ᐅ Realistic Construction Time for a Bungalow?

11ant schrieb:

It seems you may have misunderstood the franchise system like Town & Country somewhat.

I can’t rule that out, but can you then explain? Town & Country doesn’t work with local general contractors who build standardized model homes designed under the franchise brand?

xMisterDx schrieb:

Or maybe a poor craftsman has pulled himself together because he's not getting any more orders.

I just had to quote that separately *ROTFL*
It’s more likely for a camel to go through the eye of a needle...

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https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/

Tolentino schrieb:

I can’t rule it out, but can you explain then? Town & Country doesn’t work with local general contractors who carry out the standardized house designs developed by the franchise brand?

The winter roads were barely passable, so I had to quickly get the shopping done first. Exactly: they operate, they don’t cooperate; your earlier description

Tolentino schrieb:

There are regional general contractors that definitely work together with local ones, probably all of them for specific trades or when there are capacity bottlenecks or planning issues. Or if the whole business model is built around that (franchise like Town & Country).

could be read or interpreted as if a franchise model like Town & Country’s is based on cooperating with local subcontractors or even entire general contractors. In fact, as far as I know, the headquarters has no direct business itself (which I would see—especially as a franchisee—as a disadvantage), instead it sends the inquiry directly to the franchisee. This franchisee then “takes care” of the customer basically like a local general contractor (except, of course, that there are no special custom requests—at McDonald’s you don’t get Whoppers or homemade potato salad). Such a franchise is ideal for general contractors who “just want to work” without the hassle from picky clients who want to change the staircase seven or so times, split bathrooms, or balance façades—or clients who fiddle with the scope of work until what started as a trout in blue sauce becomes a hunter’s schnitzel or vice versa. Just work and that’s it; even the cancellation policy is handled by headquarters. What the system headquarters of masonry contractors, as far as I know, do not do is assemble national teams from their franchisee staff for occasional friendly matches. Among timber construction general contractors, the most common practice, as far as I know, is to deploy their own crews up to the weatherproof shell stage within the planned working area (and only for the erection in more remote areas), and then preferably bring in local subcontractors for the finishing trades. Many customers don’t realize this and end up ordering the largest possible tiles ;-(

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https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/

To be honest, I haven’t read everything, but we are building a bungalow in Lower Saxony. We signed the contract with the general contractor in April and have been planning, waiting, etc., since then. We have now submitted the building permit / planning permission application. We cautiously expect to move in by December 2023. If you also count the time before we decided on a company, it adds up to about 2 years.

Tolentino schrieb:

I myself said that the installation team, even if they come from Bulgaria, can initially work just as well as any other. But since the installation team lacks a personal connection – once they finish, they are gone and never see you again – in house construction, where you want good service for at least five more years, you no longer have a bond with a tradesperson.

Hmm. From what I hear around the neighborhood from those who have already moved in:
The local general contractor hasn’t addressed defects for months, the local painter ignores the last 10% of the job and simply stops answering calls, even though the painting was often done poorly.
The local tiler ordered the wrong tiles… twice…

If you know the tradesperson personally, that might be different.

Otherwise, you’re just another customer to them. They sleep soundly even if they have 100 missed calls from very angry customers.

Tolentino schrieb:

I can’t rule it out, but can you explain then? Town & Country doesn’t work with local general contractors who build the standardized houses designed under their franchise brand?

They do. But since these local general contractors and the headquarters itself don’t have any permanent in-house tradespeople, everything is handled by mostly local subcontractors.
Structural engineering, building permits/planning permission, energy demand calculations—all are done externally.
The shell builders were from a local general contractor who also builds turnkey homes.
I’ve seen the electricians and installers working for at least four other general contractors or their houses as well.

And the idea that they say, “Today we’re working for xyz, so let’s really mess things up...”