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Who carries the cost of temporary utilities if construction runs long?
Are temporary power, water, and site services usually part of a custom builder’s base price, or billed separately as the project progresses? I’d like to compare estimates without assuming they all define these costs the same way.
It seems useful to separate one-time connection or setup fees from recurring service and usage charges. How do builders typically handle temporary power and water, portable toilets, and extensions if the work takes longer than the original schedule? For a hypothetical project that runs several months past its planned duration, what should the contract say about who pays those added costs?
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The extension clause shouldn’t make the owner responsible for every month beyond the original schedule. It can specify how long temporary services are included, who pays to extend them, and how responsibility changes with the cause of the delay. For example, the contract could assign extension costs from builder-caused delays to the builder and costs tied to owner-requested changes to the owner. It should also explain how other delay causes are handled, rather than leaving those costs open to interpretation.