Sprinkler turn on

We finally had the landscape crew back to get the irrigation system operating.  Underground sprinklers is definitely a great feature for the new owners to enjoy the convenience.  

The 30 day basement challenge part 3 - how much did it cost?

Often we get inquiries about how much a project should cost.  Estimates vary widely, and without comprehensive specifications we have difficulty ourselves coming up with a number.  What we do know, is what it cost to finish our own projects.  You could say we have a pretty tight control over what our spec homes cost, because if we do not, we risk losing significant sums of our investment.

Recently we completed a basement in 30 days.  It was a considerably effort to do so on that timeline, and it required our sole focus to manage effectively.

We are going to publish a rough itemization of the cost to have the work done below.  While this is somewhat proprietary, we do not have a problem sharing the information if it helps others with managing the budget on their own project.  There are also various ways to account for the total cost of the job. We are just going to list the bills received to get the job done, and not go into project management fees, financing fees, overhead and other soft costs.

framing	750
lumber	350
plumbing rough in to final install labour	700
tile material only	715
electrical	1050
tile labour	645
lights	300
quartz countertop material and labour	600
cabinetry supply and install	850
drywall to paint all inclusive	6600
carpet supply install	1825
cleaning and dump fees	250
plumbing finish supplies	675
finishing all in (doors, trim,  materials)	1600
mirror and shower door	480
central vacuum tie in	200
total	17590

So, now we know the raw cost of the material and labour to do the job.  We can convert that back to a square footage price ($29.31) and that can be a guideline for those attempting to manage the job themselves.  This is where we get to the fine print. This price would be for a homeowner who (a) has an understanding of market price for labour and gets reasonable deals from the trades, and (b) has the time and energy to manage the effort of 20 + suppliers and workers, and the knowledge to make sure the work is done properly.  I would estimate that any full time employed person would not have the ability to do this (while working themselves), nor the experience to manage quality control of the workmanship.

Other costs that would be factored in are city permits/inspections, cost to finance, and project management.  

  

The 30 day basement challenge part 2 - is this a DIY project or do you need a contractor

The tight time line of our basement project left little time to seek multiple bids - by the time we would have been able to get contractors in to get prices, we would have lost too much time to get the job done!  We basically had four weeks to do the job, and that was about 22 work days.  Each working day we needed to get about 5% of the job done.  Hiring crews that could not deliver was not an option.

Fortunately we have some good guys willing to work on our schedule, and given the recession the trades are definitely looking for work, so we had good accountability to our schedule throughout.  Notable highlights on this job was having the drywall hung and the first coat of taping done on the same day.  Never before have we had that kind of service, it was great.  Mainly this is the advantage of small jobs, you can really schedule work and have it done according to the plan, with little deviation.  This has not always been true for our larger projects.

Many homeowners would wonder what it would cost to develop their basement, and if they could do it by themselves.  I can answer this question in a general sense.  For a simple basement it could be done in a month and cost less than $20k, for the individual capable of financing and managing the job full time, and who has all the right contacts to get professional quality work done on time.  For the average homeowner, a basement is probably too large to tackle without some assistance.   It is highly unlikely a homeowner has contacts with every trade necessary, we used:

1. drafter (changes to plan)
2. framer
3. plumber
4. plumbing supplier (shower, taps, etc)
5. HVAC sheet metal mechanic
6. electrician
7. central vacuum installer
8. drywall boarder
9. drywall taper
10. drywall sander
11. ceiling texture crew
12. painter
13. finishing package wholesaler
14. finishing carpenter
15. spray crew (same as painter in this case but usually different)
16. cabinet shop/designer
17. cabinet installer
18. tile wholesaler
19. tiler
20. stone counter shop/install
21. carpet shop
22. carpet install
23. glass shop install crew mirror and shower door
24. cleaner and trash removal dump runner
25. general contractor (this was us, integer homes inc)

Looking back on this list of 25 companies, individuals and tradespeople,  we were surprised by the number of people involved in just this one small project.  It is no surprise that without someone acting as crew chief, this would be total chaos.  Given that we have worked with every individual on this list (and we have alternates) although in this case we used our A team of preferred trades, we have their phone numbers, and we often have a good working relationship with them, it is no surprise we could manage the job effectively and get it done in 30 days.

