jimf

Had enough of the somewhat transient renting lifestyle, increasing rents and dealing with landlords so now purchasing a property in Calgary. It's a 60s house and basically sound but some work will be needed - roof, windows, doors, bathroom etc.

Would be interesting to hear of experiences and pitfalls dealing with this kind of stuff in Calgary or Canada in general...........

Geordie Lass

We've just done a huge house reno. One thing I would suggest is getting a fixed price contract. We've paid a lot more for labour than we predicted as we hit some problems along the way. Our guy has done a perfect job on everything but it cost quite a bit more than expected.

We had a few people around to quote for kitchens but in the end I sourced it all myself and got an installer rather than a company. Saved us a lot of money and the choice was endless.

Get over to the NE on 32nd Ave for flooring etc and kitchen places, granite places. Miles cheaper.

Bargain with each supplier. I found tiles I liked for kitchen and looked up the manufacturer and where they supplied in Calgary. I rang every supplier and bartered with them all. First quote was $32 a square metre. I got for $18 in the end. Big savings if you have the time to do it.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Flossie and Jim

We thought we did our homework - we checked our builder with BBB, Renomark, reviews online, went and viewed some of their jobs, talked to customers. They were bonded, insured, licensed with the City, etc.

Major basement reno went well and work was good, but that didn't stop them going bust towards the end of our reno! We found out via the online rumour mill before the BBB even had wind of it.

Be careful if you go for the 'pay upfront instalments because they are bonded' scenario - turns out the builder owed about $500k when their bond was only $25k! No real protection for the consumer here. Some of the other people having renos got liens on their property because the company hadn't paid the sub contractors. Up to you to go to small claims and for us and the sum we would probably get back, it wasn't worth it!

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but now I would always go for the 'cost plus' type contract where they charge you a fee for managing and then you pay contractors direct.

They say to add 10% for contingencies. With an older home you never know what you mind find, so I would double or treble that

Good luck: its stressful and messy but its worth it in the end!

gryphea

We are kind of doing our own reno in bits. We have a paint sprayer etc

Doors and closet doors- internal from Windsor plywood
One external window so far from Gienhow, pleased with it, cost a fortune
new roof- Epic roofing under insurance due to hail damage
Kitchen- self build with doors from Multiwood
Countertop - ceasarstone from Silkstone Granite.
Paint - I did all the painting except the double height bit, used the Urban Painter
Flooring, travertine installed by someone
Baseboards- OH replacing these. Baseboards from Rona

My experience is anything with labor costs a fortune. Our latest is we need the furnace interlocked and labor is a fortune.

Soon to tackle the bathrooms

Aviator

Get one of these, if they don't have WCB and there is an accident, you could be responsible for any and all costs as the homeowner.

https://my.wcb.ab.ca/decc/Clearance/...Clearance.aspx

An estimate is not a fixed price, a quote is. Read agreements carefully.

We do this all the time and it is amazing how bad many contractors are at writing an agreement or how optimistic they are with their terms. We never pay up front, maybe stage payments on a bigger job with a 20% hold back at the end for 14 days.

Check specs for materials, there are many different qualities. Go and look at work they have done before, not just a phone reference. References from other contractors or building materials suppliers even better.

You cannot guard against every eventuality, but if you have done you best and it goes south, shit happens. Watch progress and standards of workmanship. If you are not happy question. If time is important, set this out as 'time is off the essence' in the agreement. Nothing stopping you writing in dates and this phrase in the agreement, also 'work to be done in a workmanlike manner' is worth having in. These just helped us win a case in BC. Without them we would have not had a leg to stand on.

mandymoochops

agree with aviator, because there is a building boom (and I'm not saying this is all) but a lot of contractors are really putting out shoddy work.

Referrals from known customers would trump any "found them online called them for an estimate" type thing.

Aviator is also right, an estimate is just that although I would be very surprised to see a gc giving a quote on a large reno.

Planning and timing is the key, if you know nothing about building then do not attempt to be your own GC, this will go a long way into pissing off each trade as they all have to do certain bits of their job at specific intervals to ensure the project runs smoothly. (Trust me have worked for a homeowner that thought that it couldn't be that difficult)

If you don't know anyone first hand then make sure you get references that you can follow up.

The last house I painted (yes I am actually a paint contractor!) that had a total reno was only 8 years old. When panelling / beadboard came off of walls there was a ton of mould behind there - (thankfully the GC was in charge of drywalling / repairs etc) and this added a ton of time and money building wise to the project - however because the contractor was on the ball - the other trades cold comein and work around without the it extending the finish date by too long.

However the homeowners said (and I hear this a lot) that they wished they had budgeted 50% more.

Things you can save on would be things like baseboard and trim painting, its not hard and is a labour intensive job to hireout-do it yourself at a later date!

