Hiring a General Contractor vs Dealing with Sub-contractors Yourself

Without knowing the things a general contractor deals with and more importantly the premium you will be paying for using their service, it is a daunting task to decide.

I went through that route. Invited couple general contractors to show them the property and talk about the project. Mine was a whole interior remodelling project. Regardless of their price, general contractors are in high demand, it wasn't easy to schedule a sooner appointment with them.

Some of them were representing a general construction company. They start with a presentation about how they work starting with interior designers etc. All inclusive service, those with a lot capital shall definitely go this way.

Some other looked to have promoted themselves from sub-contractor to general contractor, that is, they are specialized in one field and have folks to cut a deal in other areas. These ones sounded more reasonable since they were recommending not to do certain things to save me money. Wow, finally someone cares about my budget.

I was really hopeful that I could proceed with either general contractor with a reasonable premium. I was hoping like 10-20% premium on top of real cost of remodelling.

Well, I got the quotes. Construction company's quote made me think there must be a problem with the quote since that shall be the amount to demolish the house and build it back.

Promoted sub-contractor's quote was reasonable compared to another. Actually, it was reasonable until I got quotes from sub-contractors and crunch the numbers. The premium was more than 100%.

I asked them to break down the costs. They did. As shown below they were asking $40k for flooring while I have $18k quote from best rated flooring companies in town. And for the kitchen cabinets price it turned out that I'd be able furnish not one but five kitchens!

And it became quite clear that I was going on my own. The key to saving while remodelling is to "break down" the costs. For instance, I asked the bathroom contractor to break down the costs. Plumbing and floor tile turned out to be quite costly. I hired my own plumber and switched from tile floor to LVP floors in bathrooms just like the rest of home. This alone helped me save minimum $6k.

After a while each contractor understood that if they quote a high price for sub-task in a project they were going to lose that sub task. That turned out to be a quite useful approach.

While the savings were huge, that was far from easy.

Scheduling

Giving enough room for no show-ups or showing up too early problems will save some nerves.

Communication

With sub-contractors

I preferred texting over calling for confirming the conditions, price discussions and payment schedules. This was quite helpful since text messages are searchable. I had to go back again to check what we agreed on.

Putting forward all conditions and details is important. For instance I underestimated the cleaning and dumpster part for couple tasks assuming that the contractor would clean after themselves. Dumpster is not cheap; paid $400-$500 at least 6 times. And encountered contractors leaving the mess after them.

References are quite important when choosing the contractor. But do not hesitate to abondon them if things are not going as it's supposed to be.

Between contractors

Even if the contractors share the same mother language, they are not great at coordinating with each other. In one instance, floor installer called me complaining about door installer. I had to drive to the site. Well, the solution was easy; moving the floor installer to second floor and continue with first floor when door installer is done. A non-problem solved. Being aware of the human factor is important.

Shortly after this incident, I learned that the floor installer lost his mom. Poor guy was going through a lot stress. Being kind and not burnint the bridges behind you are important things. After a decent break the same guy was a life saver when it came to refinishing our stairs.