Should I be my own general contractor?

If you are not extremely organized and have some background in construction I would say NO!!!! you dont want to be your GC.. YOu need to know the trade lingo and its a lot to learn....

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Gary in Central Ohio

How are you with conflict? Enjoy resolving disputes? Find scheduling problems fun? Good at regulations? Understand construction well?

If so, you'll love dealing with sub-contractors who don't meet their deadlines. Resolving the conflict of the cement truck being on site when the crew didn't show. Catching the shoddy electrician who'd running circuits not to code. Getting fined for not having the sediment containment pond the inspector told you last month that you didn't need. The excitement of that plumber you paid, who's now drunk in Florida. Etc.

Otherwise, hire a contractor, and let them have the fun.

We are subs - my dh is an engineer who used to do a lot of custom home foundation and septic designs. We got out of doing that b/c working with individual homeowners wasn't profitable. Many more phone calls, generally. However, some homeowners were ok.

One thing is, you have to know exactly what you want to do before you turn your plans over to bid. Making changes, having fuzzy dreams about what your house is going to look like, asking for multiple bids, or requiring extra hand-holding outside of a sub's specialty will cost you money and frustrate your subs. Lots of the homeowners thought that their foundation engineer could help them get well permits, building permits, or might help with floor plan design. My dh could do all that if work was slow, but would expect to be paid for his time at his regular rate, which is NOT the cheapest way to pull permits.

Always be looking ahead on your schedule. We got LOTS of last-minute, panicked phone calls for inspections. "The concrete trucks are here, the concrete is hardening, and the building department says we HAVE to have an engineer inspect the wall steel before we can pour!!!!! How fast can you get here???" This was a common "request".

Understanding not only the codes, but also the special conditions of your area is helpful, too. Do you have shallow bedrock? Expansive soil? High water table? Heavy snows? All of these will impact not only your costs but also your home design.

Don't get me wrong - I love the enthusiasm and joy of homeowners building their own house. It's fun to work with some of them, but it's hard to make a living that way. Good luck on your exciting project!!

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Tiffany
Heading back to blue skies and sunshine, homeschool mom to 4 great kids, grateful wife to a wonderful hubby

As a wife of a general contractor, I say hire it done. A good general contractor is worth the money. They do an incredible amount of work that most people never even consider. Codes are major things to be knowledgable about. Knowing good subcontractors and getting them in and out of the job in a timely manner is yet another.

Here's a few books:

Uniform Building Code Compliance Manual by Scott Parish Easy to read, many check lists, charts......make sure it's the latest edition as building codes change.

Be Your Own House Contractor by Carl Heldman Sample contracts, insurance info.

Practical Cost-Saving Techniques for Housing Construction by Bart Jahn lots of diagrams showing pitfalls & solutions.

Lots of information out there. You can do it. Patience is a virtue. Learn much before hand.

Note my tag line...

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Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible

Personally, I think it would be much easier to actually do your own construction than try to general contract a bunch of subs!!

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

I have a friend who is a gc, and I sure wouldn't want to try! I'd say try to do as much by yourself as humanly possible, then you won't have to sub contract everything. If you do sub contract, family and friends are a better option, because there should hopefully be a little more leeway than companies who will let you down. Oh, and leave yourself lots of time. If you have a tight time schedule to get the job done, i'd say you're in over your head, but if it doesn't matter when the job is finished, then you can work step by step and not have to worry about last minute frantic phone calls!

WOW! Thanks for all this advice.....

One more thing I should add.

I work in a job where I can take 1 summer off and burn all my time up. Additionally, I would like to do much of the work myself, with the help of some cheap labor via friends.

So once we get past the framing, I am fairly confident about much of the work to be done after.....siding, roof, exterior painting, plumbing (after foundation with pipes has been set of course), electric (very good friend is master electrician), heat/cooling duct work, drywall, trim/cabinets kitchen (hire out), interior paining, fixtures etc....

What I mean is, if we live out on the land, and hire out the foundation, framing and what not, could i just do the things listed above on my own time and then hire out the jobs I cant do as needed?

Time is not a huge factor, living wise, but i know the longer it takes the more i do have to pay.......

Ah, that changes things. Going DIY and no time issue is quite different. Sure, go for it.

We are considering the same question right now too.

We have no construction experience so I've been finding the basic info on this site helpful:

http://www.byoh.com/

As much as i'd like it to be another way, we will be getting a construction loan from a bank most likely. THis means you have one year to complete the project. With the clock ticking like that I see the possibility for a very stressful adventure.

