Construction: A Basket Full of Apples
Should your water heater be all-electric, gas, or hybrid? Tank or tankless? Should your kitchen have under-cabinet lighting? What color should the grout be in your bathroom?
A million decisions will be made during your construction project, and someone will have to make them. Who will it be?
Your project team consists of you as the Owner, your Architect, and your Contractor. Sometimes, the lines are blurred and your Contractor also plays the design role, or you take the risk of learning how to be a general contractor on your own project. But we’ll go with the classics:
Owner. Architect. Contractor.
And here’s the thing: all of the million decisions will have to be made by one of you. If the Owner doesn’t know which water heater to select, they will ask the Architect or Contractor to make a recommendation. There is no one-size-fit-all solution in construction: for some, the heat pump tanked water heater will be the best solution, for others, a gas tankless one (we vote for the first one though, in light of Title-24 rules here in California). And so, you as the Owner, will make this decision based on the input from the rest of the project team.
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
Often, a good chunk of the decisions do not get addressed until the construction in under way. This happens when the design phase is rushed - the Architect may be engaged for the big picture design part, but is not paid to address the details. And so, decisions about the color of the grout, the profile of the molding, the style of the bathtub, etc, etc, are left waiting to be made by someone. Who will it be?
When the Architect is no longer in the picture and the construction has begun, the majority of owners will by default (and not being aware of it) have deferred these decisions to the Contractor. A more sophisticated owner may know enough or care enough to claim the responsibility for figuring out the answers themselves.
The Owner thinks that they are saving on Architect fees. In reality, they are paying the Contractor, whose profession is construction management, to do design work. Even worse, this design work is forced to the construction phase of the project, when making any changes will have a ripple effect on the rest of the construction and the budget.
It’s true, some decisions may be deferred. It’s important to clearly identify those and designate the party responsible for them. Someone will have to decide.
I once attended a seminar on contract law. In it, our very engaging presenter introduced the concept of a basket full of apples.
The apples represent all of the decisions and responsibilities in a project. All of the apples must be taken from the basket: the basket is empty at the end of the project. And the only three possible apple-takers are the Owner, the Architect, and the Contractor.
No apple left behind.
So, what to do? How do you make sure that none of your “apples” are left unclaimed in the basket, spoiling your project?
Best Practices
Allow the professionals to do the work they are best qualified for. Let the builder build, not make design decisions.
Establish clear expectations for all parties at the very beginning of the project. Who is responsible for what? If you are struggling with this role, we highly recommend asking your Architect to take it on instead. Architects are uniquely qualified to serve as neutral parties, overseeing and organizing the project from start to finish. They will know what apples may be lingering in the basket.
Ask a lot of questions and be an active part of the project team. It’s okay to ask “dumb” questions - both your Architect and your Contractor should understand that you know less than they do when it comes to design and construction. The important thing is that all of the apples in that basket get a fair hearing.
Hire the Architect for the duration of the project, not just the quickie schematic design. The value of a good Architect is much more than space layout and building permit. They will look out for your best interests throughout the whole process, make sure that your goals are met, and quite possibly, save you money in the end (some examples of this coming up below).
Communicate often. It is common for everyone to make assumptions about what the others may be thinking, but when it comes to construction…assumptions are not a good thing. Don’t assume that the contractor will pick the highest quality materials, unless you specifically ask the Architect to include this point in the drawings. The standard industry practice is an “OAC” meeting every other week during construction. OAC stands for Owner, Architect, Contractor. This is the scheduled time to meet and discuss any questions the contractor may have, the status of the job, and any budget or time impacts.
Below are a couple of project examples from our own experience.
Lidia’s Story
“I get a phone call from a nervous contractor saying that he will not rebuild the framing. I ask questions to understand why he has to rebuild the framing. It turns out that a mistake was made and to fix the mistake, it will take labor and extra materials. I call the structural engineer, who looks at the photo of construction and in a matter of a few hours, sends a revised drawing to fix the mistake such that rebuilding is not needed. The design time spent to fix the mistake is $500. The money saved in not rebuilding… $50,000.”
In this example, the Architect was engaged throughout the lifetime of the project and was able to save the owner money and time. If they were not involved in construction, the owner and/or contractor would have to pay for the contractor’s mistake.
Yevgenia’s Story
“The city has completed plan check on the project (a rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of three historic homes into studio apartments). As it usually happens before the permit is released, the city issues an invoice to the owner for all the outstanding fees associated with this construction project. I take some time to review their invoice and check the applicability and amount of the fees. The two largest numbers deserve special attention: Housing Impact Fee and water service fee. After doing some research, I reach out to the city to ask that the Housing Impact Fee be taken off of the invoice, because it does not apply to our project - thanks to the higher density of units per acre, this fee should have been waived. The city agrees to remove the fee.
The water service fee takes some more digging into the numbers and drawings, and reaching out to the engineers. It turns out that the water service has been oversized and with a smaller service size comes a much smaller fee. We ask the engineers to make the change.
As a result of this attention to detail, the city invoice has been reduced by $80,000 - almost in half.”
Again, having the Architect looking out for the owner’s interest beyond the design phase saved the owner money.
