This thread came just in time! I also Like Mike Webb. Good guy, so I really trust this referral.

Jake Green is the bomb! His team are the best. We have gotten quotes on all sorts of jobs on my grandma's cape cod in N Arlington and his prices are always the best. So far we have had him fix up several wall/ceilings and finished out the basement. We stumbled across him by chance when he was renovating the home across the street for a sale. Highly recommend him. You will be glad that he does not ever surprise you with bs add on charges and always respects the budget limitations of your situation. His crew gets there and actually works the whole time. We are planning on using him to do remodels of our bathrooms when we get the budget for it.

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Thank you for the rec! We'll give him a call. We're waiting on a few ballpark estimates at this point and we'll see where they fall. I shouldn't have been so surprised. When we did our larger renovation, there was a $150K difference between the highest and lowest. I suspect the larger contractors are getting more business again and don't want to be bothered with a "small" project unless you're willing to overpay them to do it.

I don't want to hijack, but can you tell me who you used for your larger renovation? We think we've been getting some pretty inflated estimates.

Thanks

OP again. Thank you for the rec! We'll give him a call. We're waiting on a few ballpark estimates at this point and we'll see where they fall. I shouldn't have been so surprised. When we did our larger renovation, there was a $150K difference between the highest and lowest. I suspect the larger contractors are getting more business again and don't want to be bothered with a "small" project unless you're willing to overpay them to do it.

Sure - it was Jake Green Home Improvement.

703-473-8489

He lives in S. Arlington and mostly does interior renovations, basements, etc. If you want a reference, you could contact Mike Webb (www.northernvirginiahouses.com). Mike referred him to us.

Jake is very laid back, but still professional. His crew was nice and unobtrusive. He knows how to deal with getting the permits pulled with the county. He was just launching his business when he did our basement, so I can't say for sure whether he would still be such a steal, but I imagine he would still be very reasonable.

Op here. Care to share the name of your "charm?". We will be shopping around. We are not in a hurry and can both wait for the right people and consider doing part of it ourselves if need be but it would be nice to just get it all done at once.

We got three quotes to finish our basement. Brand new house - did the bathroom (plumbing already there), installed some soundproofing in the ceiling, drywall, carpet, electrical. We did a storage room in which they built some shelves and painted the floor. The "big" item was that we had 2 of the small windows expanded to full-size windows.

We had quotes for $75k and $65k. Third time was the charm - $45k.

First two were larger companies. Third time was more of an independent contractor flying solo.

You can get it done for less - just spend more time shopping around. It sucks, but it can pay off.

#5 is not as easy as it sounds and it can be hard to find good hydronic guys (which seems odd given the number of boilers around here)

Still, having received a similar quote on a 1936 Arlington Cape for similar work (but adding $10K to raise radiator plumbing) I have to agree- these quotes are crazy.

Please tell me if I'm suffering from sticker shock or if I just got the world's highest quote ever for a basement reno.

We have a 1935 cape in Arlington. The main and upper floor have had a full renovation, and now we are looking at fixing up the basement, which is finished, but needs some pretty major repairs. I just got a quote for over 60K to do the following:
1. gut and reconfigure an existing (working) bathroom.
2. add a utility sink.
3. re-tile the existing basement floor (directly over old tile, so no leveling needed)
4. add a well-insulated storage space that we will finish ourselves into a wine cellar (basically moving a couple non-load-bearing walls and spray foam)
5. add a couple radiators to existing system (means running a couple pipes around and plunking in some radiators)
6. insulating an old crawl space that goes under half our living room.
7. taking out 1 non-load-bearing wall that does have some electric work in it which would have to be moved.
8 cutting a door in an existing wall.

It is possible that we have some hidden mold down there, but his quote did NOT include mold remediation - and I'm happy to pay for that, but it seems that for 60K, moving a couple walls, making a new bathroom, adding a couple radiators to an existing system and insulating a crawl space would not add up to that. I'd love to hear if someone else has done something similar, what it cost, and if you like who did it. Having done a reno before, I'm pretty aware of what things cost and this just does not add up for me.