What To Do With Leftover Building Materials

Additions / Construction / Custom Homes / Remodels

Leftovers from last night’s dinner are not only a money-saver, they can taste better the second time around. Leftover building materials from a custom building project or renovation are not so delightful, and can be quite bothersome to deal with. At A.C.T. Builders, we are professional contractors and would never leave your project looking like a tornado just hit from the Home Depot plastic bag factory. But the facts are, there is often some product leftover when your building project is finished.

Why Leftover Building Materials?

Planning for overage and the unforseen is an essential practice for any contractor. Consider the flipside — having too little. With paint, tile, or other products based on colors and exact matching, different production lots may have slightly different shades of color. If you run out of building materials from one lot and reorder, the match may not be perfect. Planning to have some extra at the end is how you avoid this problem.

Overage is always kept to a minimum, but in many cases it’s also a practical step taken for the future of your building. Accidents happen, and sometime in the years ahead you’ll wish you still had one of those original tiles, etc. If you have a few extras of select construction items, you’ll rest easy if anything untoward happens to your décor.

What If You Bought Something Yourself?

It’s also not unusual for a client to have a specific item that they purchased themselves and intend to use in a new construction or remodel project. Sometimes that item just doesn’t end up working the way you expected, and needs to be returned. If you or ACT Builders needs to return a product you purchased, here are some handy tips to make sure the return goes easily.

• Keep all receipts you acquire, and put them in one place. Just as in real estate, location is everything, and having a designated file, box or large envelope to store them in is essential.
• Label all receipts, jotting down on the back a brief description of the item. So if that gorgeous faucet you purchased for your master bath doesn’t work out, a well-documented receipt for item DLT-FCT-2830a will be most helpful when you need to exchange it for the correct model, DLT-FCT-2830b.
• While holding items for one big return of anything unused may seem like a time-saver, returning items quickly ensures you get a full refund. That gorgeous faucet for your master bath may not be refunded in full once it’s discontinued, so returning items promptly, in pristine condition, in the original box, with the proper receipt is the ideal scenario.
• Don’t save large quantities of building supplies for those just-in-case disasters. Keeping some extra tiles from a kitchen backsplash or bathroom is a great idea. But it’s not likely you’ll ever have a sledgehammer accident that requires dozens of replacement tile. Save the paint, definitely, especially for high traffic areas like indoor trim, doors and baseboards. Label all saved paint very well and seal it up completely. Stir it every six months to keep it functional.

When your custom construction project is complete, your new life is ready to begin. Find a good place to store your well-labeled touch-up paint. Keep the replacement tiles or other extra items in a safe spot. Create a file with the warranties and receipts for your big ticket purchases such as kitchen appliances or HVAC units. Let out a big sigh of relief — your space in Portland or Vancouver is no longer a construction zone!