Guides
Hiring a Historic Home Restoration Contractor: Scope Before Price
Hiring a historic home restoration contractor starts with what the estimate leaves out: exclusions, allowances, and who approves changes before work starts.
What to take away
- An estimate is comparable only when each line is marked included, excluded or allowance.
- Name who approves a change before work starts.
- Lead-safe work practices apply to pre-1978 houses.
- A low total with a hidden exclusion cannot be compared to anything.
Reading a restoration estimate line by line
Condition sets the scope before price enters the room. how to spot foundation problems in an old house covers movement that changes a plaster or window scope.
Two bids for the same cracked plaster ceiling can differ by thousands. One carries scaffolding. The other assumes a lift the owner rents.
Ask each contractor to mark every line included, excluded or allowance. On a 1912 foursquare, "plaster repair" can mean patching a crack or pulling failed lime plaster and re-plastering.
Make them write the exclusions down. Common ones on old houses:
Reading a restoration estimate
- scaffolding and lift rental
- temporary power and heat
- permit fees
- lead containment and cleaning verification
- disposal of demolished plaster and lath
"Assumes the ceiling joists are sound" is an assumption, not a finding. If it is wrong, the estimate moves, and you should know before signing.
Exclusions, assumptions and the arithmetic
Where a figure matters and you lack it, write the arithmetic in variables. Square feet of plaster times rate per square foot. Add days on site times the day rate. Set your own contingency percentage.
On a certified historic house, classification outlives the invoice. which renovation costs qualify for the rehabilitation credit is a separate question from the contractor's total. The National Park Service keeps the federal overview. Read the NPS overview of federal historic preservation tax incentives.
An assumption is not a finding. If it is wrong, the price moves after signing.
Ask what happens if an allowance goes unused. Unspent sums should return to the owner, and the contract should say so.
The change log on a historic house
Selection is one stage. The record that survives the project is the change log.
Every entry carries the reported condition, its date, the decision requested, and the approver who answered. A suggestion is not approval.
Build the log like this:
The change log
- Photograph the condition and date the image before anyone touches it.
- Write the decision requested in one sentence.
- Name the approver, and confirm who appoints them.
- Record the answer, its date, and the revised scope or price.
- Keep the log in one file so a later reader can follow the trace.
Undoing an earlier bad repair costs more than doing the work once. what comes back when a wrong fix is reversed explains why the log matters on a house with prior work.
The approver may be the owner, a State Historic Preservation Office, or a landmarks commission. Check the ordinance for your address.
Credentials, lead rules and the authorities to name
A portfolio image proves an image exists. It does not prove budget, schedule, approvals or client satisfaction. Ask for the person's role and the photo's limit.
Measure preservation credentials against published standards rather than a self-description. The Secretary of the Interior's Professional Qualification Standards do not endorse anyone, but they sharpen the questions a treatment raises.
Pre-1978 housing brings federal lead rules into the scope. Read the EPA rules for the Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Program. Containment and cleaning verification are contractor duties, not upgrades.
Where wiring is in scope, the code basis is not negotiable. NFPA 70, the National Electrical Code is what an electrician works from, and knob-and-tube rarely satisfies it unchanged.
Certification for lead work varies by state, so the scope should name who holds it. what lead paint rules apply when renovating an old house covers the paperwork and the records to keep.
Example: two plaster proposals for a 1912 foursquare
Figures here are illustrative. Candidate A totals 40 percent less and lists no exclusions. Candidate B costs more and names four: lift rental, temporary power, a second visit if the lath is brittle, and disposal.
B stays usable. Its assumptions can be tested, so its price can move for reasons you can predict. A's total cannot be compared until the missing lines are priced.
By the time those lines are priced, the gap often narrows or reverses. A bid is comparable when its scope can be read, not when its number is small.
- Every candidate holds the same dated scope summary.
- Evaluation criteria written before responses were read.
- Each experience claim names a role and a limit.
- Estimate lines marked included, excluded or allowance.
- Approver named for every change, in writing.
The same trade-off appears in smaller decisions. the tempting shortcut and the lasting repair compared is a companion piece when a cheap fix and a correct one are on the table.
