At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

I wouldn't give the mason anymore work,he obviously doesn't want or need any more of your money.
You could always ask one of the guys that did the previous brick work if they want to work on the side.

Shane

Shane,
The brick workers are gone now; we don't know how to get in touch with any of them when it comes time to build the porch steps.

I normally would not try to undercut the sub by hiring his workers on the side. However, the brick mason has forfeited his rights to common courtesies based on his lack of willingness return calls, show up when he says he will, or call us when his schedule gets rearranged. If I knew how to contact one of his workers that we liked, I would.

Obed

 

[Obed]

This is more for those who have been following this thread and thinking about being the GC of their own house. I don't want to be rude or insult anybody here, but felt that as a GC, a reply to this statement is needed

50% more by hiring a GC to build a house seems a bit excessive. To my knowledge, the going rate is 15 percent. The advantage to this is that he hires crews that he knows, gets them to show up when they need to and can usually get a better deal on materials. It's done right the first time and his subs don't try to pull funny things to either cut corners or over charge for what they are doing.

The other assumption that you mention about not making sure it's done right is insulting. There are all sorts of versions of "right." Some are code, others are common sense and then others are attention to detail. Obed has caught some pretty big mistakes by the guys he hired, and it's a good thing that he's beent there to inspect and catch those things. Assuming that good GC would allow them to happen in the first place is saying that he's not competent and knowledgable about what he's doing. This is the differnce between one who earns his money, knows what he's doing and has built up a reputation by doing it right over and over again.

When you consider hiring a GC, think about what you know about building a house. Most people don't have a clue all the little details that go into it, and what makes it a quality home and what just gets covered up with caulking and paint. Hiring a hack who doesn't know what he is doing, and doesn't care about the house isn't the same thing as hiring a professional who takes pride in his work, has years of exprience, a solid reputation, references and a waiting list on when he can get to you. This economy has been great for weeding out the hacks. The good ones are busy and making money. The hacks are out of work and blaming it on the "economy." There is more work out there than I can handle, and the guys that I respect and consider to be good at what they do are also as busy as ever, if not more so because the hacks are dropping like flies because nobody wants to hire them. Clients can be picky right now, and those without work have burned too many bridges.

Assuming that a good GC would not have done as good a job at building this house isn't true. While it's become a very nice house, it's also had it's set backs and mistakes. Obed has been very good at going back and correcting a lot of them, but there is no way to be 100% that he got all of them. A guy who has built hundreds of houses is going to see things that the rest of us don't even know to look at. He's going to go look at the plan and know right off where the problem areas are, and be able to explain to a client why they are problems, and might need to be done differently. If a sub does something stupid, wrong or doesn't show, he'll have resources to move on and get it done. This comes from years of experience. Something you can't get on your first, second or even tenth house.

What I admire about Obed is his honestly in looking back at his mistakes and what has gone wrong. This is why his home will come out fine. I also think it's what makes this such an good thread and something that everybody who is ever thinking about building their own house should read.

Sincerly,
Eddie

Eddie,
Your comments for the most part are right on and I agree with you. Being your own GC has many trade-offs, some benefits, some negatives.

Yes, our house would be finished now if we used a competent GC. There is no way we could complete the construction as fast as a GC could. However, when the building boon was going on in this area not too long ago, it was commonly taking 12 to 18 months to build a house; that's the schedule we are on now. Yes a good GC could finish our house in 4 to 5 months and a bad one could finish it even quicker.

Regarding pricing, I said the GCs bid the job at 50% more than we could sell the house, not 50% over cost. One GC supposedly bid the job at cost plus 12%; the other GC bid the job at cost plus 15%. What I can't figure out is how they came up with the "cost" part of their bids. The bids we got on our own were significantly lower than the "costs" that the GCs had on their bids so I wondered if they were padding the "cost" portions of the bids to pad their wallets. For example, the foundation and poured concrete wall bids of the GCs were about 40% higher than what we paid and I believe the foundation guy we got did an outstanding job. Cost plus bids are not always what they appear. I might have been willing to do cost plus 10% or 15% if I could believe that's what I would really be getting.

