When it comes to your New York City apartment renovation, there is sometimes an expectation that a project should be straight forward, and that everything will go smoothly to get a project done in a certain amount of time. However, the reality is more times than not, your apartment renovation contractor will run into at least one or more delays that can drag out the original project deadline. While some of these delays are hard to anticipate and can be random, other delays can be prevented with proper planning. Nevertheless, here are the top ten NYC apartment remodel delays you can expect.
1) Building Approval
Unless you are doing basic work like painting or flooring, any reconfiguration of a floor plan or amenities will require building approval or a permit. This requires the contractor to submit to the New York City building department the work they plan to do, and the authority will assign any proper permits they feel is needed. Dealing with building departments can be uncertainty, as anything such as being backlogged with other customers or having an inefficient process flow can delay the contractor. Making sure you are clear with your contractor early about the scope of work and having solid design plans is critical to ensuring no other delays occur with the building department.
2) Task Dependency
In projects that require a lot of coordination with subcontractors, there is a lot of task dependency that occurs, and sometimes scheduling these subcontractors can create gaps. A contractor can’t bring a painter until sheetrock is done, so if a painter has a busy schedule or the sheetrock gets delayed, the painter might not have always had availability right when the sheetrock is finished. Or perhaps a delay early on in the project such as plumbing for a kitchen renovation gets delayed, and therefore nothing else can occur until the plumbing is finished.
3) Unforeseen Discoveries
The most common delay in construction is always an unforeseen discovery not captured in the plan sheets. Usually it’s something like piping behind the walls not being where you thought it would, or finding code compliance issues that must be addressed by the contractor for work to continue. Again these are usually uncertainties that are hard to predict but should be built into a contractor’s initial schedule.
4) Inspections
Depending on what kind of permits are pulled for a project, part of pulling a permit is either periodic inspection or inspection among completion for whatever the permit calls for. In some cases, additional work cannot continue until a certain task is approved, and you might find that either an inspector is backlogged to visit your house or an inspector finds work to be unsatisfactory and requires the contractor to redo it. This can cost time and money on your NYC apartment remodel but really comes down to making sure you hire the right contractor.
5) Weather
If your apartment renovation requires any outside repairs such as roof repair, siding, or foundation work, inclement weather can pose a threat to a schedule. While sometimes light rain can be okay to work with, you occasionally can have that day where a downpour makes it impossible to do work. After all, the last thing you want is water getting into your apartment during a project or ruining the quality of your foundation.
6) Back Orders
When an apartment remodeling contractor orders materials for a job, they are usually given an initial estimate range by the manufacturer to factor into their schedule. While most times this estimate is usually accurate, there can be circumstances where the materials get back-ordered, which can create uncertainty. Because back-ordering is not common, most contractors don’t try to build that into their schedule, however, the range of back-ordering can vary from a few days to a few months depending on what is being ordered.
7) Design Process
If its determined that your apartment renovation project needs a design build firm, there is the potential for this to elongate the overall project schedule. A designer needs to not only develop a set of feasible plans but communicate these plans with the apartment renovation contractor and go over any potential issues they foresee. While this ultimately reduces any major delays, bringing in a design build does add some time to a process that would otherwise be shorter with just an apartment remodeling contractor.
8) Payment Issues
In most circumstances, a contractor will develop a payment structure that is periodic whether it’s monthly or weekly, depending on the scale of the project. The agreement will usually state the customer must make these payments for work to continue. Failure to make these payments usually means the contractor will halt any work going on regardless of the state it is in until the payment installment is in full, or the payment structure is renegotiated and agreed upon. Any halt in work is certain to delay the project schedule.
9) Injuries
In many instances, construction injuries can occur on-site. While most times these injuries are minor, anything major can create a liability claim and force a contractor to stop work. While in most cases the liability is not the fault of the customer, the severity of the injury can divert attention away from the project, especially if the injury results in hospitalization or a fatality. In this case, there is little a customer can do, other than making sure to find a contractor who uses safe practices.
10) Scale of Project
Ultimately in any project timeline, there can be little mishaps here and there that push a task out an hour or a day and can add up to be substantial in the end. Ultimately the larger a project, the more these delays can add up to create a substantial delay in the project. Therefore expect a kitchen renovation to cause more delays than a simple interior paint job.
