Amy D: Welcome to our special mini series called Home Truths. We’re gonna be talking about some common misconceptions in the world of renovating, and basically shine the light on how to avoid a stressful renovation. If you’re thinking about renovating or about to start, or you’re right in the middle of it, this is for you.

Welcome back to Home Truths. Today we are moving into that phase everyone imagines when they think about renovation life on site. The scaffoldings are the builders started, and suddenly your house is a construction site. but the reality I guess, of being on site isn’t just.

Dust and drills, it’s actually communication decisions and money moving through the project. Jane people often think that once the build starts, the hard decisions are kind of over,

Jane: Yeah.

Amy D: That’s not really the case, is it?

Jane: Not at all.Starting site is actually when a different kind of work begins. You move from design decisions to relationship management and project management, and we find that the projects that run smoothly have two things in place;

Amy D: clear communication, and clear financial processes, and that’s what we’re gonna talk about today.

Okay. So, I guess let’s start with something simple that, everyone probably, is aware of: Site meetings. Um, how should a good site meeting work do you think?

Jane: I think firstly is just that you have a site meeting, which it kind of means that it’s not just, you know, little things in passing and, dribs and drabs of communication. Um, it’s really good to just arrange a weekly time where you and your contractor are gonna get together and just look at progress and, and see where you are at and talk about the project in a, in a structured manner.

So typically you’re gonna be looking at reviewing the progress against the program, raising upcoming decisions. So what needs, what’s coming up in the next couple of weeks? Discussing any issues that have emerged and confirming any changes. and the most important thing about this is, you know, obviously it, it’s good to have those as a basis for yourself to make sure that you are hitting all the bases and then after you’ve had your meeting, you’ve got to make sure that those decisions get recorded and that the conversations you’ve had, get documented and, distributed to the team because memory on site is unreliable. There’s so many things that are going on and so many different decisions, lots of conversations happening super quickly, and people remember things differently.

Amy D: How do you recommend people do that? You know, you’re not kind of saying record every site meeting on your phone or anything.

Jane: I dunno actually. Um, I think what we traditionally have always done on projects is we get back to our desk, we have a think about what was agreed, and while it’s fresh in your head, you write down the bullet points in a structured way. So they might be split up into different, sections of the things that you discovered, whether that’s about money, or about decisions you can kind of make a structure that you can follow through for every site meeting. And then we just, send it via email or message or WhatsApp or whatever you’re doing, so that everybody has a copy. And generally you are asking them, you’re saying, is this what you understood too? And sometimes your contractor will reply to that and sometimes they won’t.

But at least it’s there and it’s a kind of record of what was discussed. But I was actually thinking, for our project, how we could do this. And I was actually thinking once you’ve, chatted and gone through all this stuff, there are transcribing tools that are really kind of effective notes.

I know there’s different apps that people use that at the end of the meeting you could just turn it on them and say, okay, just to confirm what have we agreed? We’re doing this, you are doing this, and you could just verbally say it into the Dictaphone.. Not Dictaphone into your phone, um, that would be going really old school, um, in front of one another and just say, are we agreed that that’s what it is?

then you know, the app will transcribe that and issue that as meeting minutes. So that could be cool because then you’re not asking people to double check. It’s not all on you.

I guess One thing that can be quite challenging is if you are actually living on site while your builder is working and maybe there’s a tendency because maybe one of you is working from home that you end up getting kind of roped into mini site meetings,

Mm-hmm.

Where things are talked about kind of more informally, I guess. How’s you feel about that? Like, is that productive? It kind of needs must in a way. I guess if that’s how the conversations are happening and if things need to get decided, like that moment and you are there and you can deal with that, then it would be crazy not to if you’re like, I’d rather not talk to you and wait until last site meeting on Thursday.

But if that is happening, just keep a note. You know, you keep your bullet points as you’re going along throughout the week or if it’s on WhatsApp. I think the tendency with WhatsApp is that things get agreed, And of course everybody can go back through the trail of, decisions that are questions being asked on WhatsApp and, and replying.

