How do I run building work at home without it running me?

The decisions to make before anyone starts, the weekly rhythm that keeps a job on track, and the things a client controls that most clients never use.

Difficulty: intermediate
Time: 2 hr
Read: 4 min
Safety: warning

Short answer

Decide everything expensive to change before first fix, agree one point of contact and one weekly site meeting, put every instruction in writing, photograph each stage before it is covered, and keep money behind progress. Most of what goes wrong on a domestic job is a decision made late.

Householders usually think their job on a building project is to choose things and pay for them. In practice the client controls four things that decide how the project goes: the clarity of the brief, the timing of decisions, the flow of money, and the quality of the record. None of them requires any building knowledge, and all four are commonly left to drift.

Safety

A domestic building site is a workplace. Under the construction design and management regulations you are a domestic client, and your client duties normally pass automatically to the contractor — or, where more than one contractor is involved, to the principal contractor. That transfer is not a reason to ignore safety on your own property: keep children and pets away from the work, do not wander onto scaffolding, and raise anything that looks unsafe with the contractor in writing.

Step by step

Finish the decisions before the work starts.Kitchen and bathroom layouts, appliance sizes, socket and switch positions, radiator positions, tile choices, door swings. Every one of these affects first fix, and every one changed after first fix costs several times what it cost before.
Agree who your single point of contact is.One person on their side who instructs the trades, and one person on yours who instructs them. Instructions given directly to a subcontractor on site are the commonest source of confusion and of unpriced extras.
Confirm who is handling permissions and building control.Applications, fees, inspections and certificates. Get it in the contract, and diarise the inspection stages yourself as well — the consequence of a missed inspection lands on you.
Set a weekly site meeting and keep it short.Half an hour, same time each week: what happened, what is next, what decisions are needed from you, what variations have arisen. Follow it with a three-line email summary. That email is your project record.
Put every instruction in writing, however small.Same email thread, numbered, dated. This is not distrust; it is the only reliable memory either side has after three months of daily conversations.
Photograph every stage before it is covered.Walls before plastering, floors before screeding, drains before backfilling. Photograph the whole wall with the pipe and cable runs visible. In five years this is how anyone finds a pipe, and today it is your evidence.
Keep the money behind the work.At every stage, work completed should be worth more than money paid. Check it against the payment schedule at each milestone rather than at the end.
Plan how you will live in it.Where you will cook, wash and sleep, where the dust barriers go, what gets moved out and what gets covered. Domestic projects fail for the household long before they fail technically.
Agree site rules early and politely.Working hours, parking, radio, access, toilet arrangements, where materials go, how the site is left on a Friday. Agreeing them in week one avoids a difficult conversation in week six.
Keep a contingency you have not told anyone about.A sensible percentage of the contract sum, held in your own account. It is what converts an unforeseen item from a crisis into a decision.
Book the milestones you must not miss.Building control inspections, the party wall surveyor's schedule of condition where the England and Wales Act applies, and the delivery dates for long-lead items. These are the dates that cost weeks if they slip.

Tips

Order long-lead items early. Bespoke windows, steels, staircases and some kitchen appliances have lead times measured in months, and a project waiting for one item is paying for everything else to stand still.
Be decisive rather than perfect. A decision made this week at ninety per cent confidence is worth far more than a perfect decision made in three weeks.
Say thank you and make tea. It is not sentimental — the trades on a job you are pleasant to be on do better work and tell you about problems earlier.

Common mistakes

Making layout decisions during first fix — First fix fixes the layout. Sockets, radiators, waste positions and door swings become expensive to move the moment plasterboard goes on.
Giving instructions to trades directly — It bypasses the person responsible for pricing and sequencing, produces unpriced extras and undermines the contractor's control of their own job.
Not keeping a written record — Three months of daily conversation is unrecoverable from memory. The written thread is what settles the final account without an argument.

Questions people ask

What are my responsibilities under CDM as a homeowner?

As a domestic client your duties normally pass to the contractor, or to the principal contractor where more than one contractor is involved. You should still make sure roles are appointed in writing where several contractors are working, and raise anything unsafe.

How involved should I be day to day?

One weekly meeting, prompt decisions and everything in writing is usually right. Daily supervision of trades tends to slow the job and blur responsibility for the result.

Should I move out during building work?

For a whole-house project it is usually cheaper in real terms — the work goes faster and the household survives. For a single-room job it is rarely necessary if the dust barriers are properly done.