DEMENTIA
transaction in the real world will examine the merchandise, negotiate a price, secure everything in writing, and enjoy their
purchase from the first moment of delivery.
No one in their right mind would consider having their "major purchase" built in their home. But for a moment, imagine you're
a homeowner dying to make that major purchase.
Consider constructing a 20 foot sailboat in your living room. You would have to knock out a couple of walls, tear out the
ceiling, and probably the roof, to accommodate the mast and keel. You would have to construct dust walls to isolate the boat
project from the rest of the house. Wiring, plumbing, and heating would have to move, and the framing, drywall, and
insulation would have to be removed and replaced. The kids? They'd go into the basement for five months.
Hundreds of workers would trudge through your home during the course of the project, beginning around 7:00 AM most
days. Expect them to be sawing, pounding, and using all sorts of toxic sealers and finishes. Oil may leak from beneath their
trucks, and nails will fall out of the beds of their trucks.
Framing and trim crews will arrive on the job site with truckloads of electric saws and air tools powered by noisy,
breaker-tripping compressors. Most floor finishers require 220 volts for their drum sanders. Special electrical requirements
for sub-contractors rarely make Do-It-Yourselfer's Action Lists.
If the thought of a hundred strangers parading through your doors alarms you, and if you possess certain boat building skills
already, you may decide to do the project yourself. You will save a great deal of money at the risk of losing your mind.
Doing it yourself also tends to skew the schedule. A task that might take three men one week, or 120 "man" hours, somehow
manages to take a single individual 240 "man" hours, especially when fitted around work, family, friends, and fun. A
Do-It-Yourselfer-Driven job can easily drag out long enough for infection to set into the psyche of an unsuspecting
homeowner. Homeowners running the project themselves should expect that their personal life will go into the toilet for a
while.
But Do-It-Yourselfers planning a home renovation project should beware: Before any soil is turned over or plaster is
busted, there will be a few items you'll need to consider, including but not limited to pin surveys, soils reports, preliminary
design, foundation design, structurals, interest rates, covenants, energy efficiency, construction financing, architectural review
committees, scheduling, letters from your neighbors, building permits, zoning, lien waivers, engineering, landscape design,
contingencies, liability insurance workman's comp, preliminary meetings with a divorce lawyer (if married), and a note from
your parents, depending on the size and scope of the remodel.
Do-It-Yourselfers should allow enough time and money to get these sometimes aggravating but required items in order.
The only special requirements are time and patience and the ability to marshal the talents of dozens of trade professionals.
(If you live in a big city, you may think the local building department's mandate is not to promote public safety, but to test your
patience. First time remodelers acting as their own contractor should rely on the building department for advice. They can be
a valuable resource, but don't expect them to do your job. Inspectors will check the pitch of a sewer pipe in a basement, for
example, but may not ensure that the soil it is bedded in is properly tamped.)
The sub-contractors that have bid your work expect the floors and walls will be level, plumb and square (If the construction is
new) when they walk on the job. If they have to shim or brace or correct work by a previous crew, expect them to charge
more than their original bid.
Reliable contractors or project managers routinely take care of these annoying details, and their fee is usually collected in
the "overhead" portion of the bill.
Overhead is a percentage of the total bill, ranging from 15% to 100%, depending on the complexity of the project and the
anticipated red tape.
Obviously, a simple basement finish will have a lower projected overhead than tearing apart and adding on to a 150 year
old home in an historic district and converting it to a video arcade and photo processing studio.
Do-It-Yourselfers don't pay this percentage, but the cost they do pay is sometimes steep. Husbands become
overwhelmed, cranky, and surly. There are times when they want to read the riot act to sub-contractors and tradesmen, but
don't because they desperately want them to finish the job and get the heck out of their life. Also, these workers have the key
to their house. The husband suffers stoically, then takes it out on his wife and family. Wives worry because the sweet guy
they married has been sucked into a surreal landscape of plumbers joking among themselves about his family's excrement and
non-English-speaking painters merrily applying the wrong color to the siding and oblivious to his protestations.
Do-It-Yourselfers beware: A project that is substantial enough to require the presence of sub-contractors and inspectors
involves lots of planning, paperwork, and good organizational skills. Looking back, first timers will realize they remodeled
their home through a trial and error process. Knowing what sub-contractors require in order to do their job, for example,
takes lots of timing and communication. And don't forget, things will always come up that one has thought of.
Contractors already know what kind of access a concrete truck needs to pour a foundation in the back yard, for example,
and how much extra money and time is required if concrete needs to be pumped or wheeled. They check beforehand to see
if full sheets of drywall can actually fit into the basement before they begin the project. They know how to fit a replacement
tub into an old bathroom. Homeowners don't know where extra blocking for firestops, fixtures, and hardware is needed.
