Contracts are often asked, what’s a change order or what’s an additional work order?

And how do I avoid being change ordered to death?

Change orders should occur on two basic fronts:

1) Something happens immediately after demolition that’s discovered – a gas line in a wall that isn’t shown in the original plans has to be moved,

2) or the client changes their mind makes an addition or takes something out of the original scope.

When you take something out or put something in, it should generally appear as:
This is what the original price was with general conditions profit over insurance.
This is what the new item is with profit overhead general conditions and insurance.
This is the Delta up or down.

Now the death by change order is something that needs to be avoided at all costs.

To avoid this – make sure you call your contractors references and really understand the order of magnitude for the change orders, why they happened if they were all from their own initiative or if it was things that the contractor forced upon the client.

If they do it once they will do it to you.