Tips on Rebuilding Your House (3)

Date: 2011.07.10 | Category: House & Home, Living, Tips & Trick | Tags: budget,contractor,experience,home,house,money,rebuilding,tips

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Instead, you are trying to get a handle on problems before they occur. By getting the drop on problems, you can reduce the cost of repairs and try to find things that might bury a renovation project in extra work and higher costs.

For example, let’s say you want to add a bathtub to the master bath. You realize that the ceiling below the bathtub will require reinforcement.

What you don’t know is that the water lines are not up to code and the drain lines aren’t doing their job and water is stagnating in drain traps. An experienced home inspector will pick that up simply by smell and turning on the faucets.

The inspector then will suggest bringing in an expert—in this case a plumber—to look further into the problem and offer solutions. The real estate agent should have a list of plumbers, roofers, and other contractors they recommend to sellers.

Although the inspector’s job is not to establish priorities for you, the information that the inspector and other experts provide will be invaluable. Whatever you do, don’t chisel your list of priorities in stone. The unexpected invariably happens, and you need to be flexible.