We are about to embark on the “fun” journey of having the last (for us anyway) house designed and built. It will be smallish at about 1800 sq. feet but high attention to detail and quality a la Sarah Susanka. I know enough about house building to be dangerous but nowhere near enough to be a pro like you all. Too old anyway. So we interviewed 8 builders and selected the one we felt most comfortable with. Don’t believe in putting it out to bid but his references were excellent and he fell in the middle of the per sq ft price range.
Some questions. He seems to prefer a materials plus agreement rather than contract. Cites the volatility of prices of materials as the reasoning. What are the pros and cons of this ? Which do you prefer? BTW he will not only show the materials and labor hours detail for himself but also that of all his subs all of whom have worked for him for at least 8 years! And he adds 12% as his profit.
An architect friend is going to do the design and wants to be very involved throughout the whole building process ( we already have the land) and I’m sensitive to my detail orientation so any tips on how to maintain good relationships with everyone? (Except don’t visit the site!)
We plan to commence the house next Spring but are thinking of having the driveway, septic system and well done this Fall by contractors we hire (is OK with the builder). Pros and cons of this approach?
All of your input is gratefully received.
Replies
"...how to maintain good relationships with everyone? (Except DON'T VISIT THE SITE!)" (emphasis added)
If you visit the site with refreshments, your arrival will be welcomed rather than dreaded.
Jon Blakemore
From the way you describe it you may be on your way to a great "last build" with a good contractor. Either way has good reasons to do it and worrisome pitfalls warning you not to.
Know mater what you do it all comes down to communication, the comfort to question anything at any time by either party and document everything on both sides.
Based on his concerns with material prices and if your property is big enough that your considering a detached garage or large out building, build it now. The space can be used to buy in advance those items that might move up in price before you finish. There's a chance the material might go down before you use it as well, so keep it inside and save those reciepts.
Edited 7/2/2004 7:44 pm ET by JAGWAH
Good idea on building the detached garage first. Even if the HO doesn't use it for purchased materials, the gc can use it for locking up tools and supplies.
A cost plus contract can work well, as long as everything is spelled out in advance. Don't feel like you are asking too many personal questions when you define the terms of the contract ... for one thing, you and the contractor need to be on the same page, and it's best if there are no unanswered questions ... from either party. You need to trust each other ... and the better you define the partnership, the better you will get along.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
"A cost plus contract can work well, as long as everything is spelled out in advance. "
generally, cost plus is needed when things are still indefinite, which is probably why this builder leans that way. He is looking at an undesigned structure and finish to be built in a year when prices and minds can be changed.
If every thing is set in concrete already, a firm bid would work fine. It is when the variables crop up that a builder needs to be on a variable payment deal.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
You're right, and I wasn't clear. It is important in a cost-plus agreement to define what is "cost" and what is "plus", and all the details therein.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
Is beer a cost or plus. If you drink it on the job after 8 hours work do you get overtime for drinking?
Sorry, this is a good post ,just my little effort at funny.
Cheap beer is a cost, good beer is a plus.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
Cheap beer is "let's just get past this guys..."
Good beer is crew appreciation day
or
Customer appreciation day
Except that some on the crew like that cheap budweiser stuff and some customers prefer wine.
Then you need good wine to get them past the whine...
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Regardless of who buys (my intention that it be me) it is not part of the cost however a bonus may be applicable if I'm invited to partake with them apres work time! Which raises another question. In Europe it is quite a common practice to have a "topping off ceremony" (typically a smal coniferous tree or branch attached to the ridge beam when it goes up) with attendant libation. Haven't seen it in US but perhaps it happens in parts where we haven't been?
That topping ceremony is from the northern parts of Europe where the Germanic and Scandinavians lived in the large forests and worshipped the spirits of the trees that grew there.
As a hunter gives thanks to and for the life given over to him for his sustenance when he makes a kill, the builder in wood makes an offering in libation of thanks to the spirits of the trees sacrificed for his craft.
it is a ceremony that is alive and well in Maine, The Pine Tree State.
We generally use a Fir for the top.
The actual topping wherein a small fir is mounted to the top of the ridge when the house is structurally finished comes from a primitive style of Nordic architecture where a living tree forms the spinal skeleton of the home and a top may still grow out of it.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
That's just fantastic. I love hearing about things like that. Really makes you feel like you're a part of something bigger than yourself. Long live the tree spirits.
When I was in big steel highrises, the guys would do a white pine, maybe a 7-footer. Tack weld some pipe up for a socket, and stick it up there in the stiff winds.
