What is a Scope of Work?

Essentially, a “Scope of Work” is a list of the work to be done (TBD) as part of a remodeling project. Home renovation projects have a massive amount of minor and major work items that have to be listed in an easy to read format for both the contractors and homeowner! Reliable Design-Build-Remodel uses the Buildertrend platform to keep track of all of our documentation, and that’s where we write out our Scopes of Work.

At the beginning of your project, the Scope of Work will be full of extremely rough and speculative estimates. These estimates are called, “Allowances“. For example, many of our scopes read out simple things like, “Project will renovate basement, upstairs bathroom, and exterior siding”.

As the project moves along and Reliable becomes more involved, we update the Scope of Work to reflect new information and work that has been completed, among other things! One of the most important things in a scope are the estimates, which affect your material selections and the overall budget!

All the specifics need to be in writing by the time you ask for a contract. Once you’ve signed, additional changes to the scope of work are considered “Change Orders,” and will bring additional costs.

Important Things About Scopes of Work

Scope of Work and your Budget

A Scope of Work is essentially a short list of everything you’re wanting done in your project, so if you’re working with Reliable on, say, a kitchen remodel, then we’re going to make rough estimates based on the items on that list; this will be the foundational building block that our estimates will be built upon until the project moves further along and we can generate more accurate cost information.

Be sure to include everything you can think you want accomplished in your project, because if something needs to be added after we generate our initial Scope of Work, it isn’t included in the original budget and becomes what is called a “Change Order”.

What happens when my Scope exceeds my Budget?

If the Scope exceeds your Budget, we’ll be the first to tell you! This can happen early on in the project where the details on material selections aren’t finalized, but it can also happen for other reasons, including mistakes!

The general rule we recommend is that the less money you have in your budget, the more flexible your scope should be. That means that if you wanted a luxury marble countertop but can’t afford one, you might want to consider an alternative option.

What if something in my scope just won’t work?

Sometimes a part of your scope just won’t be feasible. This can include budgetary concerns, structural problems that need to be accounted for, or an inspection needs to be completed first; sometimes something can seem perfectly fine on paper, but when accounting for regulations and building codes, they can be nowhere up to spec.

Reliable works with all of our clients to fix these problems in the early stages of the project, but some problems like this have to be discovered during construction. We will work thorough those issues with you as well!

Our Advice

Reliable with of course work with you to draw up as accurate of a scope of work as we c an during the early stages based on your ideas and needs, but we’d also advise homeowners looking into a home remodel to draw up a list of ideas beforehand. Any changes to a scope of work after the contract is finalized is something called a “Change Order”, which is a topic we’ll cover separately!

Reliable Design-Build-Remodel is a full service general construction firm and remodeling contractor operating in the Birmingham metro and Jefferson and Shelby County areas and surrounding communities, including Birmingham, Helena, Chelsea, Mountain Brook, Hoover, Homewood, Montevallo, Alabaster, Vestavia Hills, and Pelham, with over 30 years of servicing our valued clients. Offering full service suite of general remodeling, design and build services. Our specialties include bathroom remodeling, kitchen remod eling, exterior renovations, interior renovations, painting, and more!