"Old world craftsmanship" How NOT to pour footings

[EddieWalker]

I'm a do everything type of contractor. There are a few things I wont touch, but most of what's done to build a house, I do. I'm not against hiring out subs in the trades to do specific jobs, but in most cases, it's more hassle then it's worth. I'm not big enough to have people who will drop what they are doing to come do jobs for me, so it's luck and timing if I can get who I want, when I want them. Instead of dealing with new people all the time, I just do it myself. If I need sheetrock hung, I can call the guys I know who do a good job and see when they are free. They are good, reasonable and always busy. If I can't get them, then I just do it myself. I can do a house and pay myself the labor to do it before I can find another crew to come in or wait on those who are busy. It makes my clients happy to see progress. Nothing is more annoying to them then to have a quiet day at thier home. This is the same for most of the trades. Plumbing and electrical are very simple and straight forward, so I always do those. HVAC is regulated, so there is only a few things I can do for that. Insulation is the worse, but it's not hard, just painful. Painters give me the most grief. They come in, charge the most money and do the worse job. I'm really picky on the finished job and I'm always after them to do a better job. Trim guys are always the ones I seem to get along with the best, but it's also my favorite part of a house. Tile guys seem to be devided in half between those with other jobs trying to get into tile full time, or those who have been doing it forever and think it's rocket science. I do my own tile 90% of the time and enjoy working with the clients to do custom things that they don't expect.

The thing I love the most about being a contractor is doing different things. If I had to frame homes all day, all year, I'd go nuts. Same with any other aspect of it, but doing everything gives me new challenges and a break from doing the same old thing every day.

The money is good in all the trades, but the mental burn out seems to be about the same in all of them too.

Eddie

 

[bigdeer2000]

it seems to me that the guys who work for the sub contractors have a higher than normal rate of alcohol problems. several of subs in my area have gone to paying on mondays to get their crews to show up after the weekend.

 

[EddieWalker]

Drinking and drugs are pretty common in the trades, but what I've found to be the biggest issue is gambleing. Those guys are the very worse to deal with. Unfortunatley, allot of them are also the very most talented.

Eddie

 

[marimus]

Eddie, your comment on gambling made me think of the guy who did my dad's roof. He showed up on time, did fantastic work, and was on the phone to his bookie every hour, on the hour. He had a tiny radio that he listened to the horse races on, and i'm pretty sure he ended every day as poor as he started it.

To each his own I guess, but when you see such a talented guy who just barely scrapes by...

 

[wroughtn_harv]

""To each his own I guess, but when you see such a talented guy who just barely scrapes by...""

It's been my observation that when one's given talent a corresponding amount of common sense is removed. The more talent, the less common sense.......

 

[Builder]

I'm a do everything type of contractor. There are a few things I wont touch, but most of what's done to build a house, I do. I'm not against hiring out subs in the trades to do specific jobs, but in most cases, it's more hassle then it's worth. I'm not big enough to have people who will drop what they are doing to come do jobs for me, so it's luck and timing if I can get who I want, when I want them. Instead of dealing with new people all the time, I just do it myself. If I need sheetrock hung, I can call the guys I know who do a good job and see when they are free. They are good, reasonable and always busy. If I can't get them, then I just do it myself. I can do a house and pay myself the labor to do it before I can find another crew to come in or wait on those who are busy. It makes my clients happy to see progress. Nothing is more annoying to them then to have a quiet day at thier home. This is the same for most of the trades. Plumbing and electrical are very simple and straight forward, so I always do those. HVAC is regulated, so there is only a few things I can do for that. Insulation is the worse, but it's not hard, just painful. Painters give me the most grief. They come in, charge the most money and do the worse job. I'm really picky on the finished job and I'm always after them to do a better job. Trim guys are always the ones I seem to get along with the best, but it's also my favorite part of a house. Tile guys seem to be devided in half between those with other jobs trying to get into tile full time, or those who have been doing it forever and think it's rocket science. I do my own tile 90% of the time and enjoy working with the clients to do custom things that they don't expect.

