Renovation
Changing Your Mind Mid-Build Is The Expensive Kind Of Change
A decision reversed after work has started costs the original work, the removal, and the delay to everything scheduled behind it, which is why late changes multiply.
Every renovation involves changes of mind. What varies is when they happen, and the timing rather than the substance determines what they cost.
The cost of a change rises through the programme
On a drawing, moving a door is a few minutes of work. After the wall is built it is demolition, rebuilding and making good.
After the plastering and the wiring it is all of that plus the services that were routed around the old position.
The same decision therefore has three very different prices depending only on when it is made, and nothing about the finished result differs.
Delay is usually the larger part of the bill
Trades are booked in sequence, and each one depends on the previous being finished. A pause in the middle does not simply move everyone along a week.
The plasterer who cannot start moves to another job and returns when free, which may be considerably later than the week that was lost.
This is why a modest change can produce a disproportionate extension to the programme, and why the delay often costs more than the work.
Fixed prices stop being fixed at the first variation
A fixed price is fixed against a specification. Alter the specification and the price is renegotiated, usually without the competitive pressure that produced the original figure.
Variations priced mid-job are priced by the contractor already on site, who has no rival. That is not unfair, but it explains why variation rates feel high.
Agreeing in advance how variations will be valued removes most of the friction, and it is easier to agree before there is a specific sum in dispute.
Some decisions can be deferred cheaply and some cannot
Finishes, ironmongery and paint colours can be settled late without holding anything up, and deferring them costs nothing.
Anything requiring a pipe, a cable or a structural opening must be settled before the relevant trade arrives, because reversing it means reopening finished work.
Knowing which category a decision falls into lets you spend deliberation where it is free and act decisively where it is not.
Write changes down as they happen
Verbal instructions on site are made in good faith and remembered differently by everyone present, which is where most disputes at the end of a project begin.
A short written record of what was agreed and what it costs, made at the time, keeps the final account predictable and the relationship intact.
Questions readers ask
Do I need drawings for a small job?
You need something written. A schedule of what is included, what materials are specified and how the junctions are finished prevents most disagreements, even without formal drawings.
Why do variations cost so much?
Because they include undoing work already done and disrupting the sequence for other trades. The direct cost of the change is often the smallest part.
