A good one can save your time, money, and sanity

I’ve talked to many people who want to build homes or renovate and they often ask why they should hire a general contractor. Most of the time I think they are hoping to save money by acting as their own contractor. That can happen, but the reality is if you are doing a big project and do not have the experience, patience, budget and sheer will, there’s a great chance you will neither save money nor get the project done to you satisfaction. In most cases, a good general contractor will save you time, money, and sanity.

Part 1 – Saving Time
Certainly a licensed general contractor is going to save you time throughout a complex building process. An experienced contractor knows the ins and outs of the process and can quickly put together a plan to steer the project through a myriad of steps:

• Working with engineers on a site plan
• Drawing up house plans
• Obtaining permits and insurance
• Ordering materials
• Getting bids from sub-contractors
• Managing the sub-contractors and the site
• Managing inspections
• Doing the last clean-up pieces of the job
• Providing a warranty

Each of these steps involves several hundred million mind-numbing tasks, made all the more interesting based on the personalities with whom you will need to interact. And let’s face it, bureaucrats and sub-contractors are not always known for their communication skills.

In Part 2 – Save Money, we will look at how you can save money using a general contractor, especially when things go wrong.

Part 2 – Save Money

Part 3 – Save Your Sanity