If you need a new kitchen look on Kijiji for someone that is ripping one out, or if your cabinets aren't bad - clean and paint them yourself - again not hard just labour intensive.

My final advice - if you only have $20k to spend on renos - don't price out your trades to come to 20k or you'll be in for a nasty shock.

Fixtures fittings and frilly bits can come later - don't get bogged down with the pretty stuff - get the neccesities done and your finishing touched can come over time.

Siouxie

It might be worthwhile having a look at the Habitat for Humanity Restore - they have kitchens, light fixtures, flooring, plumbing items, sinks, doors, windows, furniture and appliances at discounted prices, what they have varies and the don't show it all on their website.

Habitat for Humanity - Restore Inventory Site

gryphea

PS. Should say that the reason we did our own kitchen was that we simply didn't have the money. I got a few kitchen quotes for our not very big kitchen for very basic kitchens and they came in at around $15 to 20K excluding GST, flooring, installation and worktops. Installation was estimated at around $4-5K and worktops whatever we wanted. The kitchens weren't particularly nice and at the lower end all the way through the mid end the cabinet bases themselves are all the same. So we bought the carcasses and doors and did installation ourselves. A big headache but it allowed us to save around $15K. it looks very good now and really looks like a mid to high end kitchen.

Some trades won't even show to quote for small jobs in Calgary, I had that with the painting bit; as it was less than a days work. Urban painter was pleased to do it on a rainy day ad we were on standby for a rainy day; it was perfect for them to squeeze in as a day job in between all their external painting.

Things in Calgary are expensive as soon as you start involving people. I think trades work out around $80-150 per hour depending on the trade/luck/person. Our electrician is great, really good fast worker, but he's expensive. My friend had two bathrooms done, it took about 2 months longer than promised and it was $33K. I think its even harder to get good people in now, since the flooding.

We did have a great guy who 'smoothed' our popcorn ceilings in a few rooms. He is a skilled plasterer from out east but mainly does drywall taping here. He was excellent and good value as he was a dad at he school. He has a great work ethic and its lovely to have dead flat ceilings in some rooms!

dbd33

We added a floor to our last house. We had a contractor build the exterior walls, to the point of being weatherproof, and we had a plumber and electrician. We did the rest.

We fetched the materials; 100+ sheets of drywall, glop, bath, sink, vanity, tiles, flooring, closet doors, yadda yadda, from America. We saved a bundle and, due to having to stay two nights on each trip, we got know both Buffalo and Detroit!

JonboyE

I would advise against this. If the contractor knows what they are doing they will include a huge contingency because reno plans rarely survive the first swing of a sledge hammer. A less experienced contractor may quote a "fair" price but have to bodge any unexpected problems. Fixing a bodged job later will always be way more expensive.

This is a difficult one. No contractor I know (and I have many as clients) will finance work. As they say, their skill is in renovation, not banking. It is normal and reasonable to pay a deposit up front and, for a larger reno, stage payments. What must be paid, and when, is part of the discussion that needs to take place before you schedule the work. From the other side of the fence, the main reason contractors go bankrupt is customers not paying their bills on time.

For a larger reno it is not unusual for the owner to require the general contractor to sign an affidavit (called a statutory declaration in BC) to say who and what has been paid with the money previously paid before making further payments.

This is my preferred model too.

Aviator

This is two different arrangements, cost plus is an agreement where the contractor agrees to charge you a fixed percentage above their cost, however your agreement and payments go to the general contractor.

Paying a management fee to a contractor, and paying the individual contractors directly can be a very messy arrangement if something goes south. You have multiple 'contracts', with the managing individual and each contractor, as you are paying them individually. Something goes wrong and they blame each other, you're going to get nowhere in a dispute.

By and far the simplest is a singe agreement with a general contractor, you pay them and they pay the contractors. You can agree a fixed percentage markup, you only have one contract and the general contractor is responsible for the whole job, if something goes wrong you go after the GC and it is their problem how they sort it out.

Geordie Lass

We've gotten into the situation with a contractor where the job has taken so much longer than expected but he's done everything perfectly... probably too perfectly. He hasn't bodged anything but the labour bill was twice what we expected...

Saying that I'd rather pay more for a good job.

jimf

I get the impression that trade labour rates can be very expensive in Calgary so anything that can be done as straightforward DIY will be eg internal painting. Expensive items are going to be windows (all circa 1967), external doors (anyone seen doors with multi locking point mechanisms?), roof, bathroom/plumbing. Fortunately kitchen is ok.

paw339

Our landlord has just replaced most of the windows and doors at our house with some nice fibre glass windows, but I was surprised how poor the security is compared to what is standard in the UK.

jimf

I've seen fibre glass doors but not seen fibre glass windows? Windows generally seem to be PVC with an optional aluminium exterior. Visited the Lux showroom the other day - products look quite good but no doubt they're not cheap. The casement style looks better than the sliders but sliders may work better for basement windows.