very far apart.. The GC has to put in hours too to give you an estimate do you think they are happy about doing all the work for free. I have been in the design and renovation business for more than 40 yrs and I hate having a homeowner who is constantly talking to my GC and wanting to change what they think are little things all along the job. Hire a good designer and a good GC and have good communication with both but stay out of their hair . I usually meet once a week with the client and the GC to see how everything is progressing . I trust my GC to do his job .

"I usually meet once a week with the client and the GC to see how everything is progressing. I trust my GC to do his job ." --> Agreed! That's about what we've done in the past as homeowner/designers. We know we can't, and shouldn't, micro-manage the pros doing their work.