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.

The Georgia Plumbing code is modeled after the UPC (Uniform Plumbing code). Let us begin our discussion by examining your options under the UPC. Pipe Approved by the UPC for domestic potable water "Supply Lines" (Note- Supply lines are defined as the line from the municipal water main or well to the structure). List of approved materials: 1.ASBESTOS CEMENT PIPE-commonly used for municipal water mains but rarely seen in a residential supply. 2.BRASS PIPE- Extremely expensive and labor intensive because it requires cutting and threading in the same manner as iron pipe. Expected service life is 150+yrs. (In my entire career in the plumbing trade I never encountered a brass service line). 3.COPPER PIPE Type K & L (no type L) Both "Hard drawn copper" (rigid 10' or 20' lengths) and "Annealed copper pipe" continuous roll pipe available in 60' & 100' rolls. Annealed copper continuous roll pipe is the preferred material for supply lines because it can be bent to conform to slight changes in direction or elevation and it minimizes the number of joints below grade. Expected service life 60+ yrs. Disadvantage is the high cost of the material. 4. CPVC-both pipe and tubing. CPVC pipe is made to conform to the sched.40 IPS (iron pipe standard). It has the same overall dimension and pipe wall thickness as sched.40 PVC & Iron pipe. Generally only available through a commercial plumbing supply house by special order. This pipe is generally not sold to the public because the pipe dimension is the same as sched.40 PVC and there is a great risk that untrained installers might co-mingle CPVC pipe with PVC fittings. (code prohibits gluing dissimilar plastic pipes and fittings. The CPVC commonly found in the home supply stores is CPVC-CTS (CTS=Copper Tube Standard). While CPVC-CTS is approved for supply piping, in my humble opinion the tubing wall is too thin to hold up to the rigors of direct burial, and being a rigid material it would require numerous joints. Failed joints are the leading cause of problems with a supply line. 5.GALVANIZED IRON PIPE- Expensive, labor intensive to install, highly succeptable to mineral buildup and internal corrosion. Generally not considered a good choice today. 6. PE PIPE (Polyethelene Plastic tubing). Available in 50', 100' & 250' rolls. Uses standard "Bsrb" fittings which are pushed into the pipe and held in place by stainless steel clamps. Advantages: a.Very inexpensive. b. No buried joints. c.Flexible so it will easily conform to an imperfect trench or change in direction or elevation. d.Proven service life 65+ yrs. e.Requires no tools other than a pvc snap cutter or common utility knife to cut the pipe and a common flat tip screwdriver to tighten the clamps. 7.PEX (Cross linked Polyethelene pipe). PEX is a relatively new material in the plumbing industry. It has all the advantages of the PE pipe with the exception that it requires special tools to make the joints and it may not be code approved by your local jurisdiction. NOTE: both PE & PEX pipe can be installed with a minimal invasion of your landscaping by means of a ditch-witch type trenching machine using a 4" or 6" wide cutter bar. Some trenching machines even have a special pipe rack that will hold a roll of PE or PEX and a dispensing system on the cutter bar so that the pipe is laid during the trenching operation. This method only requires digging a small hole at each end of the run to make the final connection or feed the pipe through a footer wall. 8. PVC pipe-available in 20' rigid lengths. Requires couplings to join additional lengths and fittings to make changes in direction or elevation. Advantages: a.PVC is relatively inexpensive b.pvc is impervious to scaling or mineral fouling. Disadvantage; a.Requires numerous joints which are the leading cause of direct burial pipe failure. b. requires good straight line trenches. In my professional opinion my choices in order would be; 1.PE pipe 2.PEX pipe 3.PVC pipe

I have a Makita jig saw that I bought back in the 80's and I use it to cut anything from Formica counter tops and plywood subfloors to intricate schrol cuts in 4" dimensional lumber. Two years ago someone gave me a Rotozip for Christmas and it sat on a shelf in the workshop for the first year. One day I was working on a small countertop and I got the brainstorm to try using my Formica cutter bit in the Rotozip. It worked excellant as a Formica cutter so I then decided to try a wood cutting bit and see what this tool could really do. After making a series of intricate cuts on a scrap piece of 3/4"plywood I decided to stack two layers of 3/4" plywood and see if it would cut 1-1/2". It cut the 1-1/2" with no problem.

Assuming that you have traditional wood double hung windows, your best method for retaining the windows and providing some modern day equivalence to energy efficiency, is to install storm windows. The old wood windows generally have very loose tolerances, and it is difficult to install weather-stripping that will not interfere with the functionality of the old windows. A cabinet shop can build wooden window frames as simple as they build cabinet doors. The open frames can then receive glass from a local glass shop. Because this "accessory" is a fixed window frame, applying weather-stripping to the storm panel frame is simple. Essentially, you are replicating what was done 100 years ago, except that you are adding a rubberized material to the edges, and sealing out the air flow to the interior side of the building. If you take it a step further, the wooden frames can be designed and constructed to accept a dual-pane glass unit with a low-e coating. In a cold environment, this storm panel with low-e glass would provide the same energy efficient qualities of a modern window. These storm panels would remain installed during the months that you would not normally require ventilation (i.e. the cold months). Using this method allows you to retain your original wood windows, while also achieving modern day energy efficiencies. The trade-off to this approach is that it requires additional "maintenance" in removing and storing the storm panel accessories at the change of seasons; This is something modern windows don't require.