But I think just once a week collate that information into one meeting minutes. And then just say, you know, just a round of the week, this is what’s been agreed and at the start of site that will seem like total overkill. You’ll be like, oh, this sounds really weird. Like, I don’t really want to be all really formal and you know, be documenting our minutes and sending them out.

But you will refer back to them. Like there will be something in those notes that four, five months down the line you will be referencing. And it happens on every single project. So if you have those meeting minutes there that at least you know you’ve, you’ve got them and you can refer back to them.

So, and I think also it’s just like good to have a record that everybody’s aware that we’re confirming the things we are agreeing.

Amy D: Yeah.

Jane: Otherwise it does remain a bit wishy-washy. and it gives an opportunity to say like, oh, that’s not how I understood that.

so I think it is just about adding an extra formality to that communication, but just that it, that the structure allows you to be more clear.

Amy D: Yeah, but I would go one step further, I guess, if you are around a lot, I think it’s worth having the conversation with the builder, kind of like, okay, can we have a mid-morning coffee break, you know, like just have a moment where you touch base with everybody and if there are any questions, make that a bit of a focal point.

especially if you’re working from home, like it can feel quite difficult to, juggle these two jobs.

and you know, tea is always good, isn’t it?

Jane: Yeah, and you can have a combination of the two in a way, if you are fielding comments, but don’t miss out on having that proper catchup, because the proper catchup isn’t just like looking at answering questions, it’s looking at the program. It’s you asking questions and checking like, when do we need the kitchen on site?

Or when are we gonna get to this? It’s a focused time where you’re actually working and thinking about the overall rather than just firefighting.

Amy D: That actually leads on, to what I wanted to say next, which is the typical relationships on site will have, usually we’ll have three key parties, so the builder. You, the client or homeowner and the architects or designer. I guess I thought it would be helpful to kind of talk about how those dynamics normally work, and then of how there’s some variations that are quite common these days.

Jane: Yeah, so ideally it’s a collaborative process between all of those people. The designer protects the design intent and the technical detail, and the client kind of requirements, and the client makes decisions and ultimately funds the project.

So obviously they need to be bringing that side of things to the decisions as well. so where things work well is when all of those different roles are respected and builders should feel able to raise practical concerns, and architects should ensure the design is delivered properly and clients should feel informed, but not overwhelmed.

Amy D: And where do the tensions normally start, do you think?

Jane: I think if clients start managing trades directly or if you do have an architect who’s managing the contract, so organizing the official kind of communication about changes in money or changes in scopes of work.

If the client starts doing that directly with the main contractor or even with their subcontractors. it could become very unstructured so that the builders feel that design decisions are being changed constantly. And, nobody really has like the understanding of what is actually being confirmed and what’s happening.

So I think if you do have that person on site that you’re paying to keep everything in order, you need to be really careful about not bypassing them, because then that order doesn’t work anymore because things have been agreed outside of that. Again, if you are, if you don’t have that professional there to act as a kind of mediator and a structure between you and your contractor, then you need to be really careful that you are asking for things in a very organized manner.

You know, it’s, it’s important that you don’t speak to your main contractors subbies and make agreements with them without agreeing it with your main contractor, because ultimately they’re the ones organizing the payments and the scopes of work. So again, that needs to be really clear, the lines of communication between everything, everybody.

Amy D: Yeah, absolutely. let’s talk about where tensions start to build. Every, every project has kind of moments or pinch points that can feel really stressful. But what would you say in kind of our experience, what would you say were the main triggers for that?

Jane: Yeah, there’s kind of four main triggers.

Number one, obviously money. Unexpected costs or misunderstandings about what was included or what wasn’t.

Amy D: You mean maybe a drawing shows one thing? Like a human error from the documentation side.

Jane: Yeah, definitely. So there’s human errors on the design side, so maybe something’s in the drawing, but it wasn’t in the scope of works or vice versa. and then from the contractor, understanding those. So sometimes the contractor will say, well, I didn’t read it like that. I didn’t know that’s what that meant.

