What Your Contractor Cant Tell You The Essential Guide To Building And Renovating

What Your Contractor Can not Tell You is a comprehensive guide to getting results while building The Best Gold Renovating a home. Most Homeowners Spend about 20% of Their Time On The plan and 80% of Their time is a messy, traumatic, expensive construction phase. Other Spend 80% of Their Time On The plan and 20% were smooth construction phase. But The Homeowners can not Know What Goes Into a solid plan UNLESS Someone Tells Them. This book is based was simple ... if permitted Homeowners Knew event 10% of What The Professionals in the Construction field know, They could "AVOID 90% of the Problem. Creating a Dream Home Should not Be a nightmare. Hiring a contractor Is an Enormous investment and a high-risk Endeavor Involving Decisions That Will Last Forever. This book Homeowners Paired With The Information and Strategies Needed To Turn Into Their vision was renovated home gold That Can Be Built On Time and Within Budget. Detailed coverage of chapters give-critical topics: design; Selecting and supervising The Architect and contractor; Cost Estimates, budget, plan specifications, contracts, Dealing with Town Officials, and Keeping Track of Everything Along The Way. For Each Stage of the project, There Is Detailed information is common pitfalls and how to Avoid Them, as well as "insiders' tips Which Reveal What MOST contractors can not tell you. This book WAS Previously published by Warner Books (2004) and titled What the "Experts" May Not Tell You About Building or Renovating Your Home.

Posted In: Home Construction

Marcene Governale says...

Designing and building a new home is intimidating for three reasons (1) It is something with which you are not familiar; (2) you are not likely to have many friends who have done it; and (3) it is VERY expensive. Worse, you feel responsible for every mistake made, and you know that each mistakes cost you money and time. Buying this book is NOT one of those mistakes. Instead, it is the "ounce of prevention" that will pay for itself many hundreds of times over.



Amy Johnston is a professional construction manager and owner's representative. Her wisdom focuses with framing the entire construction project in terms of a tradeoff between time, quality, and money - you can only have two of the three. We're only part way through our new house, and that rings very, very true. We clearly opted for taking a longer time - will we keep that focus as construction progresses? In any case, she gives the insights into each part of the triangle. Better yet, she is fair - she makes sure that neither you, nor anyone else, is getting cheated. Contractors, architects, bankers, inspectors, and everyone else are clearly defined in their roles - though the most important role is the home owner's, which she describes in great detail.



Every chapter is focused on another phase of the project, and her clear writing opens up the mysteries along the way. She describes who is doing what (or should be doing it), and describes what choices need to made - and what the alternatives are - before saying what her choice is.



Her points are illustrated with good references, pertinent anecdotes, and points that she labels "Insider's tips" and "pitfalls".I was pleased to find that I had miraculously avoided some pitfalls before I bought the book, and I expect to avoid many others as a reuslt of her advice.



I was trying to figure out if this book could be described a "home construction for dummies" book. My initial reactiion was that dummies shouldn't be building a house - there are too many choices and decisions, and way too much complexity. But anyone can feel like a dummy when they make a bad decision, based on not enough knowledge and information.With this book, I have far more confidence that I will be well informed, and the problems that will inevitably occur will be minimzed as much as possible. I refer to the book constantly, and appreciate the wide margins that allows for notes to be made.

Posted on March 15, 2011

Minh Tessmer says...

I bought all the construction books....$1000 worth to prepare for building our house.This book is by far and away the most valuable resource available.I have read it cover to cover three times now, and have referred back to it at the appropriate stages multiple times to be sure that we were following Amy Johnston's very sage advice.It is so well written, and I think I would find it quite entertaining even if I wasn't building a house.My favorite part is her favorite contractor Jerry.The story has all the makings of a Hollywood movie complete with suspense, interesting characters, and a twist at the end.The book provides neophytes like myself with excellent insight into the building industry.Things are not necessarily as they seem on the surface!

Posted on March 16, 2011

Olympia Iveans says...

