Saving Time and Money on Construction Projects

5 April 2005

revised 14 Dec 2009

There are two very obvious ways to save some money initially and they are so obvious that I debated whether to include them. Here however are the first two things to saving some money.

1) Shop around
2) Get 3 estimates

Shop around is simple enough. You want better prices right? Well, if you have your shit stuff in order then you can often order items or find them for cheaper than going to the box store and purchasing them outright. Don't get too carried away though. Your time is worth something and so is the gas your vehicle takes to do some investigation. I recommend telephones and the internet. Getting 3 estimates gives you a good idea about the actual cost something takes. It's good to know these things so that you don't taken advantage of.

If you want to save time and money do not change things when the project is underway.

Change results in two things: increased time (spent altering something already done or adding something to existing), increased money (costs more to do something twice and costs more whenever something is added to the project). In other words saving time and money consists of:

1) Proper coordination and planning at the start

2) Allowing or encouraging finished cycles of action based upon pre-agreed upon communication (orders).

3) No alterations of work already done

4) Minimal additions to a work order already in execution

There will usually be exceptions to these points when the coordination or planning is out or if the project was not planned well in the beginning (lack of foresight, or financial considerations, etc).

Clear communication from both customer and contractor should establish the plan of what needs to be done. The contractor should alert the customer as to certain factors which he as a contractor should foresee should things be done in a certain way or omitted.

An example is, on one remodel there was light fall-off where a hallway ended up being dark at the remodel end. This was something only experienced at night as it was well lit by ambient light during the day. These factors are sometimes seen through acute observation and plain experience – an experienced and aware contractor should be able to foresee most factors.

Coordination throughout the project where it is longer is an important factor to cut down on double work or to incorporate change orders into the general plan (or program). But while coordination is important, there should be ONE project manager per project or on really large projects, two where one can work on the inside and the other on the outside, but this isn’t a common scenario.

So the gist of this is simple. Change costs money 90% of the time. 10% of the time a change to a plan can save money. And the trick is to balance your cost (money), versus your time getting it done or doing it leveraged against your RETURN ON INVESTMENT (of course living with a nice product is good too and certainly stands for something).