Yes, there are all kinds of versions of "right". However, when you, the bill payer, specifically state how you want something done, then there is only one version of "right" - the way the person who is paying for it says to do it. Many times we spec'd how certain things were to be done, often in response to suggestions made in this thread, and time and time again they still got missed.

For example, we told the framer to install a cricket here on both sides of the dormer. The cricket and kickout flashing were our solution to shedding water. Well, a cricket got installed on one side of the dormer but not on the other. The vinyl sub installed the vinyl on both sides without telling us the cricket was missing on one side even though the vinyl sub knew we were supposed to have crickets on both sides. My wife caught the error when she was on the roof working with the brick sub to grind a groove in the brick for the over-flashing. A GC would not have caught this mistake - unless he were up on the roof specifically checking this fine detail - very unlikely.

As another example, the roofer ran out of ice and water shield and tried to install the shingles in a valley without the ice and water shield. I just happened to be onsite at the time and didn't see the ice and water shield when the roofer was installing the valley so I climbed up on the roof to check it out. In my opinion, it is doubtful that a GC would have caught this. GC's for new house construction just are not on site that often. If we had been using a GC, we would not have been keeping as close of an eye on the construction and might have missed some of this stuff. While a GC might be good and his subs might be good, they will always have workers who will cut corners if not consistently watched.

These are just two examples where my opinion of "right" was not done and we had to have them corrected. Both situations were specifically stated as part of the job but didn't get done the first time. I could fill a book with other examples, many of which a GC who is only on-site less than 20% of the time (8 hours in a 40 hour work week) would not have caught.

Now, I'm not flaming GCs. A good one can save the owner a lot of time and stress; having a mediocre or bad GC is worse than not having one. Although we haven't yet finished the house and compared our final cost to the GCs' bids, I'm fairly certain that we will come in at a lower cost than if we had hired a GC, even considering the rework that a good GC would have prevented. In our case, the GCs were more expensive in dollars than being our own GC. However, we have many, many hours of our own time invested in managing this project so nothing is free.

Obed

 

[jcims]

I haven't checked for bowing but I think it's an illusion. The posts are pressure treated. We won't be painting them. I don't mind the back porch looking a little "rustic".

FWIW that bowing is generally called 'barrel distortion' and is a byproduct of taking a short focal length (wide angle) shot close up. Try taking the exact same shot by zooming in the camera to it's max optical extent and backing up until the picture looks the same. (Mind your step, lol). The posts will look more straight, but everything will be more 'flat'.

Same thing happens with portrait shots. If you take a shot too close, people will have a big nose and a football shaped head.

 

[mikefromnh]

Shane,
The brick workers are gone now; we don't know how to get in touch with any of them when it comes time to build the porch steps.

I normally would not try to undercut the sub by hiring his workers on the side. However, the brick mason has forfeited his rights to common courtesies based on his lack of willingness return calls, show up when he says he will, or call us when his schedule gets rearranged. If I knew how to contact one of his workers that we liked, I would.

Obed

Obed -- I'm sure I could say this more delicately if I took the time, however,
your level of OCD makes it seem like you might be a difficult person to work for. Not that what you want is wrong. There is just many different ways to accomplish the same end result.

There is a difference between being on site and micro managing. While expecting the subs to return calls is reasonable. Undercutting them because of bad customer service is a bit excessive.

Established GC's develop a sixth sense for people they will have a hard time working and often raise the price for the headache factor. They don't want to get bogged down on a job and have there subs mad. They will also know the best subs who will not look to cut corners.

Have you kept an honest accounting of how much you actually have spent? Including your missed work, travel expenses to pick up materials, your wives times, time value of money (tied up in unoccupied home) Legal costs or fees for living on site w/o approval etc?

House is looking good though

 

[eepete]

I've always claimed I'm borderline OCD, and most of the good engineers I've worked with are the same way. When you by a product or cross a bridge, do you want the people working on it to have a "Close enough for government work" attitude or do you want someone who has trouble sleeping at night worrying about stuff and triple checks even the minor details?

Yes, that makes it hard for engineers to get along with the rest of the world. And often each other :laughing:.

I was the GC on my house, it was a cost plus, was on site the whole time. Tracked my time and the value of what I did based on bids we got or prices we've heard of. I broke even at a minimum, and some of the stuff I did was so different that when I could get pricing for it it was sky high.

