what are the advantages and disadvantages with being the general contractor of your own home. I know the GC i am talking to marks everything up 15% to cover his expenses and his pay. thoughts?

Disadvantage: It's a lot of work.

It depends on how qualified you are at managing complex technical projects effectively. And your knowledge of construction.

Don't bother if you can't do either.

blavis,
in general, homes built by an experienced builder are completed more quickly; saving you interest.

sub contractors (electricians, plumbers, heating guys) often charge more when the H/O turns builder (we charge about 15-20%) as inexperienced builders or homeowners will waste a good deal of our time (changes, extra meetings to decide "where to put.......", longer turn around to get to each draw (get paid)).

Lack of coordination between subs costs them time and you money as well. I charged more on a house recently because rough plumbing and electrical were done when I got there (creating extra challanges for duct installation). Doing things out of order makes everyone's job harder and can make quality suffer.

You may pay more for materials as well. GC's have access to better pricing on many things vs big box store that charges you as much for inferior product. GC's may also pay less than you for the same product at big orange store.

Lenders are less excited about projects without a professional GC. Interest rate might be higher on build loan or you may not get a loan at all.

You don't know what you don't know- "I thought bath fans were in your bid"....."sorry, the electricians usually get those"........"but you are doing the gas pipe right?"......"that's the plumbers job".......
Knowing what's not in your bids is just as important as what is.

Being your own builder has better odds of a project coming in over budget, later with a lower quality product- than saving you money.

All that said, some folks have pulled it off and had a great experience. The odds are simply not in your favor if you do not have a building background.

good luck,
joe

If you can afford it I would go with the GC.

For our project, I want to run the wiring and plumbing and many GC's in my area will not be the GC if the homeowner wants to do a lot of the work. They want to use their own guys, which is understandable since they typically will have a great relationship with the sub and get the job done quickly and efficiently. We simply do not have the budget for it -- our plumbing and electric quotes have come in around $25k to $30k combined if we were to use a GC (for a 2,000 sq. ft. house).

I should point out that our project is a major remodel and not a new build.

If you do use a GC, you'll still want to be on your job site inspecting the work pretty frequently. Even the best make mistakes and the sooner mistakes are caught, the easier to fix. Also, if you use a GC, when mistakes are made the GC and subs pay for any of the backtracking to fix the problem, but if you make the mistake you will be paying for it directly.

There is a middle path: Hire a builder as a consultant and pay him a flat fee. In past projects, the deal was for him to furnish a short list of acceptable subs; I would interview them and schedule at his direction; he inspected the house at completion points or once a week, whichever came first. The banker is happy and the subs are properly motivated. Owner builders by definition are onetime customers and first on the subs' no-show list.
Quality for an energy efficiency standpoint is less an issue these days because IECC 2009 requires a blower door test. If you want more than code, you'll have to know more about building envelopes than your average neighborhood builder regardless of who GCs. Quality in other areas comes down to materials and workmanship. It has been my experience that, in this market, a motivated owner/builder who has time and computer skills can find far better prices on materials than a builder who doesn't have time or computer skills or much motivation because it is not his money. An example: local flat roofers use EPDM in 10' foot rolls. I found a 25x25 sheet online for less money and zero seams. Workmanship is where your consultant earns his fee. My list of the trades ranked by error-proneness, best first: electricians, plumbers, hvac, masons, finish carpenters, framers, roofers, excavators.

Hi, I'm the GC for our project. It is the hardest physical work I've ever done, but it is also very rewarding. To date I've completed the 900' driveway, my husband's 30x50 shop, the well and septic. Three weeks ago I broke ground on the house. I think a Pro builder would finish our 2200 sq ft house in about three months. I figure we'll take seven months to get C.O. - and several years to really finish as some items (like the final kitchen cabinets, built-in bookcases, solar hot water) are slated for an "as can be afforded" timeline. We hope to do plumbing and electrical and HVAC on our own, and some interior finish work. Everything else is subed out. For me personally, this project is a fantastic life opportunity and I would have wanted to do it even it it cost MORE than hiring a GC. Some people want to climb a mountain, some people want to run a marathon. I want to build my own house and be a good steward of the land it sits on.

