acting as own general contractor
Pre-closing walkthroughs are definitely recommended. I would also suggest you get a building engineer to inspect and report for peace of mind. Feel free to reach out to us for some suggestions and to schedule a time to meet if you’d like.
JPDA
in General Discussion 4 years and 11 months ago
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Guest User | 4 years and 11 months ago
My husband and I are now hoping to buy a 2-family house that needs a gut renovation and turn it into a 1-family home (perhaps keeping it officially as 2-family); we just sent in the deposit and are waiting for the seller to sign the contract. We are not now in NYC but hoping eventually to move there to be closer to children (and urban attractions). Closing will probably not be before next January, as it’s a complicated sale involving courts in two states. I was hoping we could do planning (with an architect) next year and be ready for actual work next spring. Would it be legally possible for us to act as our own general contractor? I think I read that the main thing one needs is insurance. My husband will have a sabbatic next year; we could rent an apartment while supervising work. We have a relative in NYC, a retired contractor, whom we could hire as a consultant. My husband has done plumbing and some electricity plus carpentry and tiling; he laid two tongue-and-grove hardwood floors in our house in Ithaca. Of course we would need licensed electricians, plumbe rs, etc. We would need some beams to replace support walls, and we would need professionals for that. I guess I really have two questions: 1. Could he legally be our general contractor, and if. so, what are the requirements? 2. Is this a crazy idea? He would enjoy being involved with the work, even doing some (tiling, floors) himself.
espeon | 4 years and 11 months ago
This is not a practical idea. The cost of carrying the insurance will outweigh any significant savings and most likely result in a loss in the long term. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
JohnHancock | 4 years and 11 months ago
I’d be interested to follow this process as our new renovation blog since our last one has ended. Especially since you’re at the very beginning of the process and have questions that many ppl are faced with at tge start of such a challenging task.
stevecym | 4 years and 11 months ago
if you hire licensed trades and a licensed architect and engineer where required, and file, if is perfectly legal for you to GC this. People do it all the time. what you want to be careful of is ensuring that all of your subs have the proper insurance and workers comp and licenses so that if something goes wrong or someone gets hurt, their insurance picks up, not your homeowners (and i hear people say “their homeowners has workman’s comp”; any policy i have looked at has workmen’s comp for the cleaning person or nanny, not licensed trades).
if you were to do something like this, you would want to hire a real good carpenter who can and will work with the other trades and guide you a bit as to who comes in when to do what rough in and what has to be done before closing walls. also, be careful with demo work. taking down bearing walls, not only do you have to file but you also better follow what the architect says and do not just hire “some guy” or some HIC, you need someone who’s insurance specifies demo work (for instance, mine does not allow it).
a lot of the naysayers will come on here and say you can not do this – legally. i have watched people do this in the city and one guy told me “i can pull a permit to move a gas line” and guess what, he did and had to explain to the DOB that it could be done (so long as a licensed plumber did the work and signed off; this was a while ago before these buildings blew up, so i am not sure if you can still pull a permit yourself, but 18 years ago, you could).
in many jurisdictions GC is an insurance requirement. it means you carry insurance that will provide protection and allow you to contract other trades and have coverage over them if something goes wrong. in NYC it is a DOB requirement and they don’t even ask about insurance but want to make sure contractors have a minimum of 25k in the bank for 3 straight months before issuing a license; they want you to have assets if you will be working for others, building out of the ground structures. this is not you.
Xagor mentions the cost of insurance. people i know who have done this have not purchased additional insurance. but you know what, he or she might be on to something. maybe there is an insurance that you can purchase that will over ride the entire job. maybe you can set up a corp and buy GC insurance or just buy it in your own name. it would make sense right? if something goes wrong on a job (and i have seen it happen though i have not been involved in it from a responsible party position) and the insurance companies get involved, they all finger point and go after one another trying to assign blame and liability. so for example, let’s say a wall framer leaves a 2×4 sitting against a window frame and the plumber walks by with a piece of pipe and hits the 2×4 and it falls out the window and lands on a baby stroller. that will get expensive fast and the plumber’s insurance will blame the framer and his insurance and the parent of the baby will not care whose fault it was – they just want the bills paid and the baby’s college education and retirement and trip to the moon all paid for – so guess what – THEY SUE ALL OF YOU (they have to, but that is another story. they have to sue everyone just in case you did something wrong on the site as well. like, maybe it comes out in court later that you removed the window frame the night before and there for share part of the expense of the babies trip to the moon). so i would check if you can buy a blanket construction policy that will protect you. but let me tell you this- be very careful shopping for insurance and be sure you buy something designed to protect someone in your position (i recall someone building their own house in another state and they bought construction insurance and there were rules that went with it; we do not hear about “construction insurance” here in the city as much as most of the buildings have been built; i bet they have it on Long Island still). do not listen to insurance agents. good ones are good and can be trusted, but the way the world is going, most people will sell you anything just like those idiots wearing orange aprons in that big box store. also, if you do decide not buy additional insurance or that it does not exist, check to see what your homeowners will cover if something goes wrong. you do not want to do all of this and put it at risk because some trades person comes to work with a hangover.
