"The trench would be about 7 feet deep and 1 foot wide, thus, the average depth of the coil would be about 5 feet." This tells me that they would install a vertical Slinky, probably with a backhoe. A chain trencher, 'Witch Ditch' would probably be narrower than 1 foot wide and would be a faster install, unless soil conditions do not permit this technique. Avg. depth of 5 feet could mean that the loops are 4 feet in diameter meaning the top of the loop may be only 3 feet below the surface. If this is so, then this may not ideal. Top of the loop should be at least 4 feet deep (minimum) or deeper. Digging should be contracted to someone with the right equipment (chain trencher, 'Witch Ditch'). Even then this may be less than ideal in that it's harder to flush a vertical slinky (standing up) than a horizontal slinky (laying flat) in that any trapped air will reside at the tops of these vertical loops. This trapped air could be a serious impediment to liquid flow as it may form an air lock thus shortening or short-circuiting the entire loop. Bottom line in plain English, it will work - if properly designed, installed, purged and FLUSHED! SR

If you are considering the GC consult with an up front fee, are you basically saying that you want a 1 time consult or do you want someone "on call" for the duration of the project? If it's only a 1 time consult, I'd say you have to pay in full up front. If you want the "on call" approach, I'd say that paying in installments would be the way to go. I GC'd our recent remodel which ultimately took 4 1/2 months. In deciding to take that role, we interviewed 5 GCs, and assorted individual tradesmen (3-4 per trade) ahead of time. We learned alot about the actual construction of our house and what our project would involve through the interview process (we had architect's drawings to work from). We pulled our own permits and learned alot about what our city was expecting through discussions with them. We knew ahead of time what we wanted and we learned how it needed to be done. The ultimate decision to GC ourselves was made because I tend to be a perfectionist, am a good planner and am very detail oriented. I, too, work full time and used a fair amt of vacation time when I was needed on site for questions/specific meetings etc. In addition, my employer was flexible with letting me leave early for meetings and I made up the time by going in early and working late on other days. Every tradesman that we worked with came with at least 5 personal recommendations and we checked every single recommendation. We put in about 4-5 months of doing our homework to make the decision to GC ourselves and yes, save some $$. This was after we had the plans in hand and before the first speck of demo started. We ended up using one company for alot of our project and the lead fellow told me about 3/4 of the way through the project that he was very surprised how smoothly it was going especially since I wasn't on site regularly. I'm convinced it turned out that way because of how "on top" of things we were as homeowners. Did any of this planning prevent some scheduling difficulties - No way! We progressed pretty well from day 1 of demo to the day the cabinets were delivered. However, one cabinet had been measured wrong and that threw an entire wall off...which threw the countertops off...which threw the backsplash off...which threw the stove off...which threw the plumber for gas line hookup off. That one cabinet added 1 month to the total project. At all times, I was working with scheduling two weeks out while following up with the day to day details. A small project does not guarantee fewer problems. In my experience, any project will have surprises and it's the surprises that affect how smoothly things runs. One of the things we were advised of repeatedly during our planning phase was to expect time and cost overruns due to the surprises. We could not see how the cost overruns could happen due to our planning but we remained open to that possibility and it did ... due to having to deal with some unexpected structural matters. Would I GC again? Yes. Is it a very time intensive process to GC? Yes. Did my eyes get opened during this process? Yes. Would I want a concrete guy in the GC role on a total build job? Nope. I guess my bottom line thought is that a homeowner should realize that if they act as the GC, they are going to have a part time job in addition to their full time job during the duration of the project. Only you can decide about your commitment level.

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.

This was 2010 - Our initial fee was $3500 and in total we would probably be closer to $25k during the job when I think about the actual number of hours she probably put into the job. I had one interim charge of $2k because she spent one long day shopping with me. It is an option that the firm offers and I took advantage of it. From start to finish the actual construction time was 6 months when we were out of` the house where she was also hands on but a lot of her work of course, was done prior to beginning of construction. That would not have included the interior decorators time. That is all separate. There were also three things that I did take charge of and that was -choosing our hardware which took a number of hours. (I have early on-set arthritis in my hands which required me to go out and actually touch and try to use all the hardware and find one that was most comfortable. It doesn't really go with our post-and-beam home but....) -I chose our design for our wrought iron railings which took I don't know how many hours of research on the internet. It got frustrating for both of us in my trying to describe what I wanted and her not being able to find it. They were more than glad to have what I wanted made once I figured that out. They weren't chosen or installed until several months after the job was finished. -I designed our front door after discounting her choices and again the firm was more than glad to have the front door custom made once that was done. We were incredibly lucky to have found the firm that we did. One who listened to us and one that we trusted to take care of us and our home.