John Erwin Remodeling, Inc

When this client contacted us, she and her partner had dreams of adding on a master bathroom 5 piece suite, walk in closet and creating a laundry room; they had no plans or designs, just ideas. As I explain to all our potential clients, if we are asked to price out something that does not exist like an addition, we have to start with designs, plans and create the specifications. We cannot accurately estimate anything that does not actually exists either for real or on paper as an architectural design. We start off with the design service; we call that the “design and development of the project.”
It really is a team effort which I explain up front with all our clients, especially with picking out fixtures and finishes; our clients are the most important part of the team. Not only do we work together on the design, we ask them to actually pick out the fixtures and products they would like in their remodel. We ask our clients to make selections so we can then plug in the actual cost of what they would like in an effort to avoid too many “allowances”. We call this the “homework” assignment, which I clearly outlined prior to taking them on as a design client. I am conservative by nature and the oldest trick in the book for contractors is to come up with a bid with minimum allowances to sell the job cheap, and then hit the homeowners up with change orders after the project is underway to make up the difference and that will cause 20%-30% cost overruns.
By utilizing this pro-active approach and eliminating allowances for known tangibles like plumbing fixtures, cabinets, countertops, floor coverings etc, we typically run on average about 2-3% for the unforeseen cost overruns like when we open up a wall and find termite damage, or rot. If you are financing your project, the banks require you have a 10% contingency fund for the unforeseen like I mentioned, so coming in at 2-3% over is a well developed, well run project.
Our clients seamed to understand our process; working together we came up with a design blending well into their existing home and more importantly giving them all the design and space elements they were looking for. The hiccup came after the design was completed, during their “homework” and the fact they never completed their part leaving us up in the air on the details. They then asked for a rough estimate without their input on products, I explained again just as I did above with the pitfalls of that approach and then turned their file and design over to our estimator to run the numbers and provide them with their “rough” estimate. Our estimator contacted them the next day to make arrangements to meet our electrical and plumbing sub-contractors on site so we could at least accurately estimate what we could and then leave the rest up for allowances. Their response back the following day was quote, “we will take the next few weeks to make some decisions and get back to you”. Later that same day I receive an email saying quote “I appreciate all your hard work; we have however decided to put this project on hold for the meantime. We will get back to you should that change.”
That was kind of a strange and abrupt ending to our dealings with this client and was especially surprising to read her review on Houzz months later. In fact she had written the review several months ago and posted it before we had even heard of Houzz and found it when we became part of Houzz and until then, did not even know she was unhappy with our process. Last thing I received was
thank you for all your hard work the project is on hold!
I feel giving us a one star rating is unfair but I do appreciate the fact she did give me compliments on our design work, communication, staying in touch and being personable… Her issue was that “our process and her process did not mesh” …. Well, just like she even wrote in her review, she had “never contacted a remodeling company to do this kind of work.” Frankly I do not know what her process is or what didn’t mesh, however I do know that our pro-active team approach to designs and developing a project is a recipe for success!