Finding A General Contractor

If you have decided to build your dream home or remodel your existing home you will become quite familiar with the words, general contractor. This is the person you will hire to run your project, coordinate the efforts of all of the materials needed for the job hire the sub-contractors and take care of payroll for everyone involved. In other words your general contractor will assume all of the responsibility towards making your remodel or new construction, go as smoothly as possible.

You as the homeowner can of course be the general contractor of your own project if you choose to do so. But if you take on this role you would have to assume the duties of hiring all of your own subcontractors and handling payroll as well as ordering supplies and materials. Most homeowners simply don’t have the time to commit to being a general contractor or have the needed knowledge to make the endeavor anything but stressful.

If you have made the decision to hire a general contractor you should plan on interviewing at least three or four contractors before you select one. In fact if you are getting a bank loan for the home or improvement project you will probably be required to get at least three written bids. Who you hire will ultimately be your choice since you will be on the hook to repay the bank for the advance but the bank likely want you to hire the bid that falls in the middle. Of course your ultimate decision on which general contractor to hire will be based on more than just a bid price. You need to hire someone you are comfortable working with and someone that is professional.

You can judge how professional the person will be before you even hire them by how much effort they put into trying to get the job. Do they show up on time to meet with you and write up a bid? Do they turn the bid back into you within a reasonable amount of time? It is not too unreasonable to expect a remodel bid to take a week or more and a bigger project such as new construction to take even longer. After all, before your general contractor can give you the bottom line they have to get to the bottom line which means they have to check prices on materials and estimate the time and number of employees they will need to complete the job.

Finally of course you should take some basic precautions and check with the state contractor’s board to make sure your contractor has a current license in good standing and does not have any open claims on his record.

And of course, with a general contractor to take control of the project all you have to worry about is paying for it.