Ontario To Start Allowing New Construction To Start

Now that the Province of Ontario has announced that construction can resume next week things are going to start getting interesting and fast.

In some municipalities there are already a huge backlog of building permits that have been applied for and approved. Because of the restrictions building departments were allowed to review applications for building permits but weren't allowed to grant any permits.

Now the gun is about to go off and the race is about to begin. Residential construction is going to start in earnest. Between the fact that it has been a fairly dry spring and a lot of tradesmen have been running out of work or laid off because of all the restrictions, building will be starting and companies will be working long hours and as many days a week as possible to catch up and reclaim some of the lost revenue.

No matter where you are in Ontario if you want work done you need to start looking for your contractor NOW.

It won't matter if you are looking to Build a new custom home, renovating your cottage or even building a deck, finding a contractor that isn't going to be booked solid will become increasingly difficult if not impossible.

You have now spent the last 2 months sitting at home thinking about what you want to have done, you will need to start getting that contractor or the plans for what you want completed as soon as possible.

Something else your going to need to understand is that the cost of construction has not been reduced because of the pandemic. In fact it's actually driven the cost of a lot of the material up instead of down. A lot of manufacturing has slowed or stopped creating a short fall of material, this drives the price of the material higher and as companies continue to book farther into the future the cost of their services will go up as well.

A lot of companies including this one never stopped working through the pandemic as our permitted jobs were allowed to continue.

For people who didn't lose a lot of income during the pandemic (depending on their job) now is the time to get their construction projects finished, money is actually never been cheaper to borrow then it is right now with historically low interest rates.

The best thing for you to do if your not prepared to start this summer on a project then find the contractor that you want to use and book them for when you want the work to be done, no matter if that's 6 months from now or a year from now lock up your contractor before you don't have a choice and you end up with no one to do the work.

Rob Abbott
Great Lakes Custom Homes Inc.

Start Planning Your Spring Renovations Now

Even though winter has just started, if you are thinking about renovating this spring then now is the time to start looking around for a contractor to do the actual renovation.

When it comes to renovations your contractor will help you design and plan the renovations that you want to complete. With the design, planning and then the budgeting this can take up a month or more before you come to an agreement. Usually renovations have to go through 3 or 4 budgets with changes to materials and work to be completed until a deal can be reached between client and contractor.

Once you have designed, planned, budgeted and signed the contract with your contractor then you and your contractor are going to want to start ordering things for it. Certain things like specialty plumbing fixtures can take a month or more to receive, or a specialty wood flooring can take months to have made and shipped. It's best to have to find a spot to store the materials needed for the renovation then having to leave the renovation unfinished for that length of time that you are waiting on materials to be manufactured and delivered.

The more decisions that you get out of the way before the renovations start the less stress you will have to deal with when the renovations actually start. There will be plenty of decisions that you as the homeowner will have to make once the renovation starts. Changes and upgrades are always part of a renovation once it starts as walls are opened up and workers find things that require fixing or replacing. With everything planned and ordered in advance you can focus on the decisions that arise as the renovation proceeds.

With the 2017 residential construction season looking like its going to be extremely busy for all contractors in the area you should start to talk to them now before you end up at the end of a long list of people looking for renovations. If you wait to long your spring renovation might end up being a fall renovation because every contractor is to busy already in the spring working on people that called them in the winter.

Make that call or send that email to the contractor that you are interested in now, delaying till closer to the spring might find you at the end of that line that outs you into the fall renovation schedule.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.