Page 8 - 2018 National Home Improvement

2018 National Home Improvement Estimator, All Rights Reserved Page 5

Chapter 1, Pricing Home Improvement Jobs

Estimating home improvement costs requires specialized skills. You can't price home improvement
work the same way you'd price new construction. The proportion of labor expense is greater. There's far
more risk because there are far more variables and unknowns. An example will make this clear.

Hanging doors in new construction is a 1-2-3-affair. You know ahead of time exactly what's required.
You built the wall, installed the frame and know each door will fit right the first time. There won't be any
surprises. An experienced estimator can forecast the cost of hanging a door in a new home with a high
degree of certainty.

Now let's look at the same task on a home improvement project. First, remember that you may be
hanging only one door. There's no chance to improve the production rate on second or later doors.
Installing this door is probably different from the last door you installed on a similar project and will be
different from your next door installation.
Work starts with removing the old door. That's probably not too hard -- once you break through six coats
of accumulated paint on the hinges. Let's assume you work carefully and don't damage the casing or
trim. The next step is to install a blind Dutchman where the original hinges were attached. If the frame's
badly chewed up from years of neglect and abuse, you'll have to remove and replace the entire frame.
Don't forget that the building has settled over the years. The frame has probably twisted out of plumb.
More time will be needed to shim and level the frame.

Finally the door is installed and swings smoothly. But the job still isn't finished. You have to paint the
door to match and will certainly have to haul away the old door and the debris.

Every home improvement cost estimate comes with dozens of chances to make an expensive mistake.
Surprises are inevitable and nearly all surprises will add to the cost, not reduce the cost. Estimating
new construction is a snap by comparison.