Should I be my own GC?  More
Against Entropy  More
—Originally Published in Timber Framing, the Journal of the Timber Framers Guild

 

Should I be my own GC?
I can't answer yes or no.  I hope the article below can help to define some of the realities that you should expect.

Let’s describe what a good General Contractor does, and by that, what you should be able to take responsibility for if you decide to be your own GC.

Select, hire, and manage subcontractors. A good GC works with a consistent group of sub-contractors and will bring to the table an already established relationship with that group of subs. They will know what to expect from each other and the GC, and will be more at ease and more efficient as a result. They will not be the cheapest subs in town, generally speaking. Nor do you want them to be. Good service cost money to do, and you want to deal with subs who have charged enough to be able to take care of you. Good subs are not necessarily large firms, but have crossed the line between self-employment and business ownership. They understand how to communicate in a variety of mediums, (phone, fax, email, face to face meetings), in order to accommodate what works best for you. They know how to write and bid a specific scope of work, and are willing to define what it is they expect from you and what you can expect from them. Communication and documentation are your best allies in this contracting process, and a good sub-contractor will recognize that and be willing and able to provide the same. Some may have to be asked to provide enough documentation. Unfortunately, residential construction is rife with poor documentation and incomplete communication. If they’re neither willing nor able to do so you should think seriously about finding someone else who’s qualified to do the work. I recommend making it clear early that low price is not the primary qualifier, and that you will hire the sub most able to perform the work and the service. This will, in fact, save you money in the long run in addition to making your process a whole lot more pleasant. You will be attempting to have a functional relationship with a whole list of people you probably don’t know, and all the pitfalls of any relationship are here and can happen. The list includes: Communication breakdown, unspoken expectations, stress over financial matters, initial incompatibility compounded by the preceding factors, etc., etc.

If you decide to be your own GC, you will not have the advantage of established relationships with subcontractors. It will take you time and money to sort through candidates, and even if you’re conscientious about it, don’t be surprised if you get surprised by one of your choices. Don’t worry about it. If you’ve budgeted time and money realistically, you’re prepared for this. Good GCs are constantly working with subcontractors, and don’t have a perfect stable at any point.

Manage the paperwork with subs and the bank, organize monthly payments from wherever the money’s coming from to wherever it’s going to.
The managing of billing and payments might be the easiest part for you to do. I recommend setting up contracts with all subs so that they expect to get paid no more frequently than once a month. This makes the job of accounts payable easier to do and easier to keep track of. You can always make exceptions if you’re willing to, and probably will have to at least once a month. Minimizing mid monthly payments is the goal. If you’re financing your project through a bank, they will already understand and probably insist on once a month billings. Many banks will require site inspections before authorizing payments.

Build and manage a budget. This is a critical step.  Budgets are built number by number, spec by spec.  A spreadsheet is probably the best tool for tracking and monitoring your budget.  Among other things, it will give you the ability to change one number and watch its ripple effect. An accurate budget includes not only the hard numbers generated by bids from sub-contractors and suppliers, but an understanding of construction projects that leads to a realistic contingency fund. It’s always necessary to have a percentage of expected costs set aside for unexpected costs. Causes of budget overrun can include, in no particular order: weather, construction schedules, subcontract schedules, holes in the design program, errors, omissions, oversights, unavailable supplies, your change in tastes, breakdowns in communication between any and all parties, etc.

What you’re doing is managing a potentially very complicated web of people and expertise, and it should not be expected to be easy if you’ve never done it before. If you have good organizational and communication skills, or experience managing teams of people in other fields, you’ll probably do fine, and occasionally better than people who do this for a living. If you have trouble being firm with people or speaking your mind, are afraid of or are unfamiliar with spreadsheets, tend to avoid confrontation, or in general are not very organized, this process may not be for you. Again, this is about managing relationships. A lot of them. The advantage here is that for most of the people you hire, there is little emotional attachment, so being firm and clear from the outset will serve you well. It will also allow you to get what you want out of your project. You will have to learn to diplomatically but firmly communicate any complaints, from the size of the tub to the fact that there are pop cans and sandwich wrappers strewn around your jobsite. Accept responsibility for gaps in the spec or contract language that you own, and work with people to correct things that are not what you want. When in doubt, be willing to have conversation that you might under other circumstances consider rude. The chance of hurting someone’s feelings is rare and frankly, irrelevant.

