Duties of a General Contractor

dreamer_2008

15 years ago

Hi,

I'm having a house built and we are hoping to move in next month but I have some questions about my general contractor. He has been on site 1 out of every 3 days. When I hired him he verbally said he would be onsite for the project and wouldn't work on any other projects. He has taken on other projects so instead of a full crew of 5 people, there are on average 3 people working which is causing the house to be delayed. He also doesn't have a project schedule. Everything seems to be in his head. He said he has to take the other jobs so he can pay his workers. MY bank pays him at the end of each month when he submits a draw. I'd like to fire him and get someone else to finish the project. We have the heating, electrical, drywall, and finish work to be completed. Am I too close to fire him? Is there a way to fire him without ending up in court? Any advice would be great? Maybe its normal for the GC not to be on the job but I thought that is what I hired him for. I live on site so the subs come ask me or one of his workers if they have questions.

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Comments (7)

el1019
15 years ago
Dreamer - You sound like you have my contractor! I'm in the exact same boat that you are, except I don't live on-sight. I feel your pain and know what you're going through. It sounds like we're almost at about the same point in our build.

I wanted to general the build myself, but logistically I couldn't pull it off. I'm in the military and needed someone to follow the project through to completion in case I was deployed on short notice. Also, after getting bids back, I noticed that there wasn't a lot of difference between general contractor bids and those I was getting from subcontractors as a whole. So, I decided, in the end, I would hire a general contractor. I can't say I'm completly suprised at the slow pace (I had references tell me he's slow, but good), so I guess I can't complain. I guess I felt my options were limited and I was doing too much wishful thinking. I'm coming to the end of month three and for the most part I'm satisfied with the decision to go this direction, however the speed of the project leaves a lot to be disired.

The general has one other major project he's working on along with other window/siding jobs that come along. Since the floor joists and rafters went up, he's had someone (lead framer) with helpers on-site working every day, but like you it's not a full crew. What makes matters worse though, is this other job is 100 miles away and when the general contractor is away for short periods (3 days every couple of weeks) of time he hasn't been available by cell phone.

If I were in you shoes, I would weight the pros and cons and then decide if it's worth replacing the general contractor at this stage of the build. Are there other generals available to pick-up the pieces and carry on? Would you save money/time? Another consideration, and one you've brought up, is the legal aspect of the arrangement. I too wonder what would happen if I decided to fire him, because it wasn't addressed in my contract. I don't have an answer, but think it would be a messy divorce.

This probably didn't answer your questions, but know that you're not the only one in these set of circumstances.

Good luck!
sierraeast
15 years ago
I dont think you can realistically expect a g.c with five employess to take on a project one at a time. He has a high overhead with the employees and doesn't sound like he subs out, drywall for example. You might mention that in order to speed things up that he considers subbing out the drywall hanging and finishing in order to speed things up as long as he can keep his crew busy on the other project. I admire any builder who keeps his/her employees busy. I always appreciated it when i worked for builders, especially in lean times.
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sierraeast
15 years ago
You might question my reponse with "why doesn't he keep his crew busy on my project only"? There are times when delays crop up due to inspections, weather, suppliers, etc., so it's nice to have more than one project going to keep the troops busy when they are delayed on one project.
thepond2007
15 years ago
I'm confused: Maybe I wouldn't expect GC to be there on every working day, but...

OP wrote; " When I hired him he verbally said he would be onsite for the project and wouldn't work on any other projects."

...so that is what I would expect. I'm probably over-reaching, due to gross lack of experience.
sierraeast
15 years ago
" When I hired him he verbally said he would be onsite for the project and wouldn't work on any other projects."

I've said that in the past as well, but the project ran into a snag, and i took on others to stay busy. It all depends on the circumstances.
jasonmi7
15 years ago
Verbal means nothing.

Is your only complaint that he's not there every day?
cork2win
15 years ago
If he's doing quality work, stick with him. Our house took 11 months to build. We saw our foreman exactly twice during that entire time. He may have been there a few other times, but we were there nearly every day and if he was there more than twice, it wasn't much more.

Be glad your guy is showing up that often and as long as they're doing a good job, my advice would be to suck it up and just let them finish.

Duties of a General Contractor

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el1019

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