Why Your Construction Project Always Takes Longer Than You Think

Over the years of consults we’ve gone to and projects we’ve worked on one of the most common phrases we’ve heard from prospective clients or clients is “well we know construction always takes so much longer than anyone communicates ”. So we thought today we would actually break down WHY any construction project you’ve embarked on has most likely taken longer than anticipated, what to look out for when hiring a design-build team & what our OCH process looks like from the inside!

Ok let’s get to the juicy details!

Why does construction always take longer than expected?

There are a few factors here but we’re going to knock the low hanging fruit off the list right from the get go.

1. Poor Management

Poor management is the # 1 reason why construction projects run behind whether it be not scheduling the sub contractors properly or the builder/ GC having too much on their plate to dedicate to your project specifically to oversee the day to day tasks that need to get done. This often times results in having to have said subcontractors re-do work, taking more time out of the allotted schedule and pushing the timeline back farther.

At OCH we made the decision early on to hire a project manager that over sees all of our projects and is the point person for all of our customers. This creates double eyes on the work and ensures your project is being actively managed every single day wasting less time (& ultimately money) in the long run!

Ok, let’s move on from the obvious and get into the more specific details on why projects move at a snails pace sometimes frustrating clients & contractors/ builders/ GC’s/ designers along the way!

2. Permitting

All towns require a building permit to begin any construction or renovation work, said permitting process isn’t standardized and is specific state by state so most towns run it their own way. This system is also often times a bit outdated and run like small town politics. (Yikes, we’re going out on a limb here sharing this but the people deserve to knowww). Most towns have one or two building inspectors that have to see and hit every job site to inspect work performed before sub contractors can move on. This includes things like plumbing, electrical and carpentry work. As you can imagine with our industry booming and more and more people wanting to renovate/ build new one or two building inspectors isn’t cutting it! Often times there are delays upon delays on these inspections as well as ring around the rosey politics (he said, she said) kind of stuff that delays the process even further from moving along. This whole explanation may sound a little exaggerated but we promise you it isn’t. We have had projects sit idle for upwards of 4 weeks dealing with ring around the rosey inspection snags that make everyone involved sprout gray hair on the spot! Our advice here is to be clear on who will be pulling the permits and communicating with the town. Often times home owners think it’s easier for them to pull their own permits but when push comes to shove and there are issues contractors who already have long standing relationships with these building inspectors will be a better fit to communicate! Make sure you outline this with whoever you’re working with right from the get go.

3. Unknowns

The unknown things always spring up when you’re least expecting them and are already working hard to make it towards your target timeline for the project. Even things that may seem little to you may actually create a ripple effect in other areas of the project that sets your crew behind a whole day or often times more! Renovation/ construction is all about efficiency and sequencing and when that sequence gets thrown off it’s a lot of extra work to get things back on track. This one is hard and has few tips to share other than being direct with your contractor, builder, GC that they will communicate directly to you when something they didn’t expect comes up that creates a set back or timeline change.

4. Supply Chain

This is something that has plagued our industry in the last year! Covid manufacturing delays from a year ago when quarantine started are now catching up with supply chains and causing delays in production! Everything from building lumber to light fixtures are delayed weeks if not months! The most not talked about hang up in the supply chain set back is something most might not even think about. How many people are involved and how many hands your products are moved through. Here’s a small example of this and then magnify this by the hundred and hundred of products that are needed on your project!

Example:

• Lumber is ordered from local supply company

• Supply company connects with their supplier and puts the order in

• Order is shipped on a truck to lumber yard where employees unpack order

• Order is stored and checked in

• Builder/ GC/PM schedules delivery of order

• Order is put on a truck and delivered to job

• Order is checked upon arrival at job by PM and set aside (because we want orders coming in as early as possible to limit any mistakes or reorders if needed)

• Order is moved dozens of times while project is underway

  This was a perfect example not factoring in any mishaps, issues with delivery, issues with supply, issues with order count, reordering, etc! We like to remind our clients there are dozens of humans just like us that are tracking, shipping, delivering these dozens of orders and on more times than one mistakes are made!

Ok, so now that we’ve laid it all out there let’s talk about the one thing all these examples have in common, proper management! This industry is time consuming, stressful and a bit volatile at times. Things will go wrong, products will show up broken, timelines will be pushed back, our goal in sharing all this is to make it apparent why management is SO important. Why in the long run the extra line item spent on proper management will be a wash to the delays, up charges and extra time spent redoing things without that management. We want to be clear that YES construction is a messy job that often times is delayed, but those delays should always be communicated efficiently and effectively to create a customer experience that’s enjoyable! We pride ourselves on making this a priority at OCH so each customer finishes a project with us (delays and all) feeling taken care of and communicated with every step of the way.

We hope this article was helpful and gives you a little peek behind the curtain on how it all works!

With heart,

Lauren & Chris