I still remember the Monday morning a junior project engineer burst into my office clutching a stack of new drawings. The HVAC subcontractor had discovered that the fresh-air intake on our mid-rise renovation would clash with a newly added façade support. The fix meant tearing out two weeks of duct work and ordering custom elbows—exactly the kind of surprise that turns a tidy budget into an ugly headline. Moments later my phone buzzed: a superintendent I had interviewed last month for another client was calling to warn me that his current job was “bleeding money on change orders.” Same story, different site.

These calls land on my desk because, in addition to recruiting field talent, I serve as an owner’s representative on a handful of projects each year. That dual perspective—hiring the people who build and then standing guard over the budget—gives me a front-row seat to the true cost of change orders and the many ways a vigilant owner’s rep keeps them from spiraling.

Why Change Orders Wreck Budgets

Change orders are not inherently bad; they are a safety valve for design evolution and unforeseen conditions. The problem is scale. Industry studies show that on large projects, change order costs often swallow 10-15% of the total contract value. I have watched that range balloon when no one is minding the store. On a grocery-store build last year, more than two hundred changes pushed plumbing labor 40% over the baseline. Multiply that across trades and you understand why the owner needed smelling salts.

The Triggers I See Most Often

  • Incomplete design documents that leave critical details to field interpretation.
  • Site conditions hidden behind walls, under slabs, or (my personal favorite) inside municipal records that were never verified.
  • Owner-driven scope creep, usually sparked by a late round of “Wouldn’t it be nice if…?” ideas.
  • Code revisions that arrive after drawings are issued for construction.
  • Coordination gaps among trades, especially when models are not properly clashed before fabrication.

My Four-Step Review Before Any Signature

When a contractor submits a change request, I put on both my engineer’s hardhat and my recruiter’s detective hat:

1. Scope validation: I walk the area with the foreperson who will execute the work. Seeing the issue in situ keeps everyone honest.
2. Cost benchmarking: I pull recent awards from similar projects and cross-check unit prices against regional databases.
3. Schedule impact analysis: A two-day delay early in framing can snowball into a month once finishes stack up. I plot the knock-on effects in our scheduling software.
4. Contingency check: We budget for risk, but I refuse to burn contingency on anything avoidable. If the request fails any of the first three tests, it goes back for redesign.

Negotiating Without Burning Bridges

Good negotiation is less about haggling and more about preparation. I keep the signed contract open beside me and lean on the best practices outlined in this detailed guide to negotiating change orders. We start with the language everyone already agreed to, price every line item transparently, and document field conditions with photos so no one’s memory gets fuzzy later. That clarity speeds approval for legitimate changes and shuts the door on padding.

The Owner’s Representative Safety Net

If you skimmed the job description of an owner’s rep you might think we simply “manage the manager.” In practice we function as human insurance. According to a recent breakdown of the role, our mandate covers financial stewardship, technical oversight, and day-to-day decision support. On my projects I add two more duties: talent screening for key site leadership and the stubborn insistence that every design question is answered before it hits the field. Those habits slash the volume of changes that even reach my inbox.

Planning Ahead: Preventing the Preventable

The cheapest change order is the one that never gets written. During pre-construction I invest long hours in design charrettes, model clash detection, and page-by-page spec reviews. The front-loaded effort feels tedious, but it is less tedious than rewriting purchase orders under a stopwatch. I also advocate for early trade partner involvement. When the mechanical contractor helps vet the electrical routing before bid day, everybody sleeps better.

Last month I toured a job where we had just poured the final slab on grade. The project manager pulled me aside and said, “We’ve issued eight changes so far, none above five thousand dollars. That has to be a record.” It is not a record, but it is proof that disciplined planning, transparent negotiation, and a sharp-eyed owner’s representative can keep change orders from devouring a budget. And that means my Monday morning phone will ring a little less often, at least until the next project breaks ground.