| Author |
Message |
    
Nsolomon
| | Posted on Friday, January 26, 2001 - 3:19 pm: |     |
We're moving to SO from west coast and will soon need contractors for reovation of victorian.
1. Can you recommend a general contractor?
2. Any opinions on the hiring of general contractor vs. contracting the work yourself (plumber, tile, wood floors, ect...)
3. I'd be thrilled to get any advice, pitfalls, whatever to help in this process. We're hoping to do a complete rehab in three months.
thanks. |
Gerardryan
| | Posted on Friday, January 26, 2001 - 10:13 pm: | |
Nsolomon:
I am coming to the end of a lot of work on my house, and would offer you the following advice:
- unless you have a LOT of free time AND some experience in the construction trade (I have a decent amount of the latter but little of the former), hiring a GC is an absolute must. Just the logistics of scheduling the arrivals of the various subcontractors and working around glitches in their schedules can take forever, to say nothing of the need to inspect work when done, etc.
- it's going to take more than three months and more money than you think :-) Especially if it is an old house (mine's 1906 vintage), you discover scary things when they start opening up walls.
The first day of my project they discovered rotting wood under the stucco (it's not a stucco house any more :-)
The second day they discovered that the back of the house was not supported in a structurally sound manner.
By the end of the week we discovered corroded old water pipes to replace and fire hazard ancient electrical work to replace.
And that was the first week :-)
My couple-of-months addition is at 4 months and counting, but almost done...
Best of luck to you
Jerry |
Euclidean
| | Posted on Saturday, January 27, 2001 - 6:49 pm: | |
I second Jerry's advice with the following qualification. A general contractor will save you a lot of hassle for multi-contractor jobs (e.g a kitchen which requires laborers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, etc., etc.). However, for something like having a floor sanded or a room wallpapered, you should be fine contracting directly with a specialist.
You said that you are contemplating a complete rehab. Will you be living someplace else while this is going on? My experience with home improvements is that my appetite for improvements diminishes each time we have contractors trooping through the house and raising ancient house dust. This is especially true when you have your kitchen redone.
tj |
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