Skilled contractors can look at a floor and know if it is too out of level to work around. Experience tells them when it is cost
efficient and practical to tear up the floor and replace it. Rookie remodelers rarely make that call.
Do-It-Yourselfers who are determined to be their own general contractor because they believe they will pocket the
contractor's fees should imagine for a moment that they will hire a top-notch firm to build their project. And then, ask
themselves if this imaginary company would supply a superintendent with little building experience and a second job
("homeowner") to run the project? Would that be OK? Why not? Because the company knows it would lose money if the
job were run by an inexperienced hand.
Guess what? Sub-contractors who bid a job with the knowledge that they will be working for an inexperienced
homeowner may bump up their price because they fear the project will not be ready on schedule and the co-ordination
among the trades that is essential will be lacking. And they may not feel like instructing the homeowner in the nuances,
obvious or not, of bringing a job to completion.
Rookie D.I.Y.'ers who assume the General Contractor role on major projects can easily spend their projected savings on
corrections because subcontractors were not adequately instructed, during the course of the job, about how to piece the
project together. It takes experience to look at a blank subfloor and know how much room to allow in a short wall for a
door, electrical boxes, trim, and heating registers.
Some rookie D.I.Y.'ers may not recognize substandard work, but are conned into paying for it anyway.
Remember, one thing that distinguishes the General Contractor and/or Field Superintendent from everyone else is that he/she
alone is supposed to know all the answers and must function as the Central Brain on the job.
Sometimes, Mr. Homeowner gets consumed by the project and begins missing too much work from his real job, the one
the bank is relying on him to keep to pay for this mess. Every morning, he spends two hours on the phone scheduling
workers and imploring them to show up. He wastes endless hours waiting for sub-contractors and inspectors to arrive; trade
professionals whose schedules are constantly skewed (through no fault of their own) by disasters on other projects.
Unaccustomed to switching hats all day, from husband to contractor, the lines begin to blur. Eventually, Mr. Homeowner
begins to treat Mrs. Homeowner like another laborer who didn't take out the trash. This is not a wise thing to do to a woman
whose home resembles a natural disaster and is looking to her husband for answers.
She doesn't understand how beauty arises from chaos.
Like boxers in a ring, they square off and keep their distance from each other, only meeting to exchange jabs or drop the
gloves to do something with the kids. If they are good sports and really love each other, they'll congratulate themselves at the
end of the project. If not, the contractor's fees will seem cheap in hindsight, especially compared to a divorce lawyer.
In this Bizarro world, where major purchases like boats and cars are constructed on-site, imagine a new car being built in
your dining room. For purposes of comparison, we know they cost about the same as a kitchen remodel.
Because of budget constraints, all you can afford is a Ford Taurus, a sensible family two-door. That new Lexus will just
have to wait. You approve the model, the interior finish and options, weigh them against your budget, and the project begins.
The first thing you'll need is a port-a-potty in the front yard. It must be up front and accessible to the large truck that
empties and cleans it every week. This precludes sticking it in the back, along the fence, or behind the bushes. Personally, I
suggest placing it downwind from any windows.
A plastic outhouse will advertise to all of your neighbors you're about to spend lots of money -- probably more than you'll
know. If you're underway during the heat of July and August, the advertising will waft around the block. Roaming bands of
teenagers out after curfew take delight in tipping over these unbalanced polyethylene closets. If the sight of a port-a-potty is
too unsettling, you can always try to hide it next to the 30 yard dumpster that will be parked in the street. This dumpster will
hold construction debris; left over trash from the worker's other jobs; and urine-stained mattresses, box springs, and old
appliances your neighbors have been unable to get the regular trash service to haul off.
As the job progresses, these major lawn fixtures in your front yard will be complemented by smaller and more colorful
signs that seemingly sprout up overnight. The architect and builder may have their own signs, and before long the siders and
roofers and painters are bickering over your turf with their metal placards.
Your dining room furniture is now in the living room. The buffet is on the back porch. Narrow aisles among the tables and
sofas allow for limited access. Plastic sheets are everywhere. A crew of carpenters has covered the dining room floor with a
protective layer of plywood over the finished oak. Welders bring in the steel for your new car, assemble the frame, and as
the axles, wheels, drive shaft and engine are added the thing begins to take shape. In a few days you are thrilled, despite the
inconveniences.
Common sense says your car will take longer to construct in your home than on a production line. Henry Ford never
became a titan of American industry because he went around building cars in each customer's garage, much less in the middle
of the house. But this is what remodelers are required to do.
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