The 30 day basement challenge - part 1 project logistics

Summary – we had to finish a basement in 30 days.  The job itself was a significant learning event since we are a home builder, not a home renovator.  Without a big push by the company owner and some careful selection of quality tradespeople that delivered for us in a big way, the project would not have been complete on time.  Full details from our project analysis and schedule information are found below.

Having watched perhaps too much renovation show on HGTV, I figured doing a complete basement development project in 30 days wouldn’t prove to be much of a challenge, especially for a home building company that generally tackles small multifamily townhouse development.  Our company has finished more than ten basements over the last few years, all with one considerable difference, they were done at the time of construction of the entire project, not as a standalone.  This meant in our experience finishing basements, the framing and technical trade work necessary was done with the upper levels of the house.  The basement was part of the overall schedule, so didn’t have a timeline on its own.  To us, the effort to finish the basement has been indistinguishable from doing the whole townhouse project.

In this instance, the sale of the project (planned to be sold without a finished basement) needed to be changed to close the deal.   As part of the sale we agreed to complete the basement for the new owner at the time of possession for their house purchase.  This left us with a month to get it finished, from the raw studs to the final touchup.

As we prepared a schedule, it became clear the basement was going to require the same level of effort to manage as if it was a small standalone house project. We would need most of the same trades used in our full project to repeat the same work, just on a smaller scale.  The more detailed we looked into the schedule, the less slack we had in terms of lining up every single component of the job from beginning to end, with little margin for error.  Since finishing the job after the new owners took possession was not a desirable outcome, we endeavored to get it done on time, and we had to allocate a substantial commitment of our time and resources (more than we had originally wanted to).

We developed a few key learnings on this project;

·      Weekends can be your friend – we had framing done on a Saturday and Sunday, this allowed the trades to get off to a far better start on Monday than had we not managed to get the framing done on the weekend.  If we started framing on the Monday following the productive weekend, we likely would not have been able to get the plumber to start until Wednesday, and if he took more than his allotted time, we’d have been into the following week to get the rest of the rough in done.  Instead, we had the trades finished and drywall delivered that first week.  This set the stage for continued momentum for the remainder of the job.

·      Lead times for custom material are going to use precious days - so order as soon as measurements allow.  We tend to order bathroom vanities once framing is done so we can get the sizing just right.  In this project had to use the same style of cabinets as the rest of the custom house, so no stock material was available.  It took 16 days to take delivery of the cabinet, this was half our schedule.  We picked up the material at the shop and it was installed that same day, if we had to wait any longer for the cabinets it would have set back our job considerably.  Tile took less time to ship, but it was still a week and necessitated a quick measurement and preorder just after framing was done to get the count correct.

·      Using the right crew is absolutely essential – we used the same crew to hang, tape, and sand the drywall, and paint the walls and spray the trim.  This was a major time saver because we were able to have the basement boarded and first coat of tape done on the same day.  With the need for drying time the zero wait between early stages of drywall was a big bonus.

·      Significant management effort is involved in a tightly scheduled project to keep it on track – this basement occupied a site supervisor/project manager/cleaner type person almost full time for the month long project.  Dealing with getting the floors shop vac’d at key intervals, and the garbage hauled away is a costly and time consuming task.  We had little choice but to tackle this ourselves.

·      The faster timeline allows little opportunity for quality control - we worked extra hard to identify and repair the inevitable bad studs and rectify any issue that would show after the drywall (i.e. too late).  The more experience the company management has with this the better and more professional the end product will be. 

·      Budget is hard to estimate before the full range of finishes can be calculated – we had a rough idea at the start of the project, but the end product was slightly over budget.  The bulk of that additional cost went into the bathroom budget, for tile, cabinetry, quartz counter and plumbing finishes, toilet, sink, tap and shower trim.  We made every economy possible except for substituting inferior materials.