I think part of the discussion about the value of a GC is difficult because I see two different roles wrapped up into the concept of a GC:
The first role is someone with broad knowledge of the construction trade, a good list of competent subcontractors, and good logistical skills for the process.
The second role is that of a site manager- someone to be at the site a great deal of the time (I'd say at least 3 hours a day) to keep up on things and catch errors.
Note that it's very hard to get all this in a single person. I also think that people in general would not pay for a site manager as they don't see the value.

While I was the GC for my house, the design build group had the experience building houses and acted in the GC capacity for most of the job. I took over all grading, HVAC, electrical, sprinkler, and low voltage wiring.
My main role was as the site manager. Watching and catching things. Sometimes it was because I had a bigger view of the whole process than a particular sub. Sometimes it was catching errors or laziness of a sub. I'm sure that my borderline OCD engineering side made it hard for some, but I'm also sure it saved a lot of trouble. Like Obed, I could write a long list of stuff caught and stuff missed. On balance, things came out much better than if I was not here. Our old house had a site manager who was also a carpenter, so he could do a lot of stuff on the house instead of just standing around watching. Site managers also fill in the inevitable gaps between the trades and with ownership of problems. Most of the problems with that house were in the finishing stages when he was not around and the subs cut corners.
Another fun comments that I think speaks volumes about the majority of the construction and trades people out there. I have never had someone that did work for me ask me how it was all going a year later. So just how do they know that what they do is right, and how do they improve? Every time someone tells me they've been "doing this for years", I think about this.

Agree with Eddies comments. The biggest problem I see here is that everyday people have no way to qualify GCs and tradesmen. I wish Eddie lived close by- I'd work with him in a heartbeat. I've never worked with a GC who had that 6th sense, and if I found one I'd do all sorts of stuff around here with the GC.

Random viewpoints that I hope are relevant to the discussion .

Pete

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie,
Your comments for the most part are right on and I agree with you. Being your own GC has many trade-offs, some benefits, some negatives.

Yes, our house would be finished now if we used a competent GC. There is no way we could complete the construction as fast as a GC could. However, when the building boon was going on in this area not too long ago, it was commonly taking 12 to 18 months to build a house; that's the schedule we are on now. Yes a good GC could finish our house in 4 to 5 months and a bad one could finish it even quicker.

Regarding pricing, I said the GCs bid the job at 50% more than we could sell the house, not 50% over cost. One GC supposedly bid the job at cost plus 12%; the other GC bid the job at cost plus 15%. What I can't figure out is how they came up with the "cost" part of their bids. The bids we got on our own were significantly lower than the "costs" that the GCs had on their bids so I wondered if they were padding the "cost" portions of the bids to pad their wallets. For example, the foundation and poured concrete wall bids of the GCs were about 40% higher than what we paid and I believe the foundation guy we got did an outstanding job. Cost plus bids are not always what they appear. I might have been willing to do cost plus 10% or 15% if I could believe that's what I would really be getting.

Yes, there are all kinds of versions of "right". However, when you, the bill payer, specifically state how you want something done, then there is only one version of "right" - the way the person who is paying for it says to do it. Many times we spec'd how certain things were to be done, often in response to suggestions made in this thread, and time and time again they still got missed.

For example, we told the framer to install a cricket here on both sides of the dormer. The cricket and kickout flashing were our solution to shedding water. Well, a cricket got installed on one side of the dormer but not on the other. The vinyl sub installed the vinyl on both sides without telling us the cricket was missing on one side even though the vinyl sub knew we were supposed to have crickets on both sides. My wife caught the error when she was on the roof working with the brick sub to grind a groove in the brick for the over-flashing. A GC would not have caught this mistake - unless he were up on the roof specifically checking this fine detail - very unlikely.

As another example, the roofer ran out of ice and water shield and tried to install the shingles in a valley without the ice and water shield. I just happened to be onsite at the time and didn't see the ice and water shield when the roofer was installing the valley so I climbed up on the roof to check it out. In my opinion, it is doubtful that a GC would have caught this. GC's for new house construction just are not on site that often. If we had been using a GC, we would not have been keeping as close of an eye on the construction and might have missed some of this stuff. While a GC might be good and his subs might be good, they will always have workers who will cut corners if not consistently watched.