Things that aren’t done right are created by the following sources, listed in order from most common to least common:
1. The scope of work was incomplete.
2. The scope of work was complete and accurate, but you misunderstood it.
3. The scope of work was complete and accurate, but the subcontractor misunderstood it.
4. The scope of work was complete and accurate, but the subcontractor is trying to cheat by substituting different work or different materials. (I think this is actually very rare. Especially if you’ve used a decent screening process.)
5. The scope of work was complete and accurate, but you are trying to cheat by asking for more work or more materials. (This is also very, very rare. Most people who ask for seemingly unreasonable or “extra” things simply don’t understand what they’re asking for, e.g., why it might be expensive, frustrating, or otherwise difficult for the folks in the field.)

If you hold yourself and the people working for you accountable, the path to correcting any of the above situations becomes pretty obvious. Good initial communication, (clear proposals and scopes of work), will fix most of these problems before they happen.

If there are things that you would like to change from the original scope of work, don’t be afraid to ask, but be prepared to pay for it. This is your house, your vision, your emotional and financial investment, and you can have whatever you want that you have the resources to pay for.
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Against Entropy
—Originally Published in Timber Framing, the Journal of the Timber Framers Guild
STRUGGLING to find a reason to build that satisfied my desire for social contribution, I nearly quit the building industry. There was a whole list of reasons, among them boredom and frustration with the residential construction industry for its lack of intellectual and social demands on builders, a felt disconnection from clients (I’ve always acted as a subcontractor) and difficulties finding local resources for our most basic raw material, timber––not to mention the difficulty of finding a good balance between making a living and making a life.

But a recent timber framing job (pictured on the facing page) that followed on the heels of a commercial truss job for our local billionaire, satisfied, at least in part, some of those desires. Though far from groundbreaking or unique in the timber framing field, it represented both a milestone and a stepping stone for me personally and as the operator of my company.

Built in northern Colorado where the foothills meet the plains at an altitude of about 4800 ft., the frame used 17,120 bd. ft. of white fir and Douglas fir and covers 2428 sq. ft. (including porches), measured inside the straw bales that will enclose it. Roof snow load, which varies widely in Colorado, is only 30 lbs.

We found a mill not too far away harvesting trees big enough to make real timbers—white fir, Engelmann spruce and some Douglas fir. The trees we used were harvested in a beetle-kill area in an attempt by the US Forest Service to manage the bug problem before it destroyed the entire forest. Those factors, plus surprisingly low costs, were the positives. On the downside, our timber arrived in less than ideal condition, poorly packaged, dirty and with significant handling damage. The mill’s mechanized tumblers had left a pair of black grease streaks every 6 ft. on most of the timbers. Almost none of the timbers arrived without broken corners from the tumblers or forklifts. Muddy footprints and piles of dirt were part of the package. A few sticks flatly failed grade (even though they all had a grade stamp), and more than a few others were definitely at the bottom of the grade. We asked for and got free replacement of about ten sticks. We used a few we really didn’t want to.

Fortunately, we had very enthusiastic clients who loved the fact that the timber was local. We solved a big portion of the handling damage by planing the entire frame, even though we had sold it originally as roughsawn. It seemed the right thing to do, considering the level of expectation I had for the finished product and what I felt the clients had a right to expect. They also accepted some less than perfect surfaces and corners that another kind of client might have rejected.

I’m proud of the project socially for a few reasons. The clients are local by any standard (nine miles from my house to theirs) and, in the process of building their house, all the participants seem to have managed to increase the size of their human communities. As one measure, at the raising there were five paid staff and 13 working volunteers, plus a few observers and photographers. A few of the volunteers came because of an invitation I sent out to about
150 people; the rest were friends or family of the client, or people who had somehow heard about the event and showed up, happier to work than to stand by. Contribution to a local cause, even if it appears to benefit only a few people specifically, I consider to have a huge impact on true community. Thus my obsession with local interactions above any other concern about our environment or the status of the world. We’re as likely to care for people we’ve helped as we are to care for people who’ve helped us.

