Making The Most Of Your Trades As An Owner Builder

Making The Most Of Your Trades As An Owner Builder There is a lot that goes into running your own project as an owner builder and a one of the things that is important to understand when you book your trades The relationship between trades and a builder vs trades and a client is different. If you are taking the step to be your own builder you need to understand that as a builder the responsibility for all decisions ends with you and they should be made before trades arrive and while trades people are happy to work with you when it comes to trouble shooting their jobs the over all decisions need to be decided before they turn up be clear and in writing.

If you start your lead into your meetings with your trades with a few things in mind you will make the job run smoother, have happier trades, a better finish and realistically cheeper.

1 - Keep the questions to the trades direct, about their aspect of the job and what is happening in the immediate future. Dont be afraid to ask questions but if you are the builder it is your job to make sure the various things that happen on site are happening when they should, are done properly. While you are excited to work through your project it is important for you to realise the trades you are having help you along the way are there as a job and have several other others on the go of equal importance and if you aren't paying them to supervise your job as a builder you cant expect them to take on any tasks beyond their own.

2 - Supplying your own materials may be costing you more, while trades will charge for the supply of materials you may find your selections may be costing you more in time than it would have to go direct through the trades. If somthing is missing or if there if it is an unfamiliar version of a product the people you have on site may end up billing you for sorting through what you have got them and this adds up fast. 3 - Availability, unfortunately one of your main jobs will be making decisions when things come up as the job moves along and if you aren't available for regular site visits this quickly becomes a problem. If you have 2 electricians, 2 carpenters and some equipment hired onsite you need to realise that is costing you hundreds of dollars an hour and if they cant be productive because somthing wasn't clear to them in the way you had explained it that becomes very expensive.

4 - Deal with one leading hand for each trade, while it may seem like it makes sense to ask the apprentice walking by to do an aspect of the job the problem is if you dont tell the leading hand you have no way of keeping them accountable when things dont turn out correctly.

5 - Write things down, draw pictures take notes, unfortunately the construction industry is filled with people bumping responsibility down the line and as the builder that ends up with you. It is important that you keep track of any variations, requests and time frames, idealy put them in writing and even better somewhere you both have access that way when you aren't sure why they made your ceilings fluorescent pink you know where it came from.

6 - The right time for the delivery is jsut before you need it - while you might think it is a good idea to order all your selections when you start space on work sites is a valuable commodity that even on large sites gets chewed up fast. Evreytime an item gets moved, there is dust on site, someone forgets to lock a door it is an opportunity for somthing to go wrong, get broken or go missing and the reality is you will end up paying to replace it.

7 - Inspections, if you are running your job you will need to get a licensed building works supervisor to oversee your job it it is important that you find someone to give you clear and honest feed back about the work that is happening on your site but keep in mind there is a difference between a defect and incomplete. Tell your trades in advance that they are coming that way if there is anything that isnt done they can let you know prior it is stressfull for you and frustrating for the trades to be told there is faulty work that really just needs some finishing off.