How To Lower The Cost Of Your Home Renovation
A home renovation can be a fantastic opportunity to upgrade your home, improve its value and lower your heating and cooling costs.
It's worth getting a range of quotes from experienced professional firms before you start any renovation work.
Here are some ideas for saving money while renovating your home.
Do Your Own Home Energy Audit A professional will audit your home for anywhere between $200-600.
This audit is a recommended first step in the renovation process and will give you a better understanding of how energy efficient your home is and which areas you should pay attention if you want to lower your heating and cooling costs.
You can save the cost of an audit by following free and easy online instructions and perform your own home energy audit.
It won't be as thorough as a professional audit but it will give you some basic information.
Hire A Green Architect Or Consultant Almost all business directories have listings for designers and consultants with environmentally-friendly credentials.
You can save a lot of money if you hire one to work on planning your renovation instead of going with another firm and then hiring a green consultant later.
Going green not only lowers utility costs after the renovation is completed, a green designer might suggest using eco-friendly materials and implement designs that reduce heat loss or transference.
Energy-saving designs can often be cheaper to build.
Do Your Own Labour The main way for saving money off the cost of a home renovation is by doing as much of the work yourself as possible.
While all electrical work and most building work is off-limits to you, a fair amount of the prep work in terms of removing old fixtures and fittings can be done to reduce the bills that will come later on.
The top areas to save money on are to remove carpets, paint and wallpaper by yourself - this can be easily done by almost anyone and will work out cheaper even if you hire professional tools to help you.
You can also do a lot of the lighting design and interior design by yourself if you want to avoid interior designer fees.
When the work is complete you can also complete painting and wall papering by yourself to save a lot of money.
Plan Ahead For Rubbish Hiring your own skips to have rubbish taken away will save you a lot of time and money.
You can score a big discount if you book ahead of time and this will reduce the amount of time it takes you to deal with old carpets and wallpaper waste.
How Not To Save Money! Its inadvisable to try and complete any electrical work by yourself.
Only qualified electricians can sign work off as safe and they never sign off other people's work.
You will invalidate your home insurance policy if you do work yourself and aren't trained and this will devalue your home.
When you sell your home and the electrical work from your renovation doesn't have the necessary paperwork, homebuyers will get you to take money off the sale price in order to have a qualified electrician come round and do the work properly.
It's worth getting a range of quotes from experienced professional firms before you start any renovation work.
Here are some ideas for saving money while renovating your home.
Do Your Own Home Energy Audit A professional will audit your home for anywhere between $200-600.
This audit is a recommended first step in the renovation process and will give you a better understanding of how energy efficient your home is and which areas you should pay attention if you want to lower your heating and cooling costs.
You can save the cost of an audit by following free and easy online instructions and perform your own home energy audit.
It won't be as thorough as a professional audit but it will give you some basic information.
Hire A Green Architect Or Consultant Almost all business directories have listings for designers and consultants with environmentally-friendly credentials.
You can save a lot of money if you hire one to work on planning your renovation instead of going with another firm and then hiring a green consultant later.
Going green not only lowers utility costs after the renovation is completed, a green designer might suggest using eco-friendly materials and implement designs that reduce heat loss or transference.
Energy-saving designs can often be cheaper to build.
Do Your Own Labour The main way for saving money off the cost of a home renovation is by doing as much of the work yourself as possible.
While all electrical work and most building work is off-limits to you, a fair amount of the prep work in terms of removing old fixtures and fittings can be done to reduce the bills that will come later on.
The top areas to save money on are to remove carpets, paint and wallpaper by yourself - this can be easily done by almost anyone and will work out cheaper even if you hire professional tools to help you.
You can also do a lot of the lighting design and interior design by yourself if you want to avoid interior designer fees.
When the work is complete you can also complete painting and wall papering by yourself to save a lot of money.
Plan Ahead For Rubbish Hiring your own skips to have rubbish taken away will save you a lot of time and money.
You can score a big discount if you book ahead of time and this will reduce the amount of time it takes you to deal with old carpets and wallpaper waste.
How Not To Save Money! Its inadvisable to try and complete any electrical work by yourself.
Only qualified electricians can sign work off as safe and they never sign off other people's work.
You will invalidate your home insurance policy if you do work yourself and aren't trained and this will devalue your home.
When you sell your home and the electrical work from your renovation doesn't have the necessary paperwork, homebuyers will get you to take money off the sale price in order to have a qualified electrician come round and do the work properly.
