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Serious question, hit 112 change orders on one kitchen remodel in Columbus and I don't know if that's normal
I started tracking every change order on a big kitchen job here in Columbus back in April, mostly for my own sanity, and the counter just passed 112 last Friday on a project that was supposed to need maybe 20. The crazy part is the homeowner keeps adding stuff they saw online, and each one is small, like moving an outlet 8 inches or swapping a faucet, but my paperwork and my sub schedule are a mess now. Do you guys bill for the time spent writing up small change orders, or do you eat it and just pray the final invoice makes up for it?
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kim_davis9d ago
The phrase "each one is small" is exactly the trap here, because small to the homeowner is not small to you. Every tiny swap still means a new write up, a call to the sub, a reschedule, and a trip to the supply house, and that time adds up to real money even when the part costs twenty bucks. That is why a lot of guys put a minimum charge on every change order, something like a flat fee just to process it, no matter how small the job is. Once the homeowner sees that fee on every single request, the pace of those "I saw this online" additions slows way down on its own. And if you keep eating the paperwork time, you are basically paying your client to make your job harder, which never ends well on the final invoice. A change order is a change order, size does not matter, bill it or they will keep coming.
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