even though i am a small contractor, i had worked for a Property Management firm in another state (I was a field person, not in office) and have worked in buildings in NYC and have had to watch the insurance thing play out with at least two flood damage claims and one fire and when multiple insurance companies are involved they literally try to assign the blame elsewhere; they have legal depts dedicated to this. it was kind of interesting to watch as they requested information and contracts on the other parties just to see how they can go after them (this is why contractors unplug their equipment at night; if there is a fire, the insurance companies will try to say it was “that guy’s saw”).
lkrshacmzcy | 4 years and 11 months ago
Definitely possible, and can actually be enjoyable if you know what you are doing and know how things work. If not, it can be an absolute nightmare. For instance, being able to “Do Plumbing” is not important while being a GC but knowing “How Plumbing” is important otherwise things can go wrong.
The biggest thing a GC does is help the Trades coordinate correctly, take the responsibility and double check everyone. For instance, the Carpenter can map out his roughing walls correctly but if the Plumber is not aligned and off by half an inch, everything can have to be redone; at the cost of the GC.
My brother and his wife did this recently without much prior knowledge and did a good job actually! It was a lot though and there were quite a few mental breakdowns
lkrshacmzcy | 4 years and 11 months ago
Definitely possible, and can actually be enjoyable if you know what you are doing and know how things work. If not, it can be an absolute nightmare. For instance, being able to “Do Plumbing” is not important while being a GC but knowing “How Plumbing” is important otherwise things can go wrong.
The biggest thing a GC does is help the Trades coordinate correctly, take the responsibility and double check everyone. For instance, the Carpenter can map out his roughing walls correctly but if the Plumber is not aligned and off by half an inch, everything can have to be redone; at the cost of the GC.
My brother and his wife did this recently without much prior knowledge and did a good job actually! It was a lot though and there were quite a few mental breakdowns
Guest User | 4 years and 11 months ago
Thanks – that’s a lot to think about. Once in Ithaca NY my husband submitted plumbing plans for a new bathroom.The building inspector shot them down, but explained the reasoning behind the rules. He redid the plans and they passed with flying colors. But he still used too-large pipes to carry water to the attic.
shahnandersen
in General Discussion 4 years and 11 months ago
Note that in NYC all plumbing and electrical work must be done by licensed tradespeople. Even professional GCs must sub out this work to licensed people. But nothing legally prevents the homeowner from hiring the subs directly and not through a separate GC.
Guest User | 4 years and 11 months ago
Yes, licensed electricians and licensed plumbers, definitely
stevecym | 4 years and 11 months ago
sometimes when i come on here and speak about things that i had heard a long time ago or in another state or have experience with only as a third party, i read a little. last night i googled “construction insurance” and it returned the results “builder’s Insurance” and i read about that. interesting. perhaps it is less costly than homeowners as the assumption is that it is not covering the contents (personal things, jewelry, clothing). or perhaps it cost more than homeowners for other reasons. what i was trying to see was if it would cover a workmen’s comp claim in the event one of your subs did not carry it for their workers or even their “sub” (which is what they will try to say they are if something goes wrong and it will not work according to the worker’s comp law) and they came after you. there was a story on here a few months back about a workman going after the homeowner for something that happen on a staircase. my question here is, would homeowner’s cover something like that – a paid person on the premises. after reading i still had a another que stion – would “builder’s insurance” provide the same protection?
i did learn something, builder’s insurance often has coverage for “completed work” meaning that if something fails five years later because a contractor did something wrong, you are covered. i bet homeowners does not cover that-
as a contractor myself and someone who brings people on my premises to work, the big concern has always been what happens if a paid person gets hurt. it is clear what happens if an unpaid person gets hurt. but a lot of people have a lot of ideas on what insurance will cover when the person is paid and i am not sure they are correct (i checked my homeowners and it lists jobs that fall under the classification of “domestic help). i would explore this part of this further before undertaking this and thank Xagor above as i would not have delved this far into it had they not said what they did-
stevecym | 4 years and 11 months ago
i can tell you who probably would know a lot about what i just wrote and either answer some unanswered questions or correct me if i am wrong – it would be DIBS. he has the right balance of construction know how and white collar knowledge (and he is always right with the construction questions – though we don’t need to puff his head up anymore by telling him that). but he is the kind of guy who is never around when you need him. he peeped on here briefly to taunt me a bit the other day and has since disappeared. he must be on a quiet island someplace sipping a margarita.
