Schedule

Can you give a guaranteed start date?
Our contract includes an anticipated duration of project, but cannot give a "guaranteed" start date because it is impossible to predict the exact duration of the preceding jobs to which the Lead Carpenter has already been committed.

Sometimes, unforeseeable but pre-existing conditions arise on a job and they cause delays. Often, a client will decide to add work to the body of their contract after we have already started the project. Rather than leave a job only partially finished, it has always been Creative Contracting policy to stick with each project until the clients can once again enjoy their home. Clients who have signed contracts with Creative Contracting and are waiting for their projects to begin receive regular updates from us regarding the current schedule.

Can you give a guaranteed finish date?
It is in everyone's best interest for Creative Contracting to finish every project in a timely manner. While we do include an anticipated duration of project in every contract, we do not "guarantee" a completion date due the possibility of pre-existing conditions and the potential of Change Orders.

Creative Contracting develops a comprehensive schedule prior to the start of each project for the work-flow including labor, sub-contracting and inspections. We strictly adhere to our guidelines of maintaining open communication with clients and keeping them up to date on any changes in the schedule throughout the process.

Does your contract contain a penalty clause?
No. The concept of a "Penalty Clause"-the practice of the contractor discounting the final invoice a certain dollar-amount for every day beyond the guaranteed completion date a project is not delivered-is most commonly associated with new homes under construction and is desirable to the new-home-buyer who usually needs to sell and move out of a pre-existing home.

Obviously, this requires careful scheduling and if delivery of the new house is grossly delayed, it can result in significant expenses for the buyer. Because the new home is "pre-designed" and has usually already been built several times, the contractor can easily predict the completion date predicated on his past experiences.

In remodeling, however, every job is a prototype. While a Professional Remodeler can make educated assumptions about the condition of a home based on its age, style and other exterior clues, it is impossible to know just exactly what is hiding behind the sheetrock until the job is completely gutted.

Why will our project take that long?
A common misperception is that remodeling work is comparable to new construction. Drive by any new development and you'll see a crew of a dozen people all working to build the same house at the same time. Drive by a couple of times over the course of the two or three months and the house is nearly completed. So shouldn't remodeling just a bathroom take only a couple of weeks? No.

Remodeling work needs to happen sequentially. Spatial constraints alone limit the number of people that can efficiently work on a given job. It is not safe or even possible to have a carpenter, a plumber and an electrician all working simultaneously in your bathroom.