Lackawanna & Luzerne counties · 27 years · PA HIC #PA000000
You get the schedule at the first meeting. Then we hit it.
A whole-house renovation is a dozen trades, six permit offices, and one homeowner who’s afraid of the process. We put every trade under one contract, hand you a dated schedule with the inspection milestones on it, and tie every payment to a phase that’s finished and inspected.
No large deposit. Change orders in writing. Every time.
Six things people are afraid of. Answered one at a time.
You’ve probably heard a horror story from someone you know. Maybe you’ve lived one. Here’s exactly how each of them is prevented on our jobs.
Projects too big for a handyman and too complex for a single trade.
Tell us about the project and get a realistic plan — not a lead form.
A budget band, a timeline in weeks, and the permit path.
Describe the project type, the scale, and the age and condition of the building, and tell us whether you’ll be living in it during the work. The tool returns a realistic planning band, a timeline in weeks with the inspection milestones marked, the permits that job needs in your municipality, and the decisions that would have to be made before work could start.
It’s a planning tool, so it returns a range wide enough to be honest. A firm number needs a walk-through — and for anything structural, drawings.
What are you thinking about?
A whole-house job on a time axis. This is what you’d get in week one.
Each phase is a bar across the weeks. The critical path is the dark run — the sequence that sets the finish date. The red diamonds are inspection milestones; nothing after one starts until it passes.
This is an illustrative sixteen-week schedule for a whole-house renovation. Your real one comes out of the walk-through and the scoping tool, with your municipality’s actual inspection points on it.
Money moves after work arrives and passes inspection. Not before.
A small, capped deposit
It covers permit fees and getting the first crew on site. It is not a third of the job up front, and it is not a percentage of the whole contract.
Draws tied to milestones
Each draw is released when a phase is complete and — where an inspection applies — signed off by the municipality. A calendar date never triggers a payment.
Lien waivers at every draw
We collect a lien waiver from every subcontractor at every draw, so paid work can never come back as a lien on your title.
Change orders, always in writing
Priced and approved before the work happens. If it wasn’t approved on paper, it isn’t built and it isn’t billed.
A pre-war Scranton house hides things. A real budget says so out loud.
A very large share of the housing here is pre-1940 — balloon framing, knob-and-tube wiring, plaster and lath over rough-sawn studs, cast-iron waste lines, and no insulation in the walls. Nothing is square, nothing is a standard size, and you can’t buy a 1920s door at a big-box store.
Anything before 1978 puts lead paint in play; before 1980 puts asbestos in play — floor tile, pipe wrap, siding. Those are regulated, real cost lines, not a scare tactic. Coal country adds mine subsidence and fill soils on top.
So here’s the most honest thing we can tell you: a bid on an old house without a contingency in it is a bid that’s planning to change-order you later. We name the contingency up front, we open things up before we price what we can, and anything we find is a written, approved change — never a surprise on the final invoice.
A realistic contingency on a pre-war house, stated in the contract from the start — money you approve only if we actually find something behind the plaster.
- 01Knob-and-tube wiringLive cloth-insulated wiring behind plaster. It has to come out, and it's rarely on the drawings.
- 02Plaster & lath over rough studsNothing is square and nothing is a standard dimension. Every opening is a custom fit.
- 03Cast-iron waste linesOriginal drain stacks that are often cracked, scaled, or pitched wrong under the floor.
- 04Undersized joists & balloon framingFloor framing sized for a lighter century, and wall cavities that run floor to roof.
- 05Lead paint (pre-1978)In play on any home built before 1978. A regulated, real cost line — handled to RRP rules.
- 06Asbestos (pre-1980)Floor tile, pipe wrap, and siding. Tested first, abated properly, never disturbed blind.
- 07Mine subsidence & fillCoal-country ground. We flag when the PA mine subsidence program is worth looking into.
Some jobs aren’t ours. We’ll tell you plainly and point you the right way.
Not sure which side of the line your project is on? One call settles it — no “get a number” button for these.
(570) 555-0142Credentials you can check, and habits you can hold us to.
Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.
We know the permit office in each of these towns, and we know how the process changes the moment a job crosses from Scranton into a township. Historic-district rules in parts of the city are part of that too.
What homeowners say once the job is done.
Request a walk-through — or scope it yourself first.
The fastest path is the scoping tool: describe the project and get a budget band, a timeline, and the permit path before you talk to anyone. When you’re ready for a firm number, we walk the house.
Scope your projectNo obligation. A single-trade repair? Call us instead — we'll say so and point you the right way.