Doing little houses now, I whack a scrub balsam, and give it to the framers, and we spike it to the ridge. It's a beer day.
Not that common in England where I hail from originally but having lived in Holland and travelled throught Europe (esp. Scandinavia to your point) I saw it a lot. I like the idea of nailing it up there myself, my lady would decline I think but I'd better not assume that! So I hope to get the builders to go along with blessing and thanking the wood sprites and spirits for allowing us to be custodians of their home for howver short a time it may be.
We put up a tree (branch) on any roof that we stick frame. We like to encourage the owner to do this if they are around, though not many want to climb to the peak of a two storey house. Beer consumption wait til the end of the day. We try to pick a species that has been used in the frame, usually spruce.
Picking the right contractor, one who is cooperative and will build to your high standards whether you ask him to or not is the key, and makes all the difference.
After that, if you tend to be a perfectionist, occasionally you'll have to just let some things go even though it may be against your nature. It may be your dream house, but it is, after all, "only a house". Let the contractor have much leeway in method and technique. Tell him what you want (e.g. "Ice and water shield under the first three feet of shingles and in every valley") rather than how to do it ("four nails in every shingle, 7"±½" from the bottom edge, nailed by hand tight but not piercing the shingle, following red chalk lines snapped for every third course...).
During your visits, try not to interrupt. If the contractor is in the middle of a task, just walk around, say a polite greeting, and stay out of the way. Try to reserve long discussions to times when the contractor is not in the middle of something. End of the day when people are cleaning up is a good time for many. Learn the names of the crew members and greet them as people, not another piece of the house to maneuver around.
I'd recommend installing the base (stone) to the driveway, but not paving till next year (or later) when the heavy work is done. Not only will you avoid possible damage to the pavement, but driving on the base will increase the compaction. The base should be 1 foot wider on both sides than the final width the pavement will be. The architect will specify the base
are you fully able to describe (on paper?) the things you want/demand that are different from normal building practice? Some trades do things one way - hard to get them to deviate.
My wife had a office built that had a lot of extra and exact precise details for the tenant - I went over every day, every time i went I got questions from the "workers" even tho we had gone over it with the foreman and owner of the company.
workers wanted to do it right and get it right b4 it got "covered up".
I would go to the site EVERY DAY
watch out for early on problems like foundation not right, etc and finish problems like all the trim put on using non galvanized nails etc etc
I go along with your choosing the builder based on reputation and relationship.
The idea of doing garage first is one that is often done here as a way of becoming sure of that relatrionship. If there are difficulties, they will display themselves in that first building and you can move on.
The thing that confuses me is that you mention that he is in the middle of the sq ft pricing range. Then you say that the design has not even been done yet. how could someone possibly price something by the square foot with no concept of the building. That is like saying, "I am thinking of building a vehicle to travel in, this builder can make it for me at an average price if I choose blue for a colour"
will the vehicle be a spaceship, plane, boat, car, ?????
I don't mean this critically, but just to point out that any sq ft pricing you have been given by any of the builders with no design laid out means absolutely nothing. Go ahead, but be sure it is based on anything other than price so far.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Thank you and all others who have responded. Very helpful. As to the sq ft price, we asked each gc what their current sq ft price was for a home about our size. We don't expect that that will be final but it was an interesting exercise in seeing how they reacted and a good check on whether or not they could/would come close to our budget. Some waffled (didn't know or?) others, ours included, were quick to answer and equally quick to make the point you made. What attracted us to this gc in particular was, in addition to the above, he is willing to use our materials (recycled if possible), allow me to put some sweat equity into the project (at my own risk and under supervision but not extensive), his flexibility in considering non standard approaches but drawing the line when it is either beyond his capabilites or is not cost effective withtin the budget.
His willingness to cooperate with you working on parts of the job is a good sign.
Be careful your work does not hold him up, or allow him to go to other jobs for a week or few weeks while you get your parts done.
He'll want to be (and rightfully should be) paid when his work is complete. But, if some of your work is necessary before a certificate of occupancy is issued, and you are not done when he is, the bank won't give you your final draw without the C of O, so you have to have money available to pay the final bill of the contractor from another source.
As far as topping off, it's not common here, but not unheard of either. More common among artsy builders, like small timber framers.
Thanks. All I really intend to do is to make and install the kitchen cabinetsand counter tops, erect dividing wall in basement to seperate garage from workshop (but if it requires fire resistant bulkhead I won't do it), and possibly help with floor (recovered wood) prep and installation. As a woodworking hobbyist I have the tools and expertise to do the above but your point about not subjecting gc to delays, especially inpayment, is well taken.
