ᐅ If you ask the homeowners, you will get an answer.

I am familiar with both approaches. We built a prefab house with a general contractor (GC) up to the stage where the interior walls were covered with plaster. We completed the rest of the interior finishing ourselves or subcontracted it without detailed execution planning. The same goes for the garage and the surrounding area.

I experienced the full spectrum:
- House construction: Excellent site manager, skilled crew, working without questions thanks to proper execution planning. Still, we discussed minor details every morning on site, and I answered any questions from the crew.
- Tradespeople who, despite detailed job notes (execution planning discussed on site during the detailed meeting), built things differently than agreed.
- Tradespeople who wanted me on site during the work to clarify questions such as laying patterns directly. In particular, the tiler discussed every little detail and sought the best—not the easiest—solution for challenging situations.
- Tradespeople who simply worked without proper coordination and got it wrong despite five rounds of explanations. For example, the “support” wall they built I ended up putting on the neighbor’s property, so it had to be rebuilt.

From experience, most people (including those without trade skills) go with the easiest solution for them…

Thank you for your responses.

Mycraft schrieb:
Huh... 2 years of house construction...

Yes, but one year of that was planning.

We are not working with a general contractor; we contract each trade individually. Therefore, there was no “selection day” for us, and we decide freely on the type, material, and quality for each trade, so everything remains open until the trade is actually carried out (and sometimes even during the work if new ideas come up), which makes things quite challenging.

One example: Our heating engineer broke through a wall for the underfloor heating pipes after the plastering was done. While doing this, he hit an electrical cable. If he had called me briefly beforehand, I could have immediately told him where the cables run at that point, but he just started chiseling. If I had been on site, I would have definitely asked myself about this.

I believe the problem I described exists because the tradespeople are usually not used to talking directly to the homeowners, but rather to the general contractor or the architect. In our case, however, we are the direct contacts.

Or maybe the tradespeople are afraid that we have new ideas :-) No, we are really easy to get along with 🙂

Silent010 schrieb:
Thank you very much for your responses.

Yes, but that includes one year of planning.

We are not building with a general contractor (GC); we assign each trade individually.
...
For example: Our heating installer later chiseled a passage for the underfloor heating pipes through a wall after the plastering was done. During this, he hit an electrical cable. If he had just called briefly to ask, I could have immediately told him where the cables are routed at that spot, but he just started chiseling. If I had been on site, I’m sure I would have questioned it.

🙂

Who is the site manager for your project? Is it you yourself?
As far as I understand, this person is the main contact, even when building with a GC.

Your example doesn’t strike me as a real problem, but rather just bad luck that comes with “things happening when multiple trades work on site.”
If you insist on being called every time a tool comes into contact with a building element, a tradesperson would have to call you constantly to check if something might cause surprises.
But this is neither realistic nor feasible—it’s rather impractical.
A tradesperson doesn’t make calls; they do the work!
And that work is done according to the execution plan. If things don’t go as planned, then it becomes a matter of improvisation—something an independent tradesperson should be capable of. However, that can sometimes confuse the homeowner who is not familiar with construction work. In home building, the focus is not on the process but on the result.

I can’t see your profession through Tapatalk—I’m assuming your job mainly revolves around phone calls and coordinating?

P.S. I couldn’t make sense of your forum thread title at all at first... it makes sense in context though... see, I saved myself a time-consuming inquiry [emoji6]

P.S. Our subcontractors have called us during the day from time to time. Those calls were actually about “do you really want it exactly as planned, or maybe done as I/others/currently (better suggestion) would do it?” They made decisions independently on technical details. Without specialist knowledge, I cannot advise them.

Well, sometimes the contractor didn’t understand us. When I said hole, he thought depth.

Building with a general contractor (GC). No external construction management – I handled that myself. Companies involved were the GC plus an electrician, a Dani, a plastering team, a screeding crew, a landscape gardener, Ikea, my brother, my wife, an acquaintance, and me.
I spent a lot of time on site. Everyone involved showed experience, suggested improvements, except for the plumbers, who were a bit dull and really needed close supervision. Not always did things go better when the boss was on site; without him, it was more like that Werner film, you know, gas, water, swimming pool technology, Rööööhrich at the device.
Well, at the end of the day, the heating system was installed and working, water was running, and the toilets flushed. What more could you want!
The highlight was the electrician’s apprentice who genuinely enjoyed his job and basically planned the wiring and outlets with me on the spot. Very practical, although he missed the mark with the telephone cable. Since we are in an FTTH (fiber to the home) area, he should have used one more conductor. But well, what can you do? The internet now runs over powerline adapters, and it works fine. Everything has an alternative in life – even Merkel learns that.
My carpenters were great too, Mr. S., saying, “This is how it’s planned, but I’d do it like this, it would be better.”
The Ahmeds, the screeding and plastering team, just did their job and didn’t bother with anything else. But they did a pretty good job.
So, all in all, everything went smoothly without a construction manager, just the homeowner – who had to be a particular kind of homeowner.
Karsten

Hello Silent, I could have written exactly the same... it was the same for us. We often asked ourselves the same question: why weren’t we asked? We had the problem that we couldn’t be on site regularly, and in our absence, things were often done (or not done) without consulting or even informing us. At the very last moment, we managed to take pictures of the loops of the underfloor heating because my son-in-law happened to visit the site. The next day, the screed was poured. Luckily, the tradespeople worked well and there were few issues. We repeatedly asked for better communication. But this only really happened with major updates, like “the windows are arriving next week” or “the garage will be delivered the day after tomorrow.” Interestingly, when we were on site, the tradespeople bombarded us with questions. In the final phase, when it was really about the visual details (facade, walls, tiles, flooring…), I was practically on site every day. And that was a good decision. I spent the whole day working in the garden (you don’t want to “disturb” the workers after all ;-) and if there was a question, I was within sight and earshot. That worked out perfectly. Best regards, Steffi33.