What Is a Change Order and How to Avoid Costly Ones

A change order is a written amendment to your remodeling contract that documents a change to the agreed work: what’s changing, what it costs, how it affects the schedule, and the signatures of both you and your contractor approving it. Nothing about your project legally changes until that document exists. Change orders happen because remodels evolve: walls hide surprises, homeowners refine their plans midway, and materials go on backorder.

Handled well, a change order is protection for both sides. Handled badly, it’s how a $40,000 remodel quietly becomes a $52,000 one. And which of those two projects you get is largely decided before demolition ever starts, by one clause in your contract that most homeowners never read before signing.

What Is a Change Order and What Does It Cover

Your remodeling contract describes a fixed body of work: the scope, the materials, the price, the timeline. A change order is the formal tool for changing any of that after signing. Think of it as a mini contract that rides on top of the original one.

A proper change order always contains the same five things:

What it names	Why it matters
A description of the change	Everyone agrees on exactly what’s being added, removed, or swapped
The price of the change	Itemized, so you can see labor, materials, and markup
The schedule impact	Extra days are a real cost; they belong on paper too
The date	Establishes when the change was agreed, not argued about later
Both signatures	Yours and the contractor’s; unsigned means unapproved

Anything less than that isn’t a change order. A text message, a hallway conversation, or a nod on the job site is a misunderstanding waiting for an invoice.

Change orders also run in both directions. If you drop the second vanity or downgrade a finish, a deductive change order documents the credit coming back to you, the same way an addition documents new cost.

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Why Change Orders Happen

Nearly every change order traces back to one of three sources.

The house surprises everyone. Demolition is the first honest look inside your walls, and older homes keep secrets: rotted framing under a window, wiring that predates modern loads, plumbing that crumbles when touched, subfloors stacked three layers deep. Much of the housing stock in Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County dates to the early and mid 1900s, so hidden condition change orders are more common here than in newer markets.

These overlap heavily with the hidden costs of remodeling nobody warns you about, and they’re the change orders you can’t prevent, only prepare for.

You change your mind. Once the space is open and taking shape, ideas arrive. The half wall would look better gone. The laundry could move upstairs while the plumber is here anyway.

These “while you’re here” requests are the most common homeowner initiated changes, and each one is a fork: some are worth it, some cost far more midway than they would have in planning.

The market changes it for you. Your tile gets discontinued. The window package goes on a twelve week backorder. A substitution has to be chosen, priced, and approved, and that approval is a change order even when the swap costs nothing.

One pattern worth noticing: the first source is about the house, but the volume of change orders from the second and third sources says a lot about how well the project was planned. A contractor who investigates before pricing, and a homeowner who locks selections before demolition, remove most of them before they exist.

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What a Change Order Really Costs

Work added midway through a project almost always costs more than the same work priced upfront, for reasons that have nothing to do with anyone taking advantage of you. Materials get rush ordered instead of shipped on normal lead times. Trades that finished their phase get pulled back for a second mobilization. The schedule shuffles, and idle days have a price.

On top of the raw labor and materials, added work carries the contractor’s markup, which commonly runs 20 to 30 percent on residential projects to cover overhead and profit. Some contracts cap change order markup lower and say so explicitly, which is exactly the kind of clause worth knowing about before you sign.

The compounding cost is time. Every change order pauses some part of the work while it’s priced, approved, and supplied. One small change might cost three days of momentum.

Industry analyses of poorly planned projects put the total damage from accumulated change orders at 10 to 30 percent of the original budget. That’s the gap between the remodel you priced and the remodel you paid for.

The same tile, chosen during design, costs you the tile. Chosen after drywall, it costs the tile, the rush freight, the return on the first order, and the week the shower sat unfinished.

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Your Rights Under Pennsylvania Law

Pennsylvania’s Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act (HICPA) puts real rules around change orders, and they run in your favor.

• Material changes require writing. A contractor can’t materially deviate from the plans or specifications in your contract without a written change order.
• Signed, dated, and priced. A valid change order is dated, signed by both parties, and states the price change. A verbal agreement doesn’t meet the standard.
• Time and materials work has a cap. On a time and materials arrangement, the cost can’t run more than 10 percent past the estimate unless you’ve signed a written change order approving it.

Refusing to sign has clear consequences too. An unsigned change order leaves your original contract in place, unmodified, and the contractor generally has no obligation to perform the extra work and no right to charge you for it.

The one exception cuts the other way: if you requested a change and the work is already done, you owe for it, signature or not. The law treats that as work you ordered. The protection, in both directions, is paper before work.

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How to Avoid Costly Change Orders

You can’t prevent the house from surprising you. Everything else on this list is in your control.

