Oak Park Bungalow
A 1924 bungalow with a rear wall that had been quietly rotting since a gutter failed some time in the 1990s. This is one of the two projects on this site that ran late.
$312,750Contracted and paid
26 weeksOn site
3 weeks lateAgainst the contracted date
2024Oak Park, IL
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Survey to close-out, in the owners' own sequence.
The brief
A 1924 bungalow: a rear addition to take the kitchen out to the garden, and a rear wall that had been quietly rotting since a gutter failed some time in the 1990s.
What the survey found
The sill plate was soft for 2.4m under the rear wall. The addition could not sit on it. Setback and lot coverage also meant the first sketch was 600mm too deep, which is cheaper to lose on paper than at permit.
What we did about it
Sill plate replaced before anything else. Addition redrawn inside the envelope, permitted first time. Ridge beam arrived 90mm short from the fabricator and cost three weeks, which we published to the owners the day we were told.
“Three weeks late, and we knew about it in week fourteen rather than week twenty-five. The price never moved.”
The log, including the three weeks.
The delay is entry four and it was written the day the fabricator called us. We publish these in full because a schedule you can check is the only kind worth quoting.
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Day 1
Survey
Probe at the base of the rear wall found the sill plate soft for 2.4m. The addition could not sit on it, so the first line of the scope was replacing it.
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Week 5
Zoning
Setback and lot coverage checked before design. The addition lost 600mm from the first sketch, which is cheaper to lose on paper than at permit.
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Week 14
Steel
The fabricator delivered the ridge beam 90mm short. We told the owners the day we were told, not the week it started to matter.
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Week 17
Recovery
Replacement beam fabricated and set. Three weeks lost, no change to the contracted price, and the sequence rebuilt around the trades we could still run.
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Week 26
Close-out
Delivered three weeks late. The delay was the fabricator, the schedule was ours, and the owners heard about it early enough to move their own dates.
This one ran three weeks late.
The steel came in short and we said so the day we knew. If you want a contractor who publishes that, the survey is the place to start.