Can anyone give me an idea of the hourly wage that you are seeing offered for work as a construction foreman in resort communities in the mountain west? Places like Vail, or Aspen CO, or Sun Valley, ID. Thanks
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Construction Foreman for Homes, Condos or Commerical work? Working Foreman with tools?
This link should take you to the Newspapers for the Colorado Mt areas, I think they have a help wanted online,
http://www.Summitdaily.com
I'm from Wyoming originally and know many carps that work in Jackson as well as the Northern CO ski towns.
Money can be good with many custom residental lead/foreman types making $30-$40/hour as a sub and high $20s to $30s as an employee. Some offers higher many lower.
Watch out for high offers that don't include a place to say since space is tight and expensive. You also might find that the nearest rental is 30 miles away or the supplied lodging is a shack shared with 5 heavy snorers.
More than a few Wyoming builders make the annual trip to Colorado ski town to get a piece of the action since our crews are generally making much less than the locals and the GC simply leases apartments for the guys. Many of our rural towns have little or no large custom homes so many carpenters of all kinds travel each year for the types of jobs you're looking into.
Working with a good crew on a good mountain home are my idea of ideal conditions, except for winter framing which is more like survival. If I didn't have responsibilities here I'd love to work on the big mountain homes again. Some builders have the finish crew work through the winter and others time everything so they're out of town by the time the ski season begins and rental costs go up.
Many small builders work on one large house a year and you'd have a great deal of input into how the house is built, while others crank 'em out and you're less hands on and more sub problem solver over multiple sites.
Another concern I'd have with seasonal work in the ski towns is that the more established contractors can pay less for good people that come back year after year and it's the guys over their heads that try to hire to bail them out or you'll make good money for one project that is short handed then get kicked shortly after the deadlines are being met.
On the plus side, the town will get very small in the summer and it's not hard to meet every working contractor in town. Often, foreman/leads are small GCs from nearby towns that then fall back on their own projects for the winter months.
Easy come, easy go--don't sign a long lease until you've felt out the situation. :-)
Thanks for the help.