The Investigation Phase: Opening Up Existing Conditions Before You Price

Welcome

Hello, and welcome. This is Super Structures General Contractors — a national general contractor headquartered in Powhatan, Virginia — here to help you and your clients build something that lasts. We're glad you're with us, and we look forward to connecting with you.

Alright, The Investigation Phase: Opening Up Existing Conditions Before You Price. Don't let the plain title fool you. Here's the part that actually matters on the job: Price what you have seen, not what you hope is there — a paid investigation phase with exploratory openings turns hidden conditions into line items before the contract is signed. Learn it well and you'll stop funding other people's surprises out of your own margin.

The intro course told you to investigate before you price and to carry a contingency. This lesson is about how a working remodeler actually does the investigating: what to look at, where to cut, what the age of the house is telling you, and how the findings get written into the estimate so the contract is built on facts.

Why the investigation is a phase, not a visit

A one-hour sales walk cannot see inside a wall. Profitable firms treat investigation as a paid, scheduled step inside the design or preconstruction agreement, with deliverables: measured existing-conditions drawings, a photo record, and a findings report listing what was verified, assumed, and excluded. The homeowner pays for the time, you get written permission to open finishes, and the price that follows is a price on the actual house.

Walk the whole house, in order

• Outside first — grade sloping toward the house, downspouts, rotted trim, bowed siding, cracks in the foundation, and the condition of the roof and flashings. Water trouble inside almost always starts outside.
• Basement or crawlspace — joist direction, size, and spacing; girders and posts; notched or cut joists from past plumbing; sistered repairs; moisture, efflorescence, and termite tubes; the main drain material; the water service size and material; the furnace and water heater age and venting.
• Attic — rafter or truss type, ceiling joist direction, whether a wall below is carrying a purlin brace, old knob-and-tube wiring, vermiculite insulation (treat as asbestos until tested), bath fans dumping into the attic, and daylight at the roof deck.
• Mechanical and electrical — panel size, breaker space, grounding, aluminum branch wiring (common roughly 1965 to 1973), the gas line sizing, and duct runs that will have to move.
• The rooms in scope — floors out of level, bulges and stains, soft subfloor at the toilet and tub, plaster versus drywall, and the trim profiles you will have to match.

Exploratory openings

When the risk justifies it, cut a hole. Pick spots that will be demolished anyway or that are easy to patch: inside a base cabinet, in a closet, behind a toilet, in the ceiling of a utility room. A 12-by-12 opening with a flashlight and a borescope tells you joist size, header presence, wiring type, pipe material, insulation, and whether there is a second wall behind the first. Useful tools beyond the saw:

• Pinless moisture meter at every stain and around every wet-area fixture.
• Magnet to tell cast iron and galvanized steel from copper or plastic.
• Drain camera on the main line of any house older than about 50 years, especially with trees in the yard.
• Thermal camera on a cold morning to find missing insulation and hidden ducts. Photograph each opening with a tape in the frame, label it on the floor plan, and patch it clean before you leave.

What the age of the house tells you

Vintages are not guarantees, but they set expectations and the testing you must do before demo:

• Before about 1940 — balloon framing with no fire blocking, true-dimension lumber, plaster and lath, knob-and-tube, cast iron and galvanized pipe, and lead paint nearly everywhere.
• 1940s to 1970s — platform framing arrives; asbestos is common in 9-by-9 floor tile and its mastic, joint compound, textured ceilings, pipe and duct insulation, and cement siding; lead paint until 1978; aluminum wiring in the late 1960s.
• Late 1970s to mid 1990s — polybutylene supply piping, early CPVC, first energy-code insulation, and some panel brands with documented breaker failures that inspectors expect you to replace.

Writing findings into the price

The investigation is wasted if it stays in your head. The estimate and contract should state three categories:

• Known conditions, priced as line items: the rotted rim joist you saw, the undersized panel, the galvanized branch that will be replaced.
• Assumed conditions, stated with unit prices: for example, framing repair per linear foot or subfloor replacement per sheet if more is found.
• Excluded or unknown, named: the slab, the sewer beyond the foundation wall, anything behind finishes you could not open. Size the contingency from what you could not verify, not from a habit. A kitchen in a 1990s house with everything verified needs less than a gut of a 1920s house with closed walls, and the client should see the reasoning.

Going Deeper (Intermediate)

Investigation has a paper side. Pull prior permits at the building department; unpermitted additions and finished basements show up constantly, and discovering one after you sign puts you in the middle. Ask for the home inspection report from the purchase, old invoices, and any survey or plat; an addition that crosses a setback cannot be legalized by good carpentry. And measure the house yourself: old plans and the owner's sketch are routinely a few inches off, and a few inches is the difference between a 36-inch refrigerator fitting and not.

Advanced / Pro-Level

Pros run the investigation as a risk register. Each unknown gets a line: what it is, how likely, what it would cost, how you would confirm it, and who owns it in the contract. The expensive ones get confirmed before pricing; the cheap ones get a unit price; the unconfirmable ones get a named exclusion and a share of the contingency. On larger renovations, do a selective demolition phase under a separate small agreement: strip the finishes in the work area, let the engineer and the trades see the structure, then price the construction contract. It costs the client a few weeks and almost always saves them money and arguments.

Practice Challenge

A client wants a firm price to open the wall between a 1958 kitchen and dining room and relocate the sink to a new island. The basement is finished, the attic is accessible, and the client wants a number this week. What do you tell them? (Answer: you can give a number this week only with an investigation first — check the attic for ceiling joist direction and any bearing on that wall, open the finished basement ceiling below the wall and the proposed island to see joists, the drain route, and the venting path, test the kitchen floor tile and joint compound for asbestos before any demo, and then price known conditions as line items with a stated contingency for what the ceiling still hides.)

In Practice

A remodeler who walks the whole house, opens four holes, tests two materials, and writes a findings report signs a contract that already contains most of the surprises. One who prices from the kitchen doorway finds the same surprises on demo day, with no money set aside and a client who thinks the price was the price.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Pricing a gut remodel without entering the basement, crawlspace, or attic
• Cutting exploratory openings without written permission and a plan to patch them
• Trusting old drawings or the owner's measurements instead of measuring
• Treating contingency as a fixed percentage instead of a sized response to what you could not see
• Leaving findings out of the contract so they become arguments later

Takeaway: Price what you have seen, not what you hope is there — a paid investigation phase with exploratory openings turns hidden conditions into line items before the contract is signed.

Educational content only — not structural design, engineering, legal, or safety advice, and not a substitute for hands-on training under a licensed contractor or the judgment of a licensed design professional. Lead, asbestos, and mold work must be performed by certified or licensed firms under federal, state, and local rules. Follow the IRC, IEBC, NEC, and plumbing and mechanical codes as adopted and amended in your jurisdiction, OSHA 29 CFR 1926, the manufacturer's installation instructions, and your company's procedures.