FAQ — Olczak Build

Your questions, answered

Straight answers about cost, process, and what design-build does and does not protect you from, including the questions other firms would rather you did not ask.

Cost & Pricing

We do not publish price lists, because a kitchen, a restaurant, and a ground-up project are priced in entirely different ways. What we do, before any design begins, is give you a realistic cost range for your project and your site, so that you know early whether the budget and the ambition match. If they do not, you will hear it in the first conversation.
Cost starts as a range and ends as a number. You receive a realistic range before design, a refined estimate at each design milestone, and a final, committed proposal before construction. The early figures are ranges, and we treat them that way; they narrow as the drawings develop. You are never asked to commit to building at a price you have not seen.
We catch it in the design phase when it happens, because the person designing is also the person pricing. At that stage, a correction is a conversation. The same correction after the drawings are finished costs real money on any project, however it is delivered, and we would rather have the conversation early.
Any change is priced in writing and approved by you in writing before the work proceeds. Most change orders come from gaps between the drawings and the field, discovered by a builder who did not make the drawings. Our team did. What remains are the changes you choose and the conditions no one could have seen.
Design is a defined phase within your single agreement, with its own scope and fee, and you will see exactly what it costs. What you avoid is the conventional gamble of paying for a full design and then waiting for bids to find out whether you can afford to build it. Our design fee buys a design that is priced as it is drawn.

Working Together

Accountability that cannot be deflected. When the designer and the builder are separate companies, every problem becomes an argument about whose fault it is, with you as the referee. Here there is no one else to blame. One team owns both the design and the construction, with licensure and insurance behind each. The independent checks remain: the city inspects at every required stage, your lender may inspect as well, and you are welcome to hire an owner’s representative, someone who works only for you. We work well alongside them, because our interests and yours point in the same direction, though many of our clients find they do not need one.
Independent checks don't disappear, either. Your city's building inspectors review the work at every required stage, your lender may inspect as well, and you're welcome to engage an owner's representative-we work well alongside them, because our interests and yours point the same direction.
A low bid is not a price; it is an opening position. Competitive bids go to whoever prices most optimistically against unfinished drawings, and the gap is recovered later through change orders. Our estimate is built in the open alongside the design, checked against current costs, and made by the company that will have to build at that number. Every trade we do not perform ourselves is bid to two or three subcontractors, and on open book agreements, where you see our costs, you see the bids. We will walk you through the estimate line by line.
Olczak Build is the name we build under. It is the registered trade name of Olczak General Contractors, Inc., which holds the construction license and your agreement. Olczak Group, Inc. provides the licensed architectural services within that agreement, and it is also our architecture practice in its own right, with work across the country that this site does not cover. California licenses architects and contractors separately, and each discipline carries its own licensure and insurance. For you, it is one agreement, one team, and one accountable party.
Yes. On a tenant improvement, we read the lease and the work letter, which sets out what the landlord provides, before we price the work, and we tell you which items the landlord's allowance covers and which it does not. The landlord's building rules and the city's permit path both go into the schedule from the start.

Timeline and Commitment

It depends on the scope. The city's review is the largest variable and the one we control least. What we do control, we compress: city reviews run while design continues, and early work begins as permits allow. You receive a realistic schedule at the start and a committed one before construction.
If it is a design-build project, you commit to the full design-build cycle at the outset, after a small first step that tells you whether the project is feasible. That is deliberate. The model works because the people who design your project are the people who build it, and the price we commit to before construction is only possible when the same team has carried the design from the start. What you get in return is a budget you watch move at every milestone, so that there is no bid day and no surprise at the end. The terms for pausing or ending a project are set out plainly in our design-build agreement, and we walk you through them before you sign.
No. Both are in house, and our best results come when architecture, interiors, and landscape are designed as one orchestrated whole, which is how most clients choose to work with us. If you have a designer you trust, we coordinate with them, and that coordination becomes our responsibility rather than yours.
Sometimes. We review the drawings first. If they are buildable and can be priced, we carry them forward. If they contain gaps that would surface as change orders during construction, you hear that before you are committed rather than after. We believe the best version of our model is designing and building together, but we would rather earn that on merit than by policy.
Three things: candor about your budget, timely decisions, and one voice when there is a household, a partnership, or a landlord to speak for. We give you a schedule of the decisions you will need to make, and when, so that they arrive on time rather than as surprises. On every project, however it is delivered, client decisions are the most common source of delay, and we have built the process so that yours are easy to make on time.

Practical

The East Bay and San Francisco, from our office in Berkeley. Beyond the Bay Area, our architecture practice, Olczak Group, works across the country, and that work lives on its own site. For an exceptional construction project outside our area, please ask; the answer depends on the project.
Both, and more than residential projects. We take on homes, tenant improvements, restaurants, hospitality, adaptive reuse, multifamily, ADUs, institutional work, and other projects where we can add value. A new building moves through the full sequence, including the city’s planning review, while many interior renovations and tenant improvements skip planning entirely and go straight to the building permit. Either way, you get the same team, the same continuity, and a budget tracked from the first conversation.
Yes, including the strategy. We file for planning approval early, so that the city's review runs while design continues, and we often file for the building permit before design is finished. Managing the agencies is our job; you should not have to learn how your city works.
Yes. Construction is performed by Olczak General Contractors, Inc., doing business as Olczak Build, CSLB License #1134484 , with Zach Olczak as the qualifier. Architectural services are provided by Olczak Group, Inc., under the responsible control of Zach Olczak, California Architect License #C-39869. Both companies carry general liability and workers' compensation coverage. Certificates are available on request.
Sometimes it depends on the scope, the systems affected, and honestly, your tolerance. We'll give you a straight answer during feasibility, including what phased occupancy would do to schedule and cost, so you can decide with real information rather than optimism.