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I've never had a homeowner that is not happy that they've gone over budget because they
realize that they get one good deal. How do we pick our projects? Alot of them come from
the mailbag and email. We get about 8000-10000 emails letters and emails a month from people
wanting us to do their house. Alot of people think that we pay for it, so those people
go away quick! But the letters come and some of the letters read, "I live in this little
ranch house. We've lived here with my two children, it's close to work, great neighbourhood,
wonderful yard but we need more space. Can you help us out? We went looked at him, loved
the homeowners, loved the space, though it was a great idea. We then hired an architect
to give us a new facelift to this home. If you look close, below the red line is the
little brown ranch house and these homeowners like all of them, not all of them but most
of them did go over budget a little bit, but this was one of the last projects that sweat
equity actually worked. Sweat equity is when the homeowners want to work alongside you.
They want to do something in the process like with the insulation or they want to do some
taping or whatever they want to do, its saving time, saving money. This homeowner actually
took time off work and worked along side of the crew every single day, he was a very hard
worker. Ryan Hygel. Great guy, hard worker. That was actually one of the last times that
PBS! Our oldest project ever, 1710, needed a little bit of work, siding is junk, windows
are trash, the roof had a big hole in it, chimney had a huge hole in it, the front door
was a couple boards nailed togethere, alot of leaks, alot of drafts, the floors were
crooked, the sills were rotted and the house was leaning back seven inches and that was
the letter. We lived in the oldest residential home and We'd love to do a little addition
and that's what caught our eye. So when we pulled up to it, we saw it. I said to the
homeowner, I said "You have $140 000 to spend on this house for this addition," I said "It's
going to cost $100 000 to fix the house." and they said "No, no, we don't want to fix
the house, the house is fine. We love it. It's old, it's charming." I said "Really?
The floors are crooked, all this." and they said "Yeah, that's charming. We just want
to add on." It's their money, so we helped them. So we added on. We added a beautiful
addition on, radiant floor heat, the whole works, super insulation but this is how they
wanted it. The manufactures that donated the windows, that donated the windows, they donated
the roof, they donated the siding, they donated the kitchen cabinets, they donated the heating
system, they all said "We would be more than happy to help with you out with that addition,
as long as you put our product on the building itself. So they had to then pay us to renovate
to building, but we used their material. Did they go over budget? Yes, they did go over
budget a little bit but for that budge that they went over, far surpassed the amount of
work that got done on the house. They got a great deal. I would say that the homeowners
are always happy when they go over budget because they realize that they get a great
deal.