Two tips for those who've hired new home-building contractors

Here are two tips for those who've hired new home-building contractors.

They should talk to their building contractors about their long-term plans for their new home

Before their contractors put any solid plans into place regarding the creation of their new home, clients of these contractors should talk to them about their long-term plans for their property. If for example, they plan to save up and have underfloor heating or higher-quality insulation fitted in a couple of years, they should mention this to their contractor. The reason for this is that whilst it might be sensible for a person to hold off on fitting some high-end features for a few years, if the construction of their new home is going to stretch them financially, the process of retroactively adding some features could be more expensive than installing them when the new home is being built.

Their contractor might, for example, point out that fitting better-quality insulation or a more high-end ducted HVAC system in a few years might result in greater costs than fitting it during the new home's construction; this is because the addition of these features might necessitate the removal and replacement of several sections of wall plaster and paint, and this would make their installation costlier than if these features were added before the new home contractor had plastered and painted the walls.

In this situation, the contractor might recommend that the client get these features fitted now, and might then suggest other ways for them to save so that this is financially feasible. They might, for instance, advise them to use more affordable materials in some areas of the new home. For example, if they're building an attached garage but don't currently have a car and will only use this area for storage, their building contractor might suggest using cheaper building supplies to construct this feature.

They should not order different building supplies from the ones they originally agreed to use without consulting their contractors

Sometimes, clients of new home building contractors may change their minds about certain supplies that they agreed to have their contractors use for some aspects of their new home. If this happens, it's important for the client to call their contractor and discuss this with them, rather than simply ordering different supplies and asking the latter to use them instead.

If for example, a client originally agreed to have their contractor use large tiles for their new home's bathroom floor and they decide to replace these with much smaller tiles without consulting their contractor, they might be surprised by how much this disrupts the building schedule. This is because the contractor and their team would need more time to lay a large collection of small bathroom tiles than they would take to lay a fairly small collection of much bigger tiles. If a client has a conversation with their contractor before ordering different supplies, the contractor can explain the possible ramifications of this change and the client can then make a more informed decision about whether or not they should buy these new supplies.

For more information, contact new home building contractors near you.