Being your own General Contractor

[flusher]

I will be starting to build a new house hopefully in April of next year. I have been thinking of being the general contractor, but am not sure. I have had friends who have no building experience like myself successfully build a house being the GC. I have asked several people and its about half say it is easy to do as long as you are organized and are not afraid to tell the subs what you think or want. The other half say it is time consuming and to pay the extra 15% (est.) to have a hired GC. The thought of saving some $$ to put towards higher end items in the house is very inviting, but again what if that extra $$ goes away due to me not having any experience and mishaps occur.

I went to a homeshow last month and there are now companys who will assist you being your own GC. There is a charge, but from what I hear it is about half of a GC. Supposedly they will assist you with getting documents, subs, loans, etc.

I am looking for some advice and opinions from people who have been through a similar situation. Thanks.

I planned to be my own GC for an 1800 sf 3BR/2BA house on my newly purchased 10-acre plot (early 2005). After researching this approach, I decided to punt since, luckily, I found a manufactured home with a floor plan nearly identical to the one I way planning to stick build. Added a saddle roof, large front porch and 3 architectural Cape Code dormers. With a permanent concrete foundation/crawl space, total cost was $135K. Took 2 months to build in the factory and deliver to the jobsite (Sep05) and another 4 months to get it finished and pull the occupancy permit. Lost time because of the weather and competition with other customers for limited manpower to do the installation.

If you decide to be your own GC, the best advice I can think of is to hire an advisor to help you get through the job. A retired master carpenter is usually recommended for this work since these guys know pretty much what to look for in order to get the inspections signed off.

 

[Nissan197]

I planned to be my own GC for an 1800 sf 3BR/2BA house on my newly purchased 10-acre plot (early 2005). After researching this approach, I decided to punt since, luckily, I found a manufactured home with a floor plan nearly identical to the one I way planning to stick build. Added a saddle roof, large front porch and 3 architectural Cape Code dormers. With a permanent concrete foundation/crawl space, total cost was $135K. Took 2 months to build in the factory and deliver to the jobsite (Sep05) and another 4 months to get it finished and pull the occupancy permit. Lost time because of the weather and competition with other customers for limited manpower to do the installation.

If you decide to be your own GC, the best advice I can think of is to hire an advisor to help you get through the job. A retired master carpenter is usually recommended for this work since these guys know pretty much what to look for in order to get the inspections signed off.

Hire an advisor....I have looked into that and talked with a company "Your Homebuilding Partner" last week. Supposed to cost like half of what a GC will cost. They will set up the financing, handle scheduling of survey, excavation work, and foundation. They use a company called "Amwood Homes" who will build exterior walls, floors, and trusses. Those items will be built in a factory in IA and trucked to the building site where everything will be put together. They will continue to assist you if needed for the completion of the interior for more $$ or they will turn it over to you to hire your own subs to complete the work. Sounds inviting, but I am looking at several different options. I also have looked at the manufatured home, but cannot find a plan that the wife likes. Going to talk with some firefighter friends this week who have started building houses in the past year. They only have built six so far, but I will see what they have to offer. Has anyone heard of "Your Homebuilding Partner" or "Homestead Homes"? They deal in the same type of construction like stated above.

 

[gemini5362]

There used to be a company or still is as far as I know that does what you are talking about Jim Walters. I dont know if they are a national franchise or just local to the arkansas, oklahoma area. You might check and see if they are a franchise and are in your area.

 

[EddieWalker]

Beware of Jim Walter Homes. I can't speak for all of them, but I've worked on a few that were pure junk. Everything was the cheapest you could buy, from the windows to the doors and the cabinets. One home that they built had 7 foot walls!!!

I don't know where they get there materials because they we more flimsy than anything I've ever come acrosss. We have a few other home building companies that cut some corners, but this company seems to be the one I end up doing allot of repairs or upgrades on.

Eddie

 

[CurlyDave]

I am building a home right now, and even though we have a GC, it is still a lot of work.

My experience base is that I built my own home 20 years ago, and after my first experience with a sub, I never hired any more. I didn't get taken for more than a few hundred $, but the dynamic is that they want to get the job done for the least cost, and I wanted the right job and would rather spend $100 extra for quality. I did everything myself to avoid this problem. Unfortunately I can't do that this time around,

Right now, my GC and I have worked out an agreement that I will approve (and specify) all subcontracts. Subs and GCs will write and accept the most loosey-goosey bids I have ever seen.

For instance, the electrical sub bids a 400 Amp breaker box, x receptacles, y switches, z circuits. GC sees nothing wrong with this, and wants to take it "as is". I point out that he has not specified the brand and model number of the breaker box, has not specified wire type or gauge, has not said romex or conduit, has not specified the minimum number of empty breaker slots he will leave me for future work, has about 1/2 the number of outlets I think I want, and has not specified where any outlet will go, much less all of them.

Other than the number of outlets, I don't see any of this as a cost increase, but if I am thinking one thing and the electrician is thinking another, I am going to get what he is thinking, and I will be stuck with paying for it, because it wasn't specified.

With or without a GC you need to see and aprove every contract, and really get down into the details if you want to get it the way you expect.

 

[Tom_H]

Dave's advice is very good. I was on the site at least an hour every day and my CG who worked as foreman on a time only basis specked every detail like that when we talked every day.

 

[California]

I didn't think anyone could screw up hanging sheetrock.

When I stopped by in my lunch hour the job was going well.

When I got home from work and started cleaning up the mess, I discovered two places where they had sheetrocked right over a large scrap of sheetrock that must have been left leaning against the studs! Then they had concealed the bulge by leaning more scraps against the completed wall. Some problems you don't even think to anticipate.

 

[Tom_H]

...I discovered two places where they had sheetrocked right over a large scrap of sheetrock that must have been left leaning against the studs! Then they had concealed the bulge by leaning more scraps against the completed wall...

It amazes me how little pride some people take in their work.

 

[dfkrug]

I built my own house a few years back, and I have consulted on a
couple dozen concrete house projects in N Calif. I did about 80%
of the work myself on my house and the people I hired for the stuff
I did NOT do ran the full gamut of good to bad. I had to take one
guy to small claims ct (a soils engineer) and I had one guy disappear
after receiving his first pmt (paving contractor).

If I did it all over again, one thing I would do differently is buy a
Case 580 4WD Extendahoe/4in1 and do my major excavation myself.
Then I would sell the machine when done. The guy I did hire for
the major excavation was OK, but it cost me about $20K and dirt
work is not very precise. Doing it myself would have been more
efficient and less frustrating. I can buy a decent machine like the
Case (or equivalent) for under $35K in good working condition and
sell it for just a bit less if I take care of it.

 

[bigdeer2000]

the way i see it is the guy paying the bill gets the discount.when we built our house our gc gave us the price our house should cost to build plus his flat fee.he said part of his job was to buy quality materials at the lowest possible cost. we liked the flat fee idea,even though the fee seemed higher than some, we recieved all the discounts and could upgrade items like light fixtures , etc. by shopping around. we purchased some very nice light fixtures,lock sets,faucets,hardwood flooring online.our gc was fine with that as long as items were on site before they were needed.we had a very pleasant experience.flat fee seems to be popular here this gc has a waiting list about a year out