Make sure all the material coming on the property is paid for. It appears he is using your money to do other jobs. Asked for copies of the paid bills. It could be some of the subs are not getting paid either. No this is NOT normal. You might negotiate the contract with time limits listed with penalties. Even though you "like" him, unless he a very personal friend, you should keep it on a business basis. He is working for you and you are paying him

Well he admitted to doing other jobs instead of ours, because he 'has bills to pay'. Don't we all?

TY for advice. I like your idea regarding time limits.

It's not normal for a builder to spend 100% of his time soley on your house unless you are a luxury build that is making it worth his time in compensation to do so. It's 100% normal for a builder to be running many other projects at the same time as yours. He won't be on your site everyday, but a building crew of some sort or another should be on site on average at least 4-5 out of the 7 days. Building a house is like setting up a row of dominos. YOu can't install the drywall without having the windows and siding up, and if those subs are working elsewhere, then you have some delays until they are ready for you. A good builder will attempt to work on a number of projects at once to be able to keep "his subs busy and beholden to him for their work. That does mean that they aren't always available when you want them to be, but it's better to have the delay and have quality work from subs he's worked with before rather than attempt to find someone else that he's not worked with to "fill in" just to keep you happy about the progress on your job. It's NOT normal to have a one man operation, if that's what you're implying by stating that "he" installed your windows & did porch railings, etc.

A 4 month build is completely unrealistic expectation unless you're talking about a tract home builder building the same simple plan over and over again in a large subdivision. 4 months to being dried in is a pretty good pace, actually, so if he begins your siding soon, you're on a realistic time table. 9-12 for a build is a good pace for most builders. 14-18 months is more on target for a custom build with a busy builder.

You don't have anything out of the ordinary here, except maybe a lack of adequate communication between you and your builder. Taking over the build yourself or having another GC do so is to be avoided if at all possible. It introduces many more troubles to your situation than you think you have now. It takes a really special person to want to jump right in the middle of something half built by someone else and take over, and those people are pretty hard to find, and don't come cheap. Work this out with your bulder if at all possible. Adjust your expectations, and maybe he gives you a weekly summary of the work planned to happen that week at the first of the week so you understand the scheduling issues better. Don't get in a huff that you aren't getting attention paid to you. This isn't high school. It's a business transaction. Keep the emotions out of it. That's hard to do, because it's your home, but you've got to take a more dispassionate approach. If you use language with him like you did in this post, it will get you exactly no where but emotionally exhausted.

Our builder finished our house in just over 4 months and could have been faster if he hadn't over-extended himself with other projects towards the end. The first couple of months, he worked on our house and one other exclusively. Ours was totally custom, but nothing super fancy.

Custom house 4 months here. It really depends on a lot of things and no one around here spends 12 months on a typical custom build.

Our house had a basement which adds some time. Up North adds some time. Tough and slow permit areas add some time. The building craze of 2004-2006 added some time. But 2010 in the US, subs are not that busy

LWO, actually he is a one man gig with one other worker. He did bid out for the heating, plumbing and electric though. Things are moving along again thankfully after the talk yesterday. He has called four times today (whereas it was only on Fridays) and has given us a schedule for the next week.