Pros of the cost-plus approach: Number one on the list is that your GC won't be as tempted to rush the job so as not to lose money on his bid price. Number two is that you won't be paying extra for the a$$-covering guesses he has to make when figuring his bid. You'll only pay for work done and materials used.
Cons of the cost-plus: You won't know how much it's gonna cost until you write the last check. If you can't deal with this, you should find somebody who will slap it up for a fixed price--and be ready to deal with all the possible problems that entails....
I work strictly on cost-plus, except for in-shop fabrication, where everything is (supposedly) under my control. New construction is less subject to costly surprises than is renovation--where the only sure thing is that once you open up the wall, you won't see what you wanted to--but certain types of problems still can crop up, weather among them.
I personally consider fixed-price contracts to be a practice detrimental to the quality of our product in the long run. Any worker paid piece-work rates has his primary interest fixed on producing as many units as possible in the shortest time possible. That kind of approach isn't conducive to a quality end result.
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Thank you. I see that on the AIA web site they offer a bunch of standard contract forms and among them is a "Cost plus with maximum". Might this be a good compromise or is it self defeating in your opinion?
I'd say it's semi-self-defeating.
It does give you a sort of security blanket--but that very maximum will tend to push the contractor to skimp on stuff you'll never see unless you open the walls later...or hang over the poor basturd's shoulder the whole time. Unfortunately, some of that hidden stuff can cause you big problems down the road--and it can be difficult to pinpoint and prove blame after a failure as sometimes the evidence is destroyed in the process--i.e., floods, fires, and so forth, just to mention worst cases....
In truth, EVERYBODY works by the hour. Those who say they work by flat-rate contract are silently betting themselves they can knock out the work fast enough to make X per hour, which is whatever they need to make to be happy with the job. This puts the focus on speed instead of quality right from the git-go; not where I personally think it ought to be.
When I am discussing a job with a potential client and they ask for a flat-rate, 'because I don't feel comfortable with not knowing what it's going to cost', I am very honest with them. I explain why I don't work that way--that there are too many unpredictable elements for a flat price to take into account unless I virtually triple my mental first-guess estimate. That said, I explain further that if they insist, I'll give them a flat price--or a price per square or square foot or whatever--but that the likelihood they will cost themselves money by insisting on such an arrangement is extremely high: in the vicinity of 80% likelihood.
They rarely insist. Those that do, I high-ball unmercifully and walk away, knowing it to be a bad idea for me to do business with this particular HO because we are not on the same wavelength.
When it comes right down to it, it really depends on what YOUR priority is for this project. Do you want it at the lowest price possible, or do you want the best quality possible--or somewhere in between? With an understanding of how the business works--and a realization that everybody does work 'by the hour' no matter what the formal arrangement is--you will be able to decide what is best for you knowing what you really want to have when all the paint is dry and the containers are hauled away....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Again, thank you. Found your comments to be both illuminating and very helpful. Given your input and our desire to have a small (1800 sq feet) but better than usual crafted house, and given that we do know what our upper limit budget is, around $140/ sq ft including well, septic and driveway (gravel not hard top and lot is fairly flat) not including land or architect's fees and it does not allow for going over that how would you recommend we address that with the gc once we have detailed plans in place (pretend it's you!). I'm not asking that you pass judgement on the reality of our budget, unless of course you're in western NC, but rather how does one balance cost plus and firm upper budget limits with the gc? Oh! And our first meeting, on site, is with the architect and gc today Monday 7/5! Just to look at how the land lays and any problems he may see vis a vis various overall approaches. This at the request of the architect allthough I'm concerned it may be premature (we plan to commence house in the Spring) since no drawings are in place yet. But .....
Edited 7/5/2004 12:15 am ET by LIMEYZEN
You have an architect and you want to stay within a budget. Right?
Wherever it is you want to build, there have to be a few good contractors who, in the last two years, built something with the kind of interior and exterior details and finishes you will have in your new place. These two or three contractors should be your prime candidates for award of the job once your plans and specs are final. You and your architect have to work hard right now to find those people and query them hard to find out what their unit "costs" were to build. I say "costs" in quotes because you are asking for their selling price, not their own hard costs.
Only by doing this, can you hope to know whether your "unit budget" of $140 when applied to your idea of gross size (1800 sf) is going to work.
