Some Problems of Remodeling Can Be Avoided
Home remodeling is a perilous enterprise everywhere. In Massachusetts, complaints to the attorney general about home improvement work run second only to auto repair complaints; at California’s Consumer Affairs Department, they exceed auto repair complaints.
Some complaints involve malfeasance--contractors who don’t stick to the building plans, the schedule or the agreed price. Some involve nonfeasance: “My first contractor died,” says Edgar Dworsky, spokesman for the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs. “The second took me for some money and never did any work, and the third filed for bankruptcy, with reason: He’d underbid the job.”
Still, everyone’s remodeling, given today’s land values, real estate prices and the attraction of old houses close to downtown. The value of remodeling stayed between $40 billion and $50 billion a year from 1979 to 1983, jumped to $67 billion in 1984 and is believed to have passed $100 billion in 1988. Small wonder there’s plenty of advice now about how to avoid remodeling’s perils and as many warnings that remodeling presents some perils impossible to anticipate or avoid.
Types of Complaints
Whether the job involved window replacement (the most common) or an addition, consumer complaints usually focus on “failure to complete work, failure to perform any work, inferior work, failure to honor the agreement, misrepresentation of the terms of repair,” says Ellen Citron, attorney at the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group in Boston. Often, says Connie Gontang, investigator for California’s Contractors State License Board, they involve contractors who “take money and do a little work, then run.”
The industry blames its image problem on a fringe of “fly-by-night operators who drive around subdivisions saying, ‘Your roof needs fixing,’ then do a shoddy job and vanish,” says Gopal Ahluwalia, research director for the Washington-based National Assn. of Home Builders. But even honest contractors are often good craftsmen and poor businessmen. Many have trouble coordinating all the different suppliers and subcontractors who work their individual jobs, and one trade periodical, Qualified Remodeler, runs a regular column for contractors on “Your Image,” discussing the importance of contracts, cleanup and communication with customers.
There are also some inherent problems in remodels, which involve working with an existing structure, unlike new construction, which starts clean and from scratch. Workers must tear down before they can build, and new construction must be blended in with old.
Unknown Factors
Furthermore, “with a new home, you have nice new walls, and you know where all the plumbing and electrical lines are, but when you tear down old walls, what’s there may be very different from what you expected,” says Lynn McMillan, spokesman for Qualified Remodeler Publishing in Chicago. “It’s hard to know what’s behind the Sheetrock,” says Los Angeles architect James Ehrenclou, who teaches extension courses in remodeling and architectural renovation at UCLA. “There could be wood rot, or plumbing or wiring problems. There could be a solid masonry wall where you expected studs; you could dig up a foundation and find another foundation.”
Because of the unknowns, “getting a remodel finished on schedule is harder,” he adds. This is not just a problem but a hardship: “Ninety percent of homeowners go on living there during the remodeling,” says Joan Von Drehle, marketing director for Case Design/Remodeling Inc., a large residential remodeler in Washington. “There’s a lot of dust and access problems, and they’re living with their house turned upside down.”
There are common suggestions for avoiding the common problems. In choosing a contractor, says Gontang, “you have to be your own investigator,” starting with a list of possibilities gleaned from friends and acquaintances. Those contractors should provide a list of satisfied clients when they bid on the job. Then, says McMillan, one must actually “go see the guy’s references, comparing apples to apples. If you’re doing your kitchen, look at a kitchen, not a siding job.”
A detailed contract can rule out some surprises, specifying all materials and techniques to be used, from plumbing fixtures to type, grade, brand and specific colors of paint. A completion bond might guarantee that the job will get finished; a punishment clause could provide the incentive for a timely completion. Payment schedules can be drawn to cover finished work in stages, requiring the contractor to get releases from subcontractors saying they’ve been paid for their work and will have no claim against the homeowner.
Finally, everyone talks about the necessity of good “communication” between homeowner and contractor, given the probability of unexpected problems, although no one says how to assure it. Some say an architect’s supervision on bigger jobs can help; others say that just involves a third party and more potential for misunderstandings.
State or local government can be some help, before the job is contracted, or after it falls apart. About 20 states, including California, have licensing laws that cover remodeling contractors, although licensure can’t guarantee quality. It does give the homeowner checkpoint: If California’s Contractors State License Board, for example, indicates that a license is inactive, suspended or registered to someone else’s name, or if there are citations or legal actions against them, that could indicate potential danger.
Licensure also provides one punishment for malfeasance or nonfeasance: The contractor’s license could be pulled. But licensing laws don’t guarantee enforcement. Moreover, those who are unlicensed can be punished only for being unlicensed; “The board can’t ask them to break the law some more by going back to finish a job,” Gontang says.
Whether the contractor is licensed or not, and whether he’s punished, the consumer will probably pay for any losses suffered during his tenure. So will the homeowner whose contractor sees the job to completion, thanks to all those “unknowns”--the one peril of remodeling that seems unavoidable. The homeowner needs a good contractor, a good contract, inordinate good humor to accept the unanticipated and the money to correct it.
