I was the general contractor for a major addition to my house about ten
years ago. I was rather successful, and I saved a bunch of money. I think
the key is references and reputation. When you find subs with lots of
happy customers, you'll probably be one too. When I did my addition, times
were tough for the building trades, so it was easier to find willing
workers. The problem was that they were all hungry, so they tried to bid
on other trades jobs. The framers wanted to do the sheetrock. The mason
wanted to frame. I chose to stick to contractors working in their own
field, rather than provide on the job training for them. Today they're all
pretty busy and doing well. Many have more work than they can handle from
their "regular" general contractors. But it's still possible to find good
subs out there. If it was easy, everybody could do it, right? :-)
-Steve Trovato
strovato@optonline.net
> I attempted to serve as my own general contractor for the major remodel /
>expansion of my house and it was a failure to say the least.
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