Accepting The Lowest Bid May Not Be The Smart Thing To Do

Most homeowners who have not been through a substantial remodeling project would think that a low bid on their project is the best deal. They couldn't be further from the truth.

There are a lot of reason why choosing a low bid turns out to be a bad idea. Building a home improvement project isn't like shopping for a specific product like an automobile. In spite of having a set of plans and specifications the contractor has a lot of latitude to cut corners.

If the contractor submitted a low bid just to get the job they are forced to cut corners to make up the difference. So instead of getting a great price on the project the homeowner ends up getting an inferior product as a result.

You must be aware of the fact that a contractor is well experienced in building many projects and the homeowner has very little. This puts the homeowner at a big disadvantage. A low bid contractor can't stay in business unless they can make a profit. Consequently they know every trick in the book to cut corners and lower their costs.

Cutting costs on a project can come in many different forms. It could be from cheap less skilled labor or from low grade materials. Even if the contractor passes all the code inspections by the building department there's no guarantee on the the quality of the finished product.

As an example, suppose you are having a new roof put on. The shingles may require 4 or 5 nails in each one. If the contractor only uses two nails they can cut their nailing time in half. You wouldn't know the difference and the contractor would be long gone before a problem surfaced.

That's just one example. There are hundreds of ways to take short cuts on a major project and still pass all the inspections. Who is qualified or could supervise every activity on a project?

Here's another example suppose a task requires a product to be glued and nailed like subflooring. You might be able to count the nails but you would never know if it was glued properly. Or even if the contractor used the proper glue. The result would be squeaky floors later after the contractor is paid in full.

Any homeowner that's been through a few substantial projects will understand the importance of choosing a good contractor and why the low bidder isn't the way to go. It only takes one bad project to learn this lesson.

Many times the cost of accepting the low bid on a project ends up costing more than the high bidder just to make it right after the fact.

Another common practice low bid contractors do is to get the project with a low bid then make up the difference on changes or omissions once the project is under contract. The homeowner has little choice but to accept the contractors fee to do the extra work.

Whenever the bids on a project vary by more than about 10% a red flag should go up. Most of the construction costs for the same type of labor and materials doesn't vary that much. You have to bear in mind that it takes more time and good materials to produce a quality product.

In this article I've only covered a few ways that a homeowner could suffer by choosing to accept a low bid on a remodeling project. I only hope that it helps the unsuspecting homeowner who might be tempted to take the low bidder on remodeling or home improvement project. The best advice I could give you is to get good references on any contractor you choose to do work for you.