MikeD74T has a realy good point. It's very rare that any of your subs will clean up after themselves and they almost never reuse a piece of wood. The sheetrockers are allot better at using scrap material, but the framers are in a hurry. No time to pull a nail out of a stud that didnt fit right or some other problem.
One job that I was on the framers put the walls up on the bathrooms before the tubs arrived. You can't put a one piece bathtub in through a doorway. So they pulled the studs out to get the tub in and threw the studs away. They just needed the nailes taken out to be as good as new, but nobody was going to do that.
Another thing that you'll run into is money issues. The basic process is to get the loan aproved from the bank. They will aprove a certain level of funds for your project and as each step is accomplished or finished, they will make the funds available to you to pay off your sub or supplier. The bank will require a bill for this showing it's been done or delivered. What happens with some subs is they are so broke or in dept, that they will try to get you to advance them a few bucks before they start a job. Most will be realy nice guys that seem very genuine and honest. Never front any money to a sub. The quickest way to have them disapear is to pay them for work that isn't already done and done right. Even if they finish something and give you a bill, make sure it's done to your satisfaction. This is what the GC does best. He knows what the framing should look like, the plumbing, wiring and everything else. We will only allow the subs to be paid when it passes "HIS" inspection.
When you act as the GC, than it's your call if the work was done properly and what you wanted. If they got lazy and try to cover something up, do it wrong or put something where it's not supposed to be, than you have to make sure they fix it. Never pay until it's fixed!!!
One of the bigger builders around this area has several crews of framers. Some of these crews are very, very good. He also has a crew that doesn't speak any english, or he had them at the time I was involved. He called me to figure out what was wrong with a particular job because the home owner wasn't happy and he coldn't get there right away. I was close by and went to take a look. They had put the windows in the wrong locations!!! A crew can frame a house in a few days to a few weekd, depending on how big or complicated it is. These guys spent two days and got it totally wrong before anybody caught them. They couldn't read english, or the plans, so they just guessed from the drawings on the plan.
He had to bring another crew in to fix that mess, make the client happy and do it correctly. He did this as soon as I told him what had happened, but it cost the GC money for this mistake.
Plumbers put fixtures in the wrong place or forget to put them in other locations. Electricians that say they are done but forget to put all the outlets in, or run out of wire and do an illegal splice and try to hide it. Cabinets that come in the wrong size or the door panels don't match. Painters that mix there paints and get the wrong color in a room, or totally forget certain things.
I've heard allot of stories like these. It's fairly common and something you have to realize before you start hiring people.
It can be done by a novice, and it happens all the time. Unfortunately, the novice is also taken advantage of on many occasions. Even when the house is done and they think it all went well, the problems only surface years later.
The inspector will only tell you what's illegal, not what's sloppy or of poor quality if it's not in violation of the law. He'll probably see it, but I doubt very seriously he'd mention it to you, if you even saw him when he did his inspections.
Good luck,
Eddie
Jason
