Every renovation project is inherently optimistic, because homeowners start out with a plan to improve their home with visions of glorious new living spaces or at least a shiny updated bathroom galvanizing them to power through the less pleasant side of home improvement projects.

While most people come through the mess and expense and enjoy the results, the biggest fear of many homeowners is that they will be among the unhappy group who suffer from inflated costs, low-quality workmanship or an incomplete renovation.

The worst-case scenario for that situation, which thankfully doesn’t always happen, is that they will be forced to sue their contractors. Some are able to get all or part of their money refunded. But others never get repaid for their financial loss, much less the time and aggravation of renovation disaster.

Jay Timmons and Rick Olson, married homeowners in McLean, Virginia, never thought they would be among the unlucky group.

“We’ve renovated many homes before and had remodeled the first floor of our home with a builder who did an excellent job,” says Timmons. “Unfortunately, when we hired him again to redo our upper level and add a garage and bonus room, the experience turned into an absolute nightmare that was extremely disruptive to our kids and to our lives.”

The remodeling project at Timmons’ home was supposed to take one year and instead took nearly three years and cost 70 percent more than the original contract price.

Timmons and Olson, as experienced homeowners, anticipated some delays and hurdles during their renovation, but as the problems piled up and weren’t addressed, they became concerned.

“We ended up with a multipage list of incomplete items and defective work,” says Timmons. “The contractor reassured us that everything was fine but kept asking for extra money. We were stunned to get a bill of $100,000 in overage charges, particularly when our project wasn’t finished.”

Olson says that in retrospect they should have asked for receipts during the project instead of trusting their contractor.

Eventually, the list of problems grew to more than 300 items, some of them minor and some of them major, such as the lack of tile or a toilet in the new master bath. They hired an intermediary to talk to their builder after they couldn’t get satisfaction and, when the intermediary was unable to move the project forward, they hired an attorney.

“After 20 months, the builder abandoned the project with hundreds of items left incomplete, including the floors and the heating and air-conditioning system,” says Timmons.

The homeowners turned to Bowa, a custom design/build remodeling firm in McLean, for a renovation rescue.

“Unfortunately, we get requests pretty frequently from homeowners who are at an impasse with their contractor,” says Josh Baker, founder, co-chairman and owner of Bowa. “Our first recommendation is always to try and work it out with the original contractor because that’s the fastest and least expensive option.”

If the relationship with the original contractor is broken, if the contractor is unreachable or if the homeowners don’t trust the contractor to finish the work correctly, a new contractor can be brought in to examine the home.

“Often when we investigate we find that the work has been done so poorly that we have to start over from scratch, which costs even more money for the homeowners,” says Rick Matus, senior vice president of Case Design/Remodeling in Bethesda, Maryland.

Baker says a rescue renovation typically starts with approximately four weeks of research to determine what needs to be fixed and completed.

“Rescue renovations are far more challenging than projects we’ve designed ourselves,” says Baker. “The homeowners and the home are usually in distress. We typically uncover multiple problems that they didn’t even know about and that will cost them more money, but they also need to protect their investment in their home. On the other hand, the gratitude from people once we’ve fixed their home is tremendously satisfying.”

Timmons and Olson lived with their young children in their McLean home during their three-year drama, which included a burst pipe that had been installed by their first contractor in an unconditioned attic and not properly insulated. The water damage from that issue wiped out about one-third of the renovation that had already been completed, says Olson.

“We were living in the basement with our kids, who were 2 and 4 when this started, and now we have a third child,” says Timmons. “The original contractors had not taken appropriate steps to protect the house when they took off the roof, and we ended up with mold on the basement drywall and flooring. We moved into the unfinished upstairs while that was remediated, and then, after the pipe burst, we moved out for four months into a rental home. The disruption to our kids’ lives was terrible, particularly because the oldest was starting kindergarten by then.”

Once Bowa started work, its staff scheduled the work so that the family always had a place to spend time together in some part of the house.

“Having a full-time supervisor onsite, as Bowa provided, makes a huge difference in how a major remodeling gets accomplished,” says Olson.

Sometimes, a home improvement project is completed before problems appear.

“One client called us about 90 days after her contractor finished a barrier-free bathroom, which looked beautiful but had started to leak into the room below,” says Russ Glickman, president and founder of Glickman Design Build in Potomac, Maryland. “The homeowners wanted us to guarantee a repair, but although we could patch it, we couldn’t provide a guarantee because without tearing it apart, we didn’t know what other problems existed. We ended up remodeling the shower stall and rebuilding it, but we had to make sure that the shower door, which had cost $4,000, still fit.”

Establish payment milestones

Most contractors establish a work schedule with payments at different milestones, so it may be possible to find an appropriate stopping point or at least a time to re-evaluate the project, says Matus.

“Some of the triggers that indicate it may be time to stop a project are when the contractor isn’t showing up when he’s expected or when you’re consistently asked to pay extra money,” says Matus. “You should also call a halt if you see shoddy work or you ask an inspector to check the work. But, of course, when your house is torn open, the last thing you want is to stop. At that point, your only recourse is to find some way to get it finished by your original contractor or a different one.”

Whether you’re facing a failed project or are frustrated with the pace or quality of work on your home, how you handle the situation depends in part on your contract and your jurisdiction, says Glickman.

“First, read your contract because you may have a mediation or arbitration clause that will guide you,” says Glickman. “If you reach the point where you feel you must file a lawsuit, hire an independent, third- party inspector to review your contract and written plans to point out the differences between what was promised and what has been done.”

Glickman says photos and an engineering report, which could cost a few hundred dollars, are important to validate your claims against a contractor. The inspection and documentation will also be valuable if you need to bring in a new contractor.

“Sometimes when a contractor realizes you plan to bring in an inspector and file a lawsuit, they will jump back in and fix their mistakes,” says Glickman. “That should be the goal if the contractor is competent to do the work.”

If you do bring in a new contractor, their guarantee for their work depends on how far along you are in your home improvement project. Matus says that if the project is still in process, Case can come in and take it over and provide a warranty for all of it. However, if the project has been completed, such as a finished roof or addition, the company can only guarantee any additional work they do such as adding siding or flashing, not the entire scope of work.

“It’s always an individual call as to how to handle a renovation problem,” says Glickman. “If you don’t trust your contractors or they’re making your life miserable or they’re not showing up, then you may want to pull the plug. But if you don’t have the money to hire another inspector and another contractor, you may be willing to put up with more or at least give your contractor 30 days to fix the problems.”