Services

I provide advice and guidance on how best to go about doing work on your home. For example:

• Help you establish a priority list or optimal sequence for various components of a renovation, while considering your needs, how much you plan to spend, what parts of your home will need attention soonest, where investment will return the most value, and other factors. If you have multiple ideas in mind or are weighing competing issues for repairs or upgrades, I can help you prioritize and come up with a holistic plan that meets your needs and budget. 
• Help you plan and start a project: 
  • Work with you to draw up a rough schedule, timeframe, and budget for the work
  • Help you think through design elements and answer preconstruction questions about what you need to choose and purchase for the project
  • Vet subcontractors and help you decide who to hire--and provide advice on keeping control of the payments and ensuring quality once the work is underway

I provide a “check up” on the health and upkeep of your home. I can help assess the state of repair and life left in everything from windows, to fixtures, to your roof, and--considering what your priorities are and what will need attention when--work with you to develop a short-, medium-, and long-term to-do list.

I can also provide this consultation service in the process of your home-buying search, to help you interpret a home inspection report and consider the costs and implications of any issues it raises, or accompany you to see the prospective home and answer any questions and provide my assessment as you consider the purchase.

In addition to the above advice and consultation, I:

• Manage the project overall to coordinate all the phases and keep everything on schedule and moving forward
• Lead you through the preconstruction process
• Provide on-site supervision of subcontractors and coordinate schedules among them as needed
• Anticipate and bring questions to you to answer as work is underway
• Manage and track change orders as they occur in the process
• Assess the work and ensure it meets quality standards before payments are made

 You are on the market to purchase a home and need assistance to figure out if the few that you've picked are in a good shape, would need a lot of repairs/renovations, have good potential for renovations? 

Even if you do have an inspection report (or want to waive your inspection), I can help you figure out the details you need to know to make an informed decision, by accompanying you to your home viewings, leaving some flexibility in my schedule to jump in and deliver a quick response for quick moves

I wish receiving estimates would be easy, we just compare prices and voilà! As you probably already know, it is not as strait forward. 

First we need to make sure that the scope of work have been clear and detailed enough when shared with contractors. Then, the estimates should match pretty much in detail your scope of work, and if not, what's missing (are there some element that will be Time and Material (T&M), are all the material included, is there potential change of prices if you don't sign right away, what if work happen a year from now and price of material go up...?). Then it is important to read the fine prints to see what not counted for, what is likely to be charged extra (often the hourly rate is also mentioned there, so with envisioning what could possibly come up as extra work, it could be possible to predict extra cost).

Online reviews are also a good indicator that contractors do or don't usually respect their quotes.

In the residential construction/renovation word, on a daily base, my experience is that estimates, quotes or proposals are not actually different (even if they should be). When home owners receive estimates, they consider them as proposals, when contractors send proposals, they always find a way to charge extras... I think unless you receive (or request) a rough estimate, the price should not vary unless there are actual surprises. We should always ask contractors to trying envisioning what kind of surprises they could potentially find during the work (most of the time during or after demo). It's always possible to request thorough investigation in order to catch a lot of potential surprises. Some contractors are more open than others to put some time on that.

I would be pleased to help you on any of those tasks. I've also worked many times with clients on trying to envisioned what can possibly go wrong and what kind of surprises can we find in the walls, using signs of it without opening the walls, or using small openings and even snake camera (about 1/2" round holes only) to check on that. I am getting pretty good at it :-) Although, I haven't experience projects so far that does not have any surprises... I think that's the nature of the beast! Trying to minimize them is definitively one of my goals.

Through the years (I started working on house as a handyman more than 30 years ago), I've seen a lot of issues pop up, and have developed an eye and an understanding of houses that allows me to see signs of where issues potentially come from and ideas on how to resolved them in an efficient way.

With an onsite visit, and some investigation, doing my best to avoid invasive methods choosing surface investigation or if need be, using my snake camera (only about 1/2" round hole needed) when possible, I'm very often able to get to the core of the issue.

I also always keep an eye on updating my list of good contractors to then do the actual repairs, in the most efficient and respectful way possible.