Contractor’s Guide to Avoiding and Understanding Cost Overruns

by Gary Stewart

Construction doesn’t have to run over budget. You just need the right systems in place.

In The Contractor’s Guide to Avoiding Cost Overruns, Gary Stewart shares practical strategies and hard-won lessons from over three decades in the construction industry. From early planning to real-time cost tracking and dealing with variations, this book offers a structured and honest look at what really causes projects to blow out — and how to prevent it.

Whether you’re managing a residential build, a commercial development, or large-scale infrastructure, this guide will help you sharpen your processes, communicate more clearly, and make better decisions under pressure.

You’ll

Why early design-stage mistakes cost more than you think

How to track costs and variations without drowning in spreadsheets

How poor communication leads to project chaos — and how to fix it

Where most contractors go wrong (and how to avoid it)

What to do when you inherit a mess halfway through a job

This is not theory, it’s real-world advice written in plain language for builders, site managers, estimators, and anyone serious about running tighter, more efficient jobs.

Kindle Edition

Published August 5, 2025

About the author

Gary L. Stewart (1937-2018) was born in Salt Lake City and raised as a Mormon. He held a doctorate in theater criticism from the University of Iowa and spent 36 years in academia. He taught theater at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMASS), and then at Indiana State University (ISU). He wrote two “Gabriel Utley” crime novels, several plays and Avenging Angel, an unpublished western that became a feature film starring Tom Berenger, Charlton Heston, and James Coburn.