And so I’ve not priced for it. So that’s a misunderstanding. The second is scope creep. So, this is kind of mainly clients being on site and kind of realizing, as they go through the process that they want things to be slightly different. So that might be small things, just like, oh, we’ve realized we want that plug socket there now.

Or it might be like, oh, actually we’ve decided we’re not having tiles there anymore. We’re gonna do concrete and each one of those little things requires a rejig in price, in, managing the project in the program if it’s a big thing. and I think those things are cumulative, so there is scope for small changes. But if, if it feels like every week the the ground is shifting and changing for the contractor, they, they will quickly become overwhelmed and they won’t be able to deal with that. So I think it’s just managing that process and making sure that that doesn’t destabilize the project.

Amy D: Yeah, I think I remember when, in one of our very early years in practice, working with a builder who was really, really amenable and you know, especially in those early stages, and it felt like, wow, okay. They’re really receptive to hearingthese little changes and, and stuff. And then you realize by the end, appetite for

Jane: Yeah.

Amy D: accommodating that just becomes literally zero.

Jane: Yeah.

Amy D: Almost you wanna keep some of that goodwill for the end or where you’re gonna really need it.

Jane: Yeah, absolutely. Because that probably the, the hardest part is finishing off and yeah. So if, if you’ve like smashed through all your goodwill by being a bit, kind of tricky about changing the goalposts. Yeah. Then when you, when you are calling people back saying, this skirting board is not what we said, or this is not painted correctly.

Yeah. The, appetite for that is low and that’s a shame when that happens.

Amy D: Can we talk a little bit about kind of perfectionism, because I think that is something that people maybe struggle with, that, you feel like you’re paying all of this money

Jane: Mm-hmm.

so things should be really perfect, but actually they’re being handmade. So I, I think sometimes there is a mismatch in expectation. What do you think? Yeah, I think it’s quite a hard thing to describe, isn’t it? Because I remember on a project where there was some tiling and the client was kind of saying, look, this doesn’t exactly align. And like even as an architect, I was kind of stood there looking at it, thinking. It is good. Like,

you, you’re not gonna get down to the millimeter with every single thing, and that’s not kind of realistic expectations. But then there are other times where, you know, the, maybe a tilers come in and they’ve done a really awful job and it looks really messy and it’s not good. You’re kind of like, is this normal?

Like am I out of order to kind of say that I don’t feel that happy with this. So it’s a really hard balance between making sure you’re happy with the work that’s been done, but kind of realizing when you’ve got to like the millimeter precision. Like hands and people, you know, this isn’t a machine made thing that you’ve made.

It’s a handmade product, so it is always gonna have discrepancies.

Amy D: yeah.

Jane: I think maybe a second opinion.

Amy D: Yeah,

Jane: maybe getting someone over to say, what do you think about this? Is this okay? Or if you have an architect or designer to kind of question that with them, and I guess it is also understanding what you’ve purchased, because if you’ve paid for a really high end bespoke joiner to come in and do some join your work, then of course you’ll expect the quality of that to be super high.

Whereas if it’s, you know, you’re contractor that you’ve not really paid them to do bespoke joinery, it’s just been kind of wrapped in, the standards for that are obviously gonna be a little bit lower.

Amy D: But I also think it depends on your own personality and the things that you know gonna annoy you every day.

Jane: Mm-hmm.

Amy D: Like in our, our kitchen there’s a cupboard that should have had like a false bottom and then a door above. And that was so that we could have like the washing up stuff in front and then still open the cupboard, I was just persuaded into like, no, no, you want like the full doors. And that annoys me literally single day because you know, you have to put the washing stuff away before like, yeah. So I think it depends on the thing and sometimes it, it does take a moment to kind of work out, is this something that I can live with?

Jane: Ooh.

Amy D: Is it a big deal or not? You know?

Jane: yeah,

Amy D: I think you’ve raised on such a good point there because when you’re on site, especially, when you’re doing your weekly site meeting, you are under such a lot of pressure to say, that’s fine, that’s fine. They’re like, we can’t do it like this. We want to do it like this. It’s not practical.

