Last week’s rains are just the beginning for Rhode Island’s flood victims. Having been there before – flooding destroyed my home in 2006 – I urge residents with dry homes to show compassion to those who weren’t so lucky.

As emergency service crews retreat, media coverage fades and life moves on for most, thousands will remain displaced. Negotiating insurance claims, addressing environmental hazards and rebuilding can take years. I juggled these duties and my full-time job for a year-and-a-half, accompanied by two trash bags of belongings and some much-needed perseverance. As difficult as it was to migrate from one location to the next, I was fortunate to have a roof over my head.

I started a Web site (www.harvardtohardhat.com) to share the challenges I faced in having to rebuild my home and provide advice for homeowners to help put their lives back together. Perhaps it can offer a little help to Rhode Islanders who now find themselves in the same boat.

Take Photos of Everything!

Above all, keep your chin up (even when people ask “Are you back in your home yet?” and you want to slap them. They are just asking because they care). If you and your family are healthy, keep in mind how much more important that is than any construction or insurance challenge your will face.

Your home will be put back together, and it will be better than ever. And you will get a free education in insurance negotiation, contractor management and survival. Take it from someone who has been there.

As you identify a rough start date, keep in mind that it can take months to find a good general contractor. Actual construction won’t begin until you’ve hired your contractor, negotiated a scope of work and signed an agreement. In terms of your end date, since the odds are good that you will experience completion delays, I recommend allowing at least a two-month cushion after your job is finished prior to resuming your life plans.

The key thing is not to be shy about asking for price breaks. To the contrary, the average contractor has already incorporated some padding into his proposal and is expecting you to ask him questions about his estimates. As long as you are respectful in your discussions, and not squeezing the profit out of every excruciating detail, he should demonstrate a certain level of flexibility. On the rare occasion your contractor is unwilling to negotiate, thank him for his time and move on.

Another reason to begin this process early is that, whether you are purchasing these items yourself or your contractor is performing this service for you, evaluating your choices will take up more time than you can possibly imagine. It is far better to accomplish as much of this as you can up front, rather than having to do so on the spot during the course of your construction. Even the most organized contractors will require you to make certain decisions with little, if any, lead time. Further, there will be issues that arise unexpectedly, even with the most thorough planning. Finally, if you wait to order materials, there may be rush charges or additional complications should your favorite selections not be readily available. 

In order to minimize last-minute trips to Home Depot during work hours, rush fees and hasty decisions, I recommend making a list of any and all materials that appeal to you before your remodel even begins. If you are unsure about certain choices, remember that these need not be set in stone; obviously you can always change your mind as you approach the start date. Not only will you avoid future disruptions with respect to your time but, as mentioned above, you will gain an excellent knowledge of the cost associated with each of your options.

Ask probing questions: Review the bid line-item-by-line-item, questioning any cost that does not appear reasonable. If you are unfamiliar with the cost of certain fixtures and supplies, check the prices at a do-it-yourself store or on the Web. Assume that everything is negotiable, but focus on areas in which you can achieve the greatest savings. Questions like “The hauling fees seem high to me. Is there any room in those figures?” can save you hundreds of dollars.

Leverage intelligence from competing bids: If the estimate from your second-choice candidate listed a sliding glass door replacement cost that is $1,000 less than your contractor’s price, confidently state that you know it can be done for less. Unless you’ve already signed a contract, your contractor will recognize that you are still free to pursue other alternatives and should be willing to work with you.

Purchase supplies yourself: A great way to reduce your monetary commitment is to agree that you will procure certain items yourself. You can assume, for example, that if the contractor is responsible for purchasing the appliances for your remodel, there will be some level of mark-up over the retail price of the appliances. A good appliance warehouse will give you a discount for purchasing multiple items. If you purchase multiple appliances from the same manufacturer, you may also be eligible for a manufacturer’s rebate. Always ask for a contractor’s discount. Certain vendors may deny you the discount but, more often than not, they will not even ask if you are a contractor. Simply asking the question can save you five to ten percent, or even more.

Request lower-cost subcontractors (who you also know to be reliable): Another potential way to save money is to request an alternate subcontractor for particularly expensive items. For example, if the quote for the sliding glass door installation seems high to you, your general contractor may agree to explore working with a lower cost subcontractor who you recommend.

Refrain from discussing your budget: The one thing you should absolutely avoid during this process is answering any questions about your budget. Your contractor may try to gain a negotiating advantage by casually asking “how much are you looking to spend?” Do not answer this question under any circumstances. Of course, he will use the information to gauge how much you can afford and will negotiate harder if he believes price is no object. If he should attempt to feel you out on budget, politely respond “Why, as little as possible, of course!”

Insist on closed costs for every item: Every line item should have a price tag attached to it. Under no circumstances should you agree to “Open” or “TBD” for any tasks or materials other than city permits. When the scope of work is finished, it should be completely closed, with a final number that is documented as the total cost of your job. Your contractor may attempt to incorporate an hourly fee for certain installations, insisting that it is impossible to determine how long they will take. To the contrary, good contractors can estimate with a high degree of certainly the number of man hours required for each component of the project. While certain items may run a bit over, certain others will not take as long as expected. Either way, hold firm in your request for set fees, which can easily be calculated with educated assumptions about the labor involved.