for those of you reading what i wrote above and questioning my experience (you are correct to and do your own research; the point of what i wrote was to “raise” questions, not “answer” them) and wondering what i might mean by working on a property as a “field person” or i might see something as a “third party”; i was a supervisory person in these positions. what that meant was, i might be in the office when someone (the manager) was having the conversation with an insurance agent but it also me ant that i was ALWAYS the guy leading the insurance adjuster around after a flood or sadly, fire.
for what its worth as to what i am saying above, i have always maintained insurance in my own business, including workmen’s comp when i have employees.
for the OP or anyone else considering any of these questions, it helps to read the policy and i bet you can get a copy of one before purchasing the products. a lot of policies are uniform across carriers and i still recall my boss telling condo owners “it does not matter what company you have, you should have a policy coded as HO-? for protection on a condo here”. i bet a lot of builder’s policies are designed the same only with different limits of coverage – which will be important in NYC verses East Bunny Hole, Iowa.
patrickburnsjr | 4 years and 11 months ago
OMG
yudashasom | 4 years and 11 months ago
Bad idea
chemosphere | 4 years and 11 months ago
my recommendation:
act as a GC for a renovation job needing no permits = yes.
Act as GC for a Reno job with Alt 1 permits = maybe.
Act as GC for a gut Reno with Alt 1 permits = no.
Guest User | 4 years and 11 months ago
we are hoping for alt2
cate | 4 years and 11 months ago
What does your relative say? One of the biggest challenges of working in the NYC area is knowing good people and being able to get them to work for you. Anyone who’s good is very, very busy and can pick and choose projects and who they want to work with. If you don’t have connections and an in, forget it. If you were, say, undertaking a renovation where you need only electrical, plumbing, wood stripping and refinishing, and plaster skim coating, I would say, yes act as your own GC, because those are all specialized trades a GC can’t do. (That was our approach for our renovation, which has lasted 10 years and counting.) But you’re working with an architect and filing an Alt-2, so you will need a GC anyway at least for some things. One of the advantages of working with an architect is they know GCs who are good and reliable and can bid out to three of them. I do know someone, an artist, who did the tiling work on one kitchen in their home during an Alt-2 with an architect and a general contractor. How that came about I am not sure, but it was not part of the plan in the be ginning. I’d say in the long run you will save money, and an immense amount of time and aggravation if you let a GC do their thing and handle the whole job. (And I wouldn’t mention past experience when bidding out the job.) You will have plenty to do checking up on their work every day — believe me!
Guest User | 4 years and 11 months ago
We haven’t talked yet to my husband’s cousin; I want to wait until the seller actually signs the contract, which should be soon
. (We originally were going to close on the house in April 2019, but it turned out the seller did not have clear title. Then we were going to close in April 2020, but the seller wasn’t ready, and we got out with our deposit. Now we are getting the house for slightly less money than our original bid.) Whether he (the cousin) has connections to good subcontractors is indeed a concern. One appeal of being our own GC is having more control. For instance, we want radiant floor heat, and want to be sure whoever does that work is really experienced; would a GC necessarily know how to choose the right people?
cate | 4 years and 11 months ago
When you’re working with a GC, you can always specify you want to work with specific people or specialists for certain tasks, such as stripping, plaster repair, or whatever is important to you. I’d avoid doing it with the standard/regular subs such as plumbers and electricians and I wouldn’t do it for everything — you want to be easy to work with. If questions about quality develop down the line, it can cause issues and drama, and likely you will have to take responsibility for any problems since you hired the person. Ask your architect about how this might work with something like HVAC or radiant floor heat.
JPDA | 4 years and 11 months ago
I would definitely recommend against acting as your own GC on a project of this scope. Beyond the insurance and building permit challenges, I would also agree with Cate that your lack of familiarity with NYC subs and suppliers will be a substantial burden to getting things done. Radiant floor is actually really easy and if that is your biggest concern then making sure your architect knows your performance needs during design will ensure that the proper specs are included in the contract documents. I can’t emphasize enough that the GC premium is well worth it, and so easy to exceed in your own costs for delays, lack of trades/work/deliveries coordination, loss and damages and other unforeseen circumstances that will become your sole responsibility to bear.