With this in place, you can work hard on your program with the architect and he can design a place for you within budget. The ideal result is that you have found builders talking about unit costs of $125, not $140, that you want to design around, and that your archy can execute your program with these kind of details, at a gross size of 1675 sf, not 1800. Only then might you have a real chance of realizing your dream of the house just right for you, and a price tag of $250,000 or less.
Don't fall into the trap of wanting to start the job with a builder, without complete plans and specs. If you are serious about this budget cap, you will need to do the hard work, with your architect, of specifying everything that will go into the completed house. This means completely detailed schedules for windows and doors, room finishes, lighting and controls, HVAC systems, plumbing and fixtures, hardware, and cabinetry and built-ins. I like to think of it as "everything, right down to the cabinet latches and hinges." A lighting schedule, just for example, with detail out the fixtures by manufacturer name, catalog number, finish, and accessories.
It is very important when talking to builders, to ask about their sources of supply for things such as plumbingware, lighting, cabinets, countertops, etc. You need to spec into the house stuff that is almost entirely available in stock from the distributors that serve your area, and with whom your candidate builder and their subs work. It is OK to choose all your lighting and plumbingware at Home Depot, for example, if the builders you are talking about buy there. If they don't buy there, forget Depot and go where they tell you to.
Your candidate builders need to know about your budget cap and how serious you are about staying under it. They will need to be detail-oriented enough to do the takeoffs and sub pricing, once the plans and specs are done, to come to a lump-sum price.
If their market is real strong, they may not be needing to do this now, and will want to tell you they won't work this way. They might say they only work on an open-ended basis. Or they might say that they only do detailed estimates when they get paid to do it. It is OK to pay a good builder to do a fixed-price proposal, but you should dismiss any builders who will only work "cost plus," and keep looking to find the kind of builder you need.
Interesting and thank you. I learned a ;lot from your input. I don't know if you've been following this thread I started, and maybe it's getting a bit longwinded, but you'll see that we selected a gc based on chemistry, current average costs for a house our size and referrals (we checked out 7 of those). Of course we realize that when all is said and done none of those mean much if subsequent action are not good and we do realize that this house will not be typical run of the mill stuff so there are few if any comparisons out there but it's all we have to go on. Anyway, I raised this whole question because the gc says he prefers cost plus but is not close minded about fixed price. Check my prior postings and you'll get the drift. What intrigues me about your input is how it appears to contrast with Dinosaur's and perhaps you could enlarge on your stance re cost plus contractors. But thank you again for all the other detail. Very useful.
Dino probably has all the work he needs. I don't know if he is doing only new construction, architect-designed, complete plans and specs, etc., type of work of not.
Even if your market is sizzling, and the potential clients are lined up at the builders' doors like the Big Mac line at noon at McDonald's, you can get what you need by stressing budget cap, budget cap, budget cap, with guys like Dino, and detailing your needs right down to the doorknobs.
Bad Surprise No. 1--there's an architect in the mix. If you have any dreams of sticking to a budget, this would be the FIRST line item to eliminate.
To be fair to architects, I ought to say it's very hard to keep a building project on budget--even without an architect slowing things down and specifying methods and/or materials s/he won't have to work with personally.
If your GC is equipped (as many are) to function as a Design/Build firm, my advice to you is to do the basic design yourself, then turn it over to him with a global budget number that he can shoot at--not a per-square-foot price, which means very little. Work out the 'final' design with him and in this process you will find out if your budget is realistic. (Expect to pay him for that design work, BTW....)
Chances are it'll be close--because the GC took a lot of design decisions based on your global figure and his hands-on knowledge. You and he then have to set priorities for each phase of the project to get the global figure about 30% UNDER your top dollar figure--and then work towards that knowing it will climb back up again as things progress. That 30% would be your 'Slop Factor'.
Phases of the project you eliminated or postponed for budgetary reasons would be the best places for you to plan on investing that sweat equity you mentioned earlier. After all, you can struggle along quite a while without a finished basement, but it's hard to consider a house livable if the roof isn't finished.Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Boy this getting to be fun! Yes I have masochisitic tendancies! Anyway, the archy is a friend (perhaps that's also not so good) who up until he retired this year worked for a large residential and commercial design/build firm in this area. He's now doing project mamagement work as a part time job and doing design work for "select" clients in his free time. Your input re archy's potentially holding things up is well taken but since I used to teach project managent (I know, those who can do, those who can't etc etc. but I was also one for a long time) hopefully I can help and our time line leaves a fair amount of room for exhaustive materials schedule creation. Or maybe not. I'll try to keep you all posted.
