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The budget is overrun.

Those four words would send chills down the spine of any homeowner who has embarked on a renovation or new-build project.

Often, with such a sizeable financial commitment, it’s the last thing they want to hear. It can keep them awake at night, anguishing over why they even went ahead with their plans and how they are going to afford to pay for the work.

But what if that uncomfortable situation could be avoided?

What if you were confident your contractor was able to remain true to the budget they sold you on?

Squamish-based Blue Water Concepts goes the extra mile to make that happen.

Unlike the vast majority of contractors in the industry, Blue Water Concepts employs a full-time, professional estimator on their staff to accurately gauge what it will cost for the project to be completed.

Far from “guesswork”, many other contractors will calculate prices per square-foot for a job, Blue Water Concept’s estimator employs solid quantity surveying principles.

“It can take a couple of weeks for our class A budget estimate to be done. Whereas, what you often get from another contractor is a budget produced over two or three days that doesn’t stick because they are basically throwing a dart at the wall,” says Mike Van Capelle, owner of Blue Water Concepts.

“We have a very defined and thorough process which takes a while, but is realistic since we are accounting for all of the items going into the project.

“Because of this, we are routinely under our budgets or within one to three per cent of the total cost.”

Putting the time and effort in at the start of a project to get the numbers as close to accurate as possible, is much more preferable than a contractor going “cap-in-hand” to a client when an unrealistically low budget needs to be raised to get the job done properly.

“We provide you with a budget we can stick to and avoid those difficult conversations many contractors need to have with their clients when the total cost of the project has to be increased,” Van Capelle says. “No one likes those discussions—neither the contractor or client.”

One outstanding result of such an accurate budgeting process is the fact Blue Water Concepts regularly refunds clients a portion of their deposit as work comes in as close as possible to what was projected.

“In some cases we’ve actually come in under budget to the point where clients get a cheque from us at the end of the project. Not something typical in our industry,” Van Capelle says.

If you would like to know how Blue Water Concepts could ease your home building budget anxieties, visit online at .