Jane: You know, they’re like, we wanna do it now. Like, there’s always time. our mantra wasn’t it in the office, was like, you never agree to changes on site from what you had set out without coming back to the office, taking a breather. Or if that’s, if you’re living there, coming home, having an evening, having a think about it, having a look, talk to your partner, talk to somebody else.

Just check sanity, check whether that’s in your interest or whether you can live with that change. Maybe it’s pushing back and saying maybe there’s an alternative, and quite often there is an alternative and it needs bottoming out. So give yourself time to think about things if you feel like you’re being pushed into a decision.

Amy D: Well, I think that’s also really key to ask in the moment, what are the alternatives so

Jane: Yeah.

Amy D: of faced with, is it this or that?

Jane: It’s usually to do with like vent runs and beams and it’s usually things like poking out where you hadn’t thought that they would like, is this all right if this runs around here? Like we’ll box it in, and you’re like, oh, that wasn’t really what I’d imagined. You know, it is that type of thing where you’re like, can we think about this a different way?

Can we do something different?

So I would say the final one is timing pressure. So, the urgency of deadlines of holidays, of moving in dates. They all create this like building pressure of, this needs to happen now and everybody’s feeling the pressure rise

Talk to your contractor and remind them of the deadlines that need to be met and in your weekly meetings. That’s why you’re looking at the rough program and saying, okay, so where are we now? And what does that mean? Are we gonna meet our deadline? Just because quite often projects lag in the middle, you’ll be noticing the weeks slipping a little bit in the middle and you’re kind of like, oh, that’s fine, that’s fine.

And then it all crunches up at the end. So I think if you feel like site’s slowing down. When you are in your site meetings, it’s just about saying, okay, can we agree that this is gonna happen next week? And then if it doesn’t happen, then you, you need to be putting the pressure on a little bit with what you are expecting to happen and what has been achieved as soon as you feel like it’s slipping because it just bunches up.

And then by the time you, you’re finally like, you know what, now we’re really behind and we’re never gonna meet the deadline. You don’t wanna get to that panic point. So just, what are we doing this week? What are we doing next week? And if that is consistently not being met, then you need to have some serious conversations about whether the money is gonna be paid or, you know, if, if you feel like progress really isn’t happening.

Amy D: Well, one way to do that, that, that we used to use is, Just having in your site meetings one section, which is items from previous meetings, and you quickly can get a sense of the project and how it’s doing with how many things are, like you say, bunching up in that section. so I think like it is a small thing, but setting yourself, these little indicators really help.

Jane: If something’s been sat on that list for three weeks, then you’re kind of like, oh, right. Yeah.

Amy D: Yeah, you just notice and I think that’s really helpful. Um, yeah. I guess moving on to the kind of money side of life on site, I guess one of the hardest things for homeowners to accept is, is that renovation costs often move during the build. Like they, they don’t feel like this static thing. why does that happen?

What can people do to kind of plan against it, I guess?

Jane: Yeah, it’s really hard because renovation is different from a new build and because you’re working with an existing structure, so once things are opened up, You often discover conditions that you couldn’t see before or that couldn’t have been foreseen, and that might mean additional structural work or upgrading services or correcting previous construction.

so builders price risk at the start, but they can’t anticipate everything. So it is a bit of a moving picture, and that’s, why we have contingency because that happens on every single project. So you do need a percentage probably, depending on how. Risky. Your property is be somewhere between 5% and 10%, or maybe even 15% of your build as a contingency fund so that you’ve already set that money aside yourself.

And when those things come up, it isn’t kind of crazy stressful. You are anticipating that there are gonna be a few of those things, and that’s how you manage it.

Amy D: Yeah. So the goal isn’t really like eliminating change completely because that’s impossible. It’s about managing it properly, I guess.

Jane: Absolutely.

Amy D: Yeah.

