Home Improvement - A Unique Transaction

If you’re a homeowner considering a remodel to improve your home, you may be wondering how to approach this potentially daunting situation. Looking at it as a transaction, the best comparison I can think of is the purchase of your home. In both cases there’s a process that takes place over a period of time. This process involves a number of experts who will, hopefully, provide guidance. They both involve significant budgets (possibly financing). There are legal considerations and contracts, and they involve your most important possession-your home, and your most important people-your family. In the case of remodeling, the list continues. It may take much longer than the purchase of your home. It will be physically intrusive-there’ll be noise, dust, traffic, and many strangers working on your home. You may have to move out or cohabitate with a construction crew. Needless to say this is a risky transaction. If things go wrong it can be a real nightmare. Fortunately, there are many qualified professionals who can manage the complexity of this process.

For a variety reasons some owners decide to do it themselves. The likelihood of costly mistakes will probably outweigh the advantages. Even those of us who have been building professionals for decades still make mistakes and continually learn lessons the hard way. We have years of mistakes, education, and training under our belts.

For stand-alone improvements, let’s say you need your roof replaced or your house painted, you should hire those specialty contractors yourself. I’ll share further perspectives on finding and vetting any type of building professional later. If you’re planning on improvements that involve multiple trades then you need a general contractor and probably a design professional. In order to improve buildings and make them more attractive and user-friendly, architects translate your needs and preferences into a set of plans and specifications necessary to obtain a building permit and to inform your contractor what to build. A general contractor organizes the effort of the many specialized trades into a unified, efficient effort. It’s misleading to think that remodeling your kitchen only requires you to hire a plumber, electrician, carpenter, etc. and buy some appliances and cabinets. Even armed with a good set of plans these parties are experts only within their trade and need a qualified professional to organize the effort. That’s the general contractor’s duty. The general typically employs carpenters and hires subcontractors for the specialty trades work. Carpentry is the trade that is involved from start to finish. That allows the general to maintain presence on-site in order to manage the subcontractors as well as perform the carpentry. Having relationships with a number of qualified specialty subcontractors and then managing them well is a significant portion of the service provided by the general contractor.

Comments

[kevin Angelo]

Your right Jerry. Most homeowners who do it themselves, wether its a bathroom addition or a simple laminate floor installation rarely factor in the "stress" involved. As for me, I welcome such stress and while I"m not a licensed contractor, the FIRST thing I tell someone who wants advice is to visualize what the end result is to be, develop and commit to a budget, and then address the stressors that will occur- debris, dust, timelines forremodeling tasks, etc.. Then hire someone whos work they've either SEEN first hand or know about. I've done whole house remodels ( minus carpet install) and other smaller remodeling projects for people who have gotten more for their money then they imagined. As well as correct the "hackers" who pose as licensed contractors and do not deliver.

What I am looking for is a company that will hire someone as skilled as myself. Someone WITH his own tools.truck, and the desire to bring a customers visions to fruition. I have been in the construction business for over 10 yrs, and seen first hand the shoddy work some "licensed contractors" do while they rip off others then call me to fix it. My motto is "do it right the first time then move on.