1. Finalize every selection before demolition. “Tile for the shower” isn’t a decision. The exact tile, the pattern, the trim pieces, the grout color: when those are locked in the design phase, materials arrive on normal lead times and nobody prices anything twice.
2. Write a detailed scope of work. Most disputed change orders are really scope gaps: work you assumed was included and the contract never mentioned. A clear scope of work before you call a contractor shrinks that gray zone to nearly nothing.
3. Read the change order clause before you sign. This is the clause from the top of this article, the one that decides whether your changes get a fair price or an open checkbook. It should require every change to be written, priced, and signed by both parties before the work proceeds, and it should state the markup applied to added work. If the contract is silent on any of that, ask for it in writing. A contractor who resists putting change terms on paper is showing you how changes will go.
4. Hire the contractor who investigates before pricing. An estimator who checks the panel, the attic, and the crawlspace, and asks about the house’s age, is finding problems while they’re still cheap to plan around. An estimate produced in fifteen minutes from the driveway leaves those same problems for demolition day, when they become change orders.
5. Hold a real contingency fund. Setting aside a remodel contingency fund of 10 to 15 percent, and more for an older home, turns a hidden condition from a crisis into a line item. The fund exists precisely so a rotted subfloor doesn’t force you to finance mid project or cut the finishes you actually wanted.
6. Decide fast when a decision is needed. When a genuine surprise appears, the meter runs while you deliberate. A crew that can’t close a wall waits on you. Same day answers keep a surprise from becoming a delay on top of a cost.
7. Batch your new ideas. Keep a running list of “while we’re at it” thoughts instead of raising them one at a time. Price them together, then let timing decide: anything inside walls that are currently open is worth doing now, and most things that aren’t can wait for a later project priced at normal rates.

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When Saying Yes Is the Right Call

Not every change order deserves resistance. Some are the house telling you what it needs, and a few are genuine opportunities.

• If it’s structural, safety, or code, sign it and be glad it was found. Rot, failed wiring, and code violations don’t get cheaper by waiting, and no honest contractor can cover them up.
• If the walls are already open, upgrades inside them (rewiring, new supply lines, added insulation) will never be cheaper than right now. Access is most of the cost.
• If it’s cosmetic and the moment has passed, price it both ways. A change that requires undoing finished work usually belongs in next year’s project, at normal pricing, not this one.
• If it’s verbal, it’s a no. Every time, no matter how small, no matter how friendly the conversation. Paper protects both of you.

This decision framework only works when your contractor prices changes transparently, and you can test that before hiring anyone. At 570 Remodeling, every project starts with an on site visit, a detailed estimate with fixed transparent pricing, and a clear written scope, and every change gets the same treatment: written, itemized, and signed before work proceeds.

If you’re planning a remodel in Wilkes-Barre or anywhere in Luzerne County, call (570) 938-4541 or request a free quote online, and see what a project looks like when the paperwork protects you from day one.

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FAQ

Are change orders normal in a remodel?

Yes. Most remodels see at least a few, especially in older homes where demolition reveals conditions nobody could see. The number and size of them is the real signal: a well planned project might have two or three small ones, while a rushed one can rack up a dozen. Zero change orders is rare on anything beyond a cosmetic refresh.

Can a contractor charge me for extra work without a signed change order?

In Pennsylvania, a contractor can’t materially deviate from the contracted plans or specifications without a written change order, and an unsigned change means the original contract still governs. The exception is work you asked for: if you requested a change and it’s already built, you owe the reasonable value of that work even without a signature. Keep every request on paper and the question never comes up.

Can I refuse to sign a change order?

Yes, for work that hasn’t been done. Refusing leaves your original contract in place, and the contractor simply doesn’t perform the extra work. For necessary work like a code correction, refusing doesn’t make the problem go away, so the practical move is to negotiate the price and scope rather than decline outright.

What should a change order include?

Five things: a clear description of the change, an itemized price, the impact on the schedule in days, the date, and the signatures of both the homeowner and the contractor. If any of those is missing, ask for it before signing. The document should leave nothing to interpret later.

How much does a typical change order cost?

It depends entirely on the scope, but added work usually carries the contractor’s standard markup of roughly 20 to 30 percent over labor and materials, plus any rush charges and schedule days. A paint color swap before ordering costs almost nothing. A structural repair discovered during demolition can run into the thousands, which is exactly what a contingency fund is for.

Does my contingency fund cover change orders?

That’s its main job. A fund of 10 to 15 percent of the project budget, and closer to 20 percent for older homes, absorbs hidden condition change orders without derailing the project. If a single change order eats half your contingency early in the job, treat that as a signal to re review the remaining wish list before committing to more.