Only a sucker will bite that. If the architect assure's you the wall isn't supporting or transferring weight of anything above,use cheapest per hour trade and have insurance in place in case the place fall's on them. If wall is load bearing,absolutly the one installing beams and post shall remove wall.

If you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't be overseeing the work.

Once you have a structural engineer's plan a regular framing carpenter or two can do the work. It's no different than the rough carpentry used to build a house. Your architect should know if he's qualified to draw the plan. If he is go with his plan. You can pull any permits. It's your house.

You suppose you legally ameliorated the lead based paint and asbestos with your undocumented, uninsured, and unskilled laborers? And pulled the permits?

the problem is that location of the load bearing walls in the first floor doesn’t match the location of the load bearing wall in the basement. There is a 2 feet offset. [...] Then we are going to put post in the basement underneath each post on the first floor so the load is supported from underneath as well.

There are some things written here that lead me to believe the architect might be out of his depth. While I certainly wouldn't guarantee that, it does give me pause.

A load bearing wall transfers load to the footer. I find it very unusual that the most economical way to deal with your problem (if it is a problem) is to move one of the two existing load bearing walls two feet.

Since a load bearing wall requires a footer under it, moving the posts in the basement will require jackhammering up the basement floor, digging out and pouring new footers then moving the posts, and finishing the pad again. Not to mention the concerns with moisture that are present when the best solution involves a hole in a basement floor.

On the first floor (floor above the basement) I find it hard to believe that any carpenter either didn't use the load bearing wall as a break point for their joists or created a lap that was more than 2 feet. So it seems very likely that moving that wall 2' will require new longer joists above. It is possible that you have an overlap greater than 2', but that would certainly be unusual.

Finally, there is nothing wrong with offsetting a load bearing wall from the load bearing wall below it. It happens all the time and requires a bit of extra engineering (really just a bit more wood) but loads are transferred laterally all over your house, in fact, every floor joist in your house does nothing other than transfer a load laterally. A two foot offset in a load bearing wall isn't an engineering feet or anything and has been done for a few hundred years now (probably more than that). The entire idea of a jetty on a house is offsetting the upper load bearing wall from the lower load bearing wall, and that is on an exterior wall.

It just seems likely that shoring up the offset will be cheaper than moving load bearing walls. As for who you should hire to do it. Well start with someone who is amazed that you can economically move it.

If the home is pre 1978, you DID perform the required testing to have it on file? Where’s your picture of the results? That is Federal level. Not state.

$40 billout for construction work is beyond low pay unskilled. You did verify eligibility to work as is required, correct? You have that on file as well? Do you have the proper insurances as required to be contracting this yourself?

You cannot just hire any Tim, Dick, and Jesus off the street to work on construction. You have taken on roles here that you don’t know what you are doing. If you can’t document your RRP results, or have the I9’s on file, then that’s an issue. A BIG issue.

have the I9’s on file, then that’s an issue. A BIG issue.

You don't need I9's to hire some people to do some demolition. They meet the exception for Individuals employed for casual domestic work in a private home on a sporadic, irregular or intermittent basis.

My architect talked to me about the possibility to do a lateral beam to spread the load onto the load bearing wall in the basement but he thought the other solution would be better.

Are you talking about putting in a new load bearing wall or just a wall to add support? Many people use the term "load bearing wall" incorrectly. A load bearing wall means a wall that transfers weight directly to a footer. There are many walls in a house that are not load bearing but you still can't remove because they add structural rigidity or support.

When you talk about adding a load bearing wall to the basement, that means jackhammering up an entire pit under the wall, pouring a footer and then building the wall.

Have you asked your architect for recommendations on whom to hire? The architect I hired had worked with a number of contractors - not all of them were a good match for me though, but it was a place to start.

" I did what you suggested. Hired 2 handy man, paid them 40$ an hour each, rented 2 dumpster and they gutted the place in less than 10 days. Architect oversaw the job to be sure they were taking down non load bearing walls only."

This scheme is completely illegal in Florida. Unless he's a licensed contractor, your architect cannot pull the permits for this work. You can pull your own permit, but you have to do the work. Handymen cannot pull permits, they are not licensed contractors.

You need to hire a GC, and he will provide the subs to do all of that work. You will have a really hard time finding all of those different trades on your own. And there is no way I would hire a "Handyman" to do all the finish work. Does he own floor re-finish equip, or would he have to rent it? Does he have a tile saw? Do you pay for that, or does he? Does he have accounts with suppliers, or are you just going to buy everything off the shelf from Home Depot?

This scheme is completely illegal in Florida. Unless he's a licensed contractor, your architect cannot pull the permits for this work

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Are you sure about this?

Architects can certainly pull permits in Florida and Florida carves out an exception to the GC requirement for architects supervising work that is incidental to their practice.

Clarification.

I am sorry but I don't think (16) supersedes (11)...

A registered architect or engineer acting within the scope of his or her practice or any person exempted by the law regulating architects and engineers, including persons doing design work as specified in s. 481.229(1)(b); provided, however, that an architect or engineer shall not act as a contractor unless properly licensed under this chapter.

The question becomes what is in the scope of an architect's practice vs. what is not. While G.C.ing is not allowed, supervising demolition for the purpose of furthering the design is allowed, and I can find cases for you if you want. This was actually tested in Florida courts a few years ago, laws and regulations are simply not the black and white things that people want them to be.

In other words, an architect in Florida may supervise any work incidental to the creation of plans. What is, and isn't, incidental to an architect's practice is a gray area, and you can't read the wording of the regulation to find the answer, you must go to the case law to find it.

Fair enough; avoid gray and hire a licensed contractor to build what your architect drew.