The thing I love the most about being a contractor is doing different things. If I had to frame homes all day, all year, I'd go nuts. Same with any other aspect of it, but doing everything gives me new challenges and a break from doing the same old thing every day.

The money is good in all the trades, but the mental burn out seems to be about the same in all of them too.

Eddie

Where I live the money is MUCH better in some trades than others. Carpentry & masonry right now pays about 3/5'ths what the mechanical trades pay. My mechanical subs get bigger checks from me than say my mason or roofer on a comparable time/material job. The mech subs also have a higher standard of living compared to drywall, insulation, roofing, masonry, carpentry.

There's no way in heck I could make any money at all doing everything. I can't do all the excavatiopn, masonry, concrete, framing, then hang & finish 100-200 sheets of drywall, do all three mecanicals, insulate and frame and all the roofing for a large addition or house, then have anything left to do my yardwork, coach LL sports, play with the kids, etc. You must be doing smaller projects or one project/year.

I have 20+ years of experience. With the exception of building my own house I can state emphatically, that even if I was an expert in every trade, there's no way any customer would wait long enough for any one man to build an entire house or addition by himself. People want stuff done right, but they want it done in reasonable time frame, too.

In my area, most architects that feed me business refer to me as the "hands-on" builder, but I'm also the slowest in terms of job progress. The two are symbiotic. I'm hands-on, but I'm slow because of that reason. IOW, I try to do too much of the job. I lose the less caring customer who wants the job done quickly and I get the most picky, pain staking customers (I get lots of engineers) that like a "hands-on" builder. They want someone that's very involved in the day to day operations.

I've never met a GC/builder who can keep up with a professional plumber, electrician, HVAC, drywall or roofing contractor. You'd need a full time crew of 3 to do the size jobs I do on a regular basis.

 

[Builder]

Builder:

It sounds like you have done a good job of walking the tightrope of finding good sub-contractors you can trust and still maintain control over the areas of a house's construction where you can do the work yourself to your standards.

Not many are able to do that.

I'd say good sub-contractors are like good doctors, dentists, hair cutters, etc in that once you find a good one...stick with them. My doctor and dentist are anything but convenient for me; but they are good, I like them, and they are worth the trip. Fortunately I don't need to see them very often. I've been going to same woman to cut what's left of my hair for 12-years now. She too is not convenient to where I live; but she's good, doesn't overcharge, is fun to talk to, and is easy on the eyes. In any case, I combine errands into one trip when I have to see any of these people for their respective services.

You're a very wise man.

The thing with my business is, you have to blend high quality craftsmanship with practicality. No one man can do everything-jobs have to be contracted with reasonable time frames for completion.

As a builder/GC, you have to find subs you can trust and then use them. I'm proud to let them use their signs next to my sign. My customers get to know them and they enjoy them.

 

[Builder]

it seems to me that the guys who work for the sub contractors have a higher than normal rate of alcohol problems. several of subs in my area have gone to paying on mondays to get their crews to show up after the weekend.

Sad, isn't it? The main reason is to deal with the pain of not achieving what they wanted in life. Sit up on a roof in 100* sun for a whole summer for $25,000/ yr and see what it does to your outlook on life.

I can't agree with this type of behavior, and I don't allow it on my jobsites, but you have to walk a mile in a guy's shoes sometimes to understand it.

I'm not flaming you, I actually agree with you, but until we can appreciate the people who build the dwellings that protect us a little better by giving them more pay & benefits, you'll see a lot of very frustrated, sad people doing your construction labor. Look at all the illegal immigrants taking the labor jobs away from Americans....it drives the pay down even further until it's mostly all immigrants doing the labor. Then the same people who complain about the American guy with a drinking habit complain that there's too many "mexicans" working on their house. it's a vicious cycle.