You had to know some Architects read this forum too, but said it anyway... stereotyping at it's best... at least you've got guts.
I'm not here to defend my profession, just to offer these words to any out there who tend to believe that load, rather than taking the time to interview architects and weed out those who exhibit the behaviors that you describe. Just like any profession there are those who perform better than others, finding the best performers is the key, or more correctly, willingness to pay for the expertise of those who have the abilities, experience and talent. The old adage you get what you pay for comes into play here, hire a cheap architect, contractor, builder, plumber, etc... get cheap service, hire a first class operation and you'll be singing their praises and smiling as you write the check. Paying for what you get and expecting what you paid for are two entirely different things.
It's the sad truth that most bad mouthing of architects come from clients who paid some person a small fee to design their project but expected service that was not commensurate, and then complained to their builder or anyone else that would listen that the architect will not come out to the site to solve their problem. And to be fair to builder's this information is usually not disclosed to the builder, they call and ask for clarification on some detail, and the architect says that he will not provide this, probably because the hoem owner did not pay the architect to do so, it's not because we can't or because we don't know enough about th material or condition.
It's all in how you look at it, if someone paid you to perform only half of the services required to finish your job, you'd be angry when they told all their friends that you didn't, wouldn't or couldn't finish their job. If I took every job where the people came in here asking me to design their house for $895.00 because they can buy the "same" plans from a book for that you may think I'd be a wealthy man. But on the contrary, I'd be bankrupt, because when all those problems arose onsite, they would have expected me to come fix them for the $895.00 too. No, thank you. I prefer to work with clients who value my services and see the value of a highly talented team of owner,architect,builder that all work together to solve issues as they arise.
There are also some of us Architects out there that have swung our fair shares of framing hammers too. I've experience plenty of bad builders but I don't blame their entire profession for the shortcomings of some of their members, you shouldn't either.
I think that architects are a very useful component of a successful building project but controlling the budget is not one of their strengths. Even the most practical minded can only be considered neutral when it comes to controlling costs. I have had architects tell me that they try to get the client to stretch his budget so that the house can be "better". I don't think that this is an isolated attitude, though it is not universal.
As far as administering projects goes, we have not had very good luck with the supervising architects. The biggest problem is that they aren't there. We would like to see the architect every week or two and are often led to believe that this will happen. Only one firm that we have worked with has done this. The next problem is the timeliness of decisions. We will call with a problem arising out of construction and ask for direction. We rarely get an immediate decision and often have to wait weeks for a simple drawing. I am not talking about engineering problems but problems a journeyman carpenter would be expected to resolve.
These problems are so pervasive that we now recommend that a client use an architect to do the design work and plans, and hire out any additional services on an hourly basis.
You may consider this to be an unfair bashing of architects but it merely reflects my personal experience. If you know of any architects in my area who don't have these problems, please let me know. I am asked for referrals to architects at least five times a year.
Don't take it personally, Dave. And read a bit more carefully into what I said.
There are plenty of archies on this forum, and we get into some pretty good discussions from time to time. But the point I was trying to make in my post was that the HO's likelihood of staying within a budget was lower if he hired an architect to design the house than if he conferred that task to the same man who would be building it.
If you don't think that's true, you are fooling youself. Please don't try to fool me, or anyone else for that matter.
I do mostly renovation work, but I also do new construction from time to time. Without exception, anytime I've had to follow an architect's ivory-tower plans, the project expenses have been higher than they would have been had I been communicating solely with the HO on design choices at critical points in the progress of the job. Sometimes this is just a matter of the drawings being vague or downright incomprehensible; sometimes it's a case of specified materials that are not available in the local area; and sometimes it's a case of work methods specified right out of a code book that make no sense in the application on the site. In any of these cases, if I am to do my job correctly, I'm supposed to get in touch with the architect and get him/her to clarify, respecify, or re-design. The architect, in turn, must get in contact with the HO and they must take a decision, which then has to be communicated back to me, sitting around on the site watching my crew pick their noses at XX$$ per hour.... That is wasted time, and my time (and, as you pointed out, the architect's time) costs the HO money.
I hear you when you say you've experienced plenty of bad builders--I've probably experienced a few more than you, when I've got to follow them in a remodel or renovation of a house that was built on a fixed-price contract and speed was everything. Like supporting walls sunk 3" into the floor slab in a basement that are 2" out of plumb on one side of a doorway and 3" off layout on the other. Try to hang gyprock on that, pal....
I wasn't stereotyping architects as incompetent--since not all are--I was simply stating that adding another layer to the cake will inevitably make it more expensive.
