I'm happy with our GC on our new build so far, and it seems we've had many of the same experiences as you. More work falling on my shoulders than I would have expected (my tile guy, for example, seems to expect me to lay out the tiles on the floor where I want them- except, I'm not a tile setter and live in a different state and they told me this the DAY before they were to start tile).

We had a lot of change orders but it has been very random as to when they expect money for them. And it is large sums. For instance, we added geothermal and changed the fireplaces and stuff at the beginning of the build. A few months later after the process was started (but well before geothermal was installed) we got a bill for $18,000 (half the cost). He gave us a few days to move money around, but that's a lot of money to come up w/ when we weren't expecting to right then.

We've had doors left open overnight (including when they had the A/C in the house turned down to 62 degrees! Windows were open then too). Granted, we aren't living there, but it is still a remote location in the woods with a lot of expensive stuff in the house.

We've had stuff and garbage thrown in and piled on our expensive tub and no one bothered to cover up our expensive hand carved marble fireplace I commissioned myself from Europe and had installed before drywalling, leading to a mess on the fireplace (they cleaned it up after we commented, but still didn't cover the fireplace!)

We weren't given advance notice on some decisions that needed to be made right away (and remember, I live in a different state!) My fiances dad did some of the work on our HVAC system and our HVAC guy left stuff undone that he was supposed to do that my fiances dad ended up having to do to accomplish the stuff he did need to do. We also were not given notice on when he was to do those things and told the day before he needed to be ready to come and install, despite asking several times when to schedule.

We had an allowance of $22,000 INSTALLED for 5000 sq. feet of hardwood floor. It is costing us $50,000 and we didn't even pick the most expensive floor. We'd like to know what our builder was thinking when he made that allowance and what floor he was expecting we use! The original KD we were told to use also had us $50,000 over budget on the kitchen and only when we complained did we get sent to the good cabinet maker who charged us $20,000 less for a better kitchen (why weren't we sent there first?!?) and we know our flooring guy WAY overcharged us ($1400 for a tiny laundry room where the tiles were $2/sq foot) but we were only given two choices for flooring people and the other choice told us my order was "too complicated to quote." Our flooring guy has also made a number of errors including ordering 5000 sq. feet of flooring that we hated and had to send back, locking us into using something from that brand or paying a $6000 restocking fee.

Those issues aside, we're happy w/ everyone except our flooring/tile people so far and we are very happy w/ our GC because of good communication and mostly great people doing the work.

Before I say anything else, please make sure your final payment is not paid until the job is complete, c.o.s included if applicable. Our job went long and the gc pressured me to pay more than what was in the contract for the next to last payment. I did, he walked, and the cost for the amount of work left undone was about 2.5 times what we owe.

We had similar issues as you did. Things got installed wrong, in wrong places, needing repair, etc... they would then get rectified as we went along, until they left the job for good. I had not realized how many mistakes had been made until I reviewed the emails for when we are filing a suit.
They left messes, including used coffee cups, packaging debris, etc... I did not say much because I wanted to proceed in a friendly manner. It did no good after all was said and done.

We got change ordered to death as well. I was prepared for things to come up when they opened walls (and they did), but they billed us like crazy for the slightest things, many of which would be considered standard and included by most people. I don't know if it was a sloppy estimate/contract, but they made money in small details. We already owned most materials and discussed them prior to contract and provided a detailed list, yet we still were charged for things like a second outlet because our fridge and freezer are separate units. They charged for cable tv in the master and wanted to charge for a light in our walk in closet. We chose to skip the light and get one after the fact from someone cheaper. By then, we were pretty ticked off. When all was said and done, we paid close to $130k to our gc and yet he still nickel and dimed us.

Again, the most important thing is to hold back a large amount no matter how close you are to finishing. You want it as incentive or you may find you get ditched. I trusted our guys because, as you said, they are in your house every day and you think you know them.... Don't make the same dumb mistake I did!

Your experience is better than average so I'd keep them on the project for the next phase. The limited communication is pretty standard unless you pay extra for an additional coordinator.

The most important part is that you feel comfortable with them. There might be a way to emphasize securing the gate and doors by putting a clause in the next contract with dollar amount on it. Talk to the GC and let him know that this is such a serious problem that it needs to be resolved now.

This sounds average to slightly above average so far.

Agree--normal or better.