This book is excellent for those new to building or renovating and need to know what to do and say and who to say and do it to. The author does an excellent job setting out the relationships, processes, chronologies, and thinking for dealing with other parties all the way from dreaming about doing a remodel/build to finishing it. This is exactly the book I was looking for -- not a technical manual about building, but a handy reference about my role as owner and how I can or should interact with the architect, lender, general contractor, etc. to get the home or addition I want.

Posted on March 16, 2011

Kayleen Neese says...

I am looking to build my own home on a nice suburban lot in an existing neighborhood (replacing a teardown) and have purchased half a dozen books from Amazon in hopes of learning how to start the process from scratch.This is by far the most informative useful book of the lot.



It contains detailed information on how to go about hiring an architect and contractor, selecting materials, etc. along with choices that will save money or upgrade your home.It explains the differences between materials and provides tips on how to make sure you get what you put in your plans.It is written for someone like myself, an ordinary joe who has zero experience in design, building or construction.But unlike the awful Dummies book, this one contains useful information and tips for avoiding problems.



If you only buy one book on building your own home this should be the one.

Posted on March 16, 2011

Latricia Beckius says...

First of all, I couldn't put the book down.

I'm planning to build a house in the near future and, frankly, hadn't a clue as to how to begin. Not now. I have a blueprint in the form of a book whichexplains in a step-by-step manner how to go about getting the right people, information and materials to do the job. I continue to re-read the book as I progress and even bought a second copy for my wife (mine is dog-eared and full of notes).

If you are planning to build or do a renovation of an existing house, the first step is to get this book!

Posted on March 17, 2011

Gricelda Rinne says...

Ms. Johnston's book is an easy and enjoyable read chock full of sound advice.I purchased the book a year ago, one month before my husband and I began to interview architects for our project, building a new home 1000 miles away.After one quick read, I knew it was my "organized builder's guide for all non-builders".By using the suggestions found in the step-by-step approach we have now successfully survived the design phase, bid and builder selection process, contract negotiation, and the permitting phase.The knowledge we have gained from this book has provided us with confidence and there have been a few times already that we have impressed the industry professionals!



It pays to be prepared and Ms. Johnston's book is a very big bargain when considering renovation and new construction costs.We have miles to go before our house is complete, but along the way I expect that we'll refer to this book time and time again...

Posted on March 18, 2011

Harold Cardono says...

As an attorney, I regularly see people who didn't go into contract deals as carefully as they should have.As someone about to build my own home, I read this book to make sure I was doing everything correctly since I knew enough to know that there was plenty I didn't know about contracting, building etc.



This book is fantastic!Even if you're an attorney, you need this book.It provides valuable insight into specific subjects you would never know about unless you'd done these types of projects many times.I can't recommend it highly enough!!

Posted on March 18, 2011

Dwain Beaber says...

Amy's book is wonderful. We received it when we were about to undertake a huge three story addition. Reading this book helped us to think outside the box and ultimately opt to renovate an existing porch. We ended up doing most of the work ourselves but chose to hire out the things we don't like and are not good at (sheet rocking). This book has many helpful details that have positively impacted our renovation. Amy articulates that most standard trim on houses is too small and therefore looks bad. We took her advice and used wider trim, it makes a huge difference. Our new windows look really balanced with the wide trim. I would recommend this book to anyone undertaking renovations. I learned so much.

Posted on March 19, 2011

Darla Gorelick says...

It did not meet all my needs I was really looking for something to help me write building specificatins to send out for quotes from contractors) but I was blown away by the amount of valuable information I found in this book. I knew there were a lot of decisions to make when undertaking a major remodel like the one we are doing but my original estimations were off by about about 1000%. This book I think helped me get my expectations in line with reality. Especially when dealing with contractors.

I dog-eared about 50 or more pages...



As for writing specs check out "A complete guide to Contracting your home" by Mcguerty and Lester.

Posted on March 19, 2011

Natacha Stimple says...

If you're thinking of renovating any part of your home or building a house, you can save yourself aggravation, time and money by following Amy Johnston's advice. I read her book, followed her advice and my kitchen renovation came in on time, under budget with not one major problem. Everything worked like clock-work, even though I was my own general contractor and I had never done anything like this before. As an added bonus, Amy Johnston's book is witty, funny and easy to read.

Posted on March 20, 2011