4 Tips for Carrying out a Full Home Renovation
4 Tips for Carrying out a Full Home Renovation
Home renovation can be a daunting endeavour. There’s a lot of planning involved, you have to get the right equipment, you have to find the right contractors. To top it off, you have to dish out a lot of cash for it all. But it doesn’t have to be so complicated. As long as you have the works properly planned out, you’ll have no trouble completing your renovations in a timely fashion, and without breaking your bank. In case you need a few pieces of advice on where to start and what to do. We can provide four crucial tips that will get you underway – 4 tips for carrying out a full home renovation you need to know.
1. Plan Your Budget
This might be a very natural thing to consider. You’d be surprised, however, at how many people get this step wrong. Newbie renovators will often underestimate the prices of replacing something seemingly small. Some experts estimate their average budget at around $4000, whereas the actual prices revolve around $11.000. To that purpose, we encourage you to analyze your budget with the utmost care and interview contractors exhaustively on their pricing before making your decision.
As far as funding your home renovations goes, you have quite a few choices. One of the most popular ones is the Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC for short). HELOC operates similarly to a credit card. Allowing you to borrow money against a certain amount, and you can’t borrow anymore once you’ve maxed it out. This will give you a set budget you can work with, and will, hopefully, stop you from going overboard.
Finally, have a contingency budget. Most contractors strongly advise having an emergency fund equal to 10-20% of your current budget. As actual renovations somewhat rely on guesswork and your contractor might find something amiss with your house that needs to be rectified.
2. Preliminary Checks
A big part of your planning phase will be conducting preliminary checks of the house. Have your future home renovation company send professionals to check out your home and make sure it’s actually ready and safe for them to begin construction. Have them check your electrical grid first. We cannot stress enough the importance of electrical maintenance in order to avoid any hazards or downright damage to property and loss of life.
Next, check the plumbing. If you’re living in an older house, this will be another matter of major concern. Damaged and worn pipes, while not as dangerous as damaged wiring. Still, pose a potential source of damage to your home. Most contractors will suggest these checks themselves, and they’re fully aware of the potential strain your budget will endure should these two things go amiss.
Other than these two things, make sure the structural integrity of your home is solid. Especially, if you’re planning on knocking down some walls. To switch up the layout of your rooms. In doing so you might avoid catastrophic events, such as walls toppling over or the roof caving in.
3. Obtain Proper Permits
Obtaining a proper construction permit is of the utmost importance when renovating your home. All your planning, months of saving up, all the loans you’ve taken out and all the interviews you’ve conducted with construction firms. Will be for naught if your building will be deemed illegal afterwards. To that end, we encourage you to take extra care and ask both your contractor and the proper authorities on what permits you’ll need to go ahead with the construction. Put down on paper all the changes you want to make in order to have proof of what you’ve done to your home. So as to avoid any unpleasant surprises and get an accurate estimate from the authorities. Have the construction firm you’ve hired double-check them to make sure you’ve got the right ones before they actually make any changes. Finding out you haven’t got a permit to knock out a wall or build in another window will halt the construction, costing you more time and money.
4. Find the Right Contractor
This is both your first and last step – finding the right home rebuilders that will take on your project. The construction firm you hire will not only be the muscle of your operation, but it will also be your partner. They will provide the necessary advice on what you can and cannot do, advise you on your spending and make sure you’ve got the right permits. Look for companies that are transparent, as they will give an accurate assessment of your budget and what you can get for that amount of money.
In order to find a contracting firm that will suit your needs, it is highly advisable to ask for references. If you’ve got friends and neighbours that renovated their homes recently, check with them and have them point you to a firm they’ve worked with. This will shorten your search time, and you’ll end up with a company that is trustworthy – they will also surely go out of their way to do a stellar job on the account of the good publicity they’re getting, as they’re aware that more satisfied customers will mean more publicity, and that the word of their dedication and expertise is spreading fast.
And that’s our four quintessential tips for starting on your home renovation project. These four tips are fundamental in establishing a sound plan for an otherwise exhausting undertaking. However, you should also look for other tips and tricks to deepen your knowledge of the market and construction in general. Until then, happy renovating!