If you are talking about dirt, you have clearly never worked with contractors before. Most are pigs. They show up for work first thing in the morning with hands already dirty, then try to sexually fondle every clean surface in your home.

Security? The rule is, if a contractor may ever need to open a door once, then they have to prop it open all day, whether it's 130 degrees out or 30 below, whether there's a hurricane going on or a plague of locusts descending on your neighborhood, your house has to remain utterly exposed and vulnerable at all times. Otherwise they might have to bend an elbow to open the door, and that can't ever happen.

Not knowing the amount of disruption? Well, now you know. Surgery is more relaxing than renovation. At least with that you get anesthesia.

Lack of care for your home is almost de rigeur. You have to anticipate that they will do thoughtless things. Keep in mind the actual, physical laborers (especially for things like painting or drywalling) can be a challenging group to manage. I had to laugh that so much of the furniture I bought for the house was distressed, that they used them all as work benches without a hint of self consciousness!

At least your sub's dog didn't dig up the vines that had been growing for many years, shading the pergola on your favorite part of the property. And though we caught the dog "in flagrante", the sub's passive-aggressive reply to our complaint was "the customer is always right".

I think it will take years of therapy before the phrase "change order" does not raise my cortisol levels. Especially since the phraseology makes it sound like you are a flighty housewife (No, i don't think we want yellow. Let's redo it in blue. Oh gosh the blue is too dark, maybe we need to go gray). In reality change orders are things they forgot that you are now paying for, things they did not include but should have that you are now paying for, and things that they "didn't know" the building department would need that you are now paying for, etc etc etc

mtnredux: lol! "change orders are things they forgot" ...

yup.

babushka: I don't have a GC but I'm learning from you and from others what it is that they do. What it is that they do, is what you don't know to do; and when there is a screw up it's on them. In theory. Thus, for example, steps got poured today too narrow. But the sub did that, and it was our responsibility to instruct them that the run needed to be longer, apparently. There's no one else to take the blame: it's on us. If there were a GC, s/he should have known about the need for the run to be greater, and it would be his/er's fault when it wasn't done properly.

So that's what I think they're there for, to provide general knowledge you don't have, to run interference when people screw up. For this, they get to change-order you.

It's a bit of a toss-up where you want to "bet" you'll win out -- on doing the instructing yourself and taking the risk for the loss when there's a screw-up, or in authorizing another on your behalf, at a fee, for which in turn they assume some larger responsibility of the cost of screw-ups. If you can game the system by administering properly and minimizing mistakes yourself, you're ahead. If not, well, you wind up with insufficiently running steps.

I see it as all like insurance. You can be sure that in the long run, the actuaries have the general population losing. But if you can game your situation into a better pool, maybe you personally can win out....

Does any of this make any sense at all? My apologies if it's just opaque. Bottom line to me is, it sounds like you're getting some value, at some cost. You could reconfigure that setup if you wish, depends on whether you want to assume the value yourself, at the expense of, say, time and/or learned-expertise, etc.

And judging from the horror stories recounted periodically here, things could be waaaay worse, your slight dissatisfaction notwithstanding. Perhaps they could be better as well, but there's risk involved in finding that out ;)

Thank you all for your perspectives, this is very eye opening and helpful as well.

I guess my perspective is a bit different. Maybe I've been more fortunate in the two GC's we've worked with.

The GC for our initial remodel generally took responsibility for the work of any work that he arranged for. We never had a change order because one of the workers made a mistake that needed to be corrected.

There was an allowance for cabinet hardware (pulls) and it would have covered a reasonable choice such as the Amerock pulls that we considered. We decided to use the larger Schaub higher end pulls which went over the allowance so we had to pay for that, but the original allowance wasn't out of line with good materials.

He generally kept us informed of the plans for work ahead of time. He and his workers did a good job of ensuring that our home and the prior parts of the work were undamaged by work - e.g. putting hardboard down on the wood floors which we weren't replacing to protect them from cabinets and appliances being installed, doorways were masked whenever there was messy work. Before work started, they went through the house and asked us to take pictures down from the other side of walls they would be working on so I felt they were pretty cautious about taking care of our things. I can't recall any damage occurring.

Junk or dirt was never left around at the end of each day. They would sweep the floor if necessary, consolidate their equipment into a part of the room we didn't need to walk through, etc.

I guess I didn't notice whether they locked up when they left for lunch breaks and we weren't home. My husband is retired and I work from home so generally one of us was there. They had a key and did lock up if we weren't there at the end of the day.