These are just two examples where my opinion of "right" was not done and we had to have them corrected. Both situations were specifically stated as part of the job but didn't get done the first time. I could fill a book with other examples, many of which a GC who is only on-site less than 20% of the time (8 hours in a 40 hour work week) would not have caught.

Now, I'm not flaming GCs. A good one can save the owner a lot of time and stress; having a mediocre or bad GC is worse than not having one. Although we haven't yet finished the house and compared our final cost to the GCs' bids, I'm fairly certain that we will come in at a lower cost than if we had hired a GC, even considering the rework that a good GC would have prevented. In our case, the GCs were more expensive in dollars than being our own GC. However, we have many, many hours of our own time invested in managing this project so nothing is free.

Obed

Obed,

I don't think it's possible to build a custom house like you are doing in 4 months, or even 6 months. The bulk of it should have been dried in within 2 months, but schedules, deliveries time to do it right would easily add another six months to the job. The nice the house, the more time it takes to get it right. Tract houses can be whiped out in 3 to 4 months easily. I built my 1,000 sq foot house by myself in 5 months and took four days off in that time.

I wouldn't sweat the time it's taking you, it is what it is and you will never regret spending more time to get it right. NEVER.

I can't speak for prices in your area or what you are experiencing. Those things are way to unique for every part of the country. I don't build many houses and don't want to. I'm a remodeler mostly and I like to go in to messed up jobs and make them right. That's what I enjoy, and it's where I make a decent living.

Something that you said stikes me as being very common and a huge concern in the trades. It seems that way too often a client wants something done their way and the contractor does it another way. I get paid to do what the client wants, but to do it legally, to code and to be able to gurantee it. I almost always do it the clients way, but with my own modifications to make sure it's going to last and be "right." If you want it, I'm going to do it. I will also charge you for it if it's extra, but most of the time, it's insignificant in my time or overall aspect of the job. Why every contractor doesn't do this is a mystery to me. Might be an ego thing, or just a stuborness to do what they want and the client doesn't count. I dont' get it, but since it's so common, I've made a point to let my clients know that they are paying the bills and it's their home, so what they want, is what I want. Heck, I might never see the job again, so I don't care what it looks like except to take some pictures of it and get a reference or referal from them. Doing it their way might be ugly in my opinion, or impractical or wasteful, but if it's their money and thats what they want, then I'm all for it.

For me, that referal is more important then anything else. That means it has to last and not be something to come up later on after I'm gone. It means being polite and understanding when my clients tell me they want it done differently or specific to their needs. Because of this, I think that's why I stay busy when others are out of work.

Your doing a fantastic job and it's going to be an amazing home,
Eddie

 

[brin]

" ( I don't think it's possible to build a custom house like you are doing in 4 months, or even 6 months. The bulk of it should have been dried in within 2 months, but schedules, deliveries time to do it right would easily add another six months to the job.) "

Eddie I have to respectfully disagree...Here is my part of Georgia, large a beautiful custom homes are routinely built from grading to finish in 4 to 6 months. In the past before this recent economy it was unheard of for a custom home to take much longer than 6 months to construct unless there were extinuating circumstances. Our house is 4,000 sq. ft. with a basement and it is a custom home..we had an architect draw up the plans and it took about 5 months to complete. Time is money and planning and knowing your subs and having a schedule and sticking to it is key as I am sure you know. When you have a home owner / GC trying to do part of the work himself..it delays the subs, derails the schedule and eats up time..Just my 2 cents.

 

[ruralruss]

Yes, that makes it hard for engineers to get along with the rest of the world. And often each other .

Pete, I assume the ee means Electrical Engineer. When my Engineer brother and me the Engineer get together we drive our wives crazy!

Russ

 

[eepete]

My wife is also an electrical engineer. We still drive each other crazy, but it's a short trip to a familiar location :laughing:.

Pete

 

[Obed]

The cabinet maker came out yesterday measuring for the cabinets. The cleanout in the master bath vanity is located right where two cabinets meet. That won't work. We're going to have to tear out the drywall here and have the plumber move the cleanout.

The vanity will consist of 3 cabinets, one cabinet for each sink and a center cabinet with drawers.

I'm not really sure how we could have prevented this issue.