I've known many homeowners that have done this very thing and they've had mixed results.

The most important thing to remember if you want to be the general contractor of your own home project is that you need to do a lot of investigation.

Sub-contractors can really take advantage of unsuspecting homeowners acting as general contractors. That's why it's necessary to shop around for subs with good reputations.

It's also necessary to get accurate bids and work order contracts from each sub-contractor.

In these difficult times of the housing crisis, it makes sense to do your own general contracting to save money. Try to get a good knowledge on job costing before you start hiring subs.

You can find out more about being your own general contractor in my be your own general contractor page.

To better understand the responsibility of general contractors and to avoid getting taken advantage of by subs, you need to learn about job costing. You can get a fairly good idea of job costing by getting the cost of all materials involved. After you get that, add 50% to the cost just to be sure you're getting a reasonable estimate on materials.

Once you get a total estimate from a sub-contractor, subtract the amount for materials from the amount and you will have the cost of labor. This will let you know how much you are being charged for labor which is the area where you could get taken advantage.

Back to top

Back to 2008 back issues