All Forum Posts by: Randy F.

There is often an oily residue in ductwork that cannot be removed. Cleaning of ductwork removes dust. Duct cleaning should be followed by running ozone thru system at all return air intakes. Remove filters and wire fan to run continuous. Close up house and let ozone machine run full blast for about twelve hours in each room with a return air duct. Smaller apts may only need machine run in one main area and will circulate adequately thru all ductwork.

I think every investor should own an ozone machine. They also work great for removing new paint smells and running them a few hours before an open house makes for a fresh, clean smell and feel for prospective buyers.

LOL! Well... Take on another project in Milwaukee this winter and you'll find out!!

Have to say I'm a bit surprised by these statements. I don't know how or if they calculate loads in the south, but in snow country, if there is concern over weight of shingles on a roof, whether one layer or three, your roof is severely under built.

That said, I'm still a proponent of tear-off every time.

For some contractors, caulking is a nuisance that is left to the lowest man on the totem pole. To those who understand that a professional caulking job is one of the most important aspects of a quality job in terms of both aesthetics AND damage protection, that $110 would be money well spent.

Hey J! Let talk apples/apples! When I had my heating business I had trucks stocked with the parts necessary to provide the services I offered. We installed the parts and were paid in most cases before we left the home. When installing furnace and boilers, they paid for equipment before install. It is common to provide services with limited parts or materials provided upfront, but higher ticket equipment purchases dont happen without pre-payment or credit. A mechanic has your car and can provide a book price for most all repairs and said repairs are ok'd in advance by customer. If you want your car back, you pay. A contractor has recourse but his money could be tied up for months with a refusal or inability to pay. Life happens... even to investors. His financing problems wont become my problems.

What was mentioned here is requiring a contractor to purchase cabinets and countertops out of pocket and paid when project complete. If I go to Lowes for cabinets, I either pay cash or Lowes credit card, which was issued AFTER a credit check. They will be glad to deliver to site AFTER payment is made. Yet an investor expects contractors to trust they will get paid at completion of job? And I assume he also expects the work done at less than "retail"? If I have four or five jobs going at once, am keeping my guys paid, gas in trucks, expenses paid, supplier accounts paid, and fronting labor and incidental material costs on multiple jobs, while feeding my family and doing some of my own investing, I should also have the cash to front him HIS cabinets and countertops? And if I wont, im not the kind if contractor he wants to work with? I wasnt born yesterday... It would be MUCH harder to find a contractor willing to front rehab hard costs than find a reliable, trustworthy one. And THAT says alot. And i you did find one willing to do so, he would want to either make great money on yhe rehab work, or want a percentage for what he brought to the table. So I have to call BS.

My apologies! I would rather not be comfrontational or make derrogatory remarks, but have to address things like this...as I care about what those just starting out are advised. There are common sense ways approach paying contractors and protecting ones self. There are reasonable and unreasonable expectations. IMO, this is unreasonable.

LOL!

If I ever do work in your neck of the woods, I'll be sure to keep some credit applications handy!

I'm not crazy about red brick for the simple reason it is very limiting with respect to color scheme choices. Should you choose to paint the brick, I think you may need to add a feature such as a mantle to compensate for the loss of texture/character.

For every project I want to do, I provide a detailed Scope of Work along with my estimates. When providing an estimate on any job of size, I run thru every aspect of the job and in fact use my scope spreadsheet for building the estimate. At that point it is no biggy to clean it up a bit and provide it along with the estimate or bid/ contract.

IMO, contractors should provide their customers contracts that cover themselves AND their customers. How many other businesses sign their customer's contracts? I think it's upside down in this industry for investors to present the contracts!

Anyway, if you require a Scope of Work from contractors bidding on jobs, you will better be able to more readily determine whether they aren't bidding apples to apples, and how comprehensive scope is will assist in determining how experienced and organized each contractor is.

Just because someone calls himself a "contractor", doesnt mean he is licensed and insured. Because one calls himself a "handyman", doesnt mean he is not. They are simply labels.

"Will you automatically go with the lowest bidder" is a great question!

What assumptions can be made about the contractors providing these bids?

Can the lowest bidder provide the speed and quality you are looking for at lowest price because he has the lowest overhead, or because he lowballs bids to get the work, and then nickels and dimes you to death with up-charges for all the unforseen "problems" he uncovers.

Is the highest bidder looking to your job to pay off his new fancy truck, or is he the most experienced of the bidders, with a contingency percentage built in to cover the potential hidden budget busters that can and often do present themselves?

IMO, the place to put your focus is in the pre-purchase rehab estimate, which should lay out both best and worst csse scenarios. At this point you are not looking for the lowest number possible, you are looking for the most educated guess you can find. You want to consider all potential problems and determine exactly what you need and want to do with the property. Ideally, the same trusted contractor does both the pre-purchase estimate and the actual rehab. He has incentive to give you good numbers upfront so everyone is happy happy happy when its all said and done.

Until you find that trusted contractor, be prepared to estimate high, purchase low, and pray alot. Be willing to accept lower margins early on, as on the job training, until you have a solid team put together.

A key component to successful rehabbing is identifying every aspect of the process where you have control. Maintaining organization and control from the very start minimizes loss of control in the latter stages. This thread topic THE perfect example. What could have been done earlier in the process that would have made choosing the right contactor with the right numbers easier? Should you already now what good numbers for the prescribed work look like? Should you know what each of the bidding contractors previous work looks like? Should you know what previous customers thought of his work ethic, speed, and quality?

Getting multiple bids when one does not have a great team put together is a good idea. However, the work done prior to getting those bids should make the decision almost a no-brainer.

Agreed. By "those above", I was speaking of YOU btw! :c)

My comments were based on the idea that for it to be noticeable enough that the OP was investigating a fix, and that they appear to be the type of investor wanting to do things right, a fix if possible and affordable was in order.

I follow your logic completely, as I have leveled MANY a floor to accomodate tile and base cabinets and forced myself to discard my level in favor of my eyeballs when hanging upper cabinet! Sometimes one just has to find the "sweet spot" and caller good! :c)