Building a new house

[BimmerTom]

No discouragement taken. Out of curiosity (for my own sake), can you give an example of skilled trades overlapping a skill set?

We haven't gone into this project with a happy-go-lucky all will be great attitude, trust me. This has been 1+ years of planning and preparation, reading, studying, and meeting with subs, other GC's, and a lawyer.

We have contract addendum's drawn up so we can specifically stick to a quote and if any changes are made from that quote without a change order, we don't pay for it. All of our subs have worked with each other in the past, so that is a helpful thing. We also have lein waivers for all of the different types of work we will receive (partial conditional, etc), and commencement of work posted at the site. This is a legit operatioin. I've already had our plumber tell me we should become a GC because we have our stuff together better than anyone they've worked with. I'm not gloating, but planning and prepartion goes a long way. Sometimes experience can push those two important things into the shadows.

It hasn't been an easy road, I already had to dump one sub who was going to do the excavating, foundation, and framing. It was for the better anyways. Luckily, our pluming sub does excavating, who recommended a good foundation sub, who that person recommended their preferred flatwork person, etc, etc...

But, again I would love to hear some more details of what you talk about so I can make sure that doesn't repeat!

Thanks!
Tom

[twistednut]

I think what he is talking about is more prevalent in commercial work. For instance, who will be installing duct smoke detectors. Sometimes the electricians, sometimes the HVAC guys, and sometimes the fire alarm installers. In residential work, being an electrician, the biggest problem I have is the plumbers installing drains and vents in the way of my recessed lighting and the HVAC personnel installing their return air to close to the kitchen or in the way of recessed lighting or surface mounted lights. Hope this helps.

[BimmerTom]

In residential work, being an electrician, the biggest problem I have is the plumbers installing drains and vents in the way of my recessed lighting and the HVAC personnel installing their return air to close to the kitchen or in the way of recessed lighting or surface mounted lights. Hope this helps.

Good point. I have the HVAC and Plumber working together for rough-in in a few weeks. I didn't think about the can lighting. However, they are marked on the prints, so I'll make sure to show them to those folks to make considerations for them.

But still, this is all pretty exciting and gives quite a sense of accomplishment.

Thanks for all the advice!

[2Big4a3Series]

In residential work, being an electrician, the biggest problem I have is the plumbers installing drains and vents in the way of my recessed lighting and the HVAC personnel installing their return air to close to the kitchen or in the way of recessed lighting or surface mounted lights. Hope this helps.

You hit the nail on the head. This kind of thing happens on any house that is custom built (which is common in the industry). A conflict like this is really no big deal. The problems begin when there is nobody on site to see the problem and thus, nobody available to make a decision. For example, if the HVAC contractor sees that their air duct is going to obstruct the location of the electrical panel they need to know if it's OK to make the hall closet smaller to accomodate the relocation of the duct or if it is better to run the duct through another room and box it out. Or maybe the electrician has enough flexibility to change the location of his panel to accomodate the air duct. The GC is the one that can easily resolve that matter because he has developed relationships and synergy with the contractors.Being that most contractors do the work for a fixed price, time is money to them. If there is nobody on site to make an administrative decision or to assist with resolving the problem, then the job starts to get out of control. The HVAC guy does not have the time or patience to wait for an answer because he is on a very tight time schedule. He will finish his part of the job completely disregarding the electrician's new dilemma because he needs to get paid. Now you have a situation where the electrician AND the HVAC guy BOTH want extra money to fix the problem. And the mistake that many DIY homebuilders do in this situation is blame the contractors and say, "I won't pay you until you fix it." And the contractors will say, "We wont fix it until you pay us!" and while they have gone on to the next job, you are left high and dry trying to find new contractors to hire. And if you find someone decent, they will want to charge you extra to undo the previous mistakes before they start working progressively.Not too long ago, a buddy of mine asked me to help him finish renovating his rental property because he tried to be his own GC and had a ton of problems. He had the electrician run the wire for an outdoor light on the corner of the house. But that ended up being the exact same place that the gutter company needed to put the downspout. He asked me whose fault that was (thinking that I'd blame either the electrician or the gutter man) and he was surprised and offended that I said it was HIS fault for expecting the trades to cooperatively work around each other.Sometimes the crews of different trades are able to resolve conflicting work locations without GC intervention but that isn't their job. They are there to do the work more so than figure out how to go about doing it. You might save $40-$50K without a GC but it will end up costing you $60K to $70K in lost time, undoing mistakes, and back-tracking.

[e30pwr]

I would hope that since your the GC you will be having a good bit of low voltage speakers run for the garage and any "den"/man cave area so speakers can be in wall or hidden. Trust memy dad owned a low voltage company and I used to run cable and all low voltage in $1mil+ homes and its a PITA to try and retro a house. I'd advise doing it now.

Other than that it looks like a great house. I like the backyard alot.

[BimmerTom]

Well, it's been a while since I updated this, mostly because I've been busy with this new house.

All has gone really well with us being our own GC. Haven't had any scheduling problems, all of our subs worked well with each other, and things have moved very quickly. After framing started, there's only been 2-3 days of nothing going on at the house.

I installed all of the LV wiring myself, so it's a little overboard, but hey... Might as well do it, right?

We took an offer on our existing house, so if all goes thru, we'll have to be out on Oct 15. So, I now have a solid move-in date... :o

Well, onto the pics:



Gotta start with the garage...



Siding is done, just have to finish up the post wraps.



Great room with fireplace



Master bath looking out into the wooded back yard (my favorite view from the house)



Master bedroom with vaulted ceiling

It's been a lot of work, but still a lot of fun to see it come together.

Yes, if you are organized and have the time, being your own GC can really work out. Plus, having the right subs, it really can work out.

Tom