My largest goal as a builder is to influence the relationship people have with their built environments. I’m convinced that people who contribute real work in whatever way they can to the houses they live in will have dramatically different experiences with their houses from those of folks who merely stand by and watch the whole process. I’ve never worked in the Colorado ski towns and have no plans to chase the trophy work there. I’m not saying I wouldn’t build a trophy house if the job landed on my desk with a pile of money, mind you. It just seems way more satisfying and interesting to be involved with people who intend to live in their house 12 months a year (imagine that).

I understand that none of us is in business particularly to make new friends. But it’s satisfying for me when our status with the future owners of a house looks a lot more like trusted advocate than necessary contract holder. These clients included as part of their contracted payment (honestly) oatmeal cookies, fresh eggs, dog-sitting and consultation about our marketing strategy.

I can’t actually yet prove to myself that what I do solves my appetite for social contribution, but I have some evidence. The several local carpenters who’ve worked on this job plus more than a few passersby seem to have a new understanding of the possibility of craft. I hesitate to use the word inspirational, but it may fit. Even the metal stud and drywall carpenter who has been remodeling the space we rent was fascinated enough by what he saw in our shop to come to the raising and help out for a couple of hours. I like, in general, when men and women doing the daily grind of building are able to elevate their imaginations and their perspectives. Pride in workmanship may be one way to describe it, although that term insufficiently explains what I’m interested in. Good work and right livelihood are connected here, beyond my ability to describe but not beyond my ability to appreciate.

As for intellectual demands on residential builders, some stuff began to satisfy. Working from a basic, undetailed set of drawings by a straw-bale designer from Massachusetts, I designed the frame with the help of two engineers and one veteran joiner. This required halting the already started concrete foundation work until we had really finished the design. Interior pads and the turneddown haunch for the monolithic slab (the thickened portion at the perimeter that generally replaces the footing and frost wall) were all eventually respecified, and all the buried runs of hot water pipes, rebar and electrical conduit were mapped out to avoid our Timberlinx anchors and the epoxied threaded rod below them.

Through the project I’ve fulfilled some of the role of a good general contractor. Which I could have done officially, I suppose, but I found I enjoyed the position of advocate for the homeowners without the day-to-day responsibility of a general contractor. The homeowners, who acted in this case as their own general contractor, called when they needed something or were worried; otherwise it was their baby. Their questions covered materials availability, relationships with other subcontractors, contracts, payment structures, how to handle estimating error in a job—and what to do when you feel unqualified to do your job.

Two itinerants worked on this frame. That they were on the road seemed less relevant than it used to. I used to feel of itinerants (and I have been one) that being on the road was really their story, as I think most people believe. But the story is just about good people, not how they got here or how long they’re staying. Five good people cut the frame in the shop, and I’m as proud of the camaraderie that prevailed there as any physical product we produced. As far as I can tell, we all shared lunch and cared for one another as brothers. Best crew I’ve ever had.

Some of my expectations remain vague even to me but I’m willing to enjoy what already feels successful. Elevated tradespeople, community involvement, client involvement, good shop culture—I’ll take it. The problem of making a living (including a profit) and making a life is partially solved. During this job it took me 12 hours a day to get done what I had to do, more than I like to schedule for myself. But if part of the excess represents the work and energy needed to get a real business off the ground, I’m willing to do that. I also continue whenever I can to hire people more skilled and more educated than I am. A new marketing company, a new bookkeeper and Curtis Milton here for a week to do compound joinery are a few examples.

I appreciate our timber framing trade for its relatively high percentage of people who have social consciences apparently equal to their business instincts. I think both of those faculties should increase constantly and equally for people to fully resist worldwide entropy. —ADRIAN JONES

Adrian Jones (adrian@frameworkstimber.com) founded Frameworks Inc. in 1996, put it to rest for a couple of years to go on the road as an itinerant, then started up again as Frameworks Timber in Wellington, Colorado, not far from the Wyoming border, in 2005.

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