Top Five Costly Mistakes Made on DIY Virginia Additions

The substantial cost of Virginia additions often leads homeowners to consider DIY as a money-saving option. But many of the mistakes commonly made on DIY home additions can add to the final cost, pushing it well beyond the price of a reputable, experienced contractor. Think about how these mistakes make DIY an unwise option for home additions in Virginia.

Purchasing Cheap Materials

The temptation to purchase cheap materials looms large in DIY projects. A home addition involves many different components, and it may make sense initially to purchase products at bargain prices. Problems show up over time. When these poorly made materials wear out or fail, replacement materials cost even more money.

Weigh the initial cost savings against the future expense of replacement and repairs. Choosing to install cheap materials often costs more in the end.

Avoiding the Prep Work

As in many home renovation projects, prep work plays a vital role with home additions. DIY enthusiasts may not know about these requirements, or may simply be impatient to get to the fun stuff and skip over preparation entirely. This omission bumps up the cost of Virginia additions in several different ways, including:

• Missed preparation often results in a poor finish, which may need to be redone or repaired for an additional cost
• Missed preparation may mean that important structural or foundational elements were also missed, which must be corrected for safety and building code compliance
• Missed preparation could result in damage to building materials and other areas of the home, again requiring costly repairs and/or replacement.

Ripping Out More Than Necessary

Home additions require a certain amount of tear down. Industry experts and experienced contractors understand how much to rip out and what components to leave as is in order to properly build the home addition. Many DIY fans find the tear down portion of the project easy and rewarding, and they may end up tearing down much more than anticipated and even required.

Ripping out walls, structure, electrical and/or mechanical components that could have stayed in obviously adds to the overall cost. Proper planning and a detailed design help to limit demolition, but there’s always a risk that inexperienced DIY workers will get overly enthusiastic with a crow bar, jack hammer or other demolition tool.

Misunderstanding the Scope of This Project

Virginia additions take a long period of time and require an immense amount of work. For those DIY fans that haven’t tackled a project of this size, building a home addition seems overwhelming. Misunderstanding the scope leads to unrealistic schedules, costly delays and poor decisions.

A Virginia family completing a DIY home addition may plan to hire out for the electrical and mechanical components. But when they get behind on framing and need to delay these contractors, they risk alienating the contractors and needing to hire another one. Getting a grip on the scope of the project helps to avoid these and many other potential added costs.

Focusing on the Latest Trend

Designing to the current trends makes homeowners happy for the moment. It may not cost anymore to install trend-setting flooring and fixtures, but those costs will sky rocket when you need to spend the money to renovate in a few years.

Choose neutral colors, shapes and forms for the main design elements, and bring those trends in with accessories. These are much easier to change out and cost less over time to adjust.

You may be considering DIY Virginia additions. Before you assume that DIY saves big money, consider these common mistakes and gather a few quotations from experts in the industry. What you come up will surprise you.