Many people look forward to renovating or building their custom dream home. From afar, the building process may seem dreamy and ideal. You might even find yourself tempted to manage the building of your house yourself. However, there are very valid reasons why you should hire a general contractor instead.
In this article, we’ll take a look at all the ways that hiring a Vancouver Washington general contractor can save you time and make the whole building process more efficient.
How Hiring A General Contractor Saves You Time
The longer it takes to complete a construction project, the more money it will cost you. For this reason, hiring a general contractor is crucial. They can speed up the building process in a myriad of ways.
Below are some of the tasks that contractors will be able to tick off much faster compared to your average Joe.
Working With Engineers On a Site Plan
Site plans can be prepared by engineers, contractors, architects, or even design consultants. These provide a building plan in the form of a drawing that shows where sewer and water lines, foundation, lighting, landscaping, and other building elements will be located on your property.
When designing or building a property yourself, it can be difficult to ascertain where to place all these elements or how to work with any existing property features. Of course, you could always team up with an engineer to figure it out, but which one should you choose?
As you can see, these technical details may take longer to figure out on your own. On the other hand, most general contractors have worked on-site plans numerous times. They probably even have an experienced and affordable engineer on speed dial.
Drawing Up House Plans
Some of us are blessed with the gift of drawing and some of us are not. If you are part of the latter, then it’s probably best to not draw up house plans yourself. However, even if you have a steady hand, you still have to consider the statutory requirements and building standards that your building needs to comply with.
Reading up on these requirements can take up quite a bit of time and may delay the entire construction process if not done right from the get-go.
When hiring a general contractor, you can rest assured that he or she has already done all of the homework when it comes to drawing up house plans. Your general contractor will work with an architect to make sure that your house plans are up to standard.
Obtaining Permits and Insurance
Obtaining construction permits and insurance will give you permission to build or remodel your home. It will also reduce any health, safety, and welfare hazards. This will help protect you and all the site workers and builders should anything go wrong.
Normally, general contractors know exactly what permits a specific construction project will need. They can also obtain those permits in record time.
Should you build your home on your own, it may take longer to get your head around all the legalities. By the time you have figured out what permits to apply for, a general contractor could be halfway done building your home.
Ordering Materials
Every renovation or construction project requires building materials. The trick, however, lies in figuring out who can supply you with high-quality materials at the best prices.
Most experienced general contractors manage to form lasting relationships with material suppliers over their careers. As such, they will have no problem ordering quality materials that are reasonably priced.
However, should you try to order building materials without knowing what industry prices are, you could be sifting through multiple quotes before finally finding a supplier that you are happy with. You could end up wasting precious time and delay your home renovation by weeks or even months.
Managing Sub-Contractors, Inspections, And Your Building Site
With most construction projects, there are a lot of processes and people that need to be managed. If you choose to build or renovate a home yourself, you will have to take time off work to manage the construction process from start to finish.
Some people may have the time and resources to do this. However, a lot of people simply won’t be able to juggle their professional responsibilities along with their construction ambitions.
This could result in missed meetings with site inspectors and mismanaging of sub-contractors. Ultimately, this will delay the finalization of your construction project. Should you hire a general contractor, you won’t have to worry about any of this.
Final Thoughts
Although the idea of hiring a general contractor may not make sense to you at first, you will find that there are many benefits to working with one. They will help smooth out the entire process of building or renovating your dream home.
Not only can they save you heaps of time when it comes to completing your construction project, but they are also masters at simplifying the entire process from start to finish.
