If you have a date you need a project completed by, my best advice would be don’t wait, start now.
Construction is unlike most industries, in the fact that it usually includes significantly more moving parts then anything else.
A simple bathroom, for instance, might have
- Permits
- Demo
- Electrical
- Plumbing
- HVAC
- Framing
- Drywall
- Tile
- Finishing
- Paint
- Product supplier
That is 11 different people whose schedules need to line up at multiple points throughout a 3-5 week process. The room for issues, delays and schedule conflict is enormous.
Permits
This year we have pulled permits in Kelowna, Lake country and the Regional District of the North Okanagan.
Kelowna will typically issue a permit in 5-10 business days, Lake country typically takes 15-30 business days and the RDNO took 3 months. In all cases when a permit is required, no construction should begin prior to the permit being issued. This means that after all the planning and design work is done, you may be waiting 2-12 weeks before you can start your project. This again can cause significant issues around scheduling as none of the districts will provide an approved by date for permits. Once the permit is issued a project manager will need to reconfirm everyone’s availability and in most cases rework the schedule.
The result, a bathroom renovation might take as long as 5 months, if you schedule 2 weeks for planning and design, 12 weeks for permits, and 3-5 weeks for construction.
How to avoid delays?
This is why we suggest that you give yourself as much room as possible when doing a renovation. Construction is not required to start once a permit is issued, and is typically good for 12 months after they have been issued, so starting the process right away and then scheduling the construction further out is a really good option for a lot of our clients.
This way we avoid any undue delays as a result of permits, and we can confirm sub trade schedules out past the usual bumping and adjusting and get timelines nailed down.
In construction the faster you try to go the more delays inevitably happen. It is not an industry you want to rush a project in. Take the time, give yourself room, build in “just in case time” into your project. And you can count on a quality delivery.