They weren't perfect. On the down side, we did from time to time notice something that they were doing that needed correction. We checked progress every day and let the GC or the worker know right away and they would correct it or explain satisfactorily why what was done was correct. Sometimes we would spot a potential problem before the contractor and workers were aware of it. For example, the back side of our island had a row of 12" wide cabinets facing the ends and 12" deep cabinets facing the back. It turns out that the cabinet manufacturer makes 12" deep cabinets a tiny fraction of an inch over 12" and the 12" wide cabinets are spot on so a small shim was needed to even them up.

That broke down at the very end over issues with the vent hood. The roof jack they installed was too small for our high CFM hood and we felt that they hadn't mounted the hood securely. They didn't agree that either was a problem so we brought in an appliance installer who agreed with us and changed the roof jack and mounted the hood properly. The GC got in a huff and terminated the contract. All the rest of the work was pretty much done at that point (final inspection was complete) and final less than $2 K payment that we didn't have to make covered our costs for the appliance guy, roof jack, roofing guy and some minor paint touch up.

While our spotting things and helping come up with ways to correct them saved them some time and cost, there were clearly times when dealing with such hands on involvement stressed them out.

I use excellent contractors for my own house and they rarely make a mistake. However I would say they are probably 50% more expensive than the okay contractors I have used on other people's projects and twice as expensive as a contractor whose work I hated on another project although the finished product doesn't look too bad. Everyone except the GC would pretend not to speak or understand any English when we were around but I did hear them using fractured English with each other. As the designer of these projects I have also been treated like I had no idea what I was talking about, told I had no idea what I was talking about and told that the client would have been charged a lot more had they known there was going to be someone making sure the plans were followed so exactly.

So there are excellent contractors out there, but you tend to wait a long time for them, pay more for them, and in my case sometimes feel like they are doing you a favor by taking on your project. On some level you are going to be putting up with something, what it is will vary.

If you actually knew the level of disruption that would happen before you signed the contract, you probably wouldnt sign the contract.

I do think some people think just bec they hire a gc, they wont have to be too involved in the project and everything will run smoothly, which clearly isnt the case. he has 5 other jobs going on too and probably doesnt remember (bec he never wrote it down) that your wood gets laid a certain way, so yes, you do want to be there anytime they start something new just to be sure everyone is on the same page

my guess is that he didnt just charge you for installing cabinets but he charged you a premium for stepping in at the last minute and fixing the debacle that he probably thinks wouldnt have happened if you would have used his cabinet guy in the first place

Generally, i would agree your GC is above average and now that you know the worst parts about them, thats half the battle

Yes, you could do better in a GC but at the same time you could do a he** of a lot worse!

Our experience for a whole house reno is similar to what you are going through and I count ourselves lucky. Stick around here for a while and there are some real horror stories.

If they are showing up, being polite and considerate and listening to you, then they are treating you as a person instead of another "job" and that is a good start. With all the different trades that are involved, there will be a couple of people who are new or young or just not as personable and you got one of those. We also experienced the lack of information of scheduling. But I think it is so routine for them that they forget or it just doesn't dawn on them to explain everything to the Homeowner.
It sounds like you got a fairly good crew and I would certainly think about using them again. But wait until you see how they finish off this job and how they finish up the deficiency list. We're still, at a year, waiting for a few things to be finished up and if we were to use this firm again I would address that issue.

I forgot to say something about the last minute decision making. I think that its inherent in the remodel process that you will be asked to make some snap decisions. Even with the best planning, some snap decision will come up. They will discover a problem and propose a couple of ways to deal with it. Most decisions, we knew were coming either because of our own planning, the GC or seeing questions on GW (e.g. we knew we would have to decide where to put the pulls).

This thread is making us feel better about our shifty GC - love some of the quotes here!

I'm so stealing marcolo's line :) - Surgery is more relaxing than renovation. At least with that you get anesthesia.

We built a master br/bath several years ago. The GC seemed like a great guy, fun to talk to, but we had some major issues over time. When we discussed problems with him he took it all personally and got irritated and emotional. At the end, though, he suggested we burn sage in our bedroom to cleanse the space of any residual bad thoughts and feelings. It was a love/hate relationship - I was glad to see him go, and still love the room he built. Maybe it WAS the sage, which I burned after he left with a little prayer for better days (and nights) in that space ;)