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Maybe I flew of the deep end, after reading some of you other posts or replies, I realize you are intelligent voice and have good opinions to offer, any time I see archy-bashing for whatever the reason I feel compelled to at least offer my view of the truth. I take pride in that I really try to get the builders and their subs to offer opinions and feedback of my drawings and the intent of the drawings, and many times I get helpful criticism which helps me understand issues that I wouldn't have otherwise, so the guys don't dread it when I pull up on-site but rather take pride in working out the inevitable little issues that occur even with well detailed drawings...
As far as increasing the costs, I don't want to get into a debate about the product of a builder designed home vs. and architect designed home because I've seen plenty of great builder designs and plenty of junk too, but I learned a long time ago that it pays to hire someone who is an expert for whatever you are doing, be it transmission repair, brain surgery or home design. Don't get me wrong I'll jump at the chance to frame an addition, or install trim as fast as anyone who loves this work, but I also realize when I'm over my head...
In the case of home design, that expert doesn't necessarily have to be a registered Architect, but someone who has the abilities and desire to produce a meaningful product. I hope that most see the value of an architect, but realize that we are still viewed as suit wearing egotists driving expensive cars (b.t.w. I drive a '95 Ford Explorer, yeah the ones that flip over unexpectedly because of the tires, that's another story) that could care less about how it is done, as long as it looks right. But the point is that the process of building a home is sometimes looked at as a pure dollar figure when in reality spending an extra dollar here or there for the design or nicer materials or better lighting can make a huge difference seen and felt over the life of a house which most will agree will be their single most expensive and enduring investment...
I agree with pretty much all of what you said, especially the part about spending that extra dollar for the good stuff in the right place....
Still, I firmly believe that one of the major aspects of cost advantage that a Design/Build operation has over the 'traditional' architect + GC formula is that a lot of the f'nicky little detail stuff you'd have to put in the dwgs or specs never has to be committed to paper if the guy designing it is going to be the guy cutting the 2x6's. I know when I produce drawings for a project, they are nowhere near detailed enough for anyone except me to build from. They are sufficient to pull the permits and for making up materials bills, and to remind me of any aspects that are critical. A lot of the rest is in my head. This saves the HO 'DCA' hours on my bill, and it shortens the entire project length somewhat as well. (It also, not incidentally, prevents an unscrupulous HO from swiping my drawings and design work--which are basically done at what you might call 'courtesy' hourly rates--and passing them to a builder willing to knock it up fast and cheap on a fixed-price contract....)
Oh, BTW, I drive a '90 GMC 4x4 K1500 with a haunted transmission, so you won't get me feelin' sorry for you driving your nice shiny '95, LOL....Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
I am a firm beliver in fixed price contracts. I can think of few reasons why an 1800 sf home should be built on a time an materials basis. It is my opinion that the reason many contractors want to work "cost plus" is that they are not very good estimators. The typical story you hear about cost plus includes cost over runs. I have a good friend who had a house built that way by a very reputable, wonderful contractor. He was please with his new house, but would never do it again. Too much worry and stomach acid! Why would you want someone to build you a house who can not tell you what it will cost?
With some effort, plans can be done well enough to define the structure and basic finishes. Showrooms and webpages can be visited to select fixtures and interior finishes. Interior designers can be hired, photos can be clipped, and a good builder can write a proposal that defines the work clearly. I tell my clients "if you can tell me what you want, I can tell you what it will cost". Having said that, most of my contracts include "allowance" items for selections that have not been finalized. For instance, carpeting or tile. Again, it is best to have all selections completed before signing a contract, but this may not happen.
I also include a "commodities price escalation" clause in my contract. Right now prices are rising and your builder is right to be concerned about being stuck with a price increase from the time he signs a contract to the time he orders steel, lumber, insulation, or drywall. I base my contract amount on the cost of lumber at the date it was quoted to me. I have a complete lumber list priced out before we sign the contract. It is a simple thing to review the prices when the materials are ordered some months later and write a change order invoice only for the difference. If I make a mistake on the quantities it is not the owners worry, I charge only for a verifiable jump in material prices.
So my advice is to define the work, and fix the price as much as possible. If you must hire a "cost plus" contractor, require that all material take offs, pricing, and subcontract bids are in hand and reviewed by the owner before starting the job. I have a friend who does primarily high end time and materials contracts in a resort area. He says that it is more important then ever to have accurate estimates when working with time and material contracts. I agree.
Dwight K. Martin