Okay. So that brings us to variations, which people hear a lot about. But what actually is a variation?

Jane: Yeah. a variation is simply a change to the agreed scope of works. So that could be something you’ve requested. perhaps you want an additional plug socket or you’re changing the flooring. It could be a design adjustment, so maybe something’s happened on site, which means that, you know, a window can’t be where you thought it could be, so you might have to change something.

Or it could be unforeseen site conditions. So again, that’s something like discovering that your floor joists may be not strong enough, or that your soil type means that you have to excavate more ground for your foundations. So I guess the key rule is to agree the cost before the work happens.

So if there’s a change, you want to be checking the price and then okaying it, and then the work start. That doesn’t always feel like it’s possible, but if you agree to pushing ahead with a change and then you don’t really know what you are agreeing to.

Amy D: I think something that happens quite a lot on site is maybe you want to know the cost of what that change is gonna be. So you wait on the builder to give you a price for it before you say yes or no. And sometimes the contractor doesn’t get back in a, timely manner because you know they’re busy doing the rest of the project. So what do you do in that scenario?

Jane: It’s really hard ’cause you don’t wanna slow the project down. I think just keep pushing, keep badgering for the price because, even if that was like, well, what’s the rate? You know, if you could at least agree the rate of something. So if you already knew an additional plug socket was x, you know, every plug socket is this in your, in your contract, then you’ve got a basis for an agreement.

if you know that excavation costs this much a metre, then you also have an idea. I think it’s getting to someplace where you’ve got a parameter so that you know. When the final cost comes that it’s proportionate to what you had imagined? I think sometimes what can be surprising though, is how much things actually cost.

I think that’s one of our main things that we get from clients and, and people working on site with contractors that have, asked us for advice is they’ve been given an extra cost for something and it just feels like, wow, that is so expensive.

Amy D: Yeah.

Jane: but I think especially if you haven’t got a broken down scope of works,

you haven’t got a kind of guide for how much work costs and usually if you check it and then it, it usually is approximately correct. It just sounds like a lot of money because you haven’t thought of, you know, you can say like, well, a plug socket’s only this, and how long is it gonna take them to add that in?

But then it’s the overheads, it’s this, you know, project management, the prelims all get added on as a percentage. So yeah, it, it, it adds up quickly.

Amy D: Yeah. can we talk a little bit about payments? I would say that most residential builds work through kind of interim payments or valuations, which sounds all a bit jargony. Can you explain a little bit about what that means for people?

Jane: Yeah, it just means that you’ve paid for the work that has been completed to that date.

Amy D: Mm-hmm.

Jane: A valuation just means what’s the value of the works that has been done. And that might be across, you know, several different things. It might include your foundations or your structure or your roofing. So you’re just trying to yeah, keep the money flowing.

Aligned with how much work that has been done. So it, it allows the builders to maintain cash flow to keep the project moving forward. but it also means that you only pay for the stuff that’s actually being completed. Yeah.

Amy D: Which is a lot safer. I guess the other term that feels quite jargony is retention. Do you know people often hear about that but don’t quite understand what that’s referring to?

Jane: Retention is the process of taking a small percent of each payment, that you make. It’s usually between three and 5%. We, we usually use 5%. And you take that off each payment and it’s held back until the completion of your project. It’s named in the contract. So if you use any standard form contract, it will talk about retention and it’s released in stages.

So you’re building a little pocket of money and at practical completion. And that means when the builders actually leave site and hand oversight back to you, a small amount of that retention fund gets released. And then there’s a bit of the time called the defects period, or the retention period,

that can be anywhere between like three and six months. It will be outlined in your contract usually. Um, and that means that anything that isn’t quite right or you realize hasn’t worked or is not fixed down right. You can go back to your contractor and say, this has happened, you tot up all the things, and then at the end of that period, they get fixed and then you release the final set of money.

So when we say that it’s held back until completion, the completion is actually several months after the contractor leaves site.

Amy D: And if you had to summarize kind of, I know this is quite a hard thing to do, but if you had to summarize life on site in kind of one idea, what, what would it be?

