Tert

What it is

Tert is short for tertiary. It’s a job on the scope of work that can slot into almost any phase without breaking sequence. Most renovation jobs have a mandatory place: electrical rough-in happens before drywall, paint happens before floors, carpet happens last. Miss the sequence and you rework. Terts are the exception.

The six-phase Larossa System is designed so that jobs always live in the same phase every time — it’s dummy-proofed so you never go upstream. But some jobs simply don’t have a mandatory place. They touch nothing the other trades need and nothing needs them before they happen. Landscaping in Phase 5 is a good example. Gutters. Exterior paint (sometimes). Pressure washing, roof clean, tree removal, fencing, concrete work, driveway sealing. These live on the exterior or the yard, don’t involve trades waiting on each other, and can be scheduled when crews are available or when weather cooperates.

Why it matters

Phase sequencing is what keeps the system predictable. Terts are the pressure valve.

In the Larossa System, there’s also the concept of audibles — planned moves of a specific job from its normal phase to a different phase for efficiency. An audible requires what I call the trifecta update: people know, money is right, systems updated. A tert doesn’t require any of that, because it never had a mandatory place to begin with. You can drop it in wherever without breaking anything. That distinction matters when you’re managing 3-5 trades on a 90-day timeline. You don’t want to be calling it an audible and doing all that communication overhead for a gutter install.

Terts are also my first cut when the juice in the budget is running thin late in the project. Gutters on a well-drained lot — maybe save $800 without affecting resale. Landscaping beyond basic mow-and-edge — save money without changing the appraisal much. Every tert is a potential budget lever in the final phase.

How it shows up

On a typical flip scope of work, I label jobs by phase (P0-P6) and terts get marked as flexible. When the schedule hits a weather delay on exterior painting during Phase 3, terts get moved up to keep hands busy. When a contractor finishes trim in Phase 4 a day early and has another day of labor available, I throw a gutter install at them if they’re competent for it.

The reason Phase 5 has the landscaping block, the roof clean, the concrete general, the extras — that’s where terts tend to settle by default because you want curb appeal as close to listing as possible, and there’s nothing stopping you from doing it then. “I also usually start out with the exterior paint here in phase five because I want to do that and the landscaping as close to the end as possible because, you know, people are bringing stuff in and they might nick stuff.” Same logic applies to the terts. Put them at the end where they’re visible, but know they could have gone anywhere.

Related

phases, audible, jobs menu, the juice, sub chunking, larossa system