I came to the project with no previous construction experience, although I have a technical background and as a 20+ yr entrepreneur I've learned well "how to learn" and how to apply what I've learned. I'm fairly skilled at selecting and managing people and technical projects. I've come up a good bit on the learning curve for selecting, purchasing and managing (staging) materials. I've been reading/learning about residential construction for about 5 yrs prior to actually building - the favorite reading material at my house is The Journal of Light Construction. ;-)

As to advantages and disadvantages - that is hard to answer because of the wide range of situations, skill levels and goals in owner-builder projects. There are some good comments from others above. Below are a few of my own comments FWIW, based on my experience.

I'm able to directly control the level of quality of the project, often going beyond what a local GC would do for a typical customer, or even for a high end custom build. For example, I put geotextile under our gravel driveway, rigid foam under the shop and house basement slab and used an upgraded vapor barrier. I carefully oriented the buildings to take best advantage of passive (and possibly future active) solar. I am selecting window glazing based on the house-wall orientation. I want to use casement windows for energy efficiency, but want a more traditional look - which the window manufacturer can do, but is not the 'typical' request. It has been a real hassle working with the local window company to get what I want. No GC would have ever been able to spend the time to do this. It's not that the GC is lazy or greedy, it just would not make sense in a reasonable business model and I respect that, so I decided to be the GC.

I'm able to make decisions on prioritizing costs, knowing all the parameters of the project and what is important to our goals for the build. I'm not making these decisions based on a profit motive for an on-going business. Again, I repeat, it is not a bad thing for a GC to made decisions in part considering his/her bottom line. After all, if he/she wants to continue on in business, and build a better business, that MUST be considered - just as I would do in my business. But by contrast, as the owner and future occupant of the house working for free as the GC, I feel I'm in a much better position to make decisions on how to portion out the budget funds to meet our goals.

I'm able to spend time and effort in shopping for materials. I buy materials from the same supply houses and yards as contractors - not from big box stores. I also consistently shop Craig's List and "seconds" stores for items, as well as building material auctions. In so doing, I can make decisions about costs AND quality.

I'm deeply invested in the outcome of this project and I'm able to focus all of my time/attention on this one effort while a GC may have to be concerned with finishing up a previous job, looking for the next job after mine, and possibly running multiple job sites at one time. For example, in the house I live in now the on-site Foreman visited the site once a week. ONCE a week - that was the sum total of the oversight ... and in some respects it shows in the final result. Not all builders work that way, of course. But by contrast, I'm on-site every day, all day when work is being done (I get there before the first sub and stay until they're all done). I'm often on-site when no work is being done, doing clean up, prep work and generally making sure I facilitate the work of the subs. That being said - I do NOT hover over them while they work. I'm available on-site for questions (I'm in the shop often doing research or making calls coordinating the next phase) and I go out periodically to check the work. But I don't interfere or interrupt unless absolutely necessary. I've caught a few problems that were easy to fix then, and would have been much harder later. I facilitated a phone call between the on-site concrete sub and the designer over a problem (or ambiguity?) in the drawings. More than once a sub has given me notes to make sure the next sub does something a particular way, or has some bit of info to do the job better.

I've met a lot a good people and gotten to see and learn a lot of new things. I will not be the same person after this project is done - I will be the better for it. When I started this project I "bought" some time from a lawyer to check into the legal/liability aspects. The lawyer, who worked in the construction industry, tried to discourage me from doing this. The discussion was all about lawsuits and nightmare stories of shoddy work and disaster projects. Jeez - what a world view! I can honestly say I've met many new people that I would never have known had I not been working on this project. I've come to a new level of appreciation for how hard these contractors work day in and day out - often without a single person noticing what they do. I've found that given the chance, and appreciative customer, that they care very much about the quality of their work.

I've had an opportunity to learn new skills and push myself to do more than I thought I could.

Depends on how much you understand about the construction process, managing multiple contarctors, timelines, unforseen issues, weather, and your own life.  I'd say it's better to hire a contractor you trust and continue enjoying what you do full time.

It is great to be contractor to your own home. But it depends on your capability and expertise in different areas. If you are not expert to some fields like tiles and plumbing, you can hire someone expert. Even if we all know some of the needs being contractors but we still understand that we cannot handle all the construction needs.

Posted By BabyBldr on 19 Jul 2011 01:45 PM
We hope to do plumbing and electrical and HVAC on our own, and some interior finish work.

Make sure to get good design advice here. The highest quality home is still not comfortable without first rate HVAC system design/install/ducting etc.
j