Ok, snagging…..Imagine this…

It’s the last leg of your self-build journey. Everything is in, except you. You walk around your new home, marvelling at how far it has come. Then, you notice something in the corner of your eye. As you get closer, you see that the door those contractors spent two days installing is not shutting properly. Your skin begins to itch. You look around the room, suddenly suspicious of every detail in the house. “What else isn’t right!?”.

Welcome to the wonderful world of snagging.

Snagging is the discovery and eventual remedying of little mistakes and ‘hiccups’ that happen throughout your build. It is, unfortunately, a very natural part of the self-building process and, if not brought under some control, can quickly become a nuisance.

Here are four tips to make quick work of those pesky snags.

1.Dear Diary…

Keeping tabs on the different trades and the work they are getting up to goes a long way to keeping on top of snags and mistakes. You can do this by having a diary of works that go on throughout the build. It doesn’t need to be a blow by blow account of the individual nails being hammered into your home; it just needs to be a summary of who did what when.

A clear idea of what is going on during your build will help you retrace your steps when you find a problem. This way you can identify when the problem or mistake occurred and get to work fixing it.

This approach is especially useful when you are dealing with a problem that involves a lot of different trades. Very often in building, problems begin to emerge after a number of trades have been hammering away (sometimes literally) in the same part of the home. This might make it a bit of a complicated solution when figuring out who is responsible but at least with your diary of works you will know who are the likely culprits.

2.Get to know your home

Even the most hardened and experienced self-builder doesn’t know everything about everything. With so many different skill sets and expertise being needed to create a home it is nearly impossible to know the ins and outs of all of them. It is why we need to hire trades in the first place.

Once the experienced tradespeople have come and gone, we live in hope that their expertness will mean they have done it right. Unfortunately, humans make mistakes and when those mistakes start to leak from places you didn’t even know could leak, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Fortunately, you will have a diary of works (see point 1) and you will be able to identify who might be best to call to fix it. Yet, that still leaves the problem of knowing exactly what to say and how to say it. Yes, it can be as easy as saying “There is a leak” but being able to identify the problem with a bit more clarity will speed up the process and prevent trades from passing the blame around to others.

If you devote some time to getting to know where your money goes and what it is going into then you will be able to nip any problems in the bud long before they become a hassle.

3.Make a list, check it twice

It’s likely quite a few snags will emerge as time goes on. Like we’ve already said, they are pretty common. A scuffed surface here, a gap there. These little annoyances are little, but when a load of them gang up on you it can be a much bigger issue. The trick is to make a list and keep an eye on it.

Building work is very often a step by step process and if one step produces a lot of snagging then the next steps cannot commence until they are fixed. This isn’t a big deal if you are identifying problems early and getting them cleared away before the next step is scheduled to begin. Yet, if you leave them, and more snags begin to present themselves, you will find yourself buried in snag pile.

Keep a list of problems and defects to help you manage and schedule their remedying around the much bigger schedule of getting the house done.

4.Finalise the fine print

It is a common misconception to think that this is the beginning of a tug of war with the trade that is responsible for it. Most trades will happily rectify the mistake they have made promptly as it is in their interests to finish as soon as they can. However, in the imperfect world that is building, some trades might not be so quick to come and make good on their promise of stellar service. This is where the fine print of your agreement comes in.

To protect yourself from the scenario where tradespeople begin to drag their feet, make sure your contract has an agreement where you hold back a percentage of the costs. It doesn’t have to be a huge amount. Usually, around 2.5-5% of the agreed cost will suffice. This will cover any snags that might emerge during the build. It is super important to note that this is something you have to have written into your contract as, without that clarity, you could find yourself in a legal dispute.