There is only one area of our build where I’m not completely comfortable with my role as General Contractor — the foundation work. Because I’ve never built a house on a basement before, and because we’re going to be very tight within our building envelope on this project, I’m going to be happy spending some money, if necessary, to find a good turn-key company to do all the foundation and concrete work. Ideally, this would include demo, excavation of the basement and everything else associated with the foundation and concrete (concrete porch, driveway, etc).
While it would be cheaper to bring in a small company to do the demo, another company to do the excavation and another company to do the concrete, etc., that would require a steep learning curve on my part, and would also require a lot of oversight at the outset of the project, when there will be a ton of other details to be focused on. In theory, if one company did the bulk of this work, they could account for nearly 20-25% of the total cost of the project. I’m not opposed to that, assuming I can find the right company and I’m comfortable that I’m not getting ripped off. Hopefully I’ll learn enough on this project that on future builds I can comfortably piece-meal the work.
Asking around, I’ve only found two companies that I’d be perfectly comfortable doing the work turn-key — both companies are large and do a lot of turn-key commercial and residential projects. They’ll both be a little more expensive, but like I said, I’m okay with that in this case. I’ll have more to say when I start getting the bids back…
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