Remodeling boom has a downside

The slowdown in new home construction has led to a surge in remodeling in the Columbia area.

That has left remodelers scrambling to find workers.

So why not hire all those folks who were building new homes?

It’s not that simple. The skills to build new homes don’t always translate to remodeling kitchens and adding on bonus rooms.

The control builders have working on a new Blythewood McMansion disappears in a 1920s Shandon bungalow that could have mold or faulty wiring behind the walls.

Jim Evatt has interviewed five people since the beginning of the year for a carpentry supervising job at his Columbia remodeling business.

All five were from the new construction industry, where they rarely had to use a hammer while overseeing building multiple homes at once.

They would all be good at “running a construction site from 10,000 feet,” Evatt said.

But he’s looking for somebody who can run the job while doing a lot of the work themselves.

In the past, Evatt would have hired workers eager to learn and trained them in how to be a remodeler. But the boom in business means he needs employees who know what they’re doing immediately.

“Every other remodeler I’ve talked to is kind of in the same boat,” Evatt said.

Building permits issued for new home construction fell 15 percent in Richland and Lexington counties combined in 2007 from the previous year, according to the Home Builders Association of Greater Columbia.

The news looks even worse this year. New home building permits were down 42 percent in Lexington and Richland counties for the first quarter of the year compared with the same period in 2007. They continued to drop in April, with a 25 percent decrease from April 2006.

But remodeling and home addition permits rose 33 percent in 2007, according to the Central Midlands Council of Governments. (Numbers for the first quarter of 2008 were not available.)

Chuck Grimsley, a Columbia remodeler and chairman of the Remodelers Council of Greater Columbia, said more contractors likely will start to get into remodeling if large inventories of unsold homes continue to linger on the market.

And all signs point that way.

Columbia-area homes — both new and existing — stayed on the market an average of 103 days in the first quarter this year — 17 days longer than a year ago, according data from the S.C. Realtors trade group.

The larger-than-usual inventory of homes on the market and fewer homes being built has left many in the new construction industry seeking work in remodling.

“They’ve got to try and do something,” Grimsley said. “(They’ve) just got to be careful. It will be a learning curve.”

With new homes, builders are starting from the ground up and have more control over the situation, Grimsley said.

In remodeling, contractors might have to:

• Deal with demolition.

• Move a power line or a meter box.

• Remove — or avoid — old oil tanks or sewer lines.

• Figure out what to do if they find odd things in walls, such as water damage, or unusual wiring or framing.

• Work with uneven floors or walls.

• Use different methods of cost estimating because of the unexpected.

“It’s just a whole different animal than new construction,” Grimsley said.

Philip Johnson is a builder who is looking to use remodeling to pay the bills until the market picks up.

Johnson earned a degree last summer from Midlands Technical College in construction technology with dreams of working for a new home builder.

When he started Midlands Tech in 2006, “the market hadn’t turned sour yet,” he said.

Since graduating, the 26-year-old Johnson has had a job offer rescinded from a major builder because of the slowdown in new home building and hasn’t been able to find a job with a builder or remodeler after more than 15 interviews.

His solution?

“I’ve had to start my own company” doing — what else — home renovations.

Reach Rupon at (803) 771-8308.