One thing we are considering both to save money and simplify the process is modular construction. The gist im getting from modular builders is they can drop a completely finished house onto your foundation. Everything except the appliances. Or they can leave out whatever steps you want to complete yourself, flooring, paint, lighting, cabinets, drywall, plumbing ,whatever. In a way the modular builder is a GC since they bring many of the elements together in the factory; framer, roofing, electrical, plumbing etc.

So besides the modular builder we would need Excavation/foundation, septic,well, Utilities. Then we may need to bring in plumber, electrician etc for the much smaller job to the tie the house into utilities in basement. This is my rough plan though need to verify this with a modular builder.

I acted as my own GC for a house built in the country, where there are no codes. Don't know if anyone else has mentioned it, but I'd recommend you get workers comp to cover you in case someone gets hurt who doesn't have workers comp coverage. You'll find that some of the subs you hire don't have it.

You need to be very careful and AGGRESSIVE if you want to go this route. As a builder, I am currently working (for free) with my best friend who is in the process of doing a modular. The thing isn't even built yet and he is nearly worn out from the stress. The dealer is a scumbag, which is far from unusual. The product is pretty decent, and the factory is hell to deal with. They will accomodate absolutely no reasonable request, they want obscene amounts of money to upgrade anything and they want to delete items for as close to free as possible. They added 12 additional roof trusses to go from 24" centers to 16" centers. They got roughly 3X what the trusses were worth. They refused to relocate a fireplace to another wall in the LR, and could not provide an acceptable explaination. In the end they deleted a propane fireplace and refused to provide any credit. This battle has gone on for months now.
The modular industry could be FAR larger and more sucessful but far too often they treat customers as a targets, not relationships. I have talked to many of builders over the years who tried to switch to modulars but eventually decided that the pain isn't worth the gain. BTW, I live in one of the epicenters of modular manufacturing here in PA. There are dozens of manufacturers to chose from, but they have little market penetration in their own back yard, wonder why? They can be a great way to build, but WOW it can be a frustrating experience. There seems to be an undercurrent of slimy used car dealer that prevails in the industry. Almost like they look at every deal with an eye towards, "what can we get away with here? IMHO, I would find the best product I could afford, and not get into the game of customizing and deleting parts of the product. The dealer/builder will tell you "no problem, anything you want", but typically you end up losing. good luck.

Dh was the contractor for our house. (no big issue with time, although it does get old after 2 years)

He lined up the excavation & backfill, the concrete basement wall guys (one section of a wall blew out), the basement floor guy, and the carpenter to rough in the house as well as finish the exterior - siding, roof. DH did the waterproofing of the basement wall exteriors, put 4" of foam on the basement walls, laid the drain tile (opted to have the gravel under the drain tile "done" by the excavators - shoveling ourselves was just too much).

He designed and we installed the radiant floor heat, a/c ducts, did the wiring, insulating. By this time we were getting pretty tired...DH installed the sinks, showers, toilets, did the supply plumbing, but hired a plumber to do the drain plumbing (the bathroom allignment was all wonky.)

Then we hired the drywallers, the carpet, tile & hardwood floor guy. DH did all the priming and painting. We sourced, bought, had the millwork done custom, sanded and sanded and stained and sealed & installed all the woodwork ourselves, as well as the doors. Our carpenter came back as needed to do things like hang the doors, install the stair railings & treads. Cabinets we hired built & installed.

BTW - get the bids for construction (framing in) done on a labor only basis - set up your accounts for supplies as direct bill to you. We found quite a variation in those bids, and knew the work quality was similar.

What was difficult for us was the "weight" of the construction loan we had. We wanted to do as much as possible ourselves, but that increased the time frame, even though we were only paying interest. We knew the loan rates were going to start climbing, but couldn't change to a mortgage until the house was "done."

Yes, DH is pretty knowledgeable & handy. Would we do it again? Yes. Was it stressful? Yes, although it could have been worse. The biggest negative for us was missing a major part of our boys lives - they were 6 & 8, we had them helping/playing as much as we could, but many evenings & weekends they were with Grandma so we could "get things done."

Yes, if you want it done right and to have fun doing it. I do as much as I can myself. That means anything I'm legally allowed. I know how to design a septic system but I had to get an engineering firm to sign off and pay for that. Construction not rocket science. Heck, rocket science isn't all that hard.

On the other hand, if you don't have the inclination, the respect for tools, the safety consciousness, the dexterity then I would suggest hiring where ever you have weaknesses. Watch what they do. Learn. Maybe you'll do it next time.

One trick I use is I build gradually larger models. Starting literally with models, then dog houses, animal shelters, sheds, etc to test out techniques. One learns a lot by doing.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/csa

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids