Construction & Contracting

Reply to: I've earned the discounts I get from my vendors. I do not share them with anyone. When you buy $50,000.00 worth of sinks every year and pay on time, you'll get a better price too. Cost accounts are actually trust accounts and a contractor who is basing any fees on those costs or passing those costs directly to a homeowner is essentially a fiduciary. If you charge a fixed fee for something then you don't have to pass on the cost in any way, but we can assume that this is not a fixed fee since it wouldn't make sense to either disclose or ask about. If you are billing for time and materials or a cost plus arrangement, then you must pass on your actual cost with all discounts you get from your vendors. Not doing so is fraud. Not that Joseph is committing fraud, but is probably not doing cost plus contracts. You bet he marks up. As long as his contract meets your approval? It is entirely possible that the OP is talking about the builder's markup but it doesn't sound that way to me. The vendor price must be disclosed to the customer and then any markup percentage in the contract handled according to the contract. Let's face it, the construction industry is rife with bad billing practices. I will bet you that every decent size city has a dozen contractors using some version of a retail price for their cost basis who believe, just like Joseph does, that the discounts that they earn from repeat business are extra money for them and most of them have been doing it for years, never realizing that they are committing fraud. So I don't find it at all unusual that the contractor would be pocketing the savings and adding his percentage to a cost that was inflated and didn't reflect the actual amount he paid. That isn't to say that a contractor can't add some percentage or fee to materials cost, but it does mean that materials cost must be a separate item. In fact, most states will allow for some optional audit of those accounts which includes billing verification from suppliers about actual amounts paid.

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Reply to: Just a note that architects are also not kitchen designers.... you most likely need both. Some architects are great but a kitchen designer really knows their craft I agree. You definitely need both. Given the size of the kitchen, and the particular needs/wants driving that, the house itself will be larger than usual. I would either talk to cpartist, who's also in Florida and recently finished her build, about suggestions/recommendations for an architect or person with design talent who can help, or reach out to the several architects in the Building a Home forum, Mark Bischak and Doug aka ArchitectRunnerGuy, who can work long distance/remotely with clients. Also, I'm going to drop in some book suggestions and links here, mostly from another architect in the Building a Home forum, Virgil Carter: Some helpful reading, "What Not to Build" by Sandra Edelman, out of print but worth tracking down secondhand "Designing Your Perfect House" by William Hirsch Also: What's A Well-Designed House? Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home Part 1 of 3 Tips for Buying Land Designing & Building Custom Home Part 1 Continued Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Part 2 Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Part 2 continued Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Part 3 and also What are you doing to make your house enrich your life?

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