Yes.

Yes.

Yes

Yes.

Nope. My office coworker hired commercial builder who decided to venture into residential. And despite us telling her it is not the best to retain someone who used to build hospitals to build your house. Calling the result a disaster would be understatement.

0) Hospitals are not built on a tight budgets and the customer pays for reasonable suggested upgrades based on site conditions.... unlike residential .

1) First they hit an issue with moisture on a basement walls. Hospitals can have deep basements and practically stand in a water because of thick walls, heavy waterproofing, pumps, ponds, dry wells. In residential builder crushed 4" coagulated pipe

2( Electrical was a nightmare because comercial electrician hard wired appliances and some lights that could only be turned off by a breaker, missed arc, miss wired bathrooms etc

3) After number of inspections failures ... inspector [required] and reported them to the county..

4) They had issues with every phase of construction ... their architect quit because of detail disagreements. The board started to look at license, the gc lost interest, he had another hospital to build.

So big NO.

Ok, I said Yes. But after reading @BT, I might should change my answer to "maybe, dependent on what kind of commercial work exactly". I could see some advantages but now could see how it might go south fast. The experience above sounds like a nightmare to live thru.

They have built a number of well known restaurants around the area.

Given their area of expertise, my architect is concerned about their probable lack of experience in things like pouring foundations so may not be able to oversee the subs the way more experienced builder might. On the other hand, they feel that they would do a good job with other parts of the home given that the requirements for restaurant building are more strict than residential building from what I hear.

My one quick story is for someone who used a commercial architect. The specs and design were way more than they needed to be. My builder looked at the design and said he could easily chop $200k out of it by going to more residential specs. The client in question was looking to spend a lot of money and wanted the "best". The project didn't go forward. Perhaps if it started $200k cheaper than it may have.

Commercial land is generally flat where residential is not. Grade and slope are some of the most important things to get right. In my area, if a commercial area is not flat, they spend $100k's getting it flat. In my area, commercial construction means steel, residential means wood. Framing might be second most important after grade/slope.

Commercial subs tend to be different.

Commercial codes are different - sure more strict sometimes - but either way different. Just because a restaurant requires sprinklers doesn't help you at all. In fact, money might be spent doing things in prep for sprinklers (or drains) that you just don't need.

A commercial builder is used to getting things done on time a lot more than a residential builder. If a commercial builder doesn't get the front end alignment machines calibrated and ready at the end of Christmas shutdown, 3,000 people are laid off at the auto plant until they do. That's pressure. If your house isn't done by Christmas, you get to live in your rental another couple months. Big deal.

Before I became a custom home designer/builder/remodeler, I worked as a project engineer on various commercial construction and renovation projects. Suffice it to say I'm familiar with both commercial and residential construction, the trades which work in each, and the quality levels.

Whether a commercial contractor is an appropriate choice for your project depends on a couple of considerations including the project size/scope, schedule, cost, the contractor's relevant experience, and your quality expectation. In general, commercial contractors deal with larger scope (e.g., really large new home construction projects), fast-track, and high-cost projects. The quality of construction is likely to be on par with entry-level or maybe move-up residential construction--not high-end residential. Schedule and cost trump quality in the commercial construction world.

I don't think the commercial contractor's restaurant construction experience is all that transferable to your project. Frankly, new residential construction is different enough from residential remodeling that I would be concerned if a custom home builder wanted to bid on your project as his/her first foray into the wonderful world of remodeling. Proceed with caution.

I am not sure I would...

For my house, I wish I did - it's more commercial construction than residential and we did all the dirt work to compact and get flat. We have steel, concrete, etc we are also using exposed electrical raceway, cable trays, etc - all much more familiar to the commercial space and a commercial builder would have had more subcontractor contacts that would have been helpful

For a normal stick built house, I am not sure the contacts and the skill sets match. Nor do the budgets.

I worked with a commercial design/build/development firm for years: many large projects. They built a few high end single family houses, mostly for in-house use. They were of the highest quality, and very expensive. They did all the carpentry work with their own forces. There's a lot of commercial subs I wouldn't trust to do better residential work, so it's important your contractor has relationships with the right people. A lot of contractors don't self-perform work: it's all subbed out. So it depends.

The question was, would you hire to build a commercial builder...

And not... Would you let a commercial builder spec your home.

Architect should spec things the proper "residential way" and builder should abide to that. Is up to the builder to get the right sub to build as it was designed/spec.

My boss, a commercial architect designed his home and a commercial builder built it: Perfect.

One of my forum clients got their house build by a commercial / restaurant builder... and guess what: It is amazing.

@Naf_Naf It's the exception.

Level of finish and detail are different. Mostly wood construction vs mostly concrete & metal.

In a home you touch a lot of finishes, vs commercial they are seen from a distance. One is a home, sometimes a trophy, the other is a tool.

In 3+ decades I've built homes for several commercial and several tract home contractors as my father did before me. A telling fact.