Jane: It is definitely exciting. I mean, we always say, I always kind of dread sight and then when it actually happens and things are moving and you know, it’s definitely exhilarating, isn’t it? and there’s something really amazing to just see things being built and, and stuff happening.

It’s just like, wow. Yeah, changes. So that’s exhilarating. I think the process of providing the information and signing stuff off can be exhausting. I think decision fatigue is like a real massive thing. And it’s not just about, to be honest with you, choosing your toilet is like fine, but deciding whether it’s okay to, you know, have the poo pipe go out next to your front door is like, that’s hard, isn’t it?

You know, when you are presented with all these queries, like, do you mind this? Is this okay? You know, this has to be like this. It drains you and so if you can, I guess that’s just going back to like being organized and keeping your minutes and using a kind of structure and a process to deal with all of those decisions can just make them feel less overwhelming, because you’ve got a place to keep them, and you don’t have to juggle everything in your head.

Like, oh, we spoke about that two weeks ago. It still hasn’t been agreed. There’s a lot of chasing up loose ends, chasing for extra prices, you know, chasing suppliers. And remembering.

Amy D: Yeah.

Jane: So if you can get a system for yourself, then that’s really helpful.

Amy D: Yeah, I was just gonna say for people who are coming in on this episode, I would definitely go and listen to the previous episodes because I think we kind of lay lots of groundwork so that really you should have, you should know all of your fittings and finishes and like what things are yours to order.

You know, like there’s so much legwork that you can do before you start on site. That means that when you are on site, your available head space, which you

Jane: Yeah.

Amy D: limited for everyone, isn’t, isn’t it Just with all the things that we’re all juggling all the time.

Jane: Yeah.

Amy D: I think if you can kind of get that stuff, put it to bed, know your products and then kind of a second choice, you know, if you’ve got that in the bag, you’ve got your contract. All that stuff like that should mean that when you start site, you can use your available headspace to keep clear communication, keep people aligned, basically you wanna get to site and just be

Jane: Focusing on the process.

Yeah, because I think that’s the bit that you don’t appreciate is like once you’re on site that those decisions that the contractor wants to know. Yeah. They’re not necessarily what tiles you’re having. They’re just like, it’s hard to itemize it, isn’t it? But they’re just general contract queries and that’s gonna take up a large amount of your time.

So yeah, the more that you can do prior, the better.

Amy D: Hmm. But I think you’re also right that it is an inherently positive process

Jane: Mm.

Amy D: Because you are making something, new. we get quite a lot of feedback actually. Just like how enjoyable it is to see the builders doing their thing and like making stuff. Because it is, it’s fun, isn’t it?

Yeah.

Jane: Yeah,

Amy D: Okay. So if you’re about to go on site,

Jane: Yep.

Amy D: remember, keep communication structured,

Jane: record

Amy D: decisions, agree changes before they happen. And I guess before you even start, you wanna know and understand how the payments are gonna work,

and also recognize the renovation is kind of its own journey. Like, yeah, you’re on for the

Jane: ride.

It’s definitely a, yeah, somewhere between, a rollercoaster and an an exciting expedition

Amy D: What was the analogy that we used the other day?

Jane: of being on a rollercoaster and like, like clunking up to the top of the nemesis and then waiting to go down.

Amy D: Hold on tight.

Jane: and it’s the ups and the downs. It’s like we, this is so fun. Like, oh God.

Amy D: Yeah,

Jane: Yeah, it is. It’s great.

Amy D: Next week we are gonna be talking about snagging and finishing and kind of post. Completion. So that’s basically all the stuff that happens at the end of sites.

And then in our final, episode for this series, we’re actually got our own builder who’s gonna come in and we’re gonna ask them lots of your questions. So if you have any, let us know on Instagram and yeah, or email us actually. And, we will be grilling him a good way.

Jane: Okay.

Amy D: Thanks for being with us.

Jane: We’ll see you next week.

Amy D: Take care everybody.

Jane: Bye.