Guides & How-To Articles
The questions that matter most on a project are rarely about the building: who to hire, what a bid means, what to have ready, what to do when the schedule slips. These articles answer them the way the owner answers them on site.
Keeping change orders off a commercial project: an owner's playbook
The demolition crew opened a ceiling in a former restaurant and found a grease duct nobody had drawn, running the length of a space that was supposed to be a d…
Read the article →From raw acreage to move-in: how a residential development gets built
Stand on a tract the week the grading crew shows up and there is nothing to photograph: a pasture, a row of survey stakes, a silt fence. Eighteen months later…
Read the article →Custom home building: from your drawings to your move-in day
The framing was up, the windows were two weeks out, and the owner was standing in what would be the kitchen deciding whether the island should be eighteen inch…
Read the article →Certificate of occupancy: what stands between you and opening
The ribbon is ordered, the staff is hired, the furniture is in the lobby, and the doors stay locked. We have seen that week on other people's jobs. The buildin…
Read the article →The bid packet: what to gather before asking for a number
About half the bid requests that reach our desk are a single paragraph and an address. We price them anyway, but we price them with assumptions, and every assu…
Read the article →What to check on a commercial site before you go under contract
We have stood on a lot that looked perfect from the road and found the reason it was cheap two feet down. The seller was not hiding it; nobody had asked. Site…
Read the article →The owner's pre-construction checklist before you break ground
We keep a habit before any job starts. The principal who priced it sits with the owner and asks one question first: what day does this building need to open? E…
Read the article →Choosing between tilt-wall and steel frame for your building
We stood on a graded pad last spring with an owner who wanted to know which system would get his warehouse doors open first. Not which was stronger, not which…
Read the article →Design-build or design-bid-build: picking the right path
The difference between the two delivery methods shows up on a Tuesday afternoon when the framer finds a duct that will not fit above the ceiling. Under one met…
Read the article →Picking a general contractor in Houston: what to ask first
The proposal in your inbox gives you a number and a start date. It does not tell you who will be standing in the parking lot at six in the morning when the con…
Read the article →Reading a commercial construction bid line by line
Lay three bids side by side and the eye goes straight to the totals. We have sat on the owner's side of that table, and the totals are the least useful thing o…
Read the article →Keeping a commercial build on the date: what actually works
The schedule that gets printed at kickoff and pinned to the trailer wall is not the schedule that opens the building. The one that opens the building is the th…
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