Change Orders: What They Are and How to Avoid Getting Burned

You get three bids for your bathroom remodel.

Two come in around $22,000.

One comes in at $13,500.

You go with the low one.

Six weeks later, the final bill is $24,000.

What happened? Change orders.

What Is a Change Order?

A change order is a written add-on to your contract that changes the work, the price, or the schedule.

Some change orders are honest. The crew pulls up the floor and finds rotted wood nobody could see. Or you ask for something new after you signed.

Others are not honest. They are there to make up for a lowball bid that was too good to be true.

Honest vs. Made-Up Change Orders

Honest ones happen for real reasons:

• The crew opens a wall or floor and finds hidden damage like mold, rot, or old wiring.
• The permit office says something has to be brought up to code.
• You ask for an add-on or an upgrade after you already signed.
• A long job runs into higher material prices, and the contract already had written rules for price increases.

Made-up ones are a different story:

• The first bid was vague, so work you clearly needed "wasn't included."
• The placeholder budget amounts for materials were set too low so the bid would look cheap.
• Things you would expect to be part of the job were quietly left out in the fine print.
• The contractor claims a "surprise" that any seasoned pro would have seen coming.

A contractor who has done hundreds of bathrooms knows what is usually behind the walls in a house your age.

So "I had no way of knowing" is a red flag when it comes from someone who has been doing this for a long time.

How to Protect Yourself

Ask for the work in writing before you sign.

The more detail in the first contract, the less room there is for made-up change orders later.

If the contractor is fuzzy about what is included, ask them straight what is left out.

Their answer will tell you a lot.

Put a change order rule in the contract.

Your contract should say no extra work gets done or billed without a signed change order.

That signed add-on should spell out the new work, the cost of materials, the cost of labor, and how much longer the job will take.

Work done without a signed change order is work done on the contractor's dime, not yours.

Set a dollar line that needs your okay.

Some contracts say the contractor needs your written okay for any change order over $500. You can pick another number.

This keeps small charges from piling up without you knowing.

Worth knowing

When you compare bids, a number that is way lower than the rest is almost always a change order trap.

Use our YouSuperIntendIT Bid Analyzer to check all your bids against real market prices and see if a low bid is missing things it should include.