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 dental office by spring. That was a legitimate change order. The other four on that job, the ones that came from allowances, missing details and late selections, were not. Owners tend to remember the total, not the split, so it is worth knowing which kind you can prevent and how.

Some changes come from the building itself: a buried tank, rot behind a wall, an undocumented duct. Others come from the owner's choice to improve the project after pricing. Both are fair. The frustrating change orders are the third kind, the ones that were always going to be needed and simply were not in the number. A missing detail on the drawings, a fixture that was never selected, an allowance that was too low. These are gaps, not changes, and they are the ones a good pre-construction process removes.

Price the whole building, not most of it

A bid built from incomplete drawings is a guess with a signature on it. Before you accept a number, ask what is excluded and what is assumed. Look at every allowance and ask whether the amount reflects what you actually intend to buy. A storefront allowance sized for standard aluminum will not cover the butt-glazed entry in the rendering. A tile allowance sized for a stock porcelain will not cover the large-format stone the designer picked.

We price from the drawings, trade by trade, and we hand back a list of every allowance and every exclusion with the number. If a scope is still undefined, we say so and we put a placeholder next to it with a date by which it needs to be real.

Look before you demolish

On renovation and PIP work, existing conditions are where most true surprises live. Walk the building with the contractor before pricing. Open a ceiling tile, pull a cover plate, check the panel schedule, look at the roof, get the as-builts if they exist. On ground-up work, get the geotechnical report and the survey before the foundation is designed, not after the price is set. An hour with a ladder and a flashlight converts an unknown into a line item.

Close the decisions before the crew needs them

Most late change orders are late decisions in disguise. The paint crew is ready, the color is not picked, the crew moves to another floor, and now the schedule needs a Saturday to catch up. Or the finish that finally gets chosen costs more than the allowance and has a six-week lead time, so the substitute that can arrive in time costs a premium.

We give owners a decision calendar at the start: each selection, the date the trade needs it, and the lead time behind it. When the owner meets those dates, the allowances close at or near the number and the schedule holds. When a decision is going to be late, we tell you the day we see it, with the cost of waiting and the cost of substituting side by side.

When a change is real, put it in writing first

Some changes will happen. The process that protects you is simple: a written description, a price, and a statement of schedule impact in days, all approved by you before the work starts. No verbal go-aheads, no "we will sort it out at the end." On our jobs the owner of the company writes that change and hands it to you, because the person who priced the job is the one who knows what the change actually costs.

One more thing belongs in that process. A contingency in the budget is common. A contingency in the schedule is rarer and just as important. A project with zero float turns a small legitimate change into a missed opening, because there is nowhere to absorb the days. We build float around inspections and long-lead deliveries so a real change can land without moving the date you promised your lender or your franchisor.

We are licensed and insured. The principals carry over 20 years of combined experience between them, and the owner walks every job from pricing through the final punch item. Send the drawings, even a preliminary set, and we will show you where the gaps are before they become change orders.