Working with us
What happens if the renovation budget goes over?
Scope is agreed in writing before work starts, with allowances for what cannot be known until a wall is open. Change orders are approved by you before they happen.
The short answer
Three things, and they are all set up before anyone picks up a tool.
- The scope is agreed in writing before work starts.
- Allowances are built in for the things nobody can know until a wall is open.
- Change orders are seen and approved by you before the work happens, not after it appears on an invoice.
Why an allowance is not a loophole
An older house does not show you everything from the outside. Framing, wiring and plumbing are behind finishes, and the honest position is that nobody knows their condition until the finishes come off.
There are two ways to handle that. One is to quote a confident number that assumes the best case, then explain later why it moved. The other is to name the unknown up front and carry an allowance against it.
The second looks less impressive on the day you sign and behaves far better for the rest of the project.
The change order is the actual mechanism
Everything else is intent. The change order is the part that binds.
Something is found, or something is asked for. It gets priced. You see the price and what it does to the schedule. Then you decide. Work that has not been approved does not happen and does not get billed.
That ordering is the whole protection. Budgets do not usually blow up in one dramatic moment; they drift, one small undocumented decision at a time, and nobody notices until the final invoice.
You get a weekly update
Not a call when there is bad news. A weekly update either way, so the picture you are carrying around matches the one on site.
What this does not promise
It does not promise the number never moves. On a conversion, some of it genuinely cannot be known in advance, and a builder who tells you otherwise is quoting a hope.
What it promises is that you are never surprised by it. Every movement is something you saw, priced, and agreed to before it happened.
Who this is not for
If you are choosing on lowest bid, this will not be the lowest bid. A quote that carries no allowances and no change order process will always look cheaper on paper, which is exactly the problem with comparing the two side by side.