Hiring Home Builders - Your General Contractor is Not Your Plumber

You can't just get away with saying "Builder" any more. If you are building or remodeling your home, you're going to need building professionals at some point. Even as an "owner builder" you'll be working with industry contractors.

You need to know who these professionals are to plan and manage your project well.

Question: What's the difference between a General Contractor (GC) and a subcontractor?

Answer:

It's really a question of who manages the project. If you are managing the project as an Owner Builder, you are the General Contractor (or GC.) Tradesmen, like plumbers and electricians work for you.

Instead, you could elect to hire a GC and let him hire and manage these trades people (also called subcontractors/subs.) There is normally one GC and many subcontractors. This may seem obvious but the confusion comes in when so many people refer to both the GC and the subs as their "builders." Sure, they're all builders but they have very different responsibilities.

The Subcontractor Specializes

A plumber is a builder, an electrician is a builder, a roofer is a builder, an excavator is a builder, and so on. But, they all specialize in their specific expertise. They do not manage the entire home building project. They don't coordinate their efforts with other "builders." They simply perform their tasks.

These are known as subcontractors or tradesmen. They specialize. They do not generalize.

The General Contractor Generalizes

The General Contractor (GC) on the other hand, does generalize. The GC is more of a manager or supervisor and "Jack of all trades." He or she will take charge of the entire project, hire and fire subcontractors, manage their coming and going, inspect the quality of their work, keep the project moving forward, and ... hopefully ... report to you about what is going on.

Also, a GC may not do any labor and may have no employees. A tradesman will usually have a crew and manage his crew while being "managed" by the GC.

Keep this in mind if you plan to be your own GC. It's a big job and I recommend that you hire a Home Building Coach to assist you.

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