Heads up on quoting for a big demo job in Charlotte...

Just finished a full kitchen gut last month and had to choose between a fixed price quote or a time and materials contract. The client wanted a firm number, but with old houses you never know what's behind the walls. I went with T&M plus a 15% contingency fee after a bad surprise with knob and tube wiring on a job six months ago. This time we found a load bearing wall that wasn't on the original plans, adding about 32 hours of extra work. If I'd stuck with my fixed quote, I would have eaten over $4k in labor and materials. Has anyone else switched to T&M for older home renos and had it save them?

3 comments

3 Comments

troy_ross1mo ago

You mentioned that T&M saved you from eating a $4k cost. I see it the opposite way. A fixed price quote protects the client from runaway budgets. Finding a surprise wall is exactly why you build a solid contingency into your fixed bid, maybe 20% for an old house. Most homeowners I work with need a firm number to get financing approved. They can't just write blank checks. T&M feels like shifting all the risk onto them.

lane.drew1mo ago

Oh man, the classic "just build in a 20% contingency" line. Tell me you've never opened up a 100 year old wall without telling me. That "surprise" isn't a little extra wiring, it's a full on support beam made of newspaper and hope. A fixed bid for that just means the client pays for that 20% fudge factor whether the wall is fine or not. Sounds like a great deal for the contractor, not so much for the guy writing the check.

sarahhart10d ago

YES thank you! I am so glad someone finally said it. The whole "just add 20 percent" thing drives me nuts because you know that 20 percent is baked in whether the job is smooth or not. I had a guy quote me a fixed price for a kitchen reno and his "contingency" was basically a slush fund. Meanwhile my buddy did the same job T&M and ended up paying way less because nothing major went wrong. The fixed price contractor just pockets that extra money if things go fine. It's basically paying for a worst case scenario upfront and hoping it doesn't happen. I get that some people need a firm number for loans but that doesn't mean the system isn't stacked in favor of the contractor.