If the word “repair” causes you uncontrollable hysteria, and you have long said to yourself: “No way and never!” – then don’t read this article. If you are now on the threshold of repair and feel excessive lift, ease of thought and inspiration – then read carefully twice. Because in this case, you have a chance to think in advance about spending that you don’t even know about right now, or save a few thousand that you will definitely need. I will share with you my budget mistakes.
Gold trash. Removal of construction debris
Do not count on garbage containers near the house, especially if you have started a major renovation with redevelopment and demolition of walls. Not only can you not throw large garbage in ordinary tanks, but it is also forbidden to throw bags with broken plaster, pieces of concrete, etc.into containers for large household waste. You can get a decent fine for this. Garbage collection is carried out by special companies, from which you can order the services of movers. You can rent a container that will be placed near your house for a while (or even for a few days), but be prepared for the fact that your neighbors will also use it quickly. And you can order a quick garbage collection within the next few hours.
I needed a quick garbage pickup. Payment for a car in this situation is hourly. If the movers are lazy or you are not quick enough, the counter can run up a decent amount. We did not take this into account — and in a hurry collected construction debris in the process of loading. This caused an extra hour of downtime.
And when ordering, they forgot to tell me that garbage is taken “by weight”, and at some point the” Brigadier ” refused to load bags with broken plaster-under the pretext that they had already loaded the 1.5 tons I was supposed to have. At the same time, the car arrived already half loaded. What should I do in this situation? Call the firm’s claims Department and explain that the terms of service were not fully explained to you. To find out the situation, the claims Department will have to find an audio recording of your conversation with the Manager, analyze it, and issue a decision. During all this time, the car with garbage must stand without paying for downtime. Naturally, this is unprofitable, so the situation was resolved in my favor within 5 minutes-the garbage was taken away.
Silver logistics. About delivery and lifting
Recently, I got into a conversation with a colleague who was doing repairs at the same time as me. And she complained that she just gave the” proven ” foreman money for building materials. At the end of the repair, it turned out that he “out of his own funds” reported to the General expenses for building materials. The colleague was not ready for such expenses — and complained that she could not control the purchase. Therefore, I definitely decided for myself that I will order building materials myself, since there are plenty of online stores of building materials with clear, transparent prices. For those who live in small localities, a tip: go to the construction market and talk to sellers about whether they can arrange delivery. The larger your order, the easier it will be to find those who want it.
The Internet suggested places with the most pleasant prices for plaster, putty, sand concrete, etc., but it was impossible to find all the positions on one site at once. Or it was an online store where prices per unit of goods were decently inflated. There were 2 options left — either overpay for the product as a whole and order 1 delivery, or pay less for the product, but fork out for 2 deliveries from two bases. The second option was cheaper. I added expenses — and then … managers started calling to clarify the details of the order, and they explained that the rise to the floor is not included in the delivery cost. So my expenses on building materials increased by about 10 percent after paying for this service.
Someone will say that you could have asked your repairmen to do this, but they were dear to me as a skilled labor force. And no, I don’t think I should have carried several tons of cargo to the 8th floor for free. I just wasn’t mentally prepared for these expenses. However, a little later it turned out that lifting construction materials in a passenger Elevator is the smallest of the problems. But this is a “completely different story”…
Diamond crumbs. About a broken dream
Construction crews like to use the term “turnkey repairs”. This should mean that after the renovation, you are given an apartment or house that is fully prepared for the delivery of furniture and comfortable living. In practice, this is extremely rare and costs a lot of money. My experience says that some work, such as installation of Windows, stretch ceilings, entrance and interior doors, is better left to narrow specialists. The same story is with rare expensive finishing materials: specialists from the seller’s company will definitely cope with them better.
How can this point affect costs? I’ll tell you! At first, I complained that the foreman did not undertake to install a glass shower corner. He installed the pallet without any problems, but refused to deal with the tempered glass canvases. I had to call installers from the plumbing database where I made purchases. .
Guess what happened? That’s right, during installation, one of the glass panels crumbled into crumbs. If the installation was done by my team, I would pay for the new glass and its delivery myself. Debriefing with the crew would be my personal headache. And so-the order and delivery of broken glass is handled by a team from the plumbing base. And I really hope that this will not happen again.
What unexpected expenses did you encounter during the renovation?
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