Check your homeowners insurance coverage limits: Between mold abatement, structural repairs, personal property and hotel expenses, your total claim could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars – well short of the coverage many homeowners have.

Network for contractor referrals before a disaster happens: It took me months to find a contractor I trusted who was willing to rebuild my home within the budget I negotiated with the insurance company. If I had a short list of quality contractors and/or subcontractors at my finger tips at the time of my flood, I might have been able to get back into my home eight months earlier.

Store important records in a water-proof place: Imagine if you had to write down every item in your home, along with its purchase price and date. That’s just one of the many things tasks on your list when you lose your home, and I did it over three weeks in a hotel room with a very big pile of tattered receipts. To ensure that these records remain intact in the case of any emergency, place your records and receipts in a plastic or water-proof box in an elevated location within your home.

Have an emergency plan: Think about what you would do if your home was completely flooded. Would your valuables be safe? Where would you go? How would you keep your family calm? Having lost my home in an instant, I can assure you that it’s much easier to have an answer to these questions in advance rather than attempting to solve them during the chaos of salvaging personal property, fielding insurance calls and surviving emergency services.

First and foremost, be sure to save any and all receipts related to the inconvenience of being displaced from your home. This includes hotel (be sure to clear hotel arrangements with the insurance company first), restaurant meals and even the expense of developing your photos. Keep in mind that some insurance companies may have reimbursement caps such as meal per diems and clarify any of these items with the agent up front. In my case, for example, I was reimbursed only for incremental meal expenses above and beyond my regular grocery costs. It is, unfortunately, true that the odds of the insurance company proactively communicating this information to you are low.

Take photos of anything that is damaged, especially any personal property that needs to be thrown away (damaged books, towels, etc). You will need them later should there be any doubt in the insurance company’s mind that your claim is legitimate. If your insurance company sends an emergency services crew to pack up your belongings, make absolutely certain that you retain any receipts you’ve been saving. Again, you may need them as proof of the orginal purchase price of your items.

If you have the patience, I also recommend keeping a record of all phone calls and voice mails associated with the claim. I referred back to my voice mail transcripts many times during the course of my negotiations. If you simply don’t have the time to type up every voice mail, many telephone service providers now enable you to store your voice mails online by logging on to their Web sites.

I also built spreadsheets of damaged furniture, personal property, even contaminated groceries. Having descriptions of damaged belongings, along with the original purchase prices and purchase dates in one place, made it much easier to communicate the extent of my loss. I can guarantee that for every spreadsheet I compiled, my payout rose accordingly.

I also put my organizational skills to use in creating a one page document with frequently-used phone numbers. Since the early days of a home disaster can be truly overwhelming, it was a great source of control to have all the contact information I needed in one place. I included insurance company representatives, potential lawyers, contractor referrals and other impacted neighbors. This sheet was my bible for many months, and I can’t imagine having kept it all together if I had scribbled all the names and numbers on scrap paper and post-it notes.

some sample questions to ask.  Since every reference may not have time to answer each question, they appear in order of priority:

Questions for Contractor References:

Please describe the scope of work for your project.

When did the contractor complete the project?

Describe your overall satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the final product.

Did the contractor complete your project within the allotted budget?

Did the contractor complete your project on time?

Was the contractor respectful of your property?

Did the contractor maintain a tidy work site?

Have you engaged the contractor in more than one job?

Would you use the contractor again for future jobs?

Please describe the degree to which your contractor was reliable.

Please describe the contractor’s willingness and ability to solve problems.

How flexible was the contractor in making changes?

How responsible was the contractor in scheduling inspections and following up on correction notices?

Did the contractor charge for every modification to the original scope of work?

Was your contractor torn between your project and competing jobs?

How often was the supervisor onsite?

How was the contractor’s communication and follow-up?

Nearly all forms of construction on residential or commercial private property, whether new or remodeled, require building permits. If you plan to move walls, build an addition or remodel an entire room, you will definitely need a permit(s).

If your project constitutes a restoration, confirm that the city classifies your remodel as a “repair”. Otherwise, the construction costs associated with the project may be viewed as upgrades and added to your taxable assessed property value. 

Do not fool yourself into thinking that you can bypass the permitting process by staying under the radar. At the first sight of work crews or sounds of demolition, a neighbor may report your activities. If you live in a condominium building, a city official may spot your construction efforts while inspecting another unit. I hadn’t even begun to restore my home, for example, when I discovered a code notice on my door demanding that I halt all work. An officer had simply assumed that, since the owner of another condo that had been damaged in the building hadn’t procured a permit, I hadn’t either.

It is possible that you will come across a contractor who recommends skipping the permitting process altogether. If that is the case, do not listen to him! One of the contractors I interviewed for the restoration of my home insisted on bypassing the permitting process. Since he seemed quite knowledgeable and came referred by a highly regarded source, I came very close to hiring him. 

My now husband warned me that the risk of the work being discovered by the city was great, potentially exposing me to expensive fines and rework in the future. If just one of my neighbors contacted the city with a noise complaint, the building department could demand that all progress as of that date be demolished and redone with proper permitting. Fortunately, I listened to him. Later, I discovered that the contractor who insisted on circumventing the permitting process had left behind several unfinished projects, along with a number of unhappy customers.