Starting Home Renovation? You May Not Have Factored In These Small Costs

You are already prepared to renovate your home. After a great deal of research and cost analysis, you have prepared a budget and you plan to stick with it. Well, that is good thinking, and that is what they all tell you to do. But, you might have missed including in your budget several small expenses that would pop up and leave you flabbergasted along the way. Let us pay attention to those little expenses, which may, as a combined force, assume a significant weight and start being burdensome, if they have not been factored-in already.

Housing society: If you live in an apartment, you will have to inform the housing society in advance and take its permission to carry out the renovation work. While granting the permission, the housing society will ask you to deposit some advance money as security, depending on the time period. This money, which may run in thousands, is refundable, provided no damages have been caused to the society during the renovation process in any manner. Additionally, the society might ask for charges to provide entry pass to the workers. This fee could range between Rs 25-50 per day per person.

Utility bills: Your monthly water and electricity bills would also shoot up — they may more than double — during the reconstruction period. Machines that will do the work run on electricity and consume loads of it. Additionally, bulbs and tube-lights would run all day long to keep the space amply lit. Similarly, water usage will go up – it would be used to mix the raw material used and daily cleaning up. You will also have to keep provisions for drinking water for the workers.

Food bills: In case you are living in the house while the renovation process in on, the house would be in too much of a mess to do the cooking, especially if your kitchen needs repair. Even if you create a make-shift arrangement in the meantime, cooking all the three meals in the house would be almost impossible. While the kitchen is being fixed, there would also be no provision to clean up the dirty dishes either. In such a situation, eating-out or ordering-in would become mandatory. This will increase the money you spend on your kitchen needs every month.

Material delivery: While making the budget, you may have included the cost of materials after doing a research. What you may not have included in the list is the money you will have to spend to get the construction materials delivered to your place. Even if you order the materials from markets close-by, each delivery will cost you at least a thousand bucks.   

Fuel bill: Since you will have to visit several markets to pick materials of your choice, you will be taking several trips to different markets. No surprises then that you will be spending more on your monthly fuel bill. Don’t forget to include the parking charges, either. When all of them accumulate, they will not remain loose change at all.

Junk disposal: It might not be possible to save stuff that is still in working condition during the renovation process. Even if you love the tiles that already adorn your bathroom, for instance, these will have to go as everything else is set to change. You will have to find their replacement. The expensive wood that was part of the cabinet and doors would also turn into waste material. The same is true of steel and iron gates that once cost you a great deal. At best, you will have to sell this stuff to a junk dealer, who would give you only peanuts for your once valuable materials. In case the stuff is all waste, you may have to pay up from your own pocket to get the stuff disposed.