ᐅ House Construction – Hiring a General Contractor but Providing Your Own Materials
Created on: 31 Jul 2019 19:08
O
OliverHauser
Hello everyone,
my wife and I are planning to build our single-family house in the near future.
Before I get to my dilemma, I want to share a bit about myself.
I have been working for six years in a building materials wholesale company, primarily supplying roofers and carpenters.
Over the years, this has given me some technical knowledge—mainly theoretical.
In practice, of course, my experience is quite limited.
Now, since my company supplies both civil engineering and building construction materials, I can get these materials significantly cheaper.
However, I don’t feel confident enough to handle the installation myself, and I am also a bit hesitant to hire individual contractors, as there are many negative experiences reported online.
Whether it’s delays caused by preceding trades, defects that are hard for a layperson to spot afterward, or simply the challenging coordination between different trades.
In theory, I would like to hire a general contractor, but I wonder if a GC would agree to me supplying most of the materials while they only earn from the labor?
I admit I haven’t contacted a general contractor yet but plan to do so soon—I’d just like to hear your opinions and if you perhaps have any ideas on this!
Thanks in advance.
my wife and I are planning to build our single-family house in the near future.
Before I get to my dilemma, I want to share a bit about myself.
I have been working for six years in a building materials wholesale company, primarily supplying roofers and carpenters.
Over the years, this has given me some technical knowledge—mainly theoretical.
In practice, of course, my experience is quite limited.
Now, since my company supplies both civil engineering and building construction materials, I can get these materials significantly cheaper.
However, I don’t feel confident enough to handle the installation myself, and I am also a bit hesitant to hire individual contractors, as there are many negative experiences reported online.
Whether it’s delays caused by preceding trades, defects that are hard for a layperson to spot afterward, or simply the challenging coordination between different trades.
In theory, I would like to hire a general contractor, but I wonder if a GC would agree to me supplying most of the materials while they only earn from the labor?
I admit I haven’t contacted a general contractor yet but plan to do so soon—I’d just like to hear your opinions and if you perhaps have any ideas on this!
Thanks in advance.
Both a general contractor and their subcontractors need to make a living: it’s not from air and love, so it’s likely their profit margin. Trying to reduce the portion of that margin that comes from materials won’t make them any more cooperative. At the latest, when the general contractor has to schedule a different tradesperson to meet deadlines than they usually use—and assuming, ideally, that the replacement will agree to this deal—I foresee a possible bottleneck.
Save your material margin only when you are doing the work yourself, that is, only on self-performed tasks.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
Save your material margin only when you are doing the work yourself, that is, only on self-performed tasks.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
Hi, I also built this way.
At least the shell of the house. The shell contractor only charged for his labor time. I had to take care of everything else like the crane, excavator, and building materials, or decide from which building supplier I wanted to order. He then placed the orders and coordinated everything for me.
When I add it all up, I saved almost 40,000 compared to shell construction companies in the area that would have supplied the materials. And that’s even though I don’t work in building materials.
What I see as another advantage is that you have more freedom to choose which building materials to use. I left the decision about which type of brick to build with until the very end. In the end, I even invested a few hundred more in soundproof bricks, for example.
The argument that the contractor also makes money on the materials needs to be considered from another perspective. Because the client pays for all the materials directly, the contractor has less risk and won’t be left with losses if the client can’t pay.
In shell construction, the materials actually make up the biggest part of the cost.
At least the shell of the house. The shell contractor only charged for his labor time. I had to take care of everything else like the crane, excavator, and building materials, or decide from which building supplier I wanted to order. He then placed the orders and coordinated everything for me.
When I add it all up, I saved almost 40,000 compared to shell construction companies in the area that would have supplied the materials. And that’s even though I don’t work in building materials.
What I see as another advantage is that you have more freedom to choose which building materials to use. I left the decision about which type of brick to build with until the very end. In the end, I even invested a few hundred more in soundproof bricks, for example.
The argument that the contractor also makes money on the materials needs to be considered from another perspective. Because the client pays for all the materials directly, the contractor has less risk and won’t be left with losses if the client can’t pay.
In shell construction, the materials actually make up the biggest part of the cost.
P
Piotr198123 Oct 2019 11:22arnonyme schrieb:
Hi, I built my house the same way, at least the shell. The contractor only charged for labor. I had to arrange everything else myself, like the crane, excavator, and building materials. I also had to decide which building supplier to order from. The contractor then placed and coordinated the orders for me.
When I add it all up, I saved almost $40,000 compared to local shell construction companies that would have supplied the materials. And that’s even though I don’t work at a building supplier.
Another advantage I see is that you have more freedom to choose which materials to build with. I waited until the last moment to decide which type of block to use. In the end, I invested a few hundred more for soundproof bricks, for example.
The argument that contractors profit from the materials should also be viewed from another angle. Since the homeowner pays for all the materials upfront, the contractor has less risk and won’t be left with losses if the homeowner can’t pay.
For a shell construction, materials make up the biggest portion of the cost.I think that’s great. Can we share experiences? I believe there are definitely some good tips to exchange.
W
wurmwichtel29 Oct 2019 20:42OliverHauser schrieb:
...I don’t feel confident handling this myself, and I’m also a bit worried about subcontracting to various tradespeople because I’ve read many negative experiences on the internet... You always have stress.
I myself ended up with a botched job by a general contractor. 120 defects, multiple legal violations, a 7-month delay in construction time, financial loss for us: about 20% of the total construction cost.
In our case, he had to tear up the foundation slab (reinforcement knowingly installed incorrectly) and about 20 km (12 miles) away even a complete shell structure.
My brother had everything managed through an architect. He had troubles too, but nowhere near as bad as what we went through.
You should only supply building materials yourself if you are going to install them. No decent tradesperson would miss out on a business opportunity.
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