The search for professionals

I’ll admit it. We had done all our previous renovation work without permits and based on pictures cut from various design magazines. It was done well, but did not really flow well from one space to another. This time, we wanted to add an entire new floor to the house which also meant upgrading all the outside “stuff”: roof, windows, siding material, exterior doors, front porch… we needed to deal with it all! We knew we needed a good plan of action which meant we needed an architect and a general contractor.

It sounded so simple – find a good architect for the renovation to ensure we are doing things right and a general contractor for stuff we don’t want to do. In reality, finding the right professionals was super stressful! How do you find people like that?!?

Architect/Designer

We asked friends, but found no one had ever hired out design services; they did what we had done in the past. So we met with referrals from co-workers of friends (of friends); referrals from the company who replaced the roof on our fourplex in Kits a few years back; and people from the Home Show including someone hanging out at the Architectural Institute of BC (http://www.aibc.ca/) booth.

Not knowing what the heck we were doing, we googled for list of questions to ask architects. Here is more or less what we asked:

1.  After hearing about our project, does it interest you? If not, could you suggest another firm or firms that might be better suited to our project? 
2. Does your firm have time to give us the service we need?
3. What kinds of services do you offer? Is there more than one way to engage your services? And if so what are they?
4. What are the challenges you see in our project?
5. Have you worked before on projects similar to ours?
6. If we were to work with your firm, how would you approach the project?
7. Who will be the project leader if we retain your firm for services?
8. May we have a list of past clients that we can contact, who have worked with the person who will be in charge of our project if we decide to proceed?
9. How long do you estimate the design process will take for our project?
10. What would you anticipate the length of the construction process to be for a project of this scale and scope?
11. Would you describe the steps involved in the architectural process?
12. How do you establish fees for a project? Are there different ways in which you structure your fees?
13. Will there be any engineering consultants involved in our project? Are their fees included within your fee?
14. How frequently do you bill, and what are the conditions of payment for work to continue on our project?
15. How do you manage and communicate about money during the process?
16. Is there any cost estimating involved along the way?
17. What can we do to help keep our project on target related to our budget?
18. If the scope of the project changes as it proceeds, will there be additional fees?
19. What services will you provide during construction for our project?
20. Are there any other issues we haven’t asked about that you’d like to tell us?

Our very first interview ended rather abruptly after only 15 minutes. That was how we discovered that there are companies around that provide turnkey services – you tell them what you want; go away; and a “short time later”, you move into your finished house. We, on the other hand, wanted design and construction services only to a particular point as we wanted to do the (high-margin) finishing work ourselves. Luckily the other interviews went much smoother.

We ended up meeting with SIX different architects and designers (people with experience and schooling in architecture but without some requirement or other in order to use the title). Which was probably too many, but we wanted to know our options. Which led to the question: do you go with the designer with years of renovation experience (and associated daunting hourly rate), the trained architect who works at a big firm and does small-scale residential work on the side or the designer who used to work at a big firm and recently started her own firm?

In the end, we chose our designer, Allison at one seed design + interiors (http://www.oneseed.ca/) based on personality, budget and common taste. Her website showcased her commitment to sustainability which mattered to us and more importantly, she “got” us and what we wanted. As a bonus, she was responsive via email which is our preferred method of communication.

General Contractor

We somehow cobbled together a list of FIVE contractors (they ended up being referrals from all the architects and designers we had interviewed) and via more googling, a list of questions for them:

1. Are you available for our expected work timeframe?
2. How long have you been in business? Done many similar projects of this type?
3. Is your work crew employees or contractors?
4. How many simultaneous jobs will you be working on?
5. What security do we have against being abandoned mid-project?
6. Who runs the site? How often are you present?
7. Who owns (pays for) construction mistakes?
8. Can we have a copy of your standard contract?
9. Do you work on a fixed cost basis or pay-as-we-go?
10. How is payment handled? How do you account for holdbacks?
11. Any problem with us living in suite during work? We need to stage work so that ground-level structural reinforcements (pillar pads, reinforcing timbers, joist work etc) is done, then pause for move and main-floor demo, then restart construction.
12. Are you comfortable with our scope of work?
13. Can your company do all trade work?
14. Do you have a relationship with any structural engineers? Who hires the engineer?
15. Are there any arrangements for us to make during the project?
16. Who arranges inspections?
17. What are the warranties on envelope, construction, … ?
18. Can you provide us a ballpark estimate for stated scope of work? When can we get a detailed estimate?
19. How long will the job take?
20. How often do we meet to assess progress, etc?
21. Please provide us with references + addresses of similar projects. 

We also had a few issues with the contractors. Our first set of quotations from all the vendors just about gave us a heart attack as everyone quoted approximately DOUBLE what we were hoping to pay!  After significant review of our requirements, assessing where we were willing (and able) to break the job into phases and me running several sets of numbers to confirm affordability, we requested that everyone quote on the new scope of work.

This time, the decision was made based on:

• Flexibility - they were willing to stop at “lock-up” which is where the building is is water-tight, but only finished to the studs on the inside
• Budget - they were on the low-end of the range, but not the absolute cheapest
• Experience – the cheapest guy hadn’t done a significant renovation in Vancouver so wasn’t familiar with all the local requirements, and
• Reputation – Drytech Construction (http://www.drytech.ca/) is registered with the BBB and had no unresolved disputes when we checked them out.

Once we selected the professionals and confirmed they were willing to